Oops, I did it again

Gotta love it when the photos are all out of order. I'll let your smart brains figure out the sequence of PaPa and I scraping off the remnants of our bathroom wallpaper border before using almost every last scrap of the leftover stuff to repair what we could. For those who missed it, years ago when we removed wallpaper in our foyer and sunroom and kitchen as a family, a certain family member got carried away and continued the process into our bathroom, destroying my very favorite part of the wallpaper. So PaPa graciously helped me redo it and did the vast majority of the work on his last visit here. Thank you SO much- it looks tons better!

I especially love this one. Tell me how you feel about peeling off wallpaper without saying a word...

 

Flora and fauna

Two years ago we had a mourning dove we named Heather decide that the gutter outside the boys. bedroom would be a perfect nesting spot. She and her mate, Hrothgar or Herbert or something, raised one chick. We didn't see or hear anybody return last year, but this year Heather is back or maybe the chick wanted to raise a family in the same spot:

We hope they survive whatever weather is thrown our way. It IS a more sheltered corner of the house and it's to the side of the drainspout, so in theory all should be well!

These goofball dogs keep pulling stuffing out of their bed despite me spraying it all with that bitter tasting deterrent. Then she sticks her head right up against it. She was sound asleep and kicking with her tongue out.

The first of the Virginia Springbeauty flowers, above, and one of the more unfortunate crayfish mentioned in the next post. Found this... skeleton? Exoskeleton? Whoever it was got smashed in the driveway and just looked like a clump of dead leaves in the predawn dark at the bus stop until I leaned closer and realized, "well, someone had an unhappy end when someone else turned around in our driveway or we left home..."

There are two types of creatures, I think- those who are solar powered like Bos and myself, and my Welsh husband. We "sun" very differently...

 

State of the state of the... things?

 Two more chemos to go!

For those of you who have asked how to pray for me, thank you. Um, if you know of any magical means of chemo not stripping nasal passages and eyeballs of moisture, could you send them my way? I'm not getting nosebleeds, but they are CLOSE. Using more eyedrops than I expected too... other than that, my appetite is great and energy is so much better and all the things seem pretty good so keep 'em coming! Dada even had to give me my first hair trim because Thing One announced I had a good monk look going on but not much going on up top. Great. That's the spring look I was aspiring for. Sheesh.

However, extended family members of ours could absolutely use every well wish and prayer you could offer for their young family whose sweet baby was born with his cord around his neck. He hung on long enough to be loved on and cherished, then passed on after some time in hospice care. My heart hurts for his first time parents and his loving extended family who couldn't wait to meet him. There just aren't words. It's like in "Forrest Gump" when he says, "sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." Sending so much love and hope, you guys. You are so loved.

Life just keeps going, ready or not. We are finally getting some sunshine which is MUCH appreciated, though most of us Ohioans realize this is "false spring" and even though I was thrilled to see a killdeer this week, I also have seen them looking completely disgruntled as they stand around in the snow of previous years like, "I TOLD you we should have waited another week in Albuquerque!" The redwinged blackbirds have also been trilling and that makes me happy.

There's no school tomorrow for conferences and/or professional development, so it's a long weekend for us. This week had been spring break for Thing Two so I'm not sure if he's made it out of his robe at all this week...

Enjoy that sunshine and take really good care of you!

A first on a 26th

Today is the first two hour delay of 2025, much to Thing Three's delight, and it brings back lovely memories of our wedding, 26 years ago, when a blizzard blew through, closing the turnpike, preventing plenty of our wedding guests from attending, and prohibiting the arrival of our wedding cake. But it is so pretty out there today!

It is much sunnier out there than I remember it being 26 years ago and is shaping up into a much more forgiving, if still below freezing, kind of day. 

Thanks again to those of you who were crazy enough to brave the weather, no worries to those of you who couldn't make it (believe me- we understand!), and thanks for joining us to all of you whom we've met since then! Thank you all for blessing our lives and our family. 

We love you bunches! Stay warm and safe!

 

Wedding photos

 We had the privilege of attending Dada's cousin's daughter's wedding last weekend and we thrilled to cheer on the lovely couple. Thankfully the weather cooperated, we had dry roads both coming and going, and sunshine during the day with moonlight on the return trip. I'm so glad it was before chemo so I could make the trip and enjoy the time together!

So great to spend time with family and support the young couple. We love all of you guys!

Road trip!

