Surgery, Expanders, Boobs and Scans, Oh My!

This is how I have decided to live my life.

I have decided that I will not be defined by this cancer. I have decided to try and not spend one extra minute in my day dwelling on it, having it take control over what I do.

That of course, is easier said than done. How can you ignore that your life has been threatened? How can you move on past the “active” phase of treatment and back to the everyday minutia that takes up so much of life? How can you make those minutes matter? I ask those questions every day. It isn’t easy, but I am getting better about not framing my life in the context of cancer, but of trying to celebrate the good things without having to taint it with that ever present cloud.  

Updates

So, I got some surgery last month. The original plan was to do a lift on the left and a mastectomy and reconstruction on the right. Things didn’t quite work out that way. I know that I said I wouldn’t blog about my areolas again. It totally makes my husband uncomfortable, but the fact of the matter is, between the amount of space the surgeon needed to remove what was left of the tumor and the fact that my areolas were kind of big, the skin wasn’t thick enough and there wasn’t quite enough of it left to do the reconstruction at the same time.

I was disappointed. My husband told the plastic surgeon that he needed to be the one to tell me, I don't think my husband wanted the responsibility of it, he knew how it would be something I didn't want to hear. I have a very vague, drug-induced memory of the surgeon doing just that. He went on to tell my husband that I was pretty with it when he delivered the news. I remember nothing else about him talking to me or most of the remainder of that day except waking up two hours later, getting wheeled into a hospital room and the sweet, sweet, kindness of the painkillers.

Before the surgery I thought one night in the hospital would be enough. Two was definitely necessary and I knew it right away. I was so unsure of how I would feel afterwards and in all honesty it sucked. There are women out there who have had to go through worse (double mastectomies, removal of lymph nodes and muscle) none of it is easy. The surgical drains were the worst. They were super uncomfy and had to be emptied daily.

Can I say one thing here? My husband is amazing. I considered getting the visiting nurses to come in and do the drains as well as apply the nitroglycerin paste to what was left of my right boob in order to make sure the skin didn’t die, but he said he was fine with it. I never wanted him to see me sick. I never wanted him to have to take care of me at 37. It is one thing to see babies coming out of my body, but that was beautiful in its own crazy, sort of gross way, because they were something we created together, new lives that made us more than we were before.

Donning surgical gloves and smoothing cream over an area outlined in blue marker is another story and he will never know how grateful I am to him that he never once flinched and still seems to think that he made a good decision marrying me.

I do think he will be pleased once the right boob is good and grown.

It is weird to have one boob. I will say the one on the left looks amazing (a small C), that was the first conscious question I asked the plastic surgeon when he came in to check on me the next day.

I am also totally thankful to my amazing social worker who showed up the next morning with a camisole that had pillow inserts so that I would have something other than the bra I woke up from surgery in to wear and so that I wouldn’t be so lopsided.

Any of you who know me know that I have never, ever had to stuff a bra.

Anyway, instead of taking two weeks of disability from work it ended up being three. I am still not 100% back to doing all the everyday things that I am used to doing. I still probably shouldn’t pick up QT, but it is less because of the lifting and more because I am afraid he is going to bump a boob. Last week after I came back from the doctor, he said to me "your booboo better, you hold me now?" Tears.

The plastic surgeon left an expander with a port inside me after the surgery. I go every week to get pumped up. He inserts a little silicone and the expander fills slowly. After each visit, I take a little bit more stuffing out of my bra. In the next 4 or 5 weeks it will reach the point where it matches the left side and then we will schedule another surgery to replace the expander with a permanent implant. It will be a basic boob job at that point, an outpatient surgery that hopefully won’t have much of a recovery.

I wanted to have the reconstruction done at the same time as the mastectomy because I am tired of waiting to resume my life. I just want to move on. It is a setback, but it is minor and in the scheme of things, it isn’t that terrible.

I feel lucky that the tumor is out. I feel even more lucky that the last round of scans came back showing nothing left of it, and more importantly nothing new.

