Moving Right Along

On Tuesday, we went to see magic fingers for a 6-week post-surgical appointment. As per usual, I have been healing wonderfully, and the surgeon is pleased with his work. He told me I am free to do what I want. No more restrictions on swimming, bathing, exercise or clothing. Yippee!!!

Six Easy Steps

Six Easy Steps to Getting Complements:

Step 1. Gain weight by eating whatever you want due to depression caused by a cancer diagnosis.
Step 2. Gain more weight by eating whatever you want under doctor's orders while undergoing chemo.
Step 3. Get bloated from steroids being pumped in to you system on a weekly basis due to chemo.
Step 4. Eventually lose the chemo steroid bloat.
Step 5. Have surgery which takes fat from your stomach and uses said fat to rebuild your breasts.
Step 6. Finally lose the weight you gained after your cancer diagnosis so you finally weigh what you did before the cancer diagnosis. (check the blog in a few days for a more serious post on how I actually lost my chemo weight)

Suddenly you will begin to receive all kinds of complements about how skinny you look, even if you weren't all that skinny before the cancer diagnosis.

So now you ask, "How should I respond to all of the complements on my weight loss?" Just smile and say thank you. We don't want to be sharing our secret, or do we?

Prep Work

Before my surgeries, I madly attempt to make my house a more hospitable destination for healing. Since Brandon will not be home with me during the day, I need to know that food and entertainment will be easily accessible. Yesterday, we went to Trader Joe's, where I stocked up on cheese, hummus, crackers, chips, and fruit. After five surgeries, I know what I like to eat when I'm at home and don't feel well. Today has been whirlwind of activity around the house. And now I am exhausted, and drinking my last glass of wine for a few weeks.

Today's To Do List included the following tasks

• Multiple loads of laundry, folded and put away. Now I do laundry often, but usually I let the clean clothes pile up on the guest bed until it is time to do laundry again (meaning that the pile is gone).
  
• Found old VHS tapes to watch. I plan to spend time on guest bed since it is in the "coolest" room in the house. The VCR is in the same room, so I plan to watch some of my old VHS tapes. So glad the movies weren't purchased at the yard sale nor did I give them to Goodwill.
  
• Prepared and/or cooked the following items for consumption during the upcoming week: chopped cantaloupe, chopped and blended gazpacho, zucchini cake with chocolate chips, and cleaned sweet cherries. Also put ginger ale and sparkling water cans in fridge. And then cooked fresh peaches in grapeseed oil with leftover pulled pork, and corn fritters for dinner.
  
• Tore out recipes, decorating tips, and party ideas from old issues of the Martha Stewart magazine before tossing the magazines in the recycling bin. Not really a necessary pre-surgical task but something I'd been meaning to do for about a year. What would be a better time than when I've got a billion other things to do? I certainly can't think of one.
  

I keep thinking that I have forgotten something. And even if I have, it is not the end of the world. But I hate being entirely reliant on someone to do basic tasks for me. I won't be able to drive for a few weeks. I may not be able to sit up by myself. I won't know the full level of my limitations until Tuesday when I wake up from surgery. So I plan and prepare for the worst.

Numbers.. It is all about the numbers

According to the blogging software, I am now writing my 100th post. Wow! Who would have thought that I could write even ten posts? Certainly not me.

Yesterday was my 36th birthday. Next month will be the two-year anniversary of me finding that sneaky, evil lump of cells in my boob. And guess what cancer cells, I'm still alive. Screw you!

Next week, I will undergo my sixth surgery (surgeries are as follows: mastectomy, port installation, tissue expander installation, DIEP procedure, and DIEP follow-up #1). Hopefully this procedure will be the last one. My body would like to rest.

Howdy!

Just wanted to say hello. I'm still here, and have plenty to say. My summer of livin' has been pretty busy with lots of travel and keeping on the now very soon to explode vegetable garden (photos are on FB if you are a friend of mine). Plus all of my free time has been spent madly knitting what seems to be the world's largest baby blanket for my new nephew, baby Graham. He was born on Wednesday, which is Brandon's birthday, so Brandon now has a new birthday buddy.

As for the blog, I do need to get better about posting. I have tons to say, new photos of inappropriate pink items, and rants. The blog is one of my forms of therapy. My therapist is great at helping me work out issues, but the blog gives a necessary release. I would write more but I need to get working on the "guest" room. Nanette and her husband are coming to visit (yea!) and they need a clean bed and space for their stuff. Right now neither of those requirements exist.

Livin'

I can't remember the exact phrase but in one of my favorite movies, Dazed and Confused, the character Wooderson, talks about how he is just living, "livin." While this movie is almost 20 years old (ack!!), I still enjoy quoting it from time to time. Actually, truth be told, I probably quote it on a semi-daily basis.