 Thing One and I had the privilege of being invited to a bridal shower. That meant a road trip and that meant snacks! We recommend Auntie Anne's cinnamon pretzel bites despite the sugary crumbly mess they make all over you...

We are thrilled to report that Aunt Elephant is doing so very well! She looks fantastic and was tickled to inform us that she's almost back up to 100#. You go, girl!

We're looking forward to Paige and Logan's wedding later this year, and I promise I will be better about taking pictures- I am ashamed to have only taken a handful at the shower. We had a lovely time catching up with family. 

The moms looked like they were enjoying themselves too and that always makes me so happy. Have fun with those last few plans and enjoy the countdown, you guys!

Topped off the trip with a beautiful red sun at night on our way back home. If you ever need a road trip date, Thing One comes highly recommended- excellent, cautious  driver with a hilarious sense of adventure and a fondness for snacks! 

Waxing philosophically about pathology results and impending nuttiness

 Eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs. 

Just kidding. I know what I need to blog about. I just dontwanna. 

Short version, think "The Princess Bride" where Prince Humperdinck tells the priest, "SKIP to the END," I need chemo. Again.

Longer version: my surgeon, Dr A, removed 16 lymph nodes during her two parts of my surgery. The first 4 were not true sentinels, as those had been taken out during my mastectomy surgery. The other 12 from the second part of her surgery were all clear, so hooray for that! Yay!

Of those 4 closest to the tumor, 2 of those wiseguys had picked up some cancer in their cleanup duties. Guess I should have had it marked "NO TOUCHIE" a little better, but they handled it regardless and got contaminated. 

Once the pathology came back, Dr A took the results to the tumor board that meets Thursday evenings. I had prayed that there would be a clear consensus of YES, chemo is needed or NO, chemo is not needed. I did not want the board to be split down the middle and then be asked, "what do YOU think?" I hate making medical decisions. I don't have a degree in any of that stuff! Just tell me what to do!

Fortunately, they agreed that chemo would be the way to go. Now I'm waiting for the Powers That Be to schedule my port surgery, this time on my left side, and then I can begin chemo the next day. I suppose there will be pre-op bloodwork before that, so here is the sarcastic yaaaaaaaaaay. 

Because I am no longer Triple Positive (I am estrogen positive, progesterone positive, and Her2neu negative for those new to the blog or who have lost track, and who could blame you?) I will need a different chemo cocktail than the first time around. That time I had Carboplatin and Taxotere as my chemo drugs and Herceptin and Perjeta as my hormone therapy drugs. This time it'll be Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide (which I will never be able to spell without looking it up) every two weeks until I've done it four cycles. Then there's probably a break in there of about two weeks before I start Taxol weekly for 12 weeks. Then it'll be on to the hormone therapy, however that looks, but I seem to remember it'll be in pill form.

I shall be bald by Thanksgiving and hopefully done with the AC combo by Christmas providing I tolerate it well and don't get sick and wreck the schedule. I'm going in confident because it'll be the same team who did my chemo the first time and they are excellent at setting patients up for success in anticipating which side effects hit when. For instance, they know "these three days you will have the worst nausea so take these drugs these days, then this day the bone pain will set in so take this one," and so on. They equip you with a great bag of tricks. Plus, I know to drink TONS, rest when I can, stay positive, and all that. 

AND AVOID ATOMIC FIREBALLS. NO TOUCHIE.

My goodness, I don't want to relearn that lesson. No breathing fire, thanks. Mouth sores are a possibility so it'll be time to restart the baking soda rinses and all that jazz as well. I have wonderful lotions to help my skin stay hydrated, plenty of lip balm... and I'll need a box for all my hair products, haha. Oh well. Hair In His Face is welcome to them, though he is such a minimalist he'll never touch them. 

More than anything, right this second, what I want is for the doctor's office to call so I can schedule what needs scheduled so we can plan around it all. I have Stuff To Do! So. Much. Waiting. I'm still no good at it.

Guess I'll have time to catch up on my reading list. I am only 13 books behind my goal for the year. *sigh*

A friend asked how my heart was. Heart is fine because I know this will all be okay. I'm stronger going into this than I was the first time around and that all went fine. I know whose I am, who's got my back, who is cheering me on from afar, and so on. Heart is pretty peaceful, actually. 

It's brain that would like to schedule a freak out session, preferably in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping: 

What if I don't tolerate these meds? What if I'm vomiting or pooping ALL THE TIME? (Then the docs will adjust doses and/or meds and it'll get fixed and be fine.)