I am not cancer-free. Metastatic cancer doesn’t allow that.

What I am right now is cautiously optimistic, what I am doing is continuing to take my meds, going for my treatment every three weeks, growing a new boob, adjusting to life post-chemo, post-surgery, post-what do I do now?

For all of you who helped me during the recovery from this surgery, I am unbelievably grateful. Thank you for visiting me in the hospital. Thank you for coming over with couscous salad, button down shirts and climbing into bed with me to chat. Thank you for making meatballs and enduring a very sleepless sleep-over party. Thank you for the daily Dunkies delivery. Thank you for pjs and the Twizzlers. Thank you for taking the kids and making this difficult time for me an opportunity for them to go and do something new and exciting. Thank you for calling and sending cards. Thank you for being a friend of a friend who knows all too well what it is like to go through this surgery and sending me an email with post-surgery advice from women who have been there.

Thank you for simply showing up. Thank you for knowing me well enough that I probably was not going to ask for help so instead of simply offering an empty platitude you responded with action.

Also, thanks to my Loyola ladies for the lingerie gift card. When the new boob comes in, I am going shopping. A perky C-cup after three kids? Ahhh the marvels of modern medicine.

Betrayed by the Boobs

So maybe my first post was a little salty, a little angry, a little aggressive. But guess what else is aggressive and advanced? This insidious cancer that has made its way into my breast and spread itself to my hip.

I am angry. I am angry that I didn't care enough about me to go to the doctor a month or two earlier. Would it have made a difference, who knows? But I will tell you one thing any amount of time that takes off my life, that this keeps me from watching my kids grow up is too much so I will try to turn that anger against me and the cancer around and try to make sure that it turns into action. I will fight as hard as I can as long as I can and for the results that will enable me to have the life I deserve and will enable me to watch my kids grow into their teen years and beyond.

I want to say that even though my body has birthed three kids, even though it is carrying probably an extra 15-20 lbs. and the boobs aren't quite where they used to be, they are one of my better features. To have them be the cause of such anguish when they have been the cause of such pleasure to others is sad.

When I first got the cancer diagnosis and we sat down with the surgeon, we were going on the fact that the cancer was localized to my breast and at least one lymph node. When the surgeon showed my husband and I photos of a 75-year-old woman's saggy breasts (for sizing reasons only) and promised me that not only the cancer would be removed but I would get a breast reduction and lift, I saw that as a silver lining. It would be like junior year in high school. Perky breasts, perhaps the treatment would shave off a few pounds, who knows maybe we would whip out the medical marijuana. Oh junior year. . . .

 Yes, the treatment wouldn't be easy, I would go bald, I would still have to fight. But it seemed like it was something "fixable" something that would be a bump on the road and I could move past it, move beyond it and move on.

Then we found out the cancer had spread. Surgery is not an option at this point. They are treating the entire body and are hoping that the cancer will just melt away. All of a sudden it was no longer "fixable" it was treatable but it is something that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. Stage 4 cancer doesn't have that long of a shelf life and to have to say that out loud is heartbreaking.

The doctors are positive, they feel like this can be treated like a chronic condition, but there will always be a follow-up, a new scan, and fear, always fear. There will always be the what if it comes back? and there will always be the chance that the treatment won't work. It is scary as shit.

We got a second opinion, we got a ton of tests and scans. I wouldn't recommend a bone biopsy, it hurts like hell. Any ultrasound should only have a baby on the other side and the fact that they only told me after I showed up for the PET scan that I should avoid touching or holding my children close to me for 24 hours because of possible radiation contamination is beyond frightening. But I did it all and I will continue to do it all until this cancer goes away, melts away, and even though it is probably microscopically elsewhere in my body, I am hoping that the treatments do their job.

So do I feel betrayed by my boobs? You bet. For a year they nourished QT, they fed my Ladies and helped them grow. Now, I am just hoping that they will return to their sad, saggy state, cancer free and in it for the long haul.