Life

Mastectomy, Simple, Complete

/ Jennifer / 10 Comments

scalpel-10-blade-correct

 

Yesterday I met with my surgeon to discuss my upcoming bilateral mastectomy and lymph node removal/biopsy. I now have a surgery date, and it’s very soon.

When I got home last night, a notice from my insurance company awaited me, informing me my surgery had been approved. In the section with the coding for the procedures, it said: “Mastectomy, simple, complete.”

While it will be complete, nothing about this is simple.

When I received my diagnosis back in July, I immediately feared I’d need a mastectomy. I’d run through all the scenarios in my mind by the time my doctors told me a much less invasive lumpectomy would be just as effective. Cue the relief.

Of course, that was before I found out my BRCA2-positive status. That changed everything.

Now I’m facing a bilateral (double) mastectomy, along with the removal of some of the lymph nodes in my left armpit (the side where my cancer occurred). Those nodes will be checked for cancer cells.

I’ve opted for a nipple-sparing procedure with reconstruction. This basically means that all the tissue inside (which reaches up nearly to my collar bone and around the sides of my chest) will be removed. Then, the plastic surgeon will insert expanders, which are essentially deflated implants that will be injected with fluid over a period of weeks to allow my skin to heal and prepare for the insertion of the permanent implants.

My surgeon said the recovery process will last 3-4 weeks. And several of those weeks I’ll have drains on either side of my chest to remove fluid that builds up in the space between my healing skin and the expanders. I’ll have to empty these daily. Blech.

Obviously, my mobility will be seriously affected during recovery, and I won’t be able to drive for at least two weeks after. I guess I’ll finally have a chance to catch up on all those Netflix shows I’ve been meaning to watch.

The pain, lack of mobility and even the disgusting drains (have I mentioned how gross they are to me?) aren’t what I’m most worried about, though. Per usual, my son is my biggest concern.

I won’t be able to lift much of anything during recovery, which means picking him up is a no-no. This is problematic because my son is very attached to me. I pick him up multiple times a day. And on top of that, he’s constantly in my lap, falls asleep on my chest and ends up in bed with me most nights. All of that will have to change. Like the end of breastfeeding, I know this is going to be a fairly difficult adjustment for him. He won’t understand. He will cry. And I probably will, too.

So, yes, this mastectomy will be complete. But it is far from simple.

Winks from God

/ Jennifer / 10 Comments

4abd7e0b77d10467c06492340be13a27

The other day, my son and I stopped into Starbucks for a little treat. As we settled in at a table outside, a woman seated near us walked over and asked me how I was doing.

This might seem a bit odd since I didn’t know her, but I was just wearing a ball cap that day (as I do most weekends), so it was clear I’d lost my hair. I knew she could easily see that I’d been through chemo.

I told her how treatment was going, and she offered some words of encouragement. Then I asked her if she’d been through this, and she admitted that she was a breast cancer survivor, as well, and told me her story.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Since I started treatment and lost my hair, I’ve had several complete strangers approach me in public with words of encouragement. And these strangers were all survivors themselves.

A few weeks ago a woman (also a survivor) came up to me in a restaurant and told me to keep up the fight. And on the day before my brain MRI, a woman (another survivor) in the drug store told me I was going to be OK–a message I desperately needed to hear that day.

As I thanked the lady at Starbucks for coming over to talk, I told her this keeps happening to me. She just smiled and said, “Yes, it happened to me, too. I call them winks from God.”

I love that. And I also love that there’s this inherent sisterhood among women who’ve faced this nasty disease. It’s as if we have a sixth sense about one another, and can spot a sister from a mile away. And what’s even cooler is we’re not afraid to reach out and offer love and support, even to someone we don’t know.

I’ve decided that once I get to the other side of this, I will do the same for other women I encounter. Being someone else’s wink from God is the least I can do.

The Ones Who Came Before Me

/ Jennifer / Leave a comment

img_0470

I’m a member of a Facebook group for women with breast cancer, and yesterday one of the women posted a gratitude thread. There were all the usual sentiments–gratitude for family, friends, the group itself, etc.–but one really struck me. I’m paraphrasing, but she said she was thankful for all the women who came before us; the ones who did the clinical trials that led to the drugs that fight our cancer, the ones who allowed doctors and researchers to discover new breakthroughs, the ones who survived and give us hope, and the ones who didn’t, reminding everyone how serious this disease is.