What if they affect my heart? I've already had a year of Herceptin and that had potential for heart damage. Yes, I KNOW the last echo test was fine. That was then. (They'll be keeping track of heart stuff, as well, scheduling more echos to keep an eye on things. It'll be fine.)

What if my hair never grows back? It didn't come back the same this time, and eyebrows and eyelashes hardly came back at all. (Meh. Then you have a super easy beauty regimen for the rest of forever. Don't sweat it. There are wigs. There are falsies. There are eyebrow pencils. Do you REALLY care? No. It'll be fine.)

What if I miss an entire year of subbing? (Ugh, okay, I'm with you on this one. I miss my small friends and my peer friends, a lot. I also don't want their germs, which are legion. Then you miss a year, I guess, but they haven't forgotten you as evidenced by your text streams and visits and care packages. They know you love them, too. And you might be back to yourself by springtime! It will be okay.)

I can't believe I'm putting my family through this again. (They are also in good hands with a good tribe at their back. Again, your team knows what they're doing. It will all be okay. Not great sometimes, but okay. You can keep talking about it to make sure THEY are okay, too.)

What if it spreads elsewhere? (Good grief, brain, shut it! *sigh* Okay, if it spreads elsewhere then your team will deal with that as well! Go to sleep!)

And a radiation consult? Potentially proton therapy? What is up with that?! (That is another post altogether when we have some facts.)

But what if...?

And so it goes. 

But that's life, right? There's no stopping the world to get off for a minute to reorient yourself. Y'just gotta take another breath. Take another step. Write another thank you note. Pray for someone else. Text another friend. Have another cup of coffee Go drink some more water. Eat some ice cream. Go for a walk. Make a grocery list cuz God knows nobody else around here adds anything to it. Read a book. Take another breath. Drink some more water. Give yourself permission to take a nap. Phone a friend and ruin their day because SOMEONE CALLED THEM, haha. Tell people you love them. And breathe again.

Wash, rinse, repeat. 

Enjoy the bubbles.

The part of the Pincushion will be played by…

 Yours truly, apparently.

*You may skip this post if you'd rather have my version of puppies and kittens, AKA graduation and vacation posts, instead of posts involving breast cancer. You're allowed. No hard feelings. I get it! Read on if you'd like. You're always welcome to stick around or to skip out.*

*Also, this one is lengthy. Grab a snack.*

So I finished my five years of Tamoxifen on Groundhog Day this year. I had a checkup later that month. My blood work and my physical exam were fine. Sometime after that, I felt a lump in what is left of my right side, near my armpit. I started running on the treadmill in April and know that sometimes your lymph nodes can get outta whack when you do hard exercise. Well, running is hard for me- I don't hit a good stride for what feels like forever, and the longest I've ever run continuously is about a mile and a half. Since I have two friends and had an uncle who have all done marathons, which I am NOT aspiring to by any means, a mile and a half feels puny. Still, I suppose that's from Camp Lambec to Peggy Gray Candies, so there's that. Go me!

Anyway, the running in addition to the good exam and consistently "perfect" blood draw numbers for the last five years had me keeping an eye on the lump. I told my oncologist at my May appointment. She felt it and said it warranted an ultrasound and, if needed, an ultrasound biopsy. 

I don't think there are a lot of words I more personally dread and despise than "biopsy." At this point my veins shrivel up immediately and try to hide. They don't even come out at "Olly olly oxen free!" They know better.

So the ultrasound tech is wonderful, supportive, a cancer survivor herself and a tremendous cheerleader for me. She's joined the same team of ladies who won my heart the first time I was in there for a mammogram. These ladies are some of the same team who got me through the initial biopsy, where I passed out, and then caught me when I passed out again after she finished my follow up mammogram. These ladies are angels, I'm telling you. They hugged me and told me they'd be praying for me. And that maybe it was scar tissue. Don't jump straight to the worst.

Bless them all. I'm so fond of them. Definitely following their callings. Thank you, ladies.

So the ultrasound results-viewing doc comes in to confirm that "it's suspicious looking and will need biopsied." Unfortunately, they don't do that in the same appointment. So I'm scheduled and my sweet ultrasound friend informs me that I will have a tremendous doctor and she will also be part of that team and they'll see me in 10 days. 

Ten days later, on Thing Three's birthday, our firstborn takes me to the appointment and I warn them that I'm a fainting risk. They coo over me and inform me that they won't let me pass out, tut tut. I smile and silently rue, "we'll see about that."  They took seven samples, saying it'd be more than enough to see what's going on in there, left their "we were here" clip for future imaging, and lo and behold I stayed awake the entire time. I'm telling you- angels. Walked out of there and everything! Amazing. I'd never have believed it.

