This too shall pass...

Four weeks today since I had my exchange procedure (for those of you wondering what that means, I am talking about having my tissue expanders exchanged for final silicone implants - the ladies who will continue to defy gravity when i'm well into my 80s!).  It is amazing how uncomfortable I felt just four weeks ago.  How the stitches would pull and ache underneath the implants when I would stretch my hands above my head.  I thought I was never really going to get full mobility because they ached so much!  But now, I can put my hands over my head with no problem!  I can also walk for 50 minutes and feel no pain afterwards.  Things are good!!!

Where am I going with this rambling?  I know, I do that often.  But I am just realizing that throughout this whole ordeal I can remember thinking that I was never going to feel better, never get through the pain, never get through a night without pain/anxiety medicine to help me sleep, but it passed and now I'm at a much better place.

I even forgot how awful I would feel on my bad days during chemo, and my middle daughter, just shy of 4 years old, would lie down in bed with me and take a nap with me, just because she was worried about me.  It was so wonderful to have her near me and not afraid of me.  She wasn't like that a few months before, when she told me she didn't like me (when I had my drains in after the mastectomy).  So it felt very nice to have her near me...

I guess I just want women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and who are waiting to talk to their doctor, their cancer surgeon, their plastic surgeon, their oncologist, worried that they are going to lose their hair, that it all goes away, it does get better, it is temporary.  And while it is real and it is really awful while going through all of it, this too shall pass...oh, and by the way, I finally got a bikini wax!!!  I know, I know, still too much information, but I am glad to say that I finally needed one!!!

Paying It Forward

Well, I had my first real post-surgery mentor conversation with a woman who had a double mastectomy a month ago, and is just starting the tissue expansion, and knows she has to go through chemotherapy soon.  I tried to be as positive as I possibly could, I spent most of the time telling this woman that "this too shall pass." 

I wanted to tell her that the rest of her tissue expansions (she just finished her first) wouldn't be uncomfortable (painful is the word I really wanted to use); instead, I told her that the expansions might get more uncomfortable but that it gets more comfortable (when the tissue expanders come out and the final implants are put in...no, seriously, about a month after my final expansion I finally stopped taking pain pills to sleep).  I did tell her how I would wake up in the middle of the night and bolt upright from the pain, but that was only seven months ago and now I've got my final implants so that "discomfort" is over.

I tried to tell her that chemo isn't as bad as one might think, but that would have been a lie.  Instead, I told her that chemo sucks when you are going through it, and that's when you need to have a good support system to help out on the really awful days, but that it all ends and your hair does grow back and you start to forget how awful you felt and that your energy really does come back.  I told her to try and remain active, even though it was difficult to get out of bed on the worst days, and to keep focusing on the positive.

Funny, the silver lining for this woman, as it remains for myself, is that we get new perky boobs.  I didn't tell her that they don't feel like the other ones did, that even though these implants feel more comfortable than the expanders that they really don't feel like breasts to me.  That sensation is gone. 

But that is not what matters.  What matters is that I am alive and that I will be alive to dance at my childrens' weddings.  What matters is that the surgeons and the chemo got all of the cancer out of my body (well, I'm 99.9% sure of that) and that I am at a good hospital and the chance for recurrence is so small that I try to leave that fear in the very dark recesses of my mind.  What matters is that after a year of total crap, I am still fairly normal...and fairly healthy.

I am glad that I have people to talk to about my experience (ordeal?) and while there are too many other women whose names I was given to call and talk about their experiences, sometimes it does get too much.  I still find myself emotionally exhausted after a breast cancer-reconstruction-chemotherapy conversation, though the conversations are priceless and I appreciate every minute someone will spend talking to me.  And so, begins my paying it forward and helping out those people who are a few steps behind me...it's just there are more and more women with breast cancer and it shouldn't be that way...

Making Excuses

I really hate making excuses as to why I don't write every day.  It's not like I don't have much to write about, but I swear some days I just cannot find the time to write.  Or sometimes, when I sit down to write I just cannot figure out how to get the words out...but that is another blog for another time, I guess.

