Heroes

After most of my intensive treatment was completed, I started to redesign my new life after cancer. I immersed myself into my art. One of my goals was to have a collage published in a magazine. The first submission theme that I read about was a call for work entitled “Heroes”.  I did not have any trouble interpreting what or who a hero was to me. This was my first “publishing” of my bald self. I had hair now and felt it was safe to let people see me without my hair.

 

My submission was not accepted to be published in the magazine.  When my copy of the issue arrived I was anxious to see what Heroes had been chosen over mine. There were the Heroes that come to everyone’s mind: firefighters, soldiers, Fathers, artists, movie stars, Women, Gandhi, but there were no cancer patients or survivors. It is hard to make a pretty picture out of cancer … cancer is not pretty.

 

I have to admit that before I became a cancer survivor, before the 8 rounds of chemo, the loss of hair, breasts, ovaries and dignity…..I am not sure if I would have portrayed the cancer survivor as my hero either. If I saw a person battling cancer I had sympathy for them, but now I have empathy. Empathy for my fellow warriors.

 

So my heroes are the ones who have come before… Andrea, Lisa, Amanda… we can learn so much from them and the countless others who have gone before. We learn to fight, cope, live and even when and how to surrender to this disease.

 

My heroes are those of us who are in this club, in various stages of this disease. My friend who has just entered Hospice… a friend of a friend  whose breast cancer has metastasized to her spine and brain.  All Mothers with Cancer who contribute to this site and those that are just visiting.

 

My heroes are those that will come after us, who can hopefully find comfort in some of the words and experiences that we write about here.

 

My Heroes…

 

My Fellow Warriors…

 

those that came before … those that will come after…

 cross posted at marybethvolpini

 

 

 

25,000 miles and counting

Well, I’ve been scarce around here lately.  Sorry if that’s worried any of you (Susan).  I must admit to not blogging much at all of late.  There’s a lot of good in that and a fair amount of bad as well.  I’ve been busy as a one-armed paper hanger.  Work is backed up.  I’m rarely away from my desk.  I’m not taking my breaks or walking like I should so my weight is creeping upwards ever so slowly.  Of course, all that busy at work makes my days fly by, too.   When I get home there is a whole other life that gets crammed into the few hours between 4:00 pm and 8:00 when the kids go to bed.  There’s Little League practice twice a week and now games twice a week as well.  Therapy for Danny once a week.  The ever present laundry and my FaceBook addiction.  And filling every spare minute in between is my photography passion.

That’s the good stuff.  I’ve been too busy living life to spend much time blogging about it.  On the negative side, I’m coming up on my 25,000 mile (2.5 year) check up.  As always, I start worrying out of the blue.  This time my location of concern is my right hip.  It has been hurting for a couple of months now.  But the last few weeks it’s become so sore that it wakes me at night and I can barely walk up stairs.  So this check up, I get a bonus bone scan!

Tomorrow is my chest/abdomen/pelvic CT.  Thursday is my bone scan.  Then I have to wait until the 14th (!) before I see my oncologist for the results.  I’ll never make it.  I haven’t even had the scans yet and I want to call for the results already.  Yet, I hope I don’t here from her office before my appointment, know what I mean????

Chemotherapy Induced Time Travel

(crossposted from Coffee and Chemo)

My son and I were sitting down for an afternoon snack together.

Suddenly, I had a major hot flash!

I explained that my drug induced menopause caused it. I then elaborated that women usually go through menopause around age 50.

“You mean,” my son asked, with a twinkle in his eye, “you went forward in time?!”

Back to Me

Hey friends,

After a long break from this space, I’d like to rejoin you. I’ve missed you!

The last year was difficult. I went through a painful breakup. I lost my job and was out of work for four months. And I had my second reconstruction, which failed. The right incision split open three times due to an underlying infection that refused to respond to antibiotics. That side had to be reconstructed a third time.

A girl can only take so much, ferchrissakes.

 

But life is looking good again. I found a job and I love it. I’ve come to a place of acceptance with my reconstruction. And while I’m still single, I’m content and full of gratitude for what I do have. I feel like I’m back to me, and it feels delicious  

Love to you all.

Lahdeedah.

Venting

It was supposed to be a simple procedure.  It wasn’t supposed to be emotionally draining.  I’m talking about going to the local Red Cross to donate blood for my own surgery. 

Mistake #1

I’ve been trained by my local lymphedema clinic physical therapists very well.  I will always ask to have my blood pressure taken from my leg rather than my arm.  This is what I’m supposed to do since I’ve had lymph nodes removed from both arms.  I’m supposed to avoid taking blood or any constrictions that my cause lymphedema.

Mistake #2

I have a huge fear of lymphodema.  If you had breast cancer and had lymph nodes removed, you might have done searches on the Internet and come up with this…..or this.  And I’m being nice.  I don’t want to gross you out with the worst picture I can find.  And if lymphodema gets bad enough you might have to walk around in this for weeks or maybe even life.  I’d like to think I’m being unrealistic but the truth is that I could get an infection from a hang nail or I could set it off from a simple blood pressure cuff in the arm.

So I didn’t think I was being too difficult when I asked if the people taking my blood could take my blood pressure out of my leg (all the doctor’s offices do this?) and I asked them if they could be as careful and gentle as they could when they take the blood. 

Well….this opened into a full fledged crisis that left me crying in the end. 

The woman I was talking with got the woman in charge who came over to tell me that was not in the written guidelines for the Red Cross.  It MUST be taken in the arm.  I then told her I would be fine doing the blood pressure in my arm but I admitted to them that I was quite surprised they were so up in arms about taking the blood pressure in the leg.  It is the exact same thing only in the leg.  There are minor variations.  SO I let her know I was fine with it but I was surprised by it and that I may follow up with this very uninformed policy.

So instead of just doing it in my arm she decides to call the director….who is a doctor BTW.  She talks to him and while talking to him she says “He’s wondering if this is a preference or an order by your doctors?”  As far as I’m concerned it’s an order…..so I said such.  Any medical professional should know you should avoid pressure or cutting/poking on an arm with lymph nodes missing.  This is not saying in an emergency it can’t be done….it’s just about avoiding anything that might tip off the early onset of lymphodema.

So then she gets off the phone and informs me that their “guidelines” don’t allow them to take the blood pressure from the leg and since it’s an “order” from my doctors I can’t have blood taken.  Aghhh! 

So I’m getting angry now.  I ask her to get the doc on the phone again.  I won’t go into details but Iwas pretty up front with him.  Basically I said….I’m a mom of three kids, I don’t want lymphedema.  If HE was in my situation he would do whatever he could to avoid lymphedema and that my doctors don’t tell me I CAN’T take the pressure in the arm, but they do tell me to avoid it.”  Finally I convinced the doctor that I could do it out of my arm…..by now I’m in tears. 

I just wanted my dang blood taken so I could have it for after my surgery and I’m being careful about my situation.  I didn’t mean to make it so difficult!

I do not want to harp on the Red Cross because heaven knows they are a wonderful organization, and those nice people are getting my blood to Northwestern to be available for me after my surgery at no cost.  But I think it’s absolutely CRAZINESS that they will not take a simple blood pressure reading in a leg!