November 1: Sound off!

Happy November, everyone! Although we’re still a day or two away, I couldn’t WAIT to set up this month’s check-in! How are you? How’s treatment? Recovery? Mothering? If you haven’t posted in the last couple weeks, or if you just want to leave an update, this is a great place to do it!

Also check out the latest from our group blog:

Frankenlefty has left the building (by ThrowsLikeAGirl)

Death be not proud (by Rivka)

More birthdays, please! (by Susan)

Courage (by Sarah)

Benefit or burden? (by Stella)

I’m home (by Lyn)

Everyone is welcome to leave a comment on this monthly check-in post, to ask questions, to share concerns, and to leave notes of support, whether you currently are a writer for this blog or not. We’re a community ’round these parts, and this is one of the big places we act like one.

Now go hug those little goblins, and have a Happy Halloween!

Frankenlefty has left the building.

crossposted from ThrowsLikeAGirl

Or will have by 8 am tomorrow.  Same problem as last time.  Infected skin, no bacterial growth in cultures.  They took about 200 ml of fluid out of frankenlefty this morning.  Brought it down in size from a freakish stripper boob to a normal stripper boob.  Can’t tell you how much better that feels.  It had actually started to migrate to the right so I truly would have been uniboobed.  PS says I still have options.  I have to wait another 3 to 6 months to stabilize and we can work up a new plan.  Maybe one that doesn’t involve implants, depending on how frankenlefty looks without the expander.  That’s fine by me.

I have to admit there is just a tiny part of me that is glad to see it gone.  It’s been ridiculous, as I’ve mentioned before. I have to actually haul the thing up and out the window to reach things in a drive thru.  Definitely not going to miss that.  I will also be able to sleep on my left (once the drains are out.  Again.) without feeling uncomfortable.

Oh and I’ll have drains for Halloween.  I figure I can go as a Breast Cancer Awareness Borg.

I am 1 of 8.

Get your mammograms.

Resistance is futile.

Death Be Not Proud*

(cross posted on Coffee and Chemo)
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You know, I am good. I mean, I have cancer and everything, but I am good.

Mostly, I feel good, and I do things, and I even work a bit.

Most of the time, I do not feel that cancer defines me.

But it does.

I am unquestionably in the cancer world.

Even taking chemo in pills (at home), I still have to go to the hospital several times a month — for doctor’s visits and blood tests (every 3 weeks) and my bone treatments (once a month).

But that is not all. No, no, that is not all.

I also have to go to the hospital for regular CTs, MRIs, bone scans, echocardiograms, ultrasounds, and whatever other tests or procedures are deemed necessary by my team of medical caregivers.

Everywhere I go, I meet other cancer patients.

Over time, many of the cancer patients get better and “disappear” back to their “old life,” the life without cancer.

But not everybody.

Some people, like me, are not going to get better. We meet regularly, week by week, month by month. We get to know each other. We get connected.

Many are like me. They are good. They are living with their cancer, and they are really living. Struggling, like me, but living. Even, I would say, living a good life.

But not everybody. Not all the time.

Sometimes people disappear and I do not know why. Have they simply switched treatment days or….? I am afraid to ask. Afraid to know.

It is hard. Hard to keep hearing about people dying of cancer.

Hard to keep my head buried in the sand, denying the threat of death, when death is all around me.

When I was first diagnosed, I stumbled onto the devastating statistics: five years after diagnosis, only 20% of women diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer are still alive.

I desperately needed to find other young women who were living with cancer for more than 10 years, to know they existed, to know it was possible, to believe that I could be one of them.

It was surprised (though I should not have been) that it was not easy to find these women.

I contacted Sharsheret, a support organization connecting young Jewish American women with breast cancer, who connected me with an amazing woman. Though extremely private about her cancer, she generously shared details of her challenges and accomplishments. She was still working, full time, as a professor in a university! She inspired me, and gave me hope. I spoke with her several times, until I found more local support via Beit Natan.

I just found out that, a year ago, she passed away suddenly, leaving behind 8 children. She battled cancer for around 10 years.

Her sudden death shocked those around her. But not me.

I have already learned: cancer is devious.

A cancer patient can seem fine one day, and the next day is critically ill. The situation can revert back to being stable or the patient can be dead within a few weeks. There is no way to know.

We never know.

Every death is devastating. Another reminder that living with cancer is uncertain.

Everything can change in an instant.

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footnote: Death Be Not Proud, by John Donne (Link includes full poem and Wikipedia article)

More birthdays, please! (by Susan)

As the health care bill makes its way through the Senate Finance Committee, and pink washes over the countryside, the American Cancer Society is campaigning for more birthdays. That’s right. More birthdays. Where in the past perhaps women have unofficially “stopped” having birthdays at 39, the ACS wants everyone to have more birthdays.

And you know what? I do too. I desperately want more birthdays. I want to turn 39, and 40, and all the lovely numbers that come after that. I want to blow out the candles with my kids, and see my littlest one turn 3, and 4, and become the big kid that he thinks he already is. I want to take my big kid to school, and teach both kids to drive, and be there when they get all gussied up for prom, or whatever the digital equivalent will be in 2025 (yikes!).

