Hurdles and Bumps

"Just another hurdle on the road to recovery."

I ran track in high school for one year.  It took me two years to get the guts to go out for track, then after running one year I was diagnosed with bone cancer in my left femur and have been unable to run since.  I remember back in those days, during practice after a long day at school, we would run until we couldn't run any more.  Sitting there huffing and puffing, trying to catch my breath, I would look at the hurdles set up along the outside of the track for the hurdlers to practice.  The hurdles were so tall, about up to my chest, and I would think, how in the heck can anyone jump over those?  Most of the female hurdlers were no bigger than myself, so I simply could not fathom how they were able to get there legs apart wide enough and foot up high enough to get over the thing.  I loved watching them practice though, it was amazing watching legs propel faster than what seemed should be humanly possible, legs stretched almost in a straight line-one ahead, one behind-and up into the air with the hurdler.  It almost looked as though they were flying.  And they might as well have been as far as I was concerned

Here I am at the edge of my hurdle.  The next bit to get through.  The next hill to climb.  The next thing to overcome.  I'm not excited about having surgery.  I will say I am excited about the time I will have off afterward, but not thrilled about having drainage tubes on either side of my body for a couple weeks, or the pain of incisions and manipulated muscles and temporary implants.  I am looking forward to eliminating a potential threat to my health.  And while I'll miss my kids while I'm in the hospital, and then miss playing and wrestling with them for a while after I return home, it will be worth it for the many more days I am hoping I will be able to be in their lives.  That's the whole point of this hurdle.  To buy more time.  While I can't fathom what the next few days are going to bring I am planning on pushing myself, like the hurdlers in practice at Cheboygan Area High School once did, and fly!

"Just another bump in the road of life."

Yes, it is time for yet another one of these.  Technically, two bumps, as a coworker's sister so astutely pointed out.  (She just had a double mastectomy herself, she's earned the right to joke like that!)  I laughed when she said it.  If you don't get it, two bumps because both breasts will be surgically removed (mastectomy) and reconstructed.  And "two bumps" because this isn't the last of the surgeries.  In another several months (maybe about 6) I will be having another surgery to put in the permanent implants.  In the meantime, the expanders that will be placed immediately after the mastectomy on Monday will be filled little by little to stretch the chest muscle they will have been placed under.  Then once they have been stretched to an appropriate size the surgery for the permanent implants will be scheduled.  Beyond that, in another several weeks, after surgical wounds are healed, the detail work of reconstruction will take place to create nipples and areola.  

All throughout the reconstruction process I will be receiving Herceptin treatments by IV once every three weeks.  Herceptin is the targeted therapy that is used to block the Her2 protein that was feeding the tumor in the first place.  The deal with Herceptin is that it effects the heart.  And since my heart has already been effected by previous chemotherapy from 1991-92, I have to be followed closely by an Oncology Cardiologist.  As has been the case in my care, I was sent (by God and a google search) to a wonderful doctor at the University of Chicago, Dr. DeCara.  She was very kind, patient and knowledgeable and seemed interested in my case as well.  I'm very thankful to have added her to my team.  After each Herceptin treatment I will have an echocardiogram done and she will look it over to be sure the treatment does not do any further or lasting damage to my heart.  The positive thing about the effect that Herceptin has on the heart is that the heart typically bounces back after discontinuing the treatment.  So, all in all my visit with the Cardiologist was very positive.

My visit with the Cardiologist was positive as was my visit to my GP this week.  I didn't actually see the GP (general practitioner) but instead saw his Nurse Practitioner, Liz, who has been on my team for a long time.  I was being seen there to be cleared for surgery.  And while I have had a cold for about a week now, everything else checked out and I was cleared.  Liz did call yesterday to see if the cold was gone yet.  As it is not, she ordered some medication for me to start immediately.  Although I am tired I must say that the symptoms have reduced even since yesterday morning and I am feeling better.  Let's hope Monday's surgery will be a go.  I'm nervous that I'll get there and they'll send me home again.  If that's the case then surgery will most likely be rescheduled for November.  But, I'd rather wait than take any risks just because I want to be done with it.  The anticipation is no easy thing to cope with, but I can wait if I must, if that's the safer option.  

Now as the day is so close I find myself withdrawing a bit, getting frustrated very easily, and feeling as though there is not enough time in a day to get my tasks done and spend time with my children.  Even though I won't be in the hospital for very long I am feeling and acting as though I'll be away for weeks.  Perhaps this is because I know my activities will be limited after the surgery, so I've been getting in all the chores, boy-wrestling, baby-lifting, and home-rearranging that I could handle in the last few days.  And now it's time to go to sleep and wake up to "the day before".  Those days always go quickly.  Instead of dwelling on the event to come I think I'll visualize the hurdler, defying gravity, gracefully leaping over something that is almost as tall as they are and totally blowing the minds of on-lookers.  Yep.  That's what I'll do.

