Hi all! The news I have to report is I was released from the mummy wrappings yesterday (compression bandage), and I don't have to have a needle stuck in me every few days to drain the fluid, either. Yay! I did do something incredibly stupid this morning, though, and I could just kick myself because not only could I have done some irreparable damage to myself, I had to take a step back.
Today is garbage and recycling day. My garbage day always used to be Monday, and it was easy to remember to put it out on Sunday night, but now that it's Tuesday, I occasionally forget to put the garbage and recycling out and have to wait for the next week to get rid of it. Well, with all that's going on, I forgot last week and had a ton of recycling and garbage to put out, because when my friend Michie was here we cleaned a bunch of my drawers and closets out. So, this morning, not thinking, I carried one of the heavier recycling bins out to the curb. Stupid, stupid, stupid! So, the compression bandage went back on. *Sigh* One step forward, two steps back. When they did the mastectomy they also took about six lymph nodes out from under my arm to examine for cancer cells. If the cancer had spread it would show up in my lymph nodes.
Because of that, I cannot lift over ten pounds for about a year until it all heals up. When my aunt had her misdiagnosis they had to do radical things just to save her life, and one of them was to remove ALL of her lymph nodes. Her arm was fine for a few years, until she lifted a 20 lb bag of potting soil when she was gardening. She felt something give and forever after that she had the big arm. Lymph nodes carry fluid out of your arms, so if they are absent there is nothing to take that fluid away and the fluid builds up. I really, really don't want that, so I will be very careful from now on. I just hope I haven't already done damage by my stupidity. (Shakes head in disgust). I will have to get a compression sleeve to put on my arm when I fly as well. I need to take care of that soon!
So, after I saw the surgeon yesterday and he released me from the drainage and compression bandage, I found the jogging bra with the cotton breast inserts in it is now very loose. When I wore the compression bandage under it, it was fine, now it's too loose. So I went down to the Mills Breast Cancer Center to get another, smaller bra from the gift shop. When we got there the shop was closed until 9:00 and it was about 8:30, so we sat and read magazines in their beautiful, posh lobby until the shop could open. You see the strangest things when you go to the doctor! While I was perusing the latest In Style magazine, I heard a clanking noise and looked up to see two police officers with a man in handcuffs and ankle chains coming in. I wondered how it felt to be shackled like that and having to walk through the lobby to the doctor's office. I felt sorry for the guy, but also thought that this was not something you saw everyday.
Then I saw an elderly woman wearing The Grinch Who Stole Christmas green and red pajama pants, house slippers, an orange and blue Illini jacket and dyed orangish hair. Quite the sight.
Now, for your potential reading pleasure, some random thoughts. When I look at the mastectomy site in the mirror, I remind myself that Amazon women purposely cut off their right breast so they could be better archers. Color me Amazon woman! *snort* Having done it with anesthesia in a medical environment, I can't imagine just taking a knife to it and moving on with my hunting and pillaging. Yow! Those were some tough women!
When I was going every few days to the doctor for the drainage, I found it pretty tedious to take all the layers off. First of all, my right arm does not do well going over my head or behind me, so taking any sweaters or shirts off is problematic. Once that's done, it's off with the jogging bra with the falsies in it, then, last but not least, the mummy wrappings come off and I put on the hospital poncho. Once I had been drained, he always put gauze on the area and taped me up with that awful medical tape. The next day when I'd go to take a shower, it took at least ten minutes to peel that stuff off of me, not to mention painful, and then it would leave tape gunk all over me. Dr. B told me a drop of lighter fluid will take it off, but I went with my Goo Gone instead. You smell a little orange-y afterward, but it works well enough, it's just a pain to do all the time. I was about to ask him yesterday if we could just put a Band-Aid in it instead, but it turned out to be a moot point.
I wanted to explain my point of view on something. I have had people tell me I'm strong and/or brave through all this. To my mind, not really. It's hard to fathom you have a disease that could potentially kill you when you have no symptoms. I felt fine, still do, aside from the healing from the mastectomy. When I was a kid I had a bad case of asthma. I remember sitting up nights struggling to breathe. I was so tired I could hardly sit up straight, but lying down made it worse. That kind of thing I'm afraid of. I don't scuba dive because I'm afraid of not getting enough air. That scares me. This I can cope with.