Three weeks since I had the "exchange procedure".  I am feeling better every day, though sometimes at night, when I try to sleep on my side, the stitches really hurt, but other than some nagging pains every once in a while and the fact that I have to wear very supportive bras 24/7 for 6 weeks (half way there!) I am really feeling pretty good!  I don't even need to take pain meds at night and haven't taken anti-anxiety medicine since the night before the exchange procedure!  Nice to know that the surgery is over with and only 3 more weeks to go until I can pick up my three kids and swing them around a bit.  Here are some cute pictures of them from the year:

And these picutres are part of the reason I haven't been writing much.  I confess, I am not very good at putting photos in albums for my kids.  I have a shopping bag FILLED with pictures of them from the past 5 years, and while I'd like to say that I've been kind of busy (with 3 kids under the age of 5 and a husband who for 4 of those 5 years left for work before they woke up and got home after they all went to bed, and spending the last year in crisis mode with a breast cancer diagnosis and the year before that, my only sibling dying...but there I go making excuses again!)  and haven't had the chance to put the photos in albums, I'm tired of excuses.  So why is this preventing me from blogging?

I've decided that I am going to make the kids photo books for each year and just put the best pictures of the whole family in the books.  So, I have spent the past few weeks uploading pictures to Kodak Gallery and am now in the process of making the family album.

I just hope I can keep up with this every year...but before I end my blog, I want to write a quick summary of what I meant to post a week ago for Thanksgiving:

I am thankful for my health.  I am thankful for the ability to get up and move.  I am thankful for my beautiful young children who don't give me much time to feel sick or sorry for myself.  I am thankful for the most wonderfully supportive husband who tells me how proud he is of me on a regular basis and who is not only the man that I love but a person who I really like and admire.  I am thankful for both of my parents who have always been supportive in my life but have really stepped up to the plate over the past year without freaking out in front of me at all.  I am thankful for my other parents, I hate calling them in-laws, who treat me like a member of their own family, and who have also been so incredibly supportive of me and have been so helpful to our family.  I am thankful for family on both mine and my husband's side for showing us so much love and support.  I am thankful for friends, both old and new, who have come out of the woodwork to give us their support through this past year.  I am thankful for so many other things, but one thing I think I have made known through this blog is I am thankful for hair growth and the fact that I finally need that bikini wax!!!  I know, I know, too much information, but I've been talking about it so much over the past few months, I thought I'd add that in for comic relief!!! 

Happy thanksgiving! I am greatful for my family & friends & feeling well! Oh yeah, and to hair growth!;)

Finally showered! Feels great! Yeah!

Over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders

After you get your final implants, you have to walk around 24 hours a day wearing a bra to make sure that the stitches heal well.  Okay, that's fine, but it's not so easy to meet all the other requirements:  no underwire (because you don't need it and it will rub the stitches underneath the breasts), the bottom of the bra cannot touch underneath the breast directly (because that will hurt the stitches underneath the breasts) and it cannot too tight (because they said not too tight).

I was going to spend this post bitching about how hard it was to find these types of bras and how I felt lost going into a number of stores unable to find what I needed, but I just got off the phone with my cousin and all those mild complaints went out the window.  (Plus, I was able to go online and buy some bras that will work, so really no reason to bitch).

My cousin just recently learned that her teenage daughter suffers from bulimia.  They decided to put her in a facility for a month to help her deal with this issue.  While all seems to be going well in the facility (so my cousin says) she had an awful phone call with her daughter yesterday where her daughter told her she hated her, and that she was conceited and looked down on other people.  My cousin sounded so distraught while telling me about this.  She said she was sad.  Oh, and might I add that this is the same cousin who went through a double mastectomy with reconstruction a few years before me?

You never know what is down the road, and, unfortunately, even though you might think your situation is horrible and couldn't get much worse, you don't have to look far to find someone in a more difficult situation than you!  So, I'll continue to focus on the good things in my life, be thankful that my dad was in town this week to help out with the kids so I could recover and be grateful that I felt well enough today to take a nice long walk with my dad.  Things are looking up!

My many faces of breast cancer

Okay, at the risk of never leaving the computer and never sleeping again, I am going to just post some pics the old-fashioned way.  I really wanted to show you the many faces of me during the cancer treatment process via a slideshow, but I'm having a hard time doing that (I just cannot figure this blogger thing out!)  So, I'm just going to try and post some pics in a regular posting.

This first picture is sporting the dude-rag, schmata, bandana...whatever you want to call it...I still hate having no hair.

Here is me in the height of my baldness.  I just could not go out in public looking like this.  I cannot go out without something on now and I have a substantial covering all over my head...

Okay, so I'm not wearing any make up, but disregard the face and please notice the hair.  I just still cannot go without a wig...I just hate myself without hair.  Have I mentioned that before???

Do blondes have more fun?  Well, I thought if I had a few wigs to use, I could change my look according to my mood.

This is the brunette wig...at first, I loved this one, but lately I've been all about the blonde...and now, the piece de resistance:

Which one do you guys like the best???