A wonderful friend of mine sent me a card, wishing not only that I get better soon, but she also wishes towards my Dr. Looking like McSteamy ...

my reply ...

My Dr. is so the opposite of being McSteamy, that he should just be called Sir Frozen Sands.

He's a good Dr., he's just not a good LOOKING Dr.

Too bad, because a little bit of eye-candy along this shitty route in my journey would be MUCH appreciated at this point. Considering I am getting sexier and sexier, day by day, perhaps it would be best if he were blind...

I will be finding out Wednesday what my chemo regimen is going to be. Fun fun, I find that out a hour or so before the surgery to put in my port.

Since I am BRCA1+, we are going to have to do a oomph. sometime after chemo is over. The nurse called today to let me know that the sono showed my ovaries are clear (thank GOD because I could not have taken one single grain more of bad news), BUT, she said "yup, the only thing that we saw were the little eggs in the right ovary ... so thank goodness nothing else."

I know this is good news ... and I am deeply happy, and appreciative of it.

Although I know I will have to have them removed to significantly decrease my risk for Ovarian cancer, the whole "ovary removal issue" is still really sore spot to me. Cancer, the gift that just keeps on giving...

F'ing Cancer.

must change mind frame .... ADD SOME KNITTING CONTENT ....

okay, well I have been working on these languishing stripey socks now for way too long. I really like the socks, and how they are turning out (I like the first sock striping colors better than the second, actually...) but, morphine brain made it hard for me to correctly execute a k1, p1 round. It was sad. I vividly remember laying there in my hospital bed, listening to my bunk mates, Denny and family squabble, and I was having to CONCENTRATE on the k1, p1.

That was the hot pink/orange stripe section of the sock. I do not recommend knitting on Morphine. I have now turned the heel, and I am in the home stretch on the foot. I will try to make way on it tonight. I really want to be done with my thinking knitting projects when i start Chemo, because chemo brain is not supposed to be fun. I am going to try to start spinning up the copious amounts of fiber I have, over the next few months.

the gift that just keeps giving

Since I am BRCA1+, the nurse called today to let me know that the sono showed my ovaries are clear (thank GOD because I could not have taken one single grain more of bad news), BUT, she said "yup, the only thing that we saw were the little eggs in there, so thank goodness nothing else."

Now I know this is good news ... but this lady does not know that I am a 39 year old mom who, up to the day before I found my lump, was thinking BABY at 40, NOT CANCER at 40. Although I know I will have to have them removed to significantly decrease my risk for Ovarian cancer, the whole "ovary removal issue" is still really sore spot to me. Cancer, the gift that just keeps on giving...

I fell like I have been drafted into a war that i have no interest in participating in.

At all.

Now, i am going to HAVE TO FIGHT, in order to stay alive.

THEY will arm me with the weapons,
and that ammunition will work, or not work.

Some of it is up to me ... a lot of it is up to how the enemy will react to it all.

I feel like a soldier standing next to the ship about to cast off to who knows where.
Weighted down with only my thin camos, and a backpack, and memories of those I have left behind, because ultimately, i am in this alone.

There are too many babies in this line with me too.

Those babies should not have to fight in this war too.

There are old people too, but they look at me with eyes that sadly say, "yah I am here too, but I am armed with wisdom and peace gained only from seeing a lot of what crap life can shoot you.."

Then there is me.

I just don't belong here.
and there are too many, just like me, who are here.

I feel like once i set foot on that ship, I might not ever be able to set foot on this shore again.

Once i leave and start this battle, I will be leaving this particular of my life behind.

No matter how hard i fight, and no matter if I win

when and if I get off this ship again,
my life will never be the same again.

I have spent practically the entire day sitting on the sofa.
not wanting to move.

Tears occasionally sliding down my cheeks and soaking into the pillow i lay back on.
My little big bot has sat here with me too.
Curled up and keeping my feet warm.

Dying is NOT an option.
It just isn't.

Pill Popping Pests....

I hope that this message reaches you in good health, and in the midst of enjoying the warm tidings of the Holiday Season.

I have been wanting to updates all has been going on here, but each week has brought with it more Dr. visits, and more waiting.

We have been through a lot of, "Well, NEXT week we will know more about “X ...". Then, the next week they tell you "X", but then you need to wait because all that hinges on finding out"Y", and well you cannot find out about "Y" until the week after that....

The stress and waiting game with this is simply exhausting.

Because I want to try to keep people somewhat current, I am going to send you what I have at the moment...