Today is the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend - the official kick-off weekend of the summer season. My plan is for this summer to be my official summer of livin'. I just want to have fun and enjoy myself. For the past two years I have been bogged down with cancer, my treatments, my recovery, my surgeries, the side effects, the emotional breakdowns, and I'm done. I just want to move on and what better way than to focus on having fun. Brandon and I even started our summer a little early. First by going to Belgium and the Netherlands for a week at the end of April/early May. And then by taking a random vacation day earlier this week to visit Cedar Point (the best roller coaster amusement park in the country!).

So what do I have planned for my summer of fun? Let's see...

• When in town for a full week, I will work longer days Monday-Thursday so I can schedule Friday afternoons off.
  
• On these Friday afternoons, I will do something fun including kayaking, going to the movies, drinking sparkling wine in the back yard, or going for a long bike ride.
  
• Maintain a kickass vegetable garden. Try to get the rest of the yard under control and be relatively attractive.
  
• Travel to Hilton Head for Brandon's cousin's wedding, and spend a couple of extra days in Savannah.
  
• Leave a few days early for my annual library conference to spend time with my mother and grandmother. My mother and I are planning to spend one of those days at Rehoboth Beach, one of my favorite places in the world and I haven't been since before all the cancer stuff started.
  
• Spend a weekend on a pontoon boat and camping with friends in southern Indiana.
  
• Try new and different restaurants in Columbus (so maybe I'll stop complaining about how boring I think this city can be).
  

That is my list so far, and I'm sure that I am forgetting something. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for activities I can add to this list. We still haven't decided what to do for Birthday week (Brandon's birthday is 7/14 and mine is 7/19). A few years ago we went to Albuquerque, and last year we went to Toronto. Some years, we stay home and try to do something different each night (mini golf, go out for ice cream, watch a movie,...). And Nanette and Chris are planning a visit out here for a couple of days during the week after my birthday. So more activities are sure to be scheduled for this awesome summer of livin'.

P.S. I still need to have one more surgery this summer which will put a slight damper on all the fun to be had. Hopefully the date for this surgery will be chosen on Tuesday.

P.P.S. And I'm going to try to be better about writing the blog. It helps with my emotional and mental healing, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood to write.

Surgery Follow-Up

Brandon and I traveled to Cleveland yesterday for my post-surgical follow-up visit. Scars are looking good. Magic Fingers is preparing for a presentation and asked if I would allow him to use photos of me, to which I agreed. So I got to have a photo session of my new torso. Otherwise, it was a fairly routine visit. While having the tape scrapped of me, we did chat about Belgium -- turns out Magic Fingers is a big fan, so he gave us some recommendations for our upcoming trip.

In regards to recovering, my energy levels are increasing. On Sunday, when Brandon and I went to Target to get me some spanx-like undergarments (which I will need to wear for about a month to help keep my abdomen in place), he was concerned that I wouldn't be able to walk the entire length of the box store. So he suggested I get one of the motorized carts. What a bizarre experience. Other customers pretty much did their best to not look at me, or avoid me at all cost. The cart did move a bit faster than I would have guessed, so that was pretty cool. But yesterday, I was able to walk around a mall and eat a really high caloric Mrs. Field's cookie. No more motorized carts for me.

I'm sorry this entry is kind of lame. I'm really sleepy but it is too late in the afternoon for me to take a nap. The neighborhood was a buzz with activity this afternoon so I couldn't calm down enough to rest when a nap would have been appropriate. The former neighbor that drives around town on a riding mower recently returned, and he kept revving his ride off and on during prime napping time. The teenagers up the street discovered whistles, so I kept hearing a constant bleet followed by peels of laughter. And someone, somewhere nearby was hammering all afternoon. I think I might go to bed really early tonight. Oh if only my 25-year old self could see me now.

FYI OMG

Earlier this week, I learned about the OMG! Cancer Summit for Young Adults. The 3rd annual conference will be held on May 23, 2010 in New York on the campus of Pace University. The event sounds like a wonderful opportunity to meet other young people who share similar cancer-related concerns. The day-long event will offer networking opportunities and host different panel discussions. Panel topics of high interest to me are on fertility issues and living life after cancer, but also listed on the agenda are conversations on employment/insurance, sex & relationships, and social media advocacy. Well known names in the young person's cancer world, including Kairol Rosenthal, author of Everything Changes: The Insider's Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s and Matthew Zachary, founder of I'm Too Young For This!, are highlighted as panel participants, I don't know if I will be able to attend, but I am most definitely considering it.

To learn more about OMG! 2010 go to http://omgsummit.org/2010/index.html. Registration begins on April 5.

