I Thought We Had an Agreement

Cancer Sucks. That is all.

This is the very succinct message on a frig magnet that one of my girlfriends gave me. I know it has been more than a year since I wrote anything, but I see this magnet every day.  I am happy to say that I do not think about cancer every day.

I got a text earlier today from a friend of mine who was diagnosed this past week with an egg-sized lump in her left breast, and the cancer has already spread to her lymph nodes. I just talked to her on the phone and am so happy to find her in good spirits.  She is in the full-steam-ahead mode. "Bring it on," she actually said. You go girl! With an attitude like that, the battle is half won.

I told her I kind of felt the same way when I was going through much of my treatment. I bargained with the universe that if I could be the 1-in-8 to get breast cancer, that it would mean that none of my sisters or sisters-in-laws would get it. Bring it on. If my having breast cancer would mean that none of my daughters or nieces gets it, then bring it on. If my having breast cancer would mean that none of my girlfriends gets it, then bring it on. I'm strong. I can do this. I can take this on. Good trade.

So I was kind of surprised when my friend let me know that she had been diagnosed. That's not possible. I did the treatment. I did the time. I did the surgery. I did the chemo. I did the radiation. WTH? I guess the universe is reneging on the bargain.

Well FU, universe, because this friend can do it, and she will. Cancer, you are entering another battle in which you will lose.

 Cancer Sucks. That is all.

Nipple, nipple, bo-bipple ... Banana-fana-fo-fipple ... Fee-fi-mo-mipple ... Nipple!

When I first met with my plastic surgeon, I felt he was just a little too gung-ho. About everything. He was (is) very young, and so new to the staff of a well-respected plastic surgery group (it's his first real job) that he did not even have his name on their sign on the front door. Not Doogie Howser young, but still. I did not want to know the answer to the question of whether or not I was going to be his first patient to pay for a boob job. I am sure that he spent hundreds of hours in his internships and surgical residencies, and completed all of the necessary medical training to cut me up and sew me back together.

After I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was mentally prepared to have a double mastectomy and have zero reconstruction. I don't really NEED these orbs of fat anymore. For much of my life I really felt like they were just in the way. As a tall woman I can honestly say that I have never worn a bra that really felt good - the straps were always too short. Once I have worn a bra enough and washed and dried it enough to stretch out the elastic straps, then it usually became tolerable.

My oncology surgeon was very confidant that I would be able to have a lumpectomy, but because of the location of the tumor, I was going to lose the entire nipple areola complex (NAC). When I discussed this with the plastic surgeon, the first option he discussed was a double mastectomy, skin expanders, and artificial implants. I told him I didn't want implants. He asked me why and I just explained that I just didn't want something artificial permanently installed in my body for primarily cosmetic reasons. If I needed a pacemaker, I would agree to that artificial implant. Boobs? I just don't think I need them.

He explained the psychological effect that the loss of breasts might have on a patient - maybe not right after surgery, but perhaps down the road some day. I told him I understood that might happen with some women, and hypothetically it might with me as well, but I really didn't think it would. I was okay with the very slight chance of having a double mastectomy. He reminded me that I was still very young and that perhaps if I was 80, he could see choosing no reconstruction, but he was genuinely a little confused by my firm stance. I explained that it was more about the artificial aspect and less about the fake boobs aspect.

I pointed out that I was a cancer patient that never had a port put in for my chemo, and even though my forearms weren't happy, there was just something about having a port that weirded me out. That would have only been for six months. I just couldn't even think about having something artificial inside of me forever. Ew.

He completely understood me and respected my wishes. We reached a happy middle ground, but I told him I wouldn't be doing a nipple reconstruction. My main reason behind not wanting one is that the "new" nipple would basically be erect all the time. I don't wear tight clothes, but some of it is clingy enough that you can tell when my nipples are hard. Just a t-shirt will show that. I didn't want to have the "new" nipple be at attention all the time and the other one at ease. I wanted them to be the same - like before - before cancer! He told me that I could always have nipple reconstruction surgery at any time in the future that I felt like it.

