Pandora Radio

This is a quick post. I find music to be so relaxing and uplifting to your spirit. It's great to hear that someone else out there feels the way you do and songs usually make that apparent. I found a great Internet radio station http://pandora.com/. You register for free, enter an artist or song you like and it creates a radio station around your tastes. You can save several stations in different genres. If your stressed give it a try!

My Body Today

Today is the one year check up with Dr. M my plastic surgeon since my mastectomy February 14, 2008. I remember the first time I thought about removing my breasts and how barbaric and ridiculous that seemed for 2008. After all it wasn't the dark ages there must be some other option than cutting off my beautiful breasts! But the other options were not much better and didn't make me feel as if I would have done everything I could to live a long long life and so I reached deep done inside and reached out to friends and family and did what I felt I had to do to live to be an old lady! I let Dr. M and Sarah his PA remove my girls and rebuild them.

Today a little over a year and a life experience ago, I look at my new faux breasts and marvel at them. They aren't the same. I still miss and mourn the ones that had to go, but the ones that are there are good too in their own way. I was fortunate to be able to keep my nipples (well two aureoles and one nipple the right nipple didn't survive all the way). There are 3 inch scars on each side of my breasts that continue to fade. A two inch scar by my shoulder where my chemo port rested a line under my left armpit where a few lymph nodes were extracted and a little 1 cm scar on the top of my left implant where the little damn tumor (1.6 cm) started this whole mess! I have breasts of silicone, but still they are mine. The scars, as cliche as it sounds, are like my little trophies of courage. I did it, I let someone cut off my breasts and I am here today happy and making it. I like em'. I like my faux breasts. They are a C cup full of ...."Take that cancer try to knock me down! I will survive!"

Artful Boobs

My friend Mary, who went through chemo at the same time I did, sent me this link. It's artful, fun and for a good cause...boobs!

http://www.quilters ofsc.org/ artfullbras/ artfullbras. htm

Gmail Update 2

From the time that I had sent the last update out to "My People" I had met with Dr. M my plastic surgeon. He was a God send along with his physician's assistant Sarah. They set me up with a surgeon that they knew would work with them on a mastectomy if I chose that, an oncologist and a gynocologist since I wasn't happy with mine.

Within the course of a week I had met with all of the doctors that would form my team. Dr. M told me I had Invasive Ductile Carcinoma. He informed me I would have 3 surgical choices. One lumpectomy, two single mastectomy or three double mastectomy. The three choices would most likely be accompanied with chemotherapy and if I chose a lumpectomy I would most likely get radiation. I asked what he would recommend for his wife. He said given the family history I had he recommended genetic testing to see if I was brac1 positive. If I carried the brac1 gene that increases my chances of reoccurence significantly for breast as well as ovarian he would want his wife to do a double mastectomy and consider a hystorectomy. I looked at him in tears with what I'm sure was a crazy desperate expression and said, "What's the other choice?" I didn't like any of those as it meant cutting my beautiful perfect breasts that I had only 3 years before decided to augment for fun. I loved them and didn't want them touched. Not to mention I knew what was to come. I had watched my mom do this 3 times. Twice for breast and once for ovarian cancer. It changed her, it aged her and it caused fear.

I also saw Dr. G the surgeon that would work with Dr. M. He was the best, answered many questions for me and felt this tumor had beeen all removed looking at an ultrasound. He listened to my vanity issues about being relatively young (39)and not wanting to be all hacked up. Yes only my husband sees my breasts, but that's the most important person not to mention me! He said we may be able to do a rare mastectomy that saves my nipples.

I also saw the oncologist who confirmed my three choices gave me some statistics and was ver factual...

The following is the next Update I emailed out.

Gmail Update 2


Here we go ...I went to Dr. M (plastic surgeon) again on Tuesday. They took out the stitches from the biopsy and were concerned by the amount of bruising and are just checking to make sure that it is normal for me and not a problem. It's normal for me I've always been a bruiser and a swelller!!! I got some great news from him as far as the mastectomy goes. If all goes well I will come out of the surgery with new implants already in place that will make me the same size as I am now and no follow up surgery will be necessary. I dont' want to go into more detail on that because I'm trying to keep some class here it was good news though they will be taking away almost no skin so I should end up with a thin white scar on the outside of my breasts (well the scars will fade to white over a year.) I went to the oncologist Dr G. today. I was all nervous and worked up and made myself sick and angry! He is much more factual although still nice abd I felt he was really good. He will consult with the other two surgeons but he wants this to happen a little more stepwise. He wants me to do the masectomy on the 14th. While I am healing over the next 6 weeks he is setting up genetic testing to know for sure whether I carry the BRCA1 gene and gather all the info from the lymphnodes and tests after the surgery about my exact cancer. He said I will have either chemo or a hormone therapy called tamoxifene or both but he can't determine that yet so why put the port in if I won't need it. It is just an outpatient procedure if I do. If the genetic testing and all the results support doing the ovaries he said great but he thinks it is better done later after we deal with the breast cancer and if I do hormone therapy I may be able to delay it for 5 years. He also said that yes I may go into menopause from chemo or tamoxifen but I may not, I may need chemo I may not, but let's do it one step at a time. I felt like he was a logical voice of reason even though I was all set to just do it all and be done with it. There is no harm in taking it step by step and maybe the transition will be easier.