I’m taking steps to make that happen. And I’m telling you all about it every step of the way. I also talk a lot about mothers with cancer that I know from the other site, like Lyn, who just returned home from a double mastectomy and full hysterectomy … just a week after she finished chemo! Or our Aussie friend Jenni Ballentyne, who is living full-time at hospice now, seeing her son Jack on the weekend, who has fought the good fight, but whose time is near. Or Katie Homen, who we recently lost. But today I have someone else to talk about.

Sherry K. Miss Sherry, as my kids call her, as their faces light up with smiles. Miss Sherry was my son’s preschool teacher last year. Soft-spoken, kind, but determined, Miss Sherry always saw the best in the kids, and helped bring it out in them. The class of 3′s was close-knit, gentle with each other, and friends with all. In the early morning, both boys and girls sat quietly and did puzzles at the table. At 10, both girls and boys ran around on the playground. At noon pickup, they were the well-behaved class that came down the hall quietly, but with smiles on their face. Whether encouraging parents to leave notes of praise for good behavior the kids had done or telling us about the way our kids loved participating in the drama skits she planned, Miss Sherry was always gentle, and kind, and attentive, and all the things you’d hope your child’s preschool teacher would be.

Miss Sherry helped me, too. The first day I met her was only days after my oopherectomy, and I was so faint it was difficult for me to squeeze into the little chairs at the preschool-sized table. I was self-conscious about my arm, with the sleeve and glove that marked me as “different.” I didn’t want my kid to be seen as different, though. I didn’t want people feeling sorry for him, or have him referred to as “the one whose mom has cancer.” I didn’t want people to know. But Miss Sherry knew. And she pulled me aside and shared a little secret with me.

Miss Sherry is a 21 year survivor of breast cancer. And she is now doing wonderfully, and remembers it as a time long ago, not a driver of every day life. Throughout the year, she kept tabs on me as well as my child, asking about me when I wasn’t the one to drop Widget off at school, complimenting me on my hair as it grew out, or when my color returned and I looked like I had more energy. She was there when I had to go back to daily lymphedema therapy, again, and again, and sometimes Widget was late to school. She is still there at the school this year, and we smile as we pass in the hall. We know something that not everyone knows, you see. We know how very precious this life is, and how I almost lost this opportunity to tell you so.

Miss Sherry put a note in the preschool newsletter this week, reminding everyone to get their mammograms, do their self-exams, and remind “all the women in your life” to do the same. It may seem like a little thing, to say what everyone says in October, but for a 21 year survivor to even want to think about this dastardly disease again, much less show such compassion and outreach, means a lot to me.

And so I dedicate this post to Miss Sherry, and I wish for her, and for all of you, many, many more birthdays.

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Is there a survivor in your life that inspires you, makes you laugh, or touches your heart? Join the ACS more birthdays meme by posting about her or him on your own blog, or in the comments here, and grab yourself this badge.

More birthdays. That sounds pretty good to me.

crossposted at Toddler Planet.

Courage

“Courage doesn’t always roar.  Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”  ~Mary Anne Radmacher

On Friday my support group for young breast cancer survivors BCAUSE held it’s annual Courage Night. BCAUSE stands for Breast Cancer and U Support and Encouragement. Courage night  is a special night when we celebrate being breast cancer survivors. There are not many things to celebrate about having breast cancer, but once a year we all gather together for a party in our honor. It’s kind of like a big group birthday party. A celebration of life.

I am very lucky to have such a tight circle of strong woman to talk to, to lean on, and to celebrate with. I feel twice as blessed because of my online support group, Mothers With Cancer. I refer to my support groups as my “home” support group and Mothers With Cancer as my “bloggy” support group. 

We had a special speaker, Geralyn Lucas author of Why I Wore Lipstick To My Mastectomy. What a treat it was to meet her. She was so gracious and eloquent, a very kind and genuine person. She read an excerpt from her book, it was hard to listen with dry eyes. It was such a wonderful thing for her to be there. Traveling and making a special trip here to our little town to celebrate with us. She stepped into our group just as if she knew all of us personally.

It was a bitter sweet night. One of our founding members lost her battle with  Metastatic breast cancer last spring and it was our first courage night with out her there. She lived for ten years with metastatic breast cancer. We really missed her but I have a feeling she was there smiling down on all of us, happy that we could all be there joined together in a sisterhood of strength.

I can’t imagine not having someone to talk to while going through a thing as terrible as cancer. Knowing that there is someone just a phone call or a key board away has made a big difference in my life. I am very thankful for the friendships and strong bonds I have with these brave and courageous woman. If it were not for my cancer diagnosis I would have never had the privilege of meeting these wonderful young woman. breast cancer, any cancer for that matter is not a walk in the park. I would never ask for it. I am however blessed with a network of friends that I know are always just a click away. These woman have taught me a lot about life and living. Living with cancer, being happy in spite of it. It makes all the difference for me, it makes everyday easier to put my feet down on the floor and continue to fight.

Posted by Spruce Hill