Front-page news

Posted: February 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, drugs, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

An article on the front page of the Houston Chronicle today says that big changes are in store for the breast surgery required for cancer treatment. A new study from our own local attraction, M.D. Anderson, found that women with early stage breast cancer don’t need to have their lymph nodes removed, even if the nodes are cancerous.

This is big news. Breast surgeons are calling it “practice-changing” and proof of the old adage that “less is more.” Dr Kelly Hunt, surgery professor at Anderson, says, “The study shows that we don’t have to take out huge swaths of tissue, that we can avoid aggressive surgery without any effect on outcome.” Personally, I’m a fan of anything that avoids removing huge swaths of tissue. Ick. Ugh. Yuck. Been there, done that. More than once.

This new study pokes holes in the century-old belief that a surgeon’s job was to cut out every bit of the cancer, and found that removing the lymph nodes didn’t give women any benefit over radiation and drug therapy alone. The prevailing science has been that removing lymph nodes helps prevent the cancer from spreading and/or recurring.

Removing the lymph nodes from the armpit area is a hot mess waiting to happen. You’ve got the cosmetic issue of ending up with a concaved surface. You’ve got the potential for infection (ahem). You’ve got the risk of lymphedema, which is painful swelling in the arm that cannot be cured. Anyone who has ever seen a photo of a limb swollen to multiple times its normal size because of lymphedema knows to fear this condition. I’ve met several breast cancer survivors on the tennis court since I returned to the game post-mastectomy and post-infection, and more than one of them played with a compression sleeve (a form-fitting garment that goes from wrist to shoulder) to stave off lymphedema. Tammy, my dear lymphedema specialist, made me take one of those bloody things home to keep in my drawer, “just in case,” because the really stinky thing about lymphedema — aside from the fact that there’s no cure — is that it can come on at any time. Women have gotten it years after a mastectomy, with no prior symptoms.

If you want all the nitty-gritty details of the study, you can read the New York Times article, which goes into a little more detail than the Chronicle’s story. The Chronicle does get credit for providing more info about Anderson’s role in the study. We like to root for the local team. Seems 100 of the 891 patients in this study were from Anderson, and the researchers originally planned to expand the study to include 1,900 women, but shut down the study before that happened because the results were so overwhelmingly conclusive.

I like overwhelmingly conclusive results. You don’t find a lot of them in medicine. I’ve learned that the hard way in my “cancer journey.” I’m a black & white, just-the-facts-ma’am kind of girl, and I found myself smacking my head against a wall more than once in pursuit of a concrete, yes-or-no type answer. In medicine, precious few of those exist. I suspect that’s why it’s referred to as “practicing” medicine.

In fact, Dr Grimes, my infectious disease doctor, has spoken of practicing the art of medicine as much as the science of medicine. I really like the way that sounds, as if it’s so very civilized and full of aesthetic value. In reality, it’s a balancing act of drug therapy vs side effects; of benefit vs cost; of how far can we push the body yet still maintain the integral strength necessary to fight the disease.

In other words, there is no overwhelmingly conclusive answer. And sometimes the doctors don’t know themselves what the right answer is. That’s why it’s so nice when a study comes along that says, yes, for sure this is the right thing to do.

I’m super happy about this big news. I hope it lives up to its potential to make life easier for the 200,000 women a year diagnosed with this breast cancer. And I really hope that it’s just a teaser of what big breakthroughs in breast cancer research are yet to come.

I heard the news today, oh boy

Posted: February 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: baseball, kids | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

It started around age 2, I guess. The baseball obsession. From his earliest days, Payton was a baseball fanatic.

He’s probably not even 2 years old here, but he’s already at the plate, ready to swing for the fences. 

That original swing morphed into this —

and even in 2nd grade, it was game on.

The Red Sox obsession started when he was around 4 years old, maybe even earlier. He has a lot of Sox jerseys and t-shirts. He even had a shirt way back then that says “Yankees Stink” and when he wore it to Fenway Park one year, he was a rock star among Sox fans. He wore it to an Astros game and was featured on the Jumbo-Tron screens. Sweet.

He wears Sox shirts for all occasions, both important and everyday. And not just at the ballpark, either. He wears them pretty much every day, no matter where he’s going.

From playing in the driveway in our Durham house, where we lived for two years, to the first day of kindergarten, Payton wore Sox apparel. Always a Sox shirt, and usually a cap, too.

