Showered and Dressed

I got myself showered and dressed today and off the vicodin. I'm still sore but I took asperin and tylenol. It was rough going in the shower and looking at all the bruises. I feel battered. I can't lift my hands above my head so I haven't started the magic shampoo yet.

I'm so grateful to have my bit of therapy practice going. It got me out of bed, showered and dressed and focused on other people. And feeling like I really can do something well in my life. It took me so long to go back to my practice due to insecurity and remembering how I never thought I was helping anyone. They would all send me thank you notes, etc. but I had that insecurity. So I went to so many classes this time trying to get that confidence. It didn't help until I applied to the insurance companies and people just kept getting referred to me and once I started working with people regularly I realized: ****! I'm good at this! I don't know, maybe it's the experience and the age now but I have a lot to give and can really help people. (when they are open to the help!) One thing I realized after working with some today was that this diagnosis makes me understand how important it is to have friends and not to expect your spouse to be everything you need. I think if people had a broader support network in their lives, they may not need to see me. I'm lucky because I have therapists who are friends of mine!

Anyway, it's hard not knowing whether or not I'm getting chemo tomorrow. I'm planning for it. I've taken the decadron. I've got my yummy mineral broth all made up. I've got my popsicles to prevent mouth sores. But we'll see if the oncologist needs the new biopsy report first.

So that's the update. I wanted to write before tomorrow in case I did have chemo and wouldn't be up for writing tomorrow.

Slept All Day

My surgery went well and Doris waited for me in the hospital for 3 1/2 hours! She must have arrived just as I was going into surgery because I slept in the recovery room for 1 1/2 hours after a 1 1/2 hour surgery. Wow, your throat gets really dry and you have to cough a lot of stuff up after that.

I got in bed once I got home at 8:30pm and Aimee made me tea and brought me some applesauce. I barely got the tea down and popped my Vicoden (thanks to Lee, my mother-in-law, I didn't have to go to Longs for that on the way home) and slept until 3am when I finally ate the applesauce! Then I slept until 3:30pm when I got up and had Jason warm up some of the soup Doris made us...YUM! The kids already ate half of it before I could get to it. And there were only 2 slices left of the challah that Liz brought us but I enjoyed every bite. And Glenna's bringing us food on Monday and we hope it isn't too spicy. (Her family loves peppers! So I'm dropping the hint now to you all. I think peppers are good for bad cells but my family members have soft tummies.)

Still, I'm not totally sure that I'll get chemo on Monday since the surgeon told me that my oncologist wants the biopsy results in order to know what chemo to give me. And she probably won't have them by Monday. So we'll see what happens when we see her on Monday at 9am. Tomorrow I have 4 clients in a row from 1:30 to 5:30. I think I'll be ok for that but wondering...I just hope no one wants a hug!

Anyway, thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. I'm doing fine and recovering nicely. I so appreciated my surgeon for insisting on Dominican making the effort to get something delivered from San Jose in time yesterday so I could get the surgery yesterday instead of waiting until next week. It was perfect timing for me because I had such a great sleep the night before thinking I wasn't going to have surgery the next day!

The radioactive dye was injected in 4 places around the lump at 11am so that by 4pm, they could see which lymph node the breast drains into for the biopsy. Geoff held my hand during the injections at 11. I told him, "Don't you want to pull up a chair and sit down for this?" He told me no, because then he wouldn't be able to see what's going on! So as long as he keeps his joking to a minimum, I don't mind having him along. His hand is definitely more comforting to me than some nurse’s I don't even know.

Maybe I'll end up wanting him to hold my hand for the first chemo too... We'll see.

We're On Again!!!

My surgeon called me this morning to tell me that we could do both surgeries today. So here we go again.

This is why it's good:
I had a great sleep last night thinking I wasn't going in for surgery the next morning.
I had a wonderful walk this morning with Geoff in the beautiful, hot sun on WestCliff.
I had a good breakfast this morning, not worrying about fasting...doc said it was ok since it was at 7:30am.

