Protected: The Big Band/Big Climb Weekend
Protected: We Have a Winner!
Protected: Big day, big day, big day!!!!!
I had a check-up with Dr. Welk yesterday to get my stitches taken out of my belly button. (Oh yeah, I neglected to mention that a consequence of removing a lot of abdominal tissue when creating the TRAM flap, means that the belly button needs to be attached to new skin and fat. So, my belly button is in the same place, but it’s been stitched to a whole new abdominal environment.)
Everything continues to look excellent and Dr. Welk told me that he doesn’t need to see me for another month. John and I had a number of questions, which basically boiled down to “What would Elizabeth have to do to completely wreck the TRAM surgery and need an even bigger surgery to fix it?” And no, we are not paranoid, Dr. Welk had told us of this possibility.
So here’s the “don’t” list:
1) No bathing or walking of really large dogs, who may run away unexpectedly, while you are still holding on to them.
2) No drunken table dancing.
My weekend plans are ruined.
I am not a naturally calm person. Like many successful nerds, I am naturally anxious. I like to know what to expect and if what is expected is not to my liking, I like to know how to change it. I like it when people are happy and they like me. I would like to know that my wonderful and unique daughter could never be harmed and will be a happy adult with meaningful relationships and work. I would really like it if none of the people I love got sick or died. I would also like it if my house were clean 24/7. Finally, I would like it if my daughter were to stop singing a Justin Bieber song at the top of her voice, while I am trying to write this post. I don’t care if she’s changed the words to “this is such a stupid song.” It’s REALLY loud. And it’s a Justin Bieber song and not only are his songs bad but it looks like his life may be going toward a very sad Lindsey Lohan direction. I’m a mom and a lover of kids and I don’t want a sad life for Justin Bieber, whether I like his songs or not.
But I have digressed, once again. None of us have control over our lives. We have influence and that is it. It is the same for our children’s lives. We have influence but not control. It is the same for breast cancer. I have influence to reduce the risk of recurrence or the occurrence of another potentially deadly disease, but not total control. As individuals, our relationship with the universe is one in which we matter but are not masters.
Prior to my forties, my current life circumstances would have likely put me around the bend. There would be a lot more crying and beating of my breast. I would yell at my husband, a lot, because that is what I do when I am feeling totally out of control. Or I would just stay in bed all day, every day, thinking dark and scary thoughts.
Not to say I don’t have my moments, but I am still a happy person and pretty even-keeled. To what do I attribute this calm? Well, there are a lot of things including my wonderful friends, family, healthcare providers, and blog buddies, but today I want to talk about mindfulness.
Mindfulness meditation is the real deal. It has been used in eastern philosophical and religious traditions for a long long time and in mainstream, evidence-based psychology, and behavioral medicine for 20-30 years (yeah, I should look it up, but I am lazy). I am far from an expert in mindfulness but even my very beginner-level 10 minutes of deep breathing every morning and evening coupled with a mindset of trying to stay in the moment and observe and accept what comes my way, have gone an enormous way in helping me keep balance in my life.
And this is not a fringe practice, mind you, the big University of Washington, which is turbo-research oriented and one of the top institutions in the country (multiple disciplines including psychology and medicine), loves mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation is helpful for a myriad of difficulties from suicidality, to day-to-day stress management, to pain management, to the prevention of the recurrence of breast cancer.
I started practicing mindfulness consistently after my mastectomy. The first thing I noticed is that meditation was relaxing and unlike some other forms of meditation I have done, I wasn’t struggling to make my mind “blank”. In mindfulness, it’s not a “no-no” to drift off in thought. It’s just something that happens. The second thing I noticed was that my brain got a chance to rest. That doesn’t happen frequently for me. I have a very busy brain, which was put into turbo drive by my cancer diagnosis. The “voices in my head” gradually became less chatty and frenetic. The third thing I noticed is that I became much less irritable and much better equipped to handle big stressors without freaking out.
If you are interested in trying it out, if only to help pass the time while you are seated in a doctor’s waiting room, I recommend any of the following resources:
Mindfulness Meditations for Teens (Yeah, I know it says “teens” but it’s my favorite and very applicable to the world of adults) by Bodhipaksa. I also see that in addition to CD form, it is now available as an mp3 download.
Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery: A Step-by-Step MBSR Approach to Help You Cope with Treatment and Reclaim Your Life (This is particularly good if you like a program that is laid out for you week by week. There are a number of mindfulness techniques explained, including breathing, meditation, and yoga.
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. (This is a good place to start if you would like a background on mindfulness meditation. The author, Dr. Kabat-Zinn has been teaching mindfulness meditation skills for decades and also produces CD’s. and mp3 downloads.)
The Tupperware hard plastic tissue expander is gone and so are the drains. My breast is nearly 100% human made from human materials. And the materials came from me. I am full of myself. I like it.
But in the spirit of “It’s more blessed to give than to receive,” let’s chat a bit about the donor site, which was my abdomen. I’m still swollen but literally shrinking by the day. A few days after surgery, my waistline was six inches larger than before surgery, even though a whole lotta tissue had been removed. The next day, I’d lost two inches. (Settle down, peeps, I’ve been keeping measurements to monitor any fluid build-up, which I didn’t notice after my expander surgery because I was too busy admiring the fact that I had cleavage again!) Today, I’m about two inches bigger than usual. This number will continue to drop, but it has been very clear since day 1 after surgery that my stomach is much flatter than it used to be.
Obviously, I expected this, in fact I relished the thought of having a flat abdomen. Even before becoming a mom, I’ve always had a little more than average size stomach, no matter whether I was at a healthy weight or not. I’ve had a few of those awkward, “Oh you’re pregnant, congratulations!” conversations. Ten years ago, I’d even lost 20 pounds and was greeted by my then hairstylist, “When is your baby due?” My response? “Four years ago.”
So you’d think I would be thrilled with development but I admit it looks a little foreign.
Some how, I will get over it!
So I felt much better this morning. That’s the good news. The bad news? The nagging thoughts that I should be doing something more productive with my time, like my business taxes! Oh wait, did I write, “nagging thoughts”? I meant to write “the nagging thoughts inspired by my nagging husband.”
John asked me two days ago when I was planning to do my part of our tax return, basically the part that covers my psychology practice. He was asking me before the surgery and I told him that it was a project that I would do during my medical leave. It takes about 2 days when I have a full tank of brain. I told John that I’d been out of the hospital less than a week and he needed to not ask me about it. He asked when he could nag remind me about it again and I told him he could ask again in a week.
Okay, so this is the same man who after I requested that we stop at my office to pick up my mail on the way home from my doctor’s appointment, asked, “You’re not thinking of WORKING are you?” He settled down when he realized that I was just planning to pick up the checks from insurance companies and patients that have accumulated in over a week since I’d been in. I am paid from many sources. There’s no auto-deposit option.
So, if you haven’t caught on by now, although I harbored those ever present feelings of love for my wonderful husband, I was also experiencing a wave of irritation. When I woke up this morning, I had a lot more energy than yesterday. I was happy and then I started feeling guilty. “Oh man, maybe I should stop putting off doing the taxes.” Then I talked myself out of it for a few minutes. Then I realized that I was really bored.
The days have been going by pretty slowly, after all, even on the ones when I nap a lot. So I started my taxes. And you know what? The time passed a lot more quickly and I have a feeling of accomplishment.
Does this mean I’m going to just push through this every day until it’s done? Probably not. In the spirit of mindfulness, I’m just going to take things as they come and make the plans that make the most sense each day.
And to cap it all off, I was able to walk a mile today and I felt good the whole time! I have now walked over 300 miles since I started tracking my walks at the beginning of December! Yay!
Protected: My brain is dead but it’s a good kind of dead
Protected: You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy
I am at home now and so enjoying the chair I rented from a medical supply store. Here’s a picture of a similar one:
This is the most comfortable convalescence option ever!
It has a motorized lift for getting in and out. It also reclines to all kinds of angles and is a sleep chair. I am so comfy right now that I can’t believe it. I also rented a table that swings over it. That way I can type on my laptop without putting it on my sore lap. We are also hoping that by keeping the tray positioned over my abdomen that it will dissuade our 15 pound cat from jumping into my lap.
And finally, there’s the throne lifter that I got on Amazon.
Toilet riser manufactured by Drive.
And if all of this doesn’t sound like the utmost in glamor, I am wearing some pretty cute Japanese print pj’s.
My Eyes Are Up Here 