If they allowed ballcaps at school, he’d wear a Sox cap every day. At one point, we had to clean out the closet because there were so many Sox caps. Every color combination of red, white & blue, and a green one, too. Eventually he got a red one with black flames. There was a green camo one, too, but it disappeared before we had any photos of it. 

Here he is in a Sox cap at his Little League team party in 1st grade, I think. All the other boys on the team wore the team cap, but this die-hard Sox fan had other plans.

He’s wearing a Sox shirt and cap in this photo, taken in his room six months after we moved back to Houston from North Carolina. This kid is (and no doubt will be) a Sox fan no matter where he lives.

His blue Sox cap was with him at the rodeo. He’s not wearing a Sox shirt, though.

I probably made him wear a Longhorns shirt, since it was the most Western-y thing he had to wear to the rodeo. (And yes, I see the expression on Macy’s face. Classic.)

He’s probably still mad about it, too.

For a while, Macy was in on it, too. This is one of my all-time favorite pics of my kids. In New Orleans, on the way home from Fort Meyers, FL, at spring break for, what else? Red Sox spring training.

Of course he wore a Sox jersey for the first day of school in 1st grade, just like he had done on the first day of school in kindergarten. He’s got a Sox backpack, too.

We got a lot of wear from the original jersey, a Nomar Garciaparra #5 authentic MLB version. He wore that one for a couple of years, and I still have it. I keep thinking I’ll do something special with it, like put it in a shadowbox with other memorabilia to preserve the Sox legacy. For now, it’s hanging in the laundry room, and every time I see it, I smile at how tiny it is, and how the tiniest jersey was worn by the biggest fan.

Here he is at Fenway Park in jersey and rally cap, showing off his newly-toothless grin. He had just turned 6, and was already a veteran traveler to Boston and Fenway Park.

Guess what he wore to his 6th birthday party? Yep, a Sox shirt. He loved the shirt, but wasn’t too happy about having to pose for a photo.

He looks a little happier here, celebrating Ed’s birthday in, what else? a Sox jersey. 

Here he is before the birthday bash, in yet another Sox shirt. He and Ed are smiling so big because they love the Red Sox! In fact, it was Ed who first brainwashed Payton into becoming part of Red Sox Nation. Thanks, Ed! I’ve never been more proud than I was during a game at Fenway when Pay was little (4 or 5 years old at most) and quickly established himself among our seasoned seat-mates as a real fan. He knew who was next in the batting order, and who made the last out. It wasn’t long before the men around us were asking Pay questions about the roster, and he knew the answer every time.

Riding the T after a game at Fenway, happy with a Fenway Frank or two in his tummy and a pennant in his hand. This boy loves baseball, and to him, baseball means the Red Sox.

This was his face when he came home from school one day in the 1st grade to find his room contained new bunk beds. I love the look on his face almost as much as the fact that he’s wearing yet another Sox shirt.

He’s all dressed up here for Mother’s Day.

And for YaYa’s birthday. Well, as dressed up as Pay gets. Which is fine with me. If he’s not wearing a Sox shirt, something seems just the slightest bit off.

In 3rd grade, he wore Sox shirts on the first day of school: and the last day of school. He got an award at the end of the year from Mrs. Spearman, probably for being the biggest Sox fan.

It was more of the same for the first day of 4th grade.

Hanging out with Snoopy, in a jersey of course.

She’s a Sox fan, too.

After the Nomar jersey came the Veritek version. Then Youklis. Then Beckett. 

I’m sure there were more, but they all sorta run together after all these years.

We’re really lucky to be able to go to Boston every summer and stay with our dear friends-who-are-now-family. The trip is the highlight of the year for all of us, and getting to go to Fenway as well as hang out for a couple of weeks on the shore, is the best.

At the airport on one of those trips when the kids were really little, Pay was decked out in Sox championship apparel. People traveling from Houston to Boston on that flight with us knew where that kid was headed. First stop, Yawkey Way. 

Catching some z’s on the beach in Salisbury, north of Boston. Notice the cap?

Wearing one of my favorite Sox shirts at Markey’s Lobster Pound, one of the best places on Earth. This shirt says, “It’s obvious you wish you were part of Red Sox Nation.”

Indeed.

Another Sox ensemble while enjoying another delicacy at the shore: Blink’s Fried Doe. Payton prefers chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles. Only they call them jimmies at the shore.

One year we went back to the shore for Thanksgiving. It was cold on the beach, but we took a walk. Pay wore a Sox shirt, and no coat.

