Love will Get us Through… by Mary Beth

Words do not come easy for me… I should rephrase that… words do not come easily to me when I write… they come very easily to me when I speak… now I can see my husband shaking his head in agreement! For so many bloggers out there, words seem to come easy… now I do not actually know that they are faster at writing than I am but for me it feels so slow. I write, then erase and reread and try to rephrase what I am trying to say.  Even when I write in cards I just cannot seem to always find the words to convey what I am feeling. My friend Trish always writes such great cards. I even bought a little book one time of things to write inside of cards!!

For me art has been a much easier way for me to speak. Ideas just come into my head… I imagine visual images and colors as others imagine words.

I started this piece a long time ago and I had an idea of how I wanted it to look.  I knew I wanted it to be about love… but then it sat for a while…

Recently, there has been some bad news for my friends on the MWC blog…Susan with a reoccurrence… Sarah with a metastasis… SO much love was shown to them on the MWC blog, their own blogs, Facebook, Twitter and I am sure in person… Much love and support was also shown to me these past few weeks while I had my MRI and a Sigmoidoscopy.

I finally felt the need to complete this piece….

Sure we need doctors and medicine, YES we definitely need research and a cure, but we also need love… because love will get us through…

Alabamapink (comments moved to archive)

AlabamaPink’s death was first announced by her husband here on March 28, 2010 as a comment to the news page.  I’m taking down the news page, but we don’t want to lose that comment or the two that followed, so I’m adding this today (9/1/10) to our archive for that day.  She was also memorialized in a post we titled Goodbye, Manda.

I am just writing to let you know that my wife, alabamapink, passed away Wednesday night in Houston. She was there for experimental treatment, and during the course of her stay the leukemia got a very strong foothold. She slipped into a coma holding her father’s hand, and she died with me and her parents by her side.

Adrian

Responses:

I’m so sorry for your loss Adrian. Your wife was an amazing writer and her love for you and her son were shone through in her blog. God bless.

Nicole

That is so sad Adrian. My thoughts are with you. Stay strong.

Abbie454

Manda is not forgotten.

perspective in grey (by laurie)

On June 30th it will be three years since my first clean scan, after the cancer had spread to my liver.

For almost three years, I have had no evidence of disease (been NED, in cancer lingo).

And yet I remain in treatment.

I am asked frequently why I continue to receive chemotherapy and Herceptin, if there is no sign of cancer in my body. And the truth is that I often ask myself the same question. Certainly, I don’t feel like I have cancer. And I do feel that the cumulative effects – both physical and emotional of ongoing treatment are wearing me down.

I am stuck in cancer’s grey area.

My oncologist said to me last summer, “For all we know, you could be cured.”

We just don’t know enough.

Another oncologist I spoke to, hinted that some would take me out of treatment at this point. A third suggested that some doctors might take me off the chemotherapy and leave me on the Herceptin.

But they all agree that we just don’t know enough to make any decision based on certainty. There are just too few women in my situation, younger women who have been diagnosed with metastatic breast and responded so well to treatment, to know what to do with us in the long term.

There are more of us every year, though.

In ten years’ time, there will almost certainly be more answers.

And when I get too frustrated, I remind myself that if I had been diagnosed ten years earlier, I would almost certainly be dead.

So, for now, I’ll take the grey.

The Chemo Has Started

By Sarah

I started my chemo on Friday. I feel a little bit ahead of the game considering It’s my second time.  The two drugs I am taking are not as hard on my stomach and Other then being fatigued I feel pretty good considering. It was not so easy to get my chemo in my new port though. It only had four days to heal. The first night I slept great  but last night I tossed and turned all night long. My body ached and I could not turn my mind off. As I layed in bed yesterday I had a bit of a melt down. I guess I had been holding it in for so long that I just had to let it all out.

This friday in my chemo I am only getting one of the two drugs that I am being treated with so I am expecting to feel much better next weekend.  The good news is that my hair will thin but not fall out.

My mind is still reeling about my cancer coming back and the blame game has stared in my head. I keep wondering why I didn’t realize cancer had returned to my body. I like to think that I am aware about my body and how I feel. Sometime cancer just sneaks up on us and bits us when we are not watching.

