final phases & cancer gifts

i'm sitting here counting down my last 15 minutes of drinking water/clear liquids before i must stop at 10 am in preparation for surgery, i'm drinking a kombucha, i hope that counts :)

i have hesitated naming this surgery on here because it sounds embarassing and too graphic, like now y'all are gonna be picturing my boobs. but i guess if i don't talk about it, who will, it's a reality of breast cancer & mastectomy & one i certainly never contemplated till it became a decision i had to make. Sooo....today i go to my plastic surgeon to get nipples, actually get them made. part of feeling more normal. hopefully part of being able to get back to my formerly un modest ways in gym changing rooms or whatever other situations may arise
Tattooing for a more real look comes in a few weeks.
Not all women choose to have this, many just get tattoos which i've heard look awesome as is.

should be easy, recovery should be a breeze. but of course anticipating the procedure makes me have lots of emotions. on one side, i'm so used to this and after everything last year, this is easy peasy..
on the other, i'm still "over" needles & pain. I hate the IV, for some reason that part makes me feel fragile & scared & emotinal. it's hard for them to get the IV in on me, always takes more than one try.
Even though i have been told recovery is nothing, i'm still anxious for it. I have been running and yoga-ing and working my booty off at real estate, feeling good & vibrant and energetic. I don't want that derailed. i want to be myself and get on with stuff TOMORROW.

when i think about going thru this today, and really any random time in my life, i sometimes get sad, and feel sorry for me and can't believe this has happened to me. but at the same time, i truly cannot imagine my life continuing on it's path as it was before. I feel heightened to life & joy & potential....and it's because of my experience. of overcoming hard shit, of meeting amazing people, of feeling such love and support, of appreciating the value of the tiny.....so many gifts from cancer.

i know that sounds weird

goodbye 2010

i kind of hate blaming a year, or thinking that things will be different because of a calendar. each day is a day to make it ours. nonetheless the new year is the ultmate time marker. and symbol of new hopes.
Tomorrow i write out my year goals, with my dear friend, in our matching wizard of oz journals, eating black eyed peas & greens, just like we did last year. I feel a bit more tentative and anxious. Last year i had strong motivatins, clear goals, wishes, plans. And the first part of the year seemed to be going as planned. And then i got breast cancer. not in the plan. it feels a bit scarier now. part of me has that - fuck last year, THIS year will rule, i'm gonna kick ass and then some to make up for it - feeling. another part of me has that - what's the point of planning when you have no control over what the eff happens in life - feeling. scary. everything is harder than it used to be. motivation & hope are a littl bit harder to find.

I am waiting till the moment to see what comes out onto my paper - Guess which one will probably win :)


update: i had my replacement surgery Dec 14th, it's been a bit rough. about 5 days after i started a fever and one side had several red patches. Got new strong antibiotics. Seemed to feel better after a couple of days, finshed the antibiotics. Then again a couple a days later one area got really red again and painful. So now i'm on antibiotics again. I am feeling a bit better just discouraged and reall really tired of not feeling great.
In other news, my hair is growing pretty nicely - i am so over scarves i'm not wearing them anymore, but it's too short for me to just wear out so i'm wearing a cute hat these days. Oh an my eyebrows are back already.

been a while....need more glitter

wow, so it's been a month ish that i've written here. I guess it's been a pretty rough month and i didn't feel like whine writing. sometimes it helps but sometimes it gets on my own nerves to hear me.

it's been a rough month for a number of reasons. i think a lot has to do emotionaly with a coming down of sorts from the drama of surgury & chemo. now it's past, life is getting back to normal, except it's not.

I started Tamoxifen - that could have a lot to do with it. it can cause emotional shit & depression. I thought i was weepy before?? it sucks

I've finished getting the expanders expanded, but the last three were super painful & uncomfortable, shockingly so. No as I await surgery the pain is gone but they are still ridic uncomfortable. I don't know how to dress even sometimes.

Finances have been a strain - in real estate you have to be always working a few months ahead to keep it steady, screeching to a halt this summer is still affecting me. Working my ass off now. Loving it but disheartening for earnings not to be reliable like a job job

I want my head hear to be more normal, it is growing back tho, but i can see how slow it's gonna be, i'm ready for the Ellen do.
And this today, i noticed that my eybrows are now falling out. 6 weeks since my last chemo!!!???  seems unfair. I'm patching together normalness, this feels like a set back.

ok purged. done. I am not great at wallowing. don't worry, i have cried a ton. I just know that if i get too caught up in the sad i won't move forward somewhere. I have to work, i have to be a good mom, i have to make money and i like those things, so i don't want to mess them up.
I will go to Sephora this weekend and ask a girl or guy there to help, and i will purchase some excellent brow product no matter how much it costs.  Maybe i need a new glitter eyeliner to remind me?

PS - my replacemnt surgery is December 14th - for you lay people - that's new boob surgery. yahooooooo

schedule schmedule

i really need to stop with the expectations and planning
i always think of myself as so go with the flow and easy going, and really i am, but in this, i have found that counting days, figuring out when stuff is gonna happen or be over, gives me a sense of control, except it doesn't...

so first of all, i didn't start chemo on the 27th, i changed that to Aug 10th a while ago, cos somehow i just knew the 27th would be too soon. I was right.

I am recovering from surgery a bit slower than i expected.
the magical date of 2 weeks after surgery came, and my drains weren't ready to come out. 2 of them did, but the other 2 were nowhere close. drains are annoying, yucky, and constricting. my warddrobe is limited to the camisoles with pockets, the tube sites hurt. and it is frustrating to not be like i was supposed to be.
I'm also still in more pain and more tired than i imagined i would be.
Then i got a low grade fever &  some redness at one of the incision sites. Luckily i had a prescription for antibiotic on hand so hopefully that will take care of any potential infection.

Good news is today i did get the last two drains out - FREEDOM! sadly it hurt so effin much i cried my eyes out, and it pretty much wiped my whole day out. my poor sweet plastic surgeon wiped my eyes with tissue and joked i was crying tears of gratitude for my Dr. he felt so bad.
Also a bummer is that i didn't get expanded at all, i haven't once since surgery, he wants to wait till the redness goes.  this is when he said the words "you are a bit behind schedule, but it's all good" - thankfully what imprinted was the it's all good part. 
I take it as a lesson, to let go and be ok with a plan and schedule that is out of my control. And to trust.
I tend to catastrophize things if it's not EXACTLY how i was told or what i expected, and obsess that it must be all wrong.  The people around me are reaallllyyy good at recoginzing that and snapping me out of it. 

oh, and Dr H wants to walk on my Komen Race for the Cure Team, even though Beth & I warned him he would have to don a bedazzled tee shirt, i think it was the promise of Tito's bloody mary's. whatever, it's awesome.