Back at home, we buy the MLB extended cable package so we can watch every Sox game. 

Payton always gets new Sox shirts for Christmas, which makes him smile. Santa knows what that kid wants most. 

Fuzzy dice to go with the new shirts. Good stuff.

I don’t remember what we were celebrating here, but I’m sure it was fun. And the Pedroia shirt means it was a special occasion. Or a Tuesday. Either one.

When Pay broke his wrist in the 5th grade and had to get a cast, he got a red one. While wearing a Sox shirt, natch. Then he tried to scratch inside the cast with a mechanical pencil, and the eraser got stuck and he had to get another red cast. Three days after the first one. I told him that if he did it again, the third cast would be pink.

There was no third cast.

This past summer, Pay had to go to Fenway without me. I was home recovering from the latest bout with the post-mastectomy infection and wasn’t fit to travel.

He brought me a get-well gift. Guess what it was: a new Sox shirt of my very own. My favorite player had changed his number, so I needed an updated shirt. Sweet boy.

Red Sox apparel is such a big part of Payton’s life, and his wardrobe. Our family has logged lots of hours at Fenway and spent even more time camped out in front of the TV watching games from home. We check the box scores in the morning paper, and on any given day during the MLB season Pay can tell you exactly how many games ahead or back the Sox are in the playoff pursuit. We’ve had fun seeing the Sox at our home ballpark, Minute Maid Park, during interleague play, and at Camden Yards while visiting friends in D.C. When the Sox were playing the Rockies in Colorado en route to the World Series, we were ready to pack up and drive there, but the quick sweep made it a moot point.

My baseball-loving son doesn’t have a lot to say; he’s a pretty quiet kid. But get him talking about the Sox, and you’d better settle in because it may take awhile. We’ve bonded over good games and bad, big hits and strike-outs, bad calls and triumphant victories, opportunities lost and capitalized upon. We are a Red Sox family.

And as another Little Season is upon us, Payton, the biggest Sox fan of all, just got drafted by the Yankees. Worst. Thing. Ever. (in his mind, anyway.) This happened once before, a few seasons back, and he was pretty upset. He handled it like a pro, though, saying he would wear the dreaded navy blue jersey, but with a Sox shirt underneath, close to his heart. And when he “lost” his Yankees hat a few days into the season and needed to wear a navy blue Sox hat, I didn’t question him. He decided he would play hard while on the field, because that’s part of being on a team, but would take off the Yankees jersey as soon as the games ended. I admit, it was pretty weird to see him in Yankees gear. Wonder if he can still fit into his shirt that says “Yankees Stink?”

Update on my guardian angels

Posted: February 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Remember these three lovely ladies? If not, read this. I wrote about my guardian angels and their unfortunate accident in which they flew off the shelf and crashed onto the floor.

They’ve been repaired and restored to their shelf in the kitchen, where they can watch over my family and me. I think they’re recovered from their trauma, but are likely wary of another episode and probably watch over me with a worried eye, thinking, “There she goes, crashing around the kitchen again like a crazy person. It’s only a matter of time before she bustles over here to grab a cookbook off our shelf, and down we go, smashed into bits on the hard porcelain tile.”

Or something along those lines. I have no idea what Willow Tree angels’ conversations actually sound like, but that’s how I imagine this one. 

All three angels went to Ed’s magical workshop for repairs. They may want to ask about a frequent customer card, as they’ve been there before, and will probably end up there again. His rates are very reasonable, he does outstanding work, and he always manages to work in the casualties resulting from my carelessness.

This angel sustained the most extensive yet least noticeable damage. She pretty much snapped in half, suffering internal injuries but held it together cosmetically. You can see that she now has a long scar all the way across her middle, which is prescient as that’s what I too will have after reconstruction, since they’re gonna cut me hip-to-hip to harvest the skin & flesh to rebuild me up top. Ick. I wish I could manage as serene an expression as this Angel of the Heart in the face of my trauma, injuries, and recovery.

The Angel of Hope needed limb restoration, but thankfully she managed to escape the accident with her right arm intact, since it holds her lantern that she uses to watch over her careless charges. A single amputee is bad enough; a double would have been really tragic. She also lost part of her ponytail, but as we all know, hair loss is temporary, and hers did magically grow back at the workshop, and her scars are barely noticeable.

Sustaining the most overall damage was the Guardian Angel and her young companion. The decapitation was especially devastating, and sadly his head was never found. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Harry the eating machine found it and devoured it before he realized it wasn’t actually food. She also lost her head, but I found it and it, along with her hand, were restored to their previous state.