Her comment reminded me of the above photo, which I took last week while working the High Point Market (a big bi-annual furniture trade show here in NC, for the uninitiated).

I was taking a quick lunch break when I noticed the huge pink firetruck parked near a group of food trucks. After getting my food, I found a seat next to the truck to enjoy my meal. Sitting alone on that bench, I started reading all the messages written on the truck. There were so many–it was almost completely covered!

The more I read, the more emotional I got. There were so many in memory of someone lost–mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, wives, friends. We all know that cancer can kill us. This is an undeniable fact. But, in the interest of self-preservation and not going completely mad with fear and anxiety, I try to push that fact out of my mind as much as possible.

Seeing those names reminded me the disease I’m fighting takes women just like me all the time. In the middle of Pinktober, it was both a scary and good reminder–breast cancer is not all pink ribbons and festive charity walks. It’s a real, deadly disease. It ravages bodies. It decimates finances. It breaks up families. The lucky ones–the survivors–bear the scars and carry an unseen fear (will it return?) with them forever. The others lose it all.

But those weren’t the only names I read. I also saw the survivors. The ones who wrote how many years they’d been cancer-free. The ones who left uplifting messages reminding us to keep up the fight. The survivors keep me going.

So like my fellow group member, I also would like to thank the ones who came before us. No matter the outcome, their experiences made a difference and I am thankful for those courageous women.

Lucky

/ Jennifer / 5 Comments

126588542-web-1024x682

It feels kind of odd to say this considering what I’m going through right now, but I am a very lucky person.

No, I’m not generally the one who wins the big giveaway, and I’ve been in a lottery pool for years and have yet to hit it big.

I guess lucky isn’t exactly the right word. Fortunate might be more correct.

When I got my cancer diagnosis, I felt just the opposite. I felt marked. Cursed. Unlucky.

But then a strange thing happened–the outpouring of love and support began to wash over me.

In the days, weeks and months since my diagnosis, I have experienced a level of love and support I never thought possible. From the unfailing love of my husband and family to the constant cheering of close friends to the unrelenting support of my coworkers to the texts, emails, cards and Facebook messages of former coworkers, high school classmates and friends-of-friends, the level of love, kindness and concern I’ve received has truly humbled me.

At first, I didn’t really know how to handle it. I got tired of people constantly asking how I was. I even had the audacity to complain about all the attention (I know, could I have been a bigger, more ungrateful brat?). But once I got over the initial flurry, my heart just swelled with the love I’ve felt from others. It has moved me to happy tears more than once, and it continually restores my faith in humanity.

Whether it’s a container of homemade soup from a dear friend, or a comment from a complete stranger on this very blog, these gestures mean so much to me. They help me get through the rough days, and they remind me that there are so many good people in this world, and I am so very lucky to know and be touched by so many of them.

Five Years

/ Jennifer / 3 Comments

374786_10150464407294314_839552937_n

Five years ago today, I was getting married.

It’s amazing how fast five years of marriage and nearly 10 years together have gone by. Totally cliched to say, but true nonetheless.

This is one of my favorite photos from our wedding day. It’s not one of the beautiful professional shots we paid for, but rather a grainy cell phone photo taken by a friend. But I love the pure joy it captures. And how it captures us as both individuals and a couple. Rodney throwing up the horns, me grinning like a fool–that’s us at our goofy best. And at the center, our hands intertwined, facing a roomful of people as one.

We’ve been laughing today at how unromantic our anniversary has been, thus far. We both felt kind of cruddy when we woke up, and we spent much of the day putting toys together and running errands for Alex’s birthday party tomorrow. Right now, Rodney’s snoring on the couch in front of a football game on TV, and I’m wrapped in a blanket on the recliner after my own nap.

But that’s real life, and real life is what marriage is truly all about. I feel sorry for people who are constantly chasing some Champagne-and-roses Hollywood ideal. Real marriage, and real love, is in the boring moments, the hard moments, the little moments. It’s having someone by your side who will hold your hand as a doctor manually breaks your water (which is super-fun, in case you’re wondering) and then later as you’re cut open on an operating table to deliver your child (terrifying and yet amazing). It’s someone who will sit up with you in the middle of the night as you figure out breastfeeding a screaming infant, and who will basically feed you by hand when said infant insists on being fed when you’re trying to eat. It’s having someone who will buzz all your hair off, and still look at you like you’re beautiful even when you’re bald and sick. It’s someone who will make you laugh through all of this.

