What am I supposed to do with these?

It's been almost two weeks since I've lost my breasts. Well, "lost" isn't exactly accurate but who has time to dwell on technicalities? So, anyway, it's been two weeks of ups and downs. At my best, I'm running around like a maniac trying to clean the house or go out for an all day shopping trip. At my worst, I decide to lay in bed for hours watching episodes of "Weeds" on Netflix. The bad days aren't TOO bad....


...until I remove my shirt.

On good days I can just blur out the area. You know, like on a "girls gone wild" commercial? Yeah, I can do that on my good days. But the bad days render me not so talented. I remove my shirt and just stare at this skin that's been left...and I always wonder the same thing, "what am I supposed to do with these?" 

 Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful the tumor is gone. It's just...I went in there prepared for a simple mastectomy and came out with a skin sparring one. I grew up with a mother who had mastectomies, I was prepared to look like her. But I don't.... Instead I have two very different pockets of skin left on my chest. One is a flap that just hangs there... The other is kind of suctioned in to look like a bowl. Gross, right? And I have to stare at them for a whole year?!

I feel so....butchered.

Chemo starts either next week or the week after. I know I will make it through all this, but will this spare skin? Even the dr showed concern as to wether it would be usable in a year. I can only wait and see... And hope for the surgeons sake, that he didn't emotionally torture me for nothing. Heh.

They are gone...

It's been 4 days since I've been breast free as well as, hopefully, cancer free.

Let me start by saying, I feel pretty damn good. I keep thinking that maybe I'm in denial... Should the pain be this minimal? Should I really be up and at it, not laying in bed crying??

Now let me go back to the day of my surgery... Things were a bit surreal.... Well, more than a bit. It started with me being late... So, I got to avoid the hours of waiting in pre op! Everyone seemed to know my name and what I was there for... First thing was nuclear medicine. There, they injected dye in my lymph nodes with four needles via my nipple, no anesthesia. Little breast massages followed to work the dye through... I guess the private last moment I had with my husband was now voided because this Dr just had the last hurrah my breasts were ever gonna experience ... Bastard. After an hour of pictures, I got to get dressed again and the guy actually said, "oh yeah, that's right! I Forgot you wore glasses" =/

Fast forward through scrubbing down, a million of the same questions by every member of the surgery team, kicking Brad out of pre op because he was literally shaking, writing an "l" and "r" on my breasts so they wouldn't get mixed up.... And then waking up.

There was a nurse there telling me something important. All I could feel was the lack of weight on my chest... I touched it when she walked away... And broke down. They were gone! Just like that.... They were there, and now they aren't! Where did they go?? In a waste disposal bag, in a trash can? I was sobbing so hard that two nurses freaked out and were screaming for my nurse, "something's wrong, she's crying, get her pain medicine!"...

My nurse kept asking me where it hurt... Can I breath okay? Is it my throat??

No, I was just gasping for air because I was hyperventilating... Because they were here and now they are just gone, I told her. She hugged me softly and rubbed my back... Told me she was my best friend today and I could cry all I want.

By the time I got to a room and Brad was there, everything was okay... He was smiling from ear to ear, so happy to see me and to see I was the same old rock as always. Happy for the preliminary news that my nodes were cancer free. His happiness made me even more confident in my own. The Dr told us that he had a change of heart about the total skin removal after the nodes turned out negative... So he did a skin sparring mastectomy on both sides. Visually it's not what I was prepared for, but Brad is so confident in me being rid of cancer that he doesn't even seem to care about the new look of things.

So today, I feel pretty damn good!

My decision...

I was told today that the surgeon will take into account my BRCA-1 gene mutation... Which meant I was now free to make the choice of a double mastectomy, instead of the lumpectomy that was planned for Friday. Big problem, Cancer Board confirmed that I'll be going through chemotherapy and radiation.  What does this mean for my breast reconstruction I was planning on?? It will be on hold for a year until treatments are over. 

They gave me a day to decide the fate of my breasts. Tomorrow I sign the consent forms.

All day I've been hearing things like, "just take them off, get rid of that nasty cancer forever!", "you are more than just a pair of breasts, girl!!" etc etc. As if I don't know these things?  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate people trying... but the bottom line is, unless you've faced the decision of cutting off your breasts, I'd prefer to just not hear these things from you.

There's only one person I wanted to hear an opinion from, and she's gone forever. But, I can hear my  mama loud and clear. I know what she'd say, afterall, she went through it.

Tomorrow I'll sign the consent forms for a double mastectomy. Friday I will lose my chichis for good. 

December 22, 2011

I have breast cancer.