So we go on vacation.

And I get a call saying the biopsy tested positive.

*insert choice words and/or tears of rage/frustration here*

(I sure did.)

A telehealth call with my oncologist ensues. She says the next steps will be a brain MRI, a heart echo, and a PET scan to see if anything has spread. Then a surgery consult followed by surgery to get that area cleaned up. Then hormone therapy will be after that, but a consult with a radiation oncologist will help determine what else needs to happen- do my ovaries need to come out? What kind of hormone therapy will it be? Apparently you can only do Tamoxifen if you still have ovaries and you take something different if you don't. There are some other questions as well, but I think my brain might have fritzed at that point. I did retain that I can't have radiation again on that side because you can only do that once. Live and learn.

From vacation, I'm calling to set up the brain MRI, the heart echo, and the PET scan. Being on vacation actually worked in my favor as the PET scan van is only at my hospital on Fridays and they were already full until we could get back. Same with the surgical consult- that surgeon was on vacation and wouldn't be back until July. Perfect timing!

This past Monday morning, I head in for my brain MRI, which is first without and then with contrast. I choose to listen to oldies, which I clarify means 50's and 60's and not the 80's, which makes the nurse laugh. I try to not hum along and keep track of how many songs so I know when they'll pull me back out to add the contrast. I keep my eyes closed in these and that helps me not feel claustrophobic. But you don't go the whole way in for brain ones, so that also helps. The needle doesn't feel like it goes great, but it gets the job done, leaving a small bruise. Those ladies are cheerful and I'm in and out of there. I left from a different door and decided to walk around the hospital to my car. At some point the sidewalk runs out, so I kick off my shoes and roam through the grass barefoot, still wearing my hospital bracelet. Anyone watching from the windows probably thought I'd escaped. So far, so good. 

Monday afternoon is the heart echo. These are fun. No needles involved so I get to chill out on the bed as she glides her wand around while her other hand takes measurements and screen shots of my heart doing its thing. I like to watch the colors on the screen.

I get a call from my oncologist's office later in the week that both of those scans were clear and perfect. Brain and heart are great. Part of the reason behind the heart scan, I bet, is that I was on Herceptin for a year, which is not a chemo drug but is a hormone therapy drug which has the potential to do heart damage. My doc had me have heart echos during that year to make sure it wasn't affecting my heart adversely, so I wasn't expecting bad news this time either. Always nice to receive good news, though! Yippie!

Yesterday was the PET scan, first thing. That means that Thursday was a high protein, low/no carb/sugar diet, as much water as I could drink, no caffeine, no strenuous exercise, and so forth. You're also allowed to keep drinking water on the day of, which is so nice as it means your brain doesn't feel like it's the size of a raisin and you can actually think. So I go in sipping from my water bottle with nice, juicy veins. I thought. Silly me. As my Aunt Kay would say, "fool."

The PET scan van has two reclinable seats in one section and the machine is in the opposite end with a work station in between; today there's a male and female tech. I'm installed in my chair next to a tiny, smiling old woman in the next one, and I show the female tech my bruise from the MRI on Monday. She laughs and tells me that I'm still young and my veins tend to stay where they are; apparently once you get up there farther things tend to scoot around more. I guess we've all been warned, folks. Good times ahead. So she has me loose and relaxed and I swear to you I was not stressed about this test! I'd had one before, I was so excited to cross this off my list to get more answers, etc. I was good!

You can imagine my consternation when that needle wouldn't go in smoothly. She tried pulling it back out some, then a little more. I lamented that times like this are when I miss my port. She laughed and said since they're not nurses that they're not allowed to access ports anyway. Sweet Jiminy Christmas. Ports are God's gift. I ask if I can put my feet up on her stool and inform her that things are getting sparkly. She says sure, so my feet go up...

And I go out. Again, incredibly vivid dreaming and I wake up to... boxes up high on a shelf and two faces peering down at me that I can't immediately place and then... oh yeah, here we are. Stupid veins. Needles. Ugh. 

Female tech: "Um, have you ever seized before?"

Me: *sigh*

"Oh yes, it's happened before."

Male tech: "That wasn't a seizure. It was a vasovagal syncope..."

Me: "Yeah. I had the EEG and all that and everything was fine."

Him: "Especially if it only happens in circumstances like this."