We’ve been through quite a bit in our five years of marriage, and I am so thankful every day to have him there with me every step of the way. Our relationship isn’t perfect, but it’s ours and it’s good, and in a time of so much uncertainty, I’m grateful to have something (and someone) in my life I can always count on.

Hitting Close to Home

/ Jennifer / 4 Comments

1361222

The Modern Love column is one of my favorite features in The New York Times. For the unfamiliar, it’s a weekly essay series that explores the topic of love in all its various forms. It’s often heartbreaking, revelatory and even sometimes funny.

Last week’s essay, though, struck me deeper than any has in the past. The writer is fighting metastatic breast cancer that recurred in her spine, the tumor actually breaking one of her vertebrae.

Not only is she fighting cancer, but she’s also my age. And she lives in my city. She’s the mom of two little boys, and she worked as a writer and editor. The parallels between our lives were striking. Except, for one–I am lucky enough to have a good prognosis (at this time, at least), while hers is far more grim.

I have cried so much for this woman I don’t even know. I’ve cried for her husband. I’ve cried for her babies. I’ve wondered if our paths have crossed at the cancer center. I’ve wondered if we have any mutual friends. I’ve wondered if there’s any way I could connect to her, to tell her I’m so sorry, to give her a hug, to ask if she needs anything.

There’s one paragraph of this beautifully-written story that I keep coming back to. In talking about her sons, the author says this:

“Their very existence is the one dark piece I cannot get right with in all this. I can let go of a lot of things: plans, friends, career goals, places in the world I want to see, maybe even the love of my life. But I cannot figure out how to let go of mothering them.”

The tears are welling in my eyes right now reading this. She absolutely captured the feelings that a mother has when facing the specter of death. I know exactly how she feels. I can handle anything else about my diagnosis and all the scary possibilities that come with it, but the possibility of not being there for my child is the one thing I cannot bear.

So, I cry again for her, and for her boys. And I hope that somehow she can feel my love and empathy floating across our city to her.

The Great Equalizer

/ Jennifer / 80 Comments

461103994

The world is a sad, scary place right now. There’s violence and unrest, there’s divisiveness, there’s fear and ignorance, and there’s great sorrow. My heart aches to watch the news some days. The world seems to be so focused on what makes us different, and thus opposed, than what unites us as a common humanity.

At the cancer center yesterday, though, I couldn’t help looking around and seeing what makes us all the same.

I notice this almost every time I go there for an appointment. I like to think of cancer (or illness, in general) as the great equalizer. It can, and does, happen to anyone.

One glance around the lobby of the center proves this. You see everyone there: male, female, old, young, white, black, Asian, Latino, (or pretty much any other race), thin, heavy, etc. People pull up in sleek luxury SUVs and ratted-out clunkers (and everything in between). That waiting area is truly a cross-section of humanity.

And we’re all sick. Some more so than others, for sure, but at our core, all sick. We’ve all had the breath knocked out of us with getting the diagnosis. We’ve all suddenly faced the grim reality of our own mortality. We’ve all worried about how we’re going to get through this, how the drugs/surgery/radiation will ravage our bodies, how our family/friends/coworkers will handle this upheaval that affects them, too. We’ve all been so very afraid. We’ve all wondered if it’s possible to survive this.

I look at all of us and see we’re all the same. And I’ve started looking at people outside the cancer center that way, too. Sure, every person isn’t going to get cancer. But every human being on this earth is going to face their own death at some point. While, yes, that is incredibly morbid, it’s also a reminder that we’re all such fragile beings, and no matter who we are or what we look like or what we believe, we’re essentially all the same in our fragility. Our lives are so brief, so fleeting, that it is truly baffling that we spend so much of them being angry and hateful. That we waste our precious moments hurting others. That we don’t see the value of a life and realize that it’s a wonderful gift that should be treated with respect.

So, while the lobby of the cancer center is probably one of the most depressing places on the planet, it’s also one that gives me an odd sense of comfort. I feel an unspoken camaraderie with every single person in there. Because we all know. We know this ride is a short one, and it can end at any moment, so we’re going to make the best of every second.

Before and After

/ Jennifer / 6 Comments
13445500_10154288330329314_4417284750298052847_n

My husband and I on our family vacation in June. That was a good day.

