I’m checked into my hospital room.
The surgery went well. New boob is a major improvement on Tupperware boob even with the swelling.
Epidurals rule time and space. We’ll see how the switch to oral pain meds goes tomorrow.
Thanks to all of you for your kind concern, prayers, and healing thoughts my way.
According to the Urban Dictionary, 23 is the “greatest number of all time.” I don’t know about that but for me today, it is a really great number.
Twenty-three years ago today, two unique events occurred. It snowed in Seattle in mid-March and John and I were married.
Tomorrow I have my “big surgery”. Today, I am following a liquid diet and completing a “bowel prep” to help with my recovery after the surgery. Believe me, you don’t want to know. Let’s just say that the most romantic thing that could happen today is for my husband to hand me a single stemmed rose along with a handful of laxatives and a glass of water. Then we can sit on the couch, hold hands, and wait for the fireworks to begin.
Happy anniversary, John! I love you dearly. Thank you for taking such good care of me. Twenty-three is a pretty great number but the greatest numbers are yet to be.
Photo taken 3/10/90. I can’t remember the photographer’s name. Sorry!
10/20/12 Lincoln Park, Seattle. My hubby is still such a sweetie.
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!
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!
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 7/18/12, the day of my second lumpectomy. I was already resting at home and had enough energy and adrenaline to write two posts! This is the second post. I have been very lucky to have such caring and competent medical care. Unfortunately, this surgery was not the end of cancer surgeries since the margins weren’t clear. I had multi-focal cancer, meaning that there were multiple tumors, which although tiny and relatively slow growing, were separate tumors. Consequently, I got another toe squeeze from Dr. Beatty after my mastectomy, which I would have three weeks after I wrote this post.
Surgery went well and I am resting at home. Dr. Beatty reassuringly squeezed my foot as he left after we had our pre-op talk. My first thought? “I have to tell my mom!”.
This is the email my mom sent to my last night after hearing about the clear PEM scan. (It still won’t make total sense so I’ll explain it later in the post.)
Hi Liz,
I was so relieved that I forgot to wish you well on the lumpectomy.Hope all goes well. We love you so much.All week I kept hoping that Dr. Clark would squeeze my footand tell me you’d be OK. I guess he did.
Join us this summer for our reunion in Renton, WA!
George Lakoff has retired as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. His newest book "The Neural Mind" is now available.
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