Her to him: "Will you try to access her veins?"

Him: "Sure." 

He's wonderful as well, shows me a picture of his dog, we laugh about rescue animals, he gets it in and tapes it in place even though it only takes a few moments for the blood draw and the dye to go in, gets me a cold washcloth and watches me like a hawk. I do go on to vomit, sorry if that's TMI, but it's mostly water as I hadn't eaten since before 8 the night before, I don't think. 

I don't remember if she tried in the back of my hand like I'd suggested before or after I passed out. I think before. He got it in the back of my hand. So now I have two pinholes inside my left elbow and two in the back of my left hand, because everything is to be done on my left, non-cancer side. Blood pressure cuffs, all that jazz. I try to be good about it.

The radioactive dye they inject works its way all through you- in my case I sat for about 50 minutes for it to complete its rounds- and then you get popped into a machine where you glide back and forth and the machine takes pictures for a few minutes. It makes me think of a kids' ride at an amusement park. You sliiiiiiiide in, stop, slide a little farther, slide back out fast, stop, stay put, sliiiiiide. Had to remind myself to hold still and not giggle. She said since I'm smallish that it would take about 12 minutes. If you read online it can take 20-40. She said they had a new camera. Hooray for progress. I wish there was a radioactive dye I could absorb through a patch or something, sheesh. Come on, people. Let's stop killing each other with weapons and start inventing better medical procedures, ideally stick-free!

So I do great during the test, I'm released and escorted back to the waiting room where I park my bum and sit like a sad sack whilst eyeing up the trash can on the opposite side of the room while I wait for my hubby to make it back. He'd been told I'd be about an hour and a half so he got some errands done instead of wasting away in the waiting room. Apparently the radiology lobby is a cell phone dead zone because my texts to him were going nowhere. He found me after a few minutes and I leaned on him as I made it out of there on my own two feet, though I confess to feeling like I'd been slapped around by ocean waves. You know how you still feel like you're being hit right after you get out? I didn't want to turn my head quickly and relied more on my peripheral vision. They had assured me that I'd feel normal with that dye, but holy cow, what is IN that stuff? 

On the drive home, which is only a few minutes, he made a quick stop into our local donut shop and I vomited again, haha. Such a lovely morning. It's all good- we keep fast food bags (and everything else) in the car so I was prepared. He got me home and I popped back into bed for a much needed nap and start over. 

The rest of the day was uneventful and we celebrated with pizza for dinner. Now I'm not so excited about my oncologist wanting to schedule me for a PET scan annually. Yeesh. Oh well. Good to go for another year, I hope! Supposedly results take about 24 hours so my oncologist's office should be letting me know early next week how that all worked out. Then all of those images from the three tests will head to the surgeon for the consult Monday after next. She will have all the intel she needs to decide how to tackle this next part.

 I'm optimistic about the surgery part- never my favorite thing, obviously, but I can't wait to get this lump out before anything gets ideas about taking up permanent residence. If the PET scan reveals that it is just a lymph node who decided to hang onto some previous bad stuff, then supposedly after surgery I'd once again be disease-free (yay!) and would just do the hormone therapy treatment, however much that entails. Maybe ovaries come out, maybe it's infusions, I have no idea. Not stressing over any of that yet. If it has spread from the lymph node, I feel like my blood draw numbers would have revealed something to that effect and we'd have had a heads up. Either way, my oncologist said, "there will be treatment, but it will be nothing like it was before. It will be nowhere near as difficult." 

I want it out. And I don't want it to affect my range of motion, which is probably why she's sending me to a surgical expert who can clean it out really well. I can feel it not just when I touch it, but when I'm in certain positions or when something like a vertical underwire on a swimsuit puts pressure on it, things like that. I want it gone and I want to recover and move on. I'm stronger this time around than I was for the initial diagnosis six years ago. We started walking a few miles most days during covid and then this year I started running, so I'm definitely in better and more intentional shape than I was. That's going to count in my favor during recovery, I think. I love my team. They always have my back and they treat me like someone they'd enjoy going out to breakfast with. I'm in great hands. My family and my tribe know what's going on and have my back. Will I miss my ovaries? Nope. My main concern is that I'm right handed and if they have to  take much more muscle out of that side I don't want it to affect anything. "I am not left-handed," as they say in the Princess Bride. Me neither, buddy.  My lesser concern is that I don't want too many lymph nodes messed with or removed as I don't want to run the risk of acquiring lymphedema. I got stuff to do! 