On the day of my breast surgery, with my mother-in-law as my witness in the pre-surgery area, I talked with the oncology surgeon and the plastic surgeon again and went over what we were doing: after the tumor was removed from my left breast and some reconstruction was done on that side, the plastic surgeon was going to do a slight reduction on my right breast and make them both a natural shape. Since I wasn't very large to begin with (DD), he didn't have much to work with for the reduction. One thing he did do during surgery that we did not discuss in advance was use breast tissue from my right breast to rebuild my left breast. I was very happy with the results.

Since the right breast became smaller, he moved the NAC up higher on my right breast. My left breast is "bald" except for the circular disc of flesh he removed from the bottom of my left breast and placed where a potential NAC could go in the future. Again, in my immediate post-surgery visits I reminded him that I wasn't going to have nipple reconstruction. He said he knew that, he just went ahead and placed the "disc" there so that if I changed my mind in the future, it would be an easier and less invasive surgery later.

It has been about four and a half months since surgery.  Surprisingly to me, my right nipple is erect all the time. So, when I am wearing a t-shirt or other light-weight material, you can see that my right nipple is hard and the left is not.

The last time I met with my plastic surgeon I told him I wanted to talk about nipple reconstruction. His eyebrows went up, but astutely didn't bring up the fact that I said I wasn't going to do this. He talked about the procedure, the risks, the results, the recovery, etc. We talked about how soon we would do this - in about another couple of months. Then he mentioned how long I would have to wait to get it tattooed and I said, "Oh, I'm not getting it tattooed. I know I said I wasn't going to do nipple reconstruction either. But my right nipple has convinced me that it needs a mate on the left side."

He just looked at me and smiled.

To tattoo or not to tattoo - that is the question.

The last Ford Explorer I owned was an older model on which the forest green paint had completely oxidized, leaving the roof and hood that powdery, whitish gray color. I decided to paint it flat black with a brush and a can or two of Rustoleum. As part of my artistic nature, I intended on using a very rough, cheap brush, because I wanted to see the brushstrokes. I wanted to create swirls and curves that were going to be the underpainting to the high-gloss black that was going to be in a classic Maori tattoo pattern on the hood, with the pattern carrying down the vehicle's sides and back. As it was, the truck sold while it was still flat black and I never got to tattoo it with the glossy black paint.

I have always thought that I would have a tattoo someday - but I have never been able to decide exactly what image or words I would use, and maybe more importantly, where it should go on my body.

That decision has been made for me. I went to get my radiology oncology "mapping" done, which is a process that precedes the radiation treatments I will soon begin. Part of the mapping process is getting four blue dots tattooed on your body, tiny as a freckle. This is to assure that when you return for radiation the machines will use these dots as reference points.




Four small blue dots are most certainly not the image I wanted for my tattoo. Not even a color I would have chosen. It's not like the dots will be seen in public, unless you consider the radiation treatment room a public area. Or a doctor's exam room.

 Since I feel as if I have been naked or topless over the last several months in front of more people than in my high school graduation class (114), I really don't have any self-conscious thoughts or angst about these little blue dot tattoos. But just like the cancer I am fighting, it was never something that was on my bucket list: "Get 4 small blue dot tattoos." Perhaps imagining that I would have a tattoo someday was some kind of premonition. I know that every time I started thinking about "my" tattoo, I really had an artist's block - I could come up with nothing that had me convinced that it was going to be "my" tattoo. Now that the choice has been made for me, I'm okay with it.

I still think, however, that I need to paint my current black Ford Explorer with a Maori tattoo pattern on the hood, with the pattern carrying down the sides and back of the vehicle.

Flat Stanley

You've heard the expression that if you want to get any rest, the hospital is not the place to be? True. It seems that every hour or so, someone has to enter your room to get blood, or take your temp, or get your blood pressure, or give you meds, or give you a shot, or change your IV bag - it seriously goes on for 24 hours every day. I am not complaining about that - I NEEDED that, and that is why I was in the hospital.

I have to tell you one funny story that happened to me when I was in the hospital for eight days. One of those nights, or should I say early morning about 3am, I had a young man enter my room, thankfully keeping the lights low. I really hate it when the staff would throw the full overhead room lights on. Seriously? We are still trying to sleep during the night. He was clearly a lab tech of some sort as he carried the little plastic toolbox tote full of vials and labels. He set the box on the stand at the side of my bed and said, "Stanley?" 

