Fifteen minutes ago, my 14 year-old daughter took a towel off of her head. She is now a red head.
Whatever.
Okay, although I am totally “over it” some of you have asked for a picture. Here’s the picture from the box.
I’ve been remiss in communicating gracious appreciation for two events:
1) Nomination for the “Beautiful Blogger” Award from Chymeera. Thank you so much! I enjoy your blog and agree that your eyes really do “pop” in that recent photo you posted. Additionally, you are a lovely woman. If this is what you look like when you are going through cancer treatment, when you are feeling better, it’s going to be, “Dang, girl you look fabulous!”
2) Recognition by the Empowered Doctor health news site as a “Top Cancer Blog“. How cool is that? I know that some of my blog buddies out there have also been recognized the same way. Good for you! I thought it was a “pay us some money and we will advertise your blog” type thing but was pleased to learn that it is not. Forgive my initial cynicism but I get those kinds of calls in my business as a psychologist and they end up being telemarketing calls.
Finally, in the spirit of the “Beautiful Blogger Award”, which is given from one blogger to another, I would like to highlight a blog. There are many wonderful breast cancer blogs but I have up until now, yet to encounter a blog devoted to lymphedema.
Introducing Helen, who “lives in the land down under”. Helen just started the blog, My Lymph Node Transplant. She is a many year uterine cancer survivor. Part of her treatment included removing 22 lymph nodes, which resulted in continuing struggles with lymphedema. I was lucky (knock on wood) to only lose one lymph node as part of a sentinel node biopsy. I knew it could be bothersome and leave one more vulnerable to infection, but I had no idea how serious the condition could get until reading Helen’s blog. She not only describes her own life experience as she awaits her lymph node transplant (a new surgery) in a few days, but has also set up her blog as a treasure trove of clearly written educational information. Check out her blog!
I saw Dr. Welk yesterday for a marking appointment. He took a blue Sharpie marker and drew a surgical incision map on my torso. (Tip: Remove any skin creams or oils before the marking appointment, especially if you’ve had a full body massage a few hours before your appointment. Otherwise, Dr. W your plastic surgeon will get annoyed with you and you will have to go to the restroom and clean up your skin.) I must be special because I got way more markings than are shown on the illustration, below. He also explained the procedure to me.
Here’s the first picture of a pedicled TRAM procedure I’ve found online that actually makes sense to me. My surgery is a little different. First, the picture below is of immediate reconstruction. That means that an onco surgeon does the mastectomy followed by a plastic surgeon doing the TRAM surgery all during the same surgery. I am having delayed surgery. I had a mastectomy last August. Dr. Welk is also not using any skin from the TRAM flap in the reconstruction. He’s only using the fat from my abdomen and discarding the skin. I am keeping all of my breast skin. That was the whole point of his putting a tissue expander (temporary implant, which is gradually filled with saline over a number of months) under my skin. He was able to expand my skin to make up for what was lost during the previous breast surgeries. This was possible because I did not have radiation treatment and I had a full skin sparing mastectomy.
Well, not exactly. My surgery on Monday will be at Swedish Hospital, founded by some Swedish-American physicians in 1908. Swedish Medical Center is pretty much a Seattle institution both literally and figuratively.
I asked John to stay with me in the hospital. He, being the wonderful hubby that he is, naturally said, “yes.” Then he added, “I’m looking forward to it. It will be like camping!”
Yes, like going on a camping trip and being mauled by a bear who rearranged my parts and hopefully supplies me with really awesome pain meds!
I am feeling so much better today than yesterday. The main reason for this is that I received some fantastic news from my friend, Brian who was diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma over a year ago. His tumor was the size of a volleyball and he was initially told to “get his affairs in order”. Brian had one surgery with FIVE surgeons. There was still a lot of cancer showing on a subsequent scan. He went for a second opinion and ended up changing medical teams to the University of Washington. Brian did a course of radiation and then another surgery last September, again requiring a team of five surgeons. The margins were not totally clear. He had a follow up of targeted radiation.
This is what I read on Brian’s blog yesterday:
I’m happy to have great news to share. I got a CT scan of my chest and an MRI of my pelvis this week and the results were great. The CT scan is to check for new cancer bits spreading into my lungs, the MRI is to check the surgery site where lingering cancer cells they did not remove in the surgery or kill with the radiation could grow into new tumors. The scans showed that both areas are free and clear. There was nothing of concern, no visible cancer, nothing to worry about. That’s as good as it gets.
Needless to say I was having some fairly uncomfortable times leading up to this since if it had gone differently that would have been very bad news. Its unsettling to have so much up in the air. I’ve been realizing the last couple days how stressful that was, since in particular the day after the tests I was really wiped out tired.
The plan now is to continue to do scans every 3 months, perhaps for 3 more times, then go to every 6 months. Particularly with the type of cancer I have it’s hard to ever know the whole story for sure. There is a chance it could still come back. But the fact that this round of tests came up totally negative is huge. And a massive relief.