Along with that, I'm mostly aggravated. With a lot of life, there's something to blame. And I know blame isn't helpful, but it IS nice to be able to point to something as a cause. "That guy was drunk and therefore caused that accident." With this, at least before I have all the imaging and so forth, the best guess is that a lymph node held onto cells it should have let go. How they made it through chemo and surgery when I had clean margins and then radiation is beyond me. But then my brain whispers, "does that mean it's back instead of never being really gone?" And I tell my brain to shut it.  And I remind it about my "perfect" numbers. And it settles. And life goes on in this amazing world with my incredible overlapping circles of friends and family. I know whose I am and who's got me. I am unbelievably blessed. 

I will keep you posted. In the meantime, we will play the waiting game once again, checking things off the list as they happen, celebrating over good news and making a plan to deal with any less than desirable news. The plan is to enjoy the summer! That goes for you, too: do what you love!

Feeling like Sunday morning

 I love telling stories in reverse order. (*rolls eyes*) Okay, the morning after the wedding (which I haven't blogged about yet, so bear with me- you're not losing it) it was decided that our whole kit and caboodle would have breakfast at Bob Evans AND we would get to meet up with friends of ours. Some of us did a coffee run whilst others slept in or showered or swam, in Damon's case. We got to Bob Evans and needed seating for 14 so all the cousins could sit together and goof off while the adults could hear themselves think. And there's always Shenanigans.

Together again for the first time in 12 years!

These kiddos had started elementary school together and then between 2nd and 3rd grade their family moved to the other side of Ohio. The kids found each other on social media and checked in on each other once in awhile, and then orchestrated the breakfast when we figured out we'd all be in roughly the same spot in Ohio. Thanks for coming to see us! Damon had just been a little guy when they left, so they were delighted to see how big he was, which made him blush a little. Hopefully there are more adventures together in store and it's not nearly as long between visits!

All that swimming, traveling, and eating wore the boys out. We made it home safe, picked up the dogs from the friend who graciously watched them, and hope to not have to go anywhere today. Have a good one!

Lest you be kept in suspense

Hello! This is your PSA to stay on top of your physical exams, especially for those of you who tend to Procrastinate. Just wanted to get that out there.

And now for the good news: I'm out of surgery, out of recovery, out of the room they put you in after recovery, and I'm home!

That's right. I'm home. Lots of the medical staff polled were of the opinion that I'd sleep (and therefore heal) better at home. I was sent home with instructions on how to empty and log the amount of fluid in the drains (oh yes, good times ahead) and the meds which went home with me and all kinds of fun advice. 

Rest easy, sweet friends and family. I'm in good hands with Dada and my Mommee and I'm behaving myself under orders of all my nurse friends. I promise! Thank you thank you thank you for the prayers and all of the support you have showered on drenched us with. YOU guys are amazing! Thanks for "storming the castle" for me. I'm betting God was delighted on my behalf over all the help he could bestow on my medical staff because you enabled it. Thanks for praying powerful prayers and for being my safety in numbers. 

I'll keep this post quick and get back to "the hard part" of resting and recovery, but I promise to do another gory detail post for those of you who'd like one. Thanks again!

And Dada has been excused from his grudging assignment of guest blogger, though I think he did an excellent job. =)

All the hairy details

It's funny. I read in one of my multitudes of breast cancer books that I should box up all my hair care products so they're out of my way and I don't have to keep seeing them. I did my best, but those of you with plenty of hair know how hair clips and hair elastics and hair accessories seem to migrate all through the house, the car, into every handbag, etc. I thought I did pretty well gathering Stuff up and sticking it all in a box:

Then I remembered I also had a drawer in the kids' bathroom:

If the entire purpose of boxing up The Hair Stuff was to free space, the experts have seriously underestimated the generosity of my friends and family. This is not everything I received in the mail or in person, but it is the vast majority of it. The bandannas in the bottom left are representatives of a much larger stack of them which I've used throughout my life and especially at camp. To any of you who thoughtfully picked out fabrics, styles, and colors for my naked bean, I thank you. Thanks for spiffing up my wardrobe!

And to those of you who see me when I'm not wearing anything on my head, you now are absolutely sure that it is not because I am lacking appropriate headgear. Sometimes it is nice to just feel the wind in my hair eyebrows eyelashes ears. 

No, I really don't like that. I tend to pull all these suckers down so the wind doesn't do that...