I didn't say anything, but I was already wide awake and looking him right in the eye. He didn't make eye contact with me as he was fussing with his tourniquet and finding the right needle and getting a vial ready to take blood."Stanley?" he said again, "Born 05/22/1951?"

OK. I get it that people mistake me for a man sometimes because I am tall, wear jeans and t-shirts, very little jewelry on occasion, and usually very little make-up. I get it that we are in a hospital and we are all in uni-sex gowns. I have no earrings or make-up with me. My hair is nearly gone and what is there is mostly gray. Even though the lights are low, I still think out of the corner of his eye the lab tech was noticing that I was sleeping corner to corner on the hospital bed, because that is what tall people do, and therefore all tall people are men.

"Stanley!" he says one more time, louder, as if I am not hearing him and he needs to wake me up. I was just waiting for him to look at me. I desperately wanted him to look up and realize instantly, even in the low light, that I was a woman. I needed him to look at my chemo-riddled, cancer stricken face and NOT call me by a man's name again, let alone a man that is more than a decade older than me.

For one fleeting moment, I wished (inappropriately) that the hospital gown opened in the front, so that if he did finally look up and call me Stanley, I was going to flash him my breasts. Might as well use them while I still have them, right? And I was going to say, "I am NOT Flat Stanley!"

Luckily for me, he did look up as he was walking towards me to take blood and said, "I am so sorry - you're not Stanley." He sheepishly backed away, put his stuff in his kit, apologized again, and left the room.

Et Catuli Leonis

I was standing in a field of waving gold ... wheat stalks in South Dakota? African plain? I had no idea. all I knew was that it was gold as far as I could see. If I was facing twelve on the clock, there was a small, gnarled tree at ten o'clock and another, slightly larger one at one o'clock. Other than that, there was not a single thing in sight except for 360 degrees of swaying gold and the blue sky above, dropping to hem the horizon at some unreachable point.

I was aware of movement directly in front of me, about fifty yards away, coming towards me at a fast rate. From the single path in the separations in the golden grass, broke off three more paths, two to my right and one to my left. My heart was racing and I stopped walking. Looked left. Looked right. Looked back to front and realized they were stalking lionesses. Rapidly low crawling through the bristly ground cover to not only flank me, but take up position directly behind me. 

I was frozen with fear. No place to run. No place to hide. The small trees I could see off in the distance were an impossible to reach goal, and I am not sure what good it would have done for me anyway. Even if I could outrun four stalking lionesses (I can't outrun anything!), and made it up a tree, I had nothing with which I could hold them off. They could come right up the tree after me, or lay around on the ground and just wait for their meal to fall off the branch from exhaustion or dehydration. Hopefully, I would be dead before I hit the ground and the feast began.

Standing and trembling, I remained in the center of their focus as they slowed down their pursuit. They didn't stop at all. They were still closing in at a steady pace from the four points of the compass. I continued to watch the progress of the one in front of me, as she somehow seemed to be the leader. We were staring into each other's eyes. Twenty yards. Ten yards. Sower, slower ... until she was only five yards away, and still she kept coming. I could hear that the other three were doing the same thing, but I did not turn to look at them.

I could see the bundled muscles under her beautiful coat. Kinetic energy, just waiting to devour me. As she kept moving toward me, I did what any terrified human would do right before being hit by a car, or a train, or even a wall of water from a tsunami. I held my hands, palms down and out in front of me, as if that could stop the mega-tonnage of force that was about to take your life from you. And I closed my eyes, turned my head slightly away, tucking my chin into my left shoulder, and prayed fervently. I heard the grass snapping and breaking on all four sides of me as I remained frozen. I wondered if all four would attack at once or if the other three would allow the leader in front of me to have the first bite.