My bilateral mastectomy was Dec. 2nd, I was fortunate that I got to stay 2 days in the hospital. Apparently some folks go home the next day. Yeah, WHATEVER. I would have tried it stay and additional day, but my roommate was insane, and her uncle (Denny) was wasted on some sort of pills. I learned his name, and of his particular predilection for popping pain pills as he and his post-op niece, were playing cards, and shouting at each other over their oh-so-annoyingly-jaunty, LOUD, and never ending, ring tones. I decided it was time for me to go when Uncle Denny kept stumbling through the room at all hours of the night, using the privacy curtain at the foot of my bed as some kind of suspended crutch. He would shuffle into the room, and grasp onto it to steady himself an kind of glide-walk across the room -- dragging the whole length of the curtain to the end of it’s track, leaving the whole length of the curtain gathered up at the end of it’s track RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. MY. TV. One would think that if he were that high, that he would have had the capability to just float right on through ... had I not been snapped up on Morphine, and scratching at myself like a drug-addict myself, I would have asked him to fix the curtain. I decided it best to stay to myself, punch that Morphine button and call the nurse to fix my curtain again.

I will be having out-patient surgery on December 23rd, to have a main-line port put in. Hopefully, I will not run into my pill popping pal again.

My chemotherapy treatments will start Thursday, Jan 6th. We will be meeting with the Oncologist next week, and at that time we will be deciding between two chemotherapy's (FEC or AC/T); the longest of which will involve about 20 weeks of treatment. We do not yet know the weekly frequencies of the treatments, nor the names of all of the wonderful anti-nausea drugs that I am going to be taking during that time frame. This we will know in the next few weeks.

Something I learned over the past 2 weeks?
1) Morphine makes it almost IMPOSSIBLE to pee and it makes you itch like you would not believe.
2) Going straight from Morphine to High doses of Vicodin effectively STOPS your bowels in their tracks.
3) Pain killers totally remove your short term memory.

Oh, and did I tell you that pain killers totally remove your short term memory?

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Beaver Caps.

F'ing ovary sono today.

It will be the 3rd appointment out of the 4 I had today.

Was at the hospital form 9 to 3 pm.

The Trans-vag sono ... it SUCKED.

Seems like he payed a LOT more attention to the right ovary, than the left.

This does NOTHING for my peace of mind.

Yet another STRYKER bed was waiting for me there too,

And for some reason they had the words "Beaver Caps" written on the dry-write board in the exam room ... I was going to ask ... but then the gravity of the reason of why I am there, hits me, and silences me. The gravity of it all hits me square in my chest, and knocks every single positive funny thought and feeling out of me.

Beaver Caps ... could they be hair nets for the crotchtal region?

Not nice to drop bombs on folks who are already living day to day.

My Bilateral mastectomy (12/2).

Now that my right arm does not go numb right away with using the mouse.

Last night, the bomb was dropped on me (non-chalantly might I add) that I was triple negative. It was wedged in there with the brush-off statement of "well, since those ovaries are going to have to come out" ... bubbling out of the 8-9 month pregnant genetic counselor. She must have forgotten she is talking to a 39 year old mom of a 2 and 4 year old, and did I mention that the biggest thing on my mind when i found this lump last month was "so IF I do get pregnant in the next month or so, I can still have the baby by the end of next summer, and so what if I will be 40...". Baby at 40 was the biggest thing on my mind ... not BIG FAT FUCKING NASTY AGGRESSIVE CANCER at 40.

F this.

I am scared beyond words, because we have no family nearby to help with the kids...dunno how we are going to do that yet ... but I really need to keep my HEAD in the right place so I can focus on getting better.

My tumor was apparently 5mm from the chest wall, and they "said" clear margin of 5mm. The oncologist is going to discuss with the Rad. Guy whether or not radiation will be needed ... seems like Oncology man is possibly thinking not? At this point, I will not mind if the Radiation Guy decides to recommend it, because this might be my one chance to catch any stray cells. Only one node, the sentinel node, was affected. they removed 11 more nodes and none showed and cancer ... can i just trust that? I dunno.

I will be calling my Breast Cancer Center today or tomorrow and asking them why I have not been hooked up with the dietitian they speak of ... I found out yesterday I currently weigh 113. I loose weight like mad under stress...

Where is my mind?

Sitting there in the pre-op "cell", waiting for the nurse to bring in another bed. I guess since they know I am going to be in that bed a awhile, they are going to get me a more "comfortable" one. Whatever comfortable would be, as it is a hospital bed, for God's sake.

She wheels it in ...

It has STRYKER emblazoned across the base.
the first thing that came to my mind? Jeffry Stryker.

WTF? Thanks a lot, undergrad roomies :-) I hear your voices in my head goofily going "Jeeefffrrrrrrry Stryyyyykeeerrrrrrr says hiiiiiiiiiiii..."

I tell the nurse I have never had an IV before. She blinks at me, looks at my charts and says, "you have two children?". Had them naturally ... the last one took 20 minutes .... she blinks, and says that she is not going to let a student do my IV, as she does not want it to be bad for me, she wants it to be done well...

I am so happy for this.

She does it well, she used lidocane injection first, and I hardly feel a thing.
I want to hung her afterward, because this might be the last time that something like that is done with compassion.