Thanks to everyone who wrote, called, or emailed with concern and support about these lovely ladies. Let’s hope they stay in one piece for a while.

Shameless plug

Posted: February 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Is it a shameless plug if it doesn’t benefit me personally? Is it even a plug? Or shameless? These are the questions that fill up my brain and try and distract me from the task at hand, which is to get out the vote.

Meet Alexis. Or at least meet three-quarters of her face. Yes, her eyes really are that blue. No, she doesn’t wear colored contacts. She’s 16 and entered in a contest to win scholarship money for college. She wants to go to TCU and the tuition is quite dear, as our British friends would say.

She’s funny and loyal and responsible. She coaches little kids’ swim team and basketball teams. She babysits and never loses her patience. She genuinely likes little kids. She thinks it would be cool to counsel people in drug or alcohol rehab (hmmmm, she may be seeing me in her future!).

She loves animals. A lot. She got a bunny named Henry for Christmas. Adopted him from the SPCA (yes! They do have bunnies there), because while she wanted a bunny, she also wanted to be responsible and do the right thing and make a difference, and all that. She assumes full responsibility for him: feeds him, cuddles him, cleans up his messes, and spends her babysitting money on timothy hay and chew toys.

So do me a favor and vote for her. She’s funny, responsible, caring, forward-thinking, and kind. How many teenagers do you know who fit that description? Hopefully lots. Being the silly girl that I am, I believe that good things happen to deserving people. Don’t you?

Vote for Alexis!

A month of soup

Posted: February 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: food | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

With it being so bitter cold in my neck of the woods, I want soup. And a can of Campbells just won’t do. I was raised on homemade soup, and when the weather turns or a nasty cold invades my system or a surgery is imminent, homemade soup is what I crave. I toyed with the idea of making a different soup every day for a month, but that may be the cold weather talking (seriously, 27 degrees in Houston?? Egads). Then I realized that I don’t even have a month between now and my reconstruction, and once I have the surgery, it’ll be quite a while before I’m able to cook again.

When I am able to cook again, I’ll be making soup. The weather will have warmed up by then; in fact, we may even be trending toward summer. But I’ll still want homemade soup. It must be genetic. My mom made soup. Well, actually she made everything, but soup for sure. She had many specialities, but her broccoli soup was my favorite. I’m not a big fan of broccoli (I eat it because it’s good for me and packed with important things like cartenoids, vitamin C, calcium, beta-carotene, lutein, and phytochemicals); but I love my mom’s broccoli soup. She knew the recipe by heart, but I have to look it up. Luckily for me, the cookbook falls open to the broccoli soup page every time. 

When I was a kid, my mom helped run a cooking school with a friend of hers, Mary Gubser. Mary is a bread and soup guru. She wrote a few cookbooks and taught cooking classes out of her home for suburban women who wanted to learn how to put a yummy and nutritious meal on the table.

I remember one time I was probably younger than Macy, and I was sick on a cooking school day. My mom bundled me up with a bag full of activities (no PSPs or iTouches back then) and took me with her. I settled on Miss Mary’s couch and listened to the women chattering as they went through the lesson: herbed vegetable soup and meunster cheese bread. My mom brought me a piece of baguette, warm from the oven, with real butter, and it remains to this day one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.

Maybe that’s why I love food so much: because memories of meals are so interwoven with memories of my mom. Food is such a powerful force, and it does way more than provide fuel for our bodies and sustain us through the day.

Soup has always been comfort food for me. You can have your mashed potatoes & gravy, your mac & cheese, your pot roast. I’ll take soup. But it’s gotta be homemade.

I got the love of soup from my mom, and Payton & Macy got it from me. In fact, Macy takes a thermos of homemade chicken noodle soup in her lunch every day. She’s vegetarian, but some things, like my chicken noodle soup and PF Chang’s honey-seared chicken, don’t count as meat in her mind.

Every week, I make a big pot of chicken noodle soup. For me, there is security in routine. Making soup for my kids every week is a ritual, and when chopping onions, celery, and carrots, I fall into an easy rhythm. Sauteeing the veggies in glistening green olive oil and with a few garlic cloves fills the kitchen with a smell of innate goodness that fills me up. Anyone can open a can of Campbells, but making what I consider real soup is a different thing entirely. It’s a labor of love, which I hope fuels and sustains my kids and weaves a delicate yet tangible ribbon of connection between them and me.