Firsts and Lasts

It's been a couple weeks of firsts and lasts around our household.  I've been very emotional.  The first of the firsts was our oldest boy Bobby loosing a tooth.  It wasn't as dramatic a thing as I remember tooth removal being when I was loosing them.  He was eating breakfast one day and his loose tooth just fell out.  This being a Sunday morning, Bobby requested to take the thing to church.  So, mother that I am, I found a tiny zip lock baggie type thing (the size that used to hold a spare button for a shirt), punched a hole, tied a string and he proudly wore that tooth around his neck all morning.  He was sure to put it under his pillow that night in hopes of the tooth fairy bringing him "a coin" in exchange for his tooth.  I thank Jake and the Neverland Pirates for setting the expectations low by suggesting that the tooth fairy brings "a coin" for a tooth.  Bobby did however receive a dollar bill AND a coin (quarter) from the tooth fairy for his first tooth.  That first tooth was followed by a second tooth not more than two weeks later.
Which brings us to another first, kindergarten.  I find it difficult to fathom the passing of time which has brought us from returning home from the hospital with a tiny, helpless baby to then dropping said baby off at a building miles from home for multiple hours in a day with people we have barely met.  And all of this apparently "normal".  I can't express how nervous and sad I was leading up to that day.  My son on the other hand has been looking forward to his first day of school for months, possibly longer.  We drove him to his first day of school and I was able to walk him to his classroom.  He was cool as a cucumber.  Once inside he behaved as if he knew exactly what he was doing and was eager to do it.  I shed a few tears as I left him there that day.  Those tears were for me, not for him.  He has enjoyed each day of school more than the last.  I'm so thankful he likes it.
The same week we took our oldest son to kindergarten was the week that our youngest son, William, turned two.  Just a day or two before his birthday I entered my bedroom and took inventory of a stack of baby carriers and books stacked there (waiting to go to another family by way of eBay or baby-wearer's Facebook page) and saw in that pile the baby book I had bought for William before he was born.  The wrapper removed, no entries made.  I have a million or more pictures of the boy but have yet to write in his baby book.  (All milestones are documented on the kitchen calendar from last year and this).  So we officially said good-bye to the baby stage.  This guy is a little boy, but for the diapers and bedtime miney (pronounced mine-e, what the twins called their pacifiers and the name stuck).  Our last baby, growing up so fast.  He does his darnedest to keep up with his three older brothers.  He does a pretty good job of it too.  Counting, reciting ABC's, learning bedtime prayers, singing songs, playing games and navigating tech (iPhones, iPads, etc.) like he was born with it in his hands.  It wasn't long ago I was tucking him into his little carrier at the park, feeding him from my own body, watching him learn to roll over, sit up, pull up, stand.  Again, the passage of time confuses me.  Looking back at pictures of this child as a baby leaves me in awe and wonder: was that a hundred years ago, or just yesterday?  
And as I contemplate these firsts and lasts, I consider the firsts and lasts I am experiencing with this body of mine.  Though my PET scan and breast MRI showed that I am clear of cancer at this time, my genetic risk factors are so high that a bilateral mastectomy will be done a week from Monday.  Preparing for the surgery has been an interesting process thus far.  Really I feel like I've been preparing for it since I found out I had cancer back in February.  I've been gathering my facts, talking to people, reading, etc.  But I've also been going through a phase that looks a lot like the nesting phase in pregnancy.  I'm making sure everything is just so because once the surgery is done it will be weeks, almost months, before I'll be back to full capabilities.  I'm trying to grasp what will be happening to my body in the course of this surgery next week.  It's quite an emotional thing.  At the very least because I've taken for granted the idea that when my soul leaves this body, this body will still have all it's original parts.  In 1991 when going in for surgery to remove the tumor in my left femur, not knowing whether or not I would come out of the procedure with a leg or not, I never considered actually losing the leg.  I assumed, or perhaps I was unable to think otherwise, that I would come out with my leg in tact.  And I did.  But now, with breast cancer and in this upcoming surgery, the doctors will remove, parts will not be spared.  In my mind I have made peace with the fact that this is for the best.  I sense it's the right move to make.  However, I'm also acutely aware that I am spending the last days with all my original body parts.  I am blessed beyond belief that there are surgeons (artists, really) who can remove what was diseased or holds potential threat and replace it with form and shape that once healed, will restore a sense of balance and normality to this body.  After September 14th I will never be the same again.  I'm not the same person I was yesterday for that matter.  Last days are being celebrated and mourned here,  but there is also an expectancy, a hope, of firsts yet to come.