There are moments in life that are touchstones. These are the events that allow you to evenly divide your existence up into blocks of time before and after said event occurred. These moments change you so significantly as a person that the being you were before they happened is totally different from the individual you are after.

Until now, I’d only had two such occurrences in my life: the death of my mother and the birth of my son. I can look at photos or think of times in my life and they all fall within the parameters of whether or not my mom was still alive and whether or not I was a mother. What’s funny is that these two events–complete opposites to me, in that one devastated me beyond what I thought possible while the other brought me the greatest joy of my life–can both hold this same power over the perception of my life.

My cancer diagnosis has this same effect. I look at the photo above, just two months ago, and see a person and time that almost feels foreign to me. Look at her, with that mess of hair wrapped up in a sloppy bun, sitting in the morning sun with her husband, blissfully unaware of the shit storm looming just beyond the horizon.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately. All the significant and mundane things I did earlier this year while cancer was secretly growing inside my body. That family vacation, trips for work to Las Vegas and New Orleans, dinners with my husband, girls’ days with friends, furniture markets I walked for my job and countless nights rocking and nursing my son to sleep. I just had no clue. I was happy. I was normal. I was in the before.

We don’t know when these life-changing moments will happen. Both good and bad, it’s hard to predict exactly when these things will occur. Even with childbirth, I had a due date, but that’s not the day my child arrived. And with sudden, often bad things, we rarely have warning, either. Even with a prolonged illness, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the day and time a person will finally pass. You know it’s coming–just like we all have some vague sense of dread that bad things can and will happen to us in life–but you have no real idea of when.

It’s how we look at the after that shapes us, though. There are definitely photos of myself from the year after my mom died where the sadness is almost palpable. Something’s just off in my face–my eyes are a little duller than they once were. But as the years pass, that fades and while I’m still in the after, I’m also moving back into the before. Before both good and bad things. As I go through this process, I’m trying to treat every day in the after as also a day farther into the before. Because I know there is a lot of good yet to come in my life.

 

Parellel Lives

/ Jennifer / Leave a comment

things-to-never-say-to-pregnant-woman

One of my nurses during my first chemo session was pregnant. She was one of those lucky women who stayed slim with little more than an adorably round belly to let others know she was expecting.

Judging from the size of said belly, I surmised she was likely due around the same time I had my son. Sure enough, she told me her due date was Oct. 2, the day before my son’s birthday (his due date was Sept. 30, but like his mama, he’s not exactly on the punctual side).

After making this realization, we laughed and swapped some war stories about surviving the third trimester in North Carolina during the hottest part of the year. As she and I talked, I had the odd feeling once again of being on two opposite, but sort of parallel journeys, just two years apart.

635999646476505798-1665549773_SUSHI COVER.jpg

Oh, sushi. I already miss you so.

The first time I felt this way was during chemo class (yep, that’s a thing) when the nurse gave us the rundown of all the foods we should avoid while in treatment. The list was almost the exact one my OB had given me two years prior when I was pregnant with my son–sushi, undercooked meat, unwashed fruit and veggies, etc. In both cases, the risk of infection can cause major problems, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

There are other little things, too, like counting weeks of pregnancy vs. weeks of treatment, feeling intense cravings for fruit and vegetables and, of course, being hyper-aware of my changing breasts.

10456826_10152561450544314_6176654190366995439_n

Baby’s first beach trip

I loved being pregnant. And even though I was as swollen as the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man by the end of it, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Feeling a living being grow inside you is almost indescribable, it’s that amazing. I’ll never forget the feeling of kicks turning into rolls and, my favorite, when he would get hiccups. It was all so wonderful (well, except those bladder kicks–I could have done without those).

So, to think that just two short years ago I was over the moon with excitement over becoming a mom, experiencing this miraculous process of creating another human being inside me, is kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around. Because over the past few months my body has been creating something else inside, something I neither wanted nor suspected was there. To live inside a body capable of both these things is scary and confusing. How did this happen? How did I go from one extreme to the other so quickly?

That’s the thing about both pregnancy and cancer–they both remind you that you have very little control over your own body. Sure, there are plenty of things about ourselves that we can manage, but at the end of the day, our bodies will do what they do, whether we like it or not. We can react to those changes and either go with or fight them, depending on the scenario. While I was definitely a go-with-the-flow woman in pregnancy (and I am in life, in general), this time around I’m fighting, and I’m fighting hard. Because that little baby needs me, and I plan to be here for him as long as I can.