Goethe’s got it goin’ on

Posted: February 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: literature | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”— Goethe

I’ve always liked this philosophy, and what better day than a snow day to heed his words?

Well, let’s see: it’s a snow day without snow (gotta love Houston), so the kids are home but not playing outside. No snowmen or women, no snowball fights, no sledding or tubing or ancillary snow-related activities. No giant snowbank on which Harry could leave his yellow mark, and certainly no homemade snow ice cream.

Instead, it’s 10:30 a.m. and the kids are immersed in video games and iTouch pursuits. When they become bored from those, they will likely move on to Nickelodeon.  The washing machine is humming, the dishwasher is doing its thing, there’s a long list of things to do, and none of them coincide with Goethe’s missive.

Ok, wait, I will turn on my iTunes while I type this, so I am hearing “a little song” (some Jack Johnson to drown out the hum & clank of the labor-saving devices). I will attempt to speak a few reasonable words, but suspect the result will more likely be a rambling blabbityblah instead.

With the humming & clanking sufficiently quieted, I got to thinking about Goethe and who he was and what kind of a person he must have been to utter the above suggestion, which is so simple yet deep. He’s basically giving me a recipe to daily happiness. I like that. I need that. I’m digging Goethe.

If I stretch back into the deep recesses of my grey matter, I recall that he was a German writer in the 1800s from a good family. After some trouble in school, he was home-schooled, and his mama encouraged his love of the written word, just like my mama did. He’s described as a polymath, a word that’s always intrigued me. Of course the Greeks defined it best and used it to describe someone as “having learned much. ” While Goethe is perhaps best known for his written word (he was called the supreme genius of modern German literature, after all), he also was into nature, politics, and painting. A real Renaissance Man.

Goethe’s insights on plants & animals paved the way for naturalists like Charles Darwin, and I like to think that Goethe opened the door to Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Our modern-day jokes about the shallow end of the gene pool wouldn’t be nearly as funny–or true–without either of these guys. Don’t know why, but I find that interesting.

Politically, he was conservative and thought the revolutionaries in France were wasting their time because people couldn’t possibly govern themselves. He was a fan of small principalities ruled by benevolent despots. Which is all fine & good as long as the principalities want to be ruled and the despots are indeed benevolent. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

Seems Goethe anticipated being remembered for as a painter, but he gained his fame as a writer. He did study colors extensively, and considered his Theory of Colors to be his most important work. He believed that colors developed from “the dynamic interplay of darkness and light.” I’d venture to suggest that this concept does not apply strictly to art. If I were a better student with more patience and time, I’d love to investigate this concept and expand on it. But alas, the laundry calls and the dog-hair tumbleweeds grow. Goethe probably didn’t do his own laundry, and I bet he wasn’t troubled by the accumulation of dog hair on a tile floor. He was busy pioneering the idea of physiological effects of color, which is intriguing because he lived in a rather black & white world. Imagine how he’d react to our technicolor lifestyle.

Since he was famous for his writing, I thought I’d break out my copy of his most well-known poem, Faust, (anything to avoid tacking the to-do list) but then I remembered that it’s really, really long. I remember it being billed in one of college courses as relevant and timely for our modern world, but I don’t have that kind of time to sit and read it.

A little Carl Sandburg, perhaps. His stuff is easy to bite off into manageable chunks. Fog is my favorite. I’m not a cat person (d0n’t flame me, cat lovers, I don’t not like them I’m just more canine-inclined). I do like the image that Sandburg paints of “little cat feet.” If you don’t know this poem or are a little rusty on its simplicity, allow me:

“The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.”

Simple, beautiful and I can read it in about 10 seconds. Yet the imagery will resonate with me long after. I think Goethe would approve.


Fun with t-shirts

Posted: February 3, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’ve been wearing this shirt to the gym (thanks, Jodie!) and always get comments on it. Positive comments that is. At first I was self-conscious about wearing it, then I said to hell with that, I’ve been through a lot so I’m going to wear it proudly. Kinda the flat-chested girl’s version of  “If ya got it, flaunt it.” I’ve no longer got “it” or “them,” as the case may be, but I can certainly flaunt my survivor self.

It’s a good thing the shirt explains everything, though, because when I first started back at the gym after a long absence (thank you, mycobacterium, you SOB), one of the other regulars there asked our trainer what was wrong with me, because something looked different but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Hmmmm, I wonder what it could be? Maybe the total absence of breasts? Maybe the evidence of rib cage poking through where normally there would be a little padding? Or my inability to extend my right arm fully (I miss you, lymph nodes)?