There are many more tiny hairs on my head than there were a few weeks ago. Dada is teasing me about it coming in white and curly, but they look mighty straight-and-stick-outy to me. My Mary Alice calls it dandelion hair. Time will tell. Eyebrows also seem to be attempting a comeback and I have curled my eyelashes without fear of losing them entirely twice in the last week. This is what progress looks like!

Stupid old boobs

April continues to not disappoint with her unpredictability in both weather and life events. Supposedly this week it will reach 80, though the nights slither down to 35 and 40. So far this month I've lost my last grandparent, our youngest has finished testing for and earned his black belt in karate, and I've been freshly diagnosed with breast cancer.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. That's right, I'm now one of those one-in-eight women who will receive a diagnosis of breast cancer in their lifetimes. And what a wild and crazy ride that begins!

Once upon a time, a gal went in for what she figured would be a routine mammogram as she was officially of age to get things like that checked out. She received the letter in the mail informing her that she had dense breast tissue like a lot of other women, and it would require further tests because the density makes it harder to see trouble spots. A spot compression was ordered, which meant that another mammogram was performed with an additional section clamped onto the machine to focus on a specific area. Once that all was finished, an ultrasound was ordered. Based on the results from all of the tests, and the fact that I'd been feeling what turned out to be an enlarged lymph node in addition to an actual lump that the doctor found while doing a breast exam, an ultrasound guided biopsy was recommended. The surgeon told us, "I've been doing this long enough that if the results come back saying it's nothing, I wouldn't believe it." 

 Well, biopsy means needles. I am much tougher when I am pregnant than when I am not. As I am not, I passed out during the beginning of the biopsy to awaken and find a masked man (the surgeon) "yoohoo"ing me, which sent my brain straight to "Frozen" where a wet and chilled Anna crunches into the Swedish vendor's hut as he waves cheerily and calls, "hoo hoo!" It's a bit odd to me how it can take forever to fall asleep and dream but I can get there in a matter of seconds when fainting. 

So we pick up the chitchat where we left off, finish the biopsy, and they send me back to get another mammogram to make sure that the titanium chip they'd inserted as a "we were here" marker made it into the correct spot. They do this because, interestingly enough, scar tissue from surgeries (which a biopsy is considered) can look the same as cancer on future screenings; hence the marker which means the scar tissue was deliberate. 

Things got a little sparkly here too. I sat down after the first set of images was achieved and thought I was ready for the second one, but as I woke up on the floor, I guess I wasn't quite 100% yet. My new BFF in the women's center told me, "you did great. You held your breath, I got the picture, I told you to breathe, your knees went, and I caught you before you hit the floor." Isn't she super? 

The surgeon came in to check on me, pronounced that it was probably anxiety over the procedure (y'think?) combined with dehydration as they tell you not to eat or drink anything including water for the 4 hours beforehand. I was nervous (see needle notes above) and thirsty as I usually drink plenty all morning long. My sweet new nurse friends gave me cranberry juice and graham crackers like I was a little kid and when I was ready, I was wheeled out to the car and sent on my way. 

We headed back in the next week to go over the results with the surgeon we'd already met with. He told us that based on the results he had, I have ductile (starting in a duct) carcinoma (big scary cancer word) invasive (has already spread out from where it began), that I could have already had it for 5-8 years (!!!), that because of my age they will probably treat it aggressively which most likely will mean a port for chemo before they do any potential surgery/radiation.  We asked as many questions as we could think of and made the poor surgeon wince a little as he said, "again, you're at the outer edge of my expertise, but that's a great oncology question."

I perhaps mistakenly understood that we would not meet with an oncologist until after they had the MRI results in hand. An MRI couldn't happen until 7-14 days after the start of a menstrual cycle began. I was beginning to freak out a bit thinking that this process was taking longer and longer and we would be looking at the second week of May or later. I felt like I would never get answers to my questions unless I googled them and would end up scaring myself out of my mind.

Then God tapped me on the shoulder. "Remember my faithfulness." The phone rang on Friday morning. It was the oncology office and they wanted to set up an appointment. Was I free on Monday? (But Monday will come before the MRI!) Yes, I was free Monday! Then I was to bring the usual driver's license and insurance card and any questions I might have to meet the doctor on Monday. We'd start discussing treatment options even though we were waiting for tests. We would start blood work and no, fasting will not be necessary so go about your normal Monday morning and we'll see you then. 