I’m still working on surgery recovery. I think the real story is that 6 weeks of radiation does a lot of damage and apparently continues to do damage for up to a year. That seems to explain why I’m still having to work hard at rehab, still have some weakness and soreness, still feel the surgery site all the time. But it’s not too bad, I’ve been skiing and pretty much doing what I want so I’m fortunate. The fact that one of my doctors asked me if I’ve been using narcotics for the pain seems to indicate that for a lot of people the recovery process is far longer and harder- I haven’t had ‘pain’ from the surgery requiring anything for many months.
So, despite the incredibly dire prognoses given to me and unfortunately my mom and others around the time of the first surgery, I appear to be on the road to cured and am healthy now and doing fantastic!
We chatted on the phone yesterday. What a relief for anyone but especially a single dad of an 11 year-old boy! I am just thrilled!
At least until May, that is. Yes, this means that I finished all of my assessment reports! Hoorah! I have also finished all of my sessions with patients until late April.
Hooray! Hooray!
Okay, I lied a little. I still have three progress notes to write and some insurance claims to sign.
Update: Now all of the paperwork is done! Yay!
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This blog was posted on 8/1/12. This stressful period of my life was good comedy material, prompting my brother to quip, “Cancer has made you clever.”
You remember who was in the chorus of the Gene Wilder musical classic? Yes, the Oompa Loompas. And what color were the Oompa Loompas? Yes, they were orange. And what color were my roots after using an unfortunate shade of Clairol Natural Instincts? Yes, they were a very deep shade of overripe cantalope. “Natural” Instincts, my ass!
I’ve never messed up a hair color before but I haven’t done it myself for several years and apparently, Clairol Natural Instincts uses a totally different formula than they did when I last used their products. And they are on a melon kick! Not to be seen in public (other than going to Target to get a fix for this), I used a non-permanent, normal looking reddish brown dye today. Ah, much better. Most of the melon is gone.
The Oompa Loompas would say that my parents are to blame for this mishap (“…the mother and the fa-ather”). However, the same thing happened to my mom and she warned me about it. When did I remember this? After I rinsed the color out of my hair! So, I’ve decided to blame Roald Dahl.
It will be so nice to be able to go back to the salon. It will happen.
P.S. The color was just like this except MORE orange. No lie.
The Oompa Loompas after disobeying their lax parents in the Clairol Factory and falling into a vat of Natural Instincts “Dark Auburn.”
This post is from 7/31/12, the day of my first visit to a plastic surgery office. It was surreal.
This afternoon I met with Drew Welk, M.D. a plastic surgeon at the Polyclinic. We had a good meeting and it was interesting to shift from a physician who focuses on disease treatment to one who focuses on aesthetics. I found out that my incision is not in the best place to which I replied, “Yeah, my cancer insists on being all kinds of inconvenient.” To his credit, he laughed at my ribbing. I did learn that I have very favorable “breast geometry” with only a little post-partum loss of muscle tone. Yay, my breasts got complimented! They’ve been a little starved for positive comments lately, especially the right one, which is currently looks like a more than a little like a dented tin can these days.
Dr. Welk is talking to Dr. Beatty tomorrow to share his input regarding the best way to make incisions for the mastectomy so that he has something reasonable to work with later after the fat has been removed from my skin, the latter of which I get to keep. He took pictures in the clinic photography booth, which was set up like the DMV, except for the fact that I was partially disrobed and he had his choice of three different expensive looking cameras. (Or maybe the other cameras belonged to other surgeons. That makes more sense.) He took the last picture after he’d drawn a little incision map with a Sharpie.
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I liked him. Plus it was a surgery day for him so between his energetic demeanor and the fact that he was wearing scrubs, he looked like a surgeon action figure. (Not to be confused with 1973’s surgeon Barbie and yes, she was real; click the link. Also, not to be confused with an action figure for the character, Surgeon from Hellraiser 2. Mom don’t go to that link: That surgeon doll is heinous.)
Okay, so Michelangelo is probably not the best sculptor to reference in this post. He was criticized for the way he sculpted breasts, basically that it looked like he’d thrown a couple of softballs on top of a suspiciously manly shaped torso. A better sculptor might be the 20th century artist, Lachaise. That man knew how to sculpt realistic breasts on refreshingly substantial looking women. Hmm. “The Lachaise of La Twins”? I’ll stick with Michelangelo for the alliteration. My cousin, Beth favors Bernini breasts herself. Bernini’s sculptures are absolutely breath taking but the first thing that comes to my mind is “the Rape of Persephone”–not the image I want in my head when thinking about my breast reconstruction. Beth conceded that Bernini tended to show women on the run. But I present exhibits A, B, and C for your consideration:
One of Lachaise’s fabulous, “Standing Woman” I think this is a clear winner. Unlike “Dawn”, Lachaise’s sculptures of women actual look like a woman modeled for them. Also, Lachaise’s women look like they could fend off a Greek god or random creep in the bushes, unlike Bernini’s stunningly beautiful but nearly defenseless damsels.
Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne. This is Beth’s submission. In this case, Daphne is so desperate to get out of Apollo’s stalkeresque clutches that she turns herself into a tree!
Michelangelo. This is a sculpture I’ve seen in person. It’s from the Tomb of the Medici’s in Florence. This figure is supposed to be “Dawn” Looks like a man named “Don” with softball boobs, am I right?
My Eyes Are Up Here 