So, I've got chicken noodle soup from Doris waiting for me when I get home.
I've got Doris picking me up from the hospital and bringing me home.
I've got Jason being brought home by his teacher after basketball practice.
I've got Aimee enjoyed by Joy and Rebecca after school.
I've got Liz bringing me challah.
I've got Geoff taking me to Dominican at 10:30am to get the dye injected and then he'll take me back home to return at 1 for the surgery prep, Sentinel Node biopsy and Port insertion at 3pm. Doris brings me home around 5pm.
And as I've learned to say from my rabbi, "G-d Willing" all of that will go as planned. And as I've learned from my mom which she learned from her mom (my grandma, may she rest in peace), men plan and G-d laughs.
This week has certainly been one of those experiences.

On Again, Off Again

Today as I was leaving the house to go to work, at 5:30pm, my oncologist called to tell me that the port surgery was being postponed until next week and chemo is postponed until the following week so that the surgeon can do a sentinel node biopsy at the same time as the port surgery.

I'd had a very rough and anxious day with a migraine, running around, getting everything I would need to start chemo next week. All the veggies to make the mineral broth, the cleaning supplies to clean the house, the medications I needed to take before getting the chemo... Stopping at the hospital to register for tomorrow's surgery...getting poked again twice when they couldn't find a vein to get a blood sample...glad that I'll soon have a port...not sure whether to take exedrin for my headache and ending up taking valium that made me feel depressed and awfully tired and finally taking the imitrex for the migraine and finally feeling better...writing a list of questions for Geoff to ask the anesthesiologist because he was going to call while I was working and I wasn't sure yet if I could eat something for breakfast and what I could eat since my surgery wasn't until 3pm...worried, scared and feeling very vulnerable all day about what is going to happen to my body and how I will handle it all...

And then all of a sudden at the end of the day, at 5:30 as I'm about to leave the house to go see a couple of clients, nothing's happening until the following week!

The oncologist has a good idea though: she wants a sentinel node biopsy before I start chemo so she knows what's going on with the lymph nodes. After chemo, they maybe all cleaned out and then she won't know. Somehow that effects what kind of chemo she decides to give me and whether they take nodes when I finally get the surgery (which she's thinking is going to be a double mastectomy now that they found something on the other side too). If the nodes are negative, then that's good because they won't need to take out lymph nodes during surgery which gives me a chance to avoid lymphodema in the future.

Anyway, it's all such a roller-coaster on my emotions. I took off Thursday next week for the chemo. Now it's not until the following week. And it's very anxiety producing having this thing sitting inside my breast. I do work on visualization every night and every morning. I have a cd that my acupuncturist gave me that's very helpful with really great affirmations which I'll share with you sometime. And still, I have days where I get very nervous about what's going on in there and now I can't wait to get the chemo to stop whatever's going on in there.

So what I tend to do with all this stuff that I can't control (and believe me I would like to ring the oncologist's neck for not thinking of this earlier because I could have had all this done tomorrow had she thought of it this morning), but what I do to help myself through all these disappointments and setbacks is that I tend to believe that everything happens for a good reason and if I don't know what that reason is, then I just need to wait until the reason becomes more clear to me. Maybe it's a good thing because I get an earlier appointment at the hospital and won't have to fast all day. Maybe it's a good thing because it gives me more weeks to take all the immune-building herbs and supplements that I'm taking to shrink this thing and halt it's growth and spread. Maybe it's a good thing because now I won't be nauseous when my parents come to visit and we can go out for dinner. Maybe it's a good thing because now Geoff won't be busy doing something else while I'm needing him. Maybe it's a good thing because now I can go to that class that Dominican has on Monday where they give out free wigs. Maybe it's a good thing because I can go to their nutrition class on Tuesday. Maybe it's a good thing because it gives me more time to use this shampoo that my dentist told me about before the chemo strikes. Maybe it's a good thing because the timing now allows me to possibly go to the desert for winter break if I'm doing alright on the chemo...

I don't know. But this is sure a strange ride so far.