I have received so much support from you ladies and it is very very appreciated!

Barbie Has Officially Left the Building

The second time I met Dr. Plastic, before my mastectomy, he  had a long red gash on his forehead. He laughed saying that he had forgotten to remove his glasses from the front of his shirt when he pulled it over his head and the glasses cut into his forehead.   This made Dr. Plastic a little more human to me.  Over the past two years under his care I have come to understand just how eccentric he is. My oncologist described him as a little crazy but a genius.  I am not sure I would go as far as to call him genius since he did pop my expander and also put in an implant one size too big–but one thing is certain, the man can sew human skin so as a scar is barely visible.

Yesterday, I lay in pre-op waiting for my final re-construction surgery, my husband, Mark, and best friend, Gina, were at my side. My IV was in place, I had met with 2 anesthesiologists –one great, the other looked like she’d been sampling a little too much of her own anesthesia, 3 nurses and an orderly. According to hospital protocol, every person that enters the patients curtained area must ask three questions 1) What is your name 2) What is your date of birth, and 3) What are you having done today.  I had no problem answering the first two, but as you all may now know about my aversion to certain words, I stumbled on number 3 every time.  ”Frances Kolenik, 2.13.63, ummm….nipple reconstruction.” Nobody but me flinched at the word–I really need to grow up.

The last person I met with was Dr. Plastic himself. He stumbled into my area, his head covered in white spiky hair still moist from his recent shower.  I noted how much his hair had thinned in the two years I have been under his care. He had definitely aged through my cancer journey…I hoped that I hadn’t aged quite as rapidly as he.  The second thing I noticed was a red gash that ran down the length of his forehead.

“Are you kidding me?” I said.  Gina laughed out loud at this noticing it at the same time.

“Tell me you didn’t do it again.”

Dr. Plastic looked puzzled.

“Your forehead, the glasses? Again?”

“Oh now I am embarrased,” he said, touching the red line, “You remembered from last time? Well, what can I say, I was rushing?”

“This doesn’t bode too well, for me,” I said, thinking that stumbling and bumbling and rushing might cause my nipple to be placed somewhere around my bellybutton.

Dr. Plastic was insulted, “That’s ok, I am not doing the surgery, she is,” he pointed somewhere across the room to someone that was out of my sightline.

“NO!  Just kidding.  I want you to do it.”

“Ha, see?”  he said. “Don’t worry.”

I actually have no way of knowing if he actually did the surgery or handed it off like they do on Grey’s Anatomy to an intern in the OR.   Either way it’s fine.  Somehow I totally trust this bumbling, eccentric genius.  I trust him enough to sit there while he writes all over me in sharpie and draws the exact spot he will operate so I will be even with the other side.  When he steps back to look at me and measure the distance with his artists eye and then calls Gina over to get her opinion I realize that I have lost every semblance of modesty that might have been left over after childbirth.  My nipple has become public domain…as has my whole chest actually.

Gina noticed something else about Dr. Plastic. I don’t remember this because maybe they had already started the drugs, but according to Gina, Dr. Plastic tucked me back into bed and fixed my hair under the shower curtain they make you wear.  It must be this gentle, caring side of Dr. Plastic that makes him so good at what he does. I believe he really cares about his patients and wants them to be happy.  As a plastic surgeon, he is not dealing with life and death but instead deals with egos and peoples feelings of self-esteem which is so important after someone has lost a body part to cancer.  He understands the awkwardness and pain that accompanies plastic surgery, and that is why he is a genius — oh, and man can he sew up skin!

Compared to my other surgeries, this was a piece of cake. No drains or heavy pain medications, just a few stitches and feeling tired from the anesthesia. Dr. Plastic gave me the go-ahead to run by next Tuesday (which means I will run Monday). Thankfully I am coming to the end of this whole fiasco. My Barbie Boob is now history, leaving me only to meet with the tattoo lady, and  in then in  two weeks I will have my port removed.

Then, and only then, I will finally begin to put this all behind me. To those of you out there just beginning or in the middle of treatment and reconstruction please know that there will be a day that you can finally say –, “Ok–I am done!”.