I should mention the surgeon said the lymph nodes were clear, and they got all the cancer when they did the mastectomy so all looks good. However, as previously mentioned, the oncologist says I'm on the cusp for chemo therapy. My odds are better of I take it than if I don't. That is, odds that the cancer won't return in ten years. I'd rather just take the Tamoxifen and leave it at that, but part of that is I'm afraid of how sick the chemo will make me, I'm afraid of how much more work I will have to miss, and on a vanity scale, I'm afraid of all my hair falling out for a long period of time. I go back to see her on Friday, so we'll see, but I'm a little scared right now.
It's Tuesday and next Monday I have to go back to work. It's just Tuesday, but I'm already grieving that my time off will end soon. Three weeks has gone incredibly fast. I figured it would last a long, long time and I'd get a chance to get a bunch of things done at home, but it's almost done. Time does indeed fly.
Spring has come and it's lovely today. I am so glad to see the dreary days of winter go away. I'm a summer person. I have a good friend, Linda, who is just the opposite. She hates warm weather and sun. I have SAD, and drag myself through the winter, but I hear there is an opposite condition where the person is enervated by sun and warmth. I dread winter and she dreads summer. I say I was meant to live someplace tropical and she longs to move to Canada or Minnesota.
I may have mentioned this before, but one of my coping strategies is to distract myself from the big, bad thing I have to deal with. As I said before, I'm a geeked out fan-girl, so my TV shows help me get by, plus, I get crushes on the actors all the time. It's just a fun thing for me. Disclaimer: NOT a potential stalker or anything. It just makes life fun and interesting to me. So, petty justifications aside, my shows are Stargate SG-1 (crushing Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, and want to be Amanda Tapping in my next life), Sanctuary (again, Amanda Tapping, and crushing on all the guys on the show, plus Peter Wingfield and Jonathan Young, who are guest stars) Burn Notice (love the entire cast!), Castle (Ditto), Chuck (Ditto, Ditto), Biggest Loser (I'm addicted) and a show I have just come to love since I have been home during the day--Ellen. I just laugh my head off at that show! She is truly, truly funny! What would I have done without "Bad Paid For Photos" this week, I ask you? A real ray of sunshine during the day! I went to see "Alice in Wonderland" this weekend, and am just amazed at how talented Johnny Depp is. He is such a great character actor, when he could have settled to be just another pretty face. I am in awe.
I have gone out walking since the weather is nicer now. My friend Linda R, told me about a friend of hers who had a double mastectomy. While she was recovering she worked up to walking three miles a day. That inspired me. This friend also opted not to have the reconstruction done at all. In fact, at the gym she walks around with just a towel around her waist in the locker room. I truly admire that kind of confidence, but I just couldn't do it. Just a personal thing on my part. I so admire people like Christina Applegate E.D. Hill, and my co-worker and friend, Debra, who have chosen to have double mastectomies to save their lives, but I am just not brave enough to do that. If it recurs at some point in the other breast, I may ultimately end up having that result anyway, but I just can't do it right now. I am also not brave enough to not have the reconstruction. I am very thankful that the option of reconstruction exists in this day and age, not to mention all the new things they can do to prevent and cure cancer. That is a true blessing. Plus, as I mentioned before, I plan on getting an upgrade when I get the reconstruction as something for me, and it's something to look forward to.
Thursday I go for genetic counseling. My mother just recently went and was told if the test comes back positive she is looking at having both breasts removed and a hysterectomy. Even at her age (69), post menopausal, her ovaries are putting out estrogen, and that is, apparently, the bad guy here. Again, I don't think I want to do something that drastic unless I have to, but mom says she's going to do it if the indicators are there. I don't think I will, but who knows? I need all the information first. It just seems to me that it would remove everthing that makes me a woman. Maybe my perception is skewed, but that's my knee-jerk reaction. See? Not so brave, after all.
So, I motor on. I'm off for a walk, so take care, all, and I will talk to you when there's something to talk about.
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