Are you kidding me?! Wahoo! God, you're amazing! I don't have to fast?! I can drink all morning long to have nice juicy veins to tap! I can write down all my questions that I can't wait to have answers for: what should I be eating? What should I stop eating? Do I have to quit sugar? What should my exercise program be like? How wiped out am I going to be? How often will chemo happen and for how long and how long will the breaks be between them? Can I buy my summer pool pass? Will I be allowed to get in the pool with a port or am I benched? How much hurking will be involved and what can I safely take to avoid as much of that as possible? I don't have to wait until after the MRI to ask questions! Yippieeeee!

Granted, we won't know what stage I'm in until after the MRI because that is apparently the test to determine size and whether any cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. They're also still waiting on the part of the biopsy which gets sent away to determine whether or not I am Her-2 positive. If I am, from my understanding, that gives them an additional avenue with which to treat me. I am estrogen and progesterone positive, so those are other pathways to treatment. I am walking that fine line between spouting what I've heard thus far and not knowing what anything means, so my apologies to those of you who know more about this than I do and to those of you who think this is all TMI. 

We've been already just about bowled over by the waterfall of love, prayers, offers of help, encouragement, and devotion shown by friends and family. Say what you will about social media, but it is a good tool with which to keep multitudes of people informed.  

Stupid old boobs. I never wanted them in the first place! ;)

It is almost Monday afternoon! We will keep you posted. Thanks in advance for the prayers and love. Our support system is immense and not afraid of hard work. Like I told our camp friends already, I can envision some poor, pathetic demon who'd been assigned to attack me sniveling to Satan, "it's too haaaaard, she's covered too well, you won't believe who has been praying for her, I can't do this!" Satan will sigh, send him back to work, and they will both be miserable. God is so much bigger than this and I have absolutely no doubt that what looks like a huge, snarly, knotted mess to me is something fantastic and interconnected and breathtaking on the top of the tapestry; I am merely on the mortal underside. 

So expect updates here and on Facebook because this is going to be one long road of good, bad, and ugly. I'm sure it will  get worse before it gets better. After all, I'm already pretty good at living with cancer. The new temporary normal will be learning to live with cancer treatment, which is a whole different game show, complete with some zany host. If I had my choice, I'd request the cast of "Whose Line Is It" because man, anyone who can make up a song about plumbing using words given on the spot by the audience AND make it sound good is my kind of tribe. 

If you'll excuse me, I have to go pee again, but I will be working the Southwest corner of Hot Mess for the foreseeable future, so you'll know where to find me. Make today a fabulous day!

Tis the season

... for family photos! A big thanks to the folks at CedarCreek who are taking pictures and letting everyone use them this year. Most of you will have already seen this from Facebook, but since some of you my mother is not, here you go, Mommee!

And then there were birthdays

School ended at various times this year. Carrie and Damon were done on Thursday, the 4th of June. Preschool had the closing picnic and playground date that day, and the 6-12th grades finished. They'd gone to school one wintry day and then it was discovered that the fuel lines on the buses were freezing, so they cancelled the elementary school day. Hence, the elementary kids had to make up one extra day, June 5, Damon's birthday. So while Liam was at school for his very last day and the other two were home with me, we baked Damon's cake.

He wanted Stuart, the minion with one eye and NOT stick-uppy hair. So, hello Google images, and voila:

 

Stuart was devoured in days, and he was mighty tasty.

 

Grandmama had sent minion napkins and banners (which are still up... hey, it's still the birthday boys' month!) and she'd also ordered black party favors featuring 40 and Vintage Dude since there was another birthday boy in the house.

 

Yes, Dada turned the big 4-0.

 

So we did what anyone does. We threw a party.

 

A big party.

 

Since Damon turned 5 on June 5th, it was his Golden birthday. Dada turned 40, so it was his Oldie party.

 

Hence, a Golden Oldie party! About 50 people from karate, preschool, work, family from far away, the neighborhood, college, and the rest of our lives showed up to help us eat the cookies, homemade ice cream, burgers, hot dogs, rice, veggies, watermelon, chips, Buffalo chicken dip, homemade lemonade, and other drinks we had out. Needless to say, we still have pop and chips and crackers and stuff leftover from the party.

 

WE WILL NOT BE DOING CHRISTMAS IN JULY IN 2015.

 

Just throwing that out there. Big party for the year, done. Check.

 

We were apparently too busy chatting and stuffing ourselves to take many pictures, but this might give you a general overview:

 

 

 

Thank you all for coming, for eating and laughing and playing with us, and for blessing both of our birthday boys. We really enjoying having you all over. Thanks for doing life with us!