As I heard a moan of fear escape from my throat, I couldn't stand the suspense and cracked open my right eye just the tiniest bit and saw ... the lioness sniffing the fingertips on my right hand. Making sure the appetizer is fresh? Wondering what vintage year I was from? She was still crouched into a bundle of tensed muscles when she did the most amazing thing ... she nudged her face up into the palm of my hand, just like a big domestic feline. Both of my eyes opened now and I started scratching her between her own eyes and up onto her forehead. She relaxed and came closer so I could run my hand down her back. I looked at the other three and they were just laying in the sunny grass, looking relaxed and completely sated. Maybe they had all just eaten and were going to save me for later? I was good with that call. More than good with that call. It was then that I realized that they did not come to destroy me, they came to shield me and care for me. They were my protectresses: women who guard or defend someone or something.

I woke up with a start and a racing heart. I started thinking about the lionesses in my life. I am so blessed to have a list that far exceeds four. I can't begin to enumerate and thank each and every one of you, but you know you are in my heart. 

Oh, and yeah, I also know I have some pretty serious lions out there as well, and again, far more than four. Perhaps you will show up in a different dream. I love you all.

(By the way, "et catuli leonis" is Latin for "lion and lioness".)
 

Confirmed: Fatty Globs are Benign

In a phone call from the doctor yesterday it was confirmed that the three fatty globs removed from near my triceps in outpatient surgery last week are, in fact, completely benign tumors and have no trace of cancer whatsoever. Yay!

On another topic, I was also told that my daily anti-nausea meds were going to be changed, which makes me a little bit nervous. Rather than being nauseated, I have lately been experiencing more of what I would describe as just bad heartburn, an upper g.i. tract kind of heat. They had told me previously that I could just take an OTC antacid for this. I have and it hasn't been helping. So the plan is to get something stronger for the burn and see if that helps. As long as the uncontrollable vomiting doesn't return (which it hasn't for this second round of chemo), I am willing to try new scrips.

Now, if they could only come up with a prescription that would make all of my food and drink taste "normal" again, I would feel like I have hit the pharmaceutical jackpot.

Crayola Doesn't Make These Colors

Some very strange things have been happening to me while undergoing chemotherapy. I mean strange in addition to excessive vomiting ( we seem to have that mostly curbed), hair loss, a strange of sense of taste (it's like I have had a tongue transplant and the taste buds are different, a twisted sense of smell, etc.

These are all things I had fairly regularly heard of associated with chemo. I was not prepared for how it has affected my eyes.

After the first round of chemo I noticed that my eyes had problems focusing. I figured I would be able to happily read my way through a very tall stack of books to keep myself busy as I went through treatment. Buuzzzzzzz - wrong. I can read some, but my focal point doesn't even stay in the same spot. Add that to the  general jitteriness I felt in all of my limbs and I just couldn't hold a book still unless there were pillows propped around my arms. Oh well, I didn't really have the attention span to get into a good novel anyway, so I started reading through some of the non-fiction I had waiting in small bursts.

After the second round of chemo, and with all of the new anti-emetics I am on, my eyes are definitely on drugs. My left eye is completely out of whack. From five feet away a person will have four eyes. All of them are slightly out of focus in different degrees. But the strangest thing happened when my husband was driving us home from an athletic event in another town.

You know how headlights and taillights always have kind of a starburst affect at night? That was happening to me, but in a greatly magnified manner. As headlights approached, they were huge chrysanthemum-like burst of intense white lights - almost as if I was seeing a firework explode on the ground right next to me. Many, many pointed star points on the outer rim of the burst. Also, these multiple tips of the burst had very cool colors burning on the edges - blues, purples, greens. Newer, halogen headlights seemed to be more colorful than an older style headlight. Very strange and beautiful. It was happening with the red taillights also, but it was not as intense as the white headlights, and there were no colors on the edges.

I had mentioned the first differences to my oncologist and he said that chemo can affect every single process in your body. He did tell me to not go out and buy glasses, though, because it would very likely be just like hair loss. It will almost certainly come back, but it might not be the same as before chemo. He told me to buy cheaters to read if I want, but don't get prescription lenses, because it will probably change after chemo is done. I also asked my sister who worked for eye doctors for years and years and she said the same thing - could be the chemo, could be the hormones that are changing during that time. Get glasses if you want, but you will likely need a different prescription by the time you are done with treatment.

I have not worn glasses, not even cheaters, my whole life. If I need to get some prescription glasses after treatment is done, I already have my eye on some vintage, cat-eye frames that will hold new lenses.