Well, thanks to the shirt, no one needs to wonder. It’s cleared up and we can move on…to the next shirt.

I can’t wait to wear this one (thanks, Kayte!), right after I get reconstructed. 

Wonder if they’ll let me wear this in the hospital, instead of a scratchy gown.

He’s done it again

Posted: February 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: pets | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments

Good Lord in Heaven, I think my dog Harry can read.

I think he read my post about his thieving ways (see “Thank goodness for tile” under recent posts; the link isn’t working so you’re gonna have to find it yourself). While I was busy carrying in my loot from Costco, he snatched a pound of sliced Swiss cheese and horked it down.

Damn that dog to hell.

It’s too cold to keep him outside, and I am a bit of a sucker for his big brown eyes imploring me through the window to let his sorry butt inside. But it’s that sorry butt I’m worried about after a pound of cheese passes through it.

If he makes another mess in the house, I’m shipping him off to the glue factory.

Now that I have a surgery date…

Posted: February 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, drugs, infection | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Now that I have a surgery date, if you feel compelled to join the Greek chorus that’s asking if I really want to have the surgery, don’t.

Just don’t.  

I don’t want to hear it.

I don’t need to hear it. 

Isn’t the fact that I have a surgery date evidence enough of my decision to go forward?

If I didn’t want to have the surgery, would I really have a date? Would I be putting myself through the mental anguish that accompanies such a decision and the days that stretch on between said date and today?

Sometimes I hate people. 

Mainly those who say stupid things, but Sarah Palin & “President” Mubarak are on my list too. If you like either of these idiots, you may want to unsubscribe from this blog, because I will most likely rip on them and their idiot-ness a lot, esp when I’m in a foul mood like I am now. And if ripping on dumbasses makes me feel better, then Katy bar the door because I’m gonna do it. 

So there.

And don’t tell me that people mean well, and sometimes they just don’t know what to say. They can suck it. If it’s that hard to come up with something not stupid to say, then perhaps they should zip it.

But back to the surgery. Reconstruction is a big step. It’s a scary step. It’s a horrifying assault on my already-beleaguered body. If things were different, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to do it. By “things” and “different” I mean the path of destruction left by the blasted mycobacterium.

I hate that myco almost as much as I hate Sarah Palin. Sheesh, just typing her name makes me mad.

Ok, reigning it in.

That darn mycobacterium wrecked things up good. If it was just a question of having a flat chest, I’d be in no hurry for reconstruction. I kinda like my flat chest. It’s simple. It’s low-maintenance. I never have to wonder if people are paying attention to what I’m saying, because they’re certainly not distracted by cleavage (there is none). But thanks to the infection and subsequent tissue excision (gross, I know), it’s a mess that’s gotta be fixed.

And thanks to the infection, I can’t just pop in the implants and go along my merry way. I remember being asked as a kid if I had to do everything the hard way (I was a little stubborn back then). The answer is yes. Yes, I do.

I do not like surgery. Or hospitals. Or hospital gowns. Or hospital linens (scratchy, so scratchy). Or hospital food. Or the hospital smell. Or needles. Or being an invalid. Or depending on other people. Or waiting on other people to show up and do what they need to do so I can get outta there.

I do like the drugs, though.

But not enough to rush into a big, long, complicated surgery. So while I don’t actually want to have this surgery, I need to, to clean up the leftover infection mess. It’s going to be hard, and the recovery will be long. I won’t see a tennis court for several months. I will once again be at the mercy of other people’s kindness. But I need to do it, so I will. And I will leave you with another mantra from my childhood: If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Thank you, Thumper. Preach it, little rabbit. 

And if you can’t follow Thumper’s advice, and still feel compelled to tell me how dangerous this surgery is, or how complicated, or ask me to think about how it might affect my kids, or any other stupid thing that flies out of people’s mouths, then consider this: 

Official diagnosis

Posted: February 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

While looking through my paperwork from Dr Spiegel and mapping out the next month of pre-op stuff I have to do, I found something that made me laugh out loud.

I hope you find it funny, too.

If you don’t, there’s something really wrong with you.

This is the orders for the EKG and labwork I have to get done before my reconstruction. 

The handwriting is kinda hard to read, and the picture is pretty fuzzy, but if you look closely you’ll see that for Diagnosis, it says “absence of breasts.”

Other than laughing hysterically, I don’t know how to respond to that.

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