I admit I am at this point right now on the couch mentally overwhelmed with choices about things it takes 6 years to learn about in medical school. I did feel a tad bit overwhelmed and down today, but mostly from exhaustion as my mind is going 24 hours a day right now. I finally gave up, got in the tub and drank a glass of wine and I'm about to watch American Idol which is taped!

My girlfriends in Ohio are getting together and sending my dear friend Krista out for a weekend on the 28th to entertain me and I am so thankful! She is already lookin forward to giving me a hard time! I told her even if I look bad tell me I look good!!!

So now I guess we are back to just getting my third set of boobs.

****Dad and Sheree I don't think I need you just yet. Stay on stand by for April in case chemo is the prognosis and I need you later. I am still trying to keep the house relatively normal for the kids and me. Until there is some more wonderful exciting cancer news to send out....luv t

Gmail Update 1

The fear of breast cancer started long ago for me. My mom was diagnosed at age 42 with breast cancer. I was in my third year of college and felt unable to live without my mom. I was 22 then and began to worry about myself as there was a strong family history preceding my mom. She survived through the treatment and is still here 18 years later.

So when I was diagnosed at age 39 I was devastated and shocked, but I think I always knew it was coming if not to me then my sister. Still, nothing prepares a person for news like that. I knew at once that the world as I knew it was forever altered, my body would be forever altered and I was scared.

I also knew immediately that I would need people around me to help me get through. Thank God for Gmail! I immediately started to journal this experience for practical reasons (I didn't want to repeat the story over and over to friends and family) and also to help myself talk my way through it and deal with the situation and emotions and not be bogged down by them.

The following is the first announcement to friends...I copied it from my saved Gmails. The subject for the emails was simply Update so this is Update1. I hope it will help others going through this realize they are not alone and that their emotions, whatever they are, are valid.

I am through breast cancer now. It's been a year since diagnosis. I've had a double mastectomy, reconstruction, chemotherapy, and then a hysterectomy as a precaution as I was BRCA positive and my chances of ovarian cancer were high. So I've lived breast cancer...I'm still living breast cancer even though it is officially gone. I want to post all the emails and will over time. Let me know what you think...

Gmail Update1

I don't know how else to say this other than to blurt it out, but I have breast cancer. I found the lump myself in November when I was just scratching my chest one day. It is very high up on the left side. It was really small and I wasn't sure it was anything at all but I went to the gyno. She couldn't even feel it I had to sit up and show her. She said she thought it was a calcium deposit and to lay off caffeine, but to get a mammogram to be sure.

We were in between insurance until January and since she was so confident I decided to wait 2 months until Jan to get it. I got the mammogram the first week in January and they still thought it was nothing but it wasn't fluid filled so they wanted to biopsy it. I called the surgeon who did my implants to remove it because I really trust him. He did it Monday and called me last night to tell me it was cancerous and I will go into him today to figure out what is next. I don't know how I feel. I was really upset but then kind of nothing. My doctor (Dr. M the plastic surgeon who did my implants in 2005) will find me a great oncologist and surgeon that he thinks is good and will be at the surgery to make sure it looks the best it can look no matter what has to be done. I'll keep you in the loop.

What's This Blog About?

What is Breast Issue about...

It's about the tragedies and inspirations breast cancer has had on my life.

It's about my experience with breast cancer, my mom's experience with breast cancer, my friends' experience with breast cancer and all the people I don't know that have had an experience with breast cancer.

It's about more than doctor talk and surgeries it's about people and their minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day struggle to accept their new life after a breast cancer diagnosis. It's about moving forward through survival and pink ribbons to living life with a new perspective. A better, stronger more enlightened perspective. It's about what you are doing right now with breast cancer.

Let's talk, listen, teach and inspire each other with the nitty gritty details of how to make it through the crap of breast cancer and come out of it's cocoon with grace and power!

Talk to me....