Hat Free Zone

Last winter, I always had my bald head covered with either a cranial prosthetic or hat. I didn't want anyone to see my hair-free head. Not even Brandon. The idea of being bald made me unhappy and uncomfortable, the reality was even worse. A hat became a symbol of hiding. Now a year later, it is winter again, and the ice and snow show no signs of relenting. And I don't want to wear a hat.

I know hats are good for you. A hat keeps your body warm. And warm is good. Very good. But I still don't want to wear a hat. Hopefully, many years from now and after many therapy sessions, I will overcome my remaining psychological issues pertaining to chemo (so I apologize to you, those who read this blog, for the continuing chemo-related posts).

The reason why I choose to wear a hat this winter is so I can remain healthy for my next surgery. I don't want any pesky winter ailment holding me back from getting my next surgical procedure. Someday I will be normal again. I will wear a hat because I want to wear a hat, and I won't have another surgery on the horizon.

Surgery Scheduled

My first of two followup surgeries for my DIEP procedure has finally been scheduled. I will go under the knife on February 23rd. When I last saw Magic Fingers (my nickname for my surgeon), he said this surgery should only take a couple of hours. Compared with the 15 hours of the last one, two hours is nothing.

Now begins my mad dash to complete all the half-finished projects at work. Plus I will need to find time some day this week (exact time and date are TBD) to go to a doctor, have a not very invasive physical to determine if my body can withstand surgery, and get some blood drawn. A chance exists that I may get to go to my local doctor, but with the scheduling being so last minute, I worry that I won't be able to make an appointment with enough time. Sometimes my doctor's office can be difficult when making appointments, although it seems ever since I entered into the world of breast cancer, I get some preferential treatment. My local doctor was diagnosed with it last year, and I wonder if my file has been tagged because I've been able to get an appointment fairly easily, and sometimes when I am not even sure if the office is open for business. If I can't see the local doctor, I will probably be making a day-long trip to Cleveland.

I need to stop stressing about work, but I've got a lot to do in a very short time. And this time it is not because I am procrastinator (which I am). If this surgery were happening over the summer, I would not be as nearly stressed as I am today. I work at a college, so my stress levels vary depending upon the semester cycle. Since spring break is only a couple of weeks away, students are needing midterm assistance. I've got a library instruction session scheduled for early this week. Each one of these sessions needs to be custom tailored to the class, and even more specifically, to the assignment. Ack! Plus I am one of the main planners for an event for the campus which is scheduled for right after my surgery, which means I've got a lot of work to do before my surgery. Some of the work can be delegated but it does look like I'll be going to work today, on Saturday, so I can begin the week being partially organized. Boo!

Neither a cliche nor a coherent thought

My post today was going to be on the recent changes in my life but everything I wrote (and then erased) has been a cliche. Nobody wants to read that crap, and I don't want to write it. Sorry. Maybe I'll do it better next time. Instead here is an update on my weekend activities:

My sisters came to visit me this weekend. We had a great time. We watched movies, drank wine (the first drinks that I have had since surgery), went to a day spa, and ate like pigs. I am sad to see them leave. They drove away in their rental cars a little while ago so they can catch their respective flights back to urban civilization.

Last weekend was supposed to have been my bachelorette "party" weekend. The plan was to stay at our mother's condo at the beach in Delaware. I never knew any of the secret plans that my sister Jennifer had thought up, but I am sure it would have been great. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the weekend because I couldn't travel with a tube coming out of my side -- not an optimal set-up for a relaxing weekend with friends at the beach. The cancellation also meant that I am not going to experience my annual "dip the feet into the atlantic ocean" renewal. Maybe an explanation as to why this year has felt a little off? Every year I put my feet in the ocean, even for a minute.

A couple of friends did visit with me last weekend. One friend came for the night. We had a great time watching movies, staying up late chatting, eating pizza and other horrible foods, etc... Brandon and I met up with another friend in Columbus for lunch -- the lunch where I wore pajama pants to a nice restaurant (For those who are concerned about my state of (or absence of) dress, I have begun to wear jeans again).

It is nice to see friends and to pretend that my life is still normal, but I can barely close a car door on my own and my chest scars hurt. I must do these arm exercises in order to regain full mobility in my right arm. I'm not so good at remembering but the threat of going to physical therapy has me trying my best to do them at least every other hour or so. Hopefully my arm muscles will be back to their original state very soon. I'll soon need to regain the ability to lift a suitcase into an airplane's overhead luggage bin.

Ok, time for me to stop rambling. I've even bored myself. I'll try to do better next time. Sometimes a blog entry is just an opportunity for me to get some thoughts that are floating around in my head out into the open air. Whether the sharing of thoughts is a good idea or bad idea remains to be seen.