My oncologist told me today at my six-month follow-up that he couldn’t be happier with my progress. Ditto, I say. He told me it’s almost like I’m back to normal life. Ditto, again.
Gosh, I really don’t have much more to report on my personal cancer front, which is such very good news.
Mammogram: Clear
Ultrasound: Clear
My mood: Great
It could have gone the other way. One of my imaging tests today could have turned up something suspicious which would have dictated a completely different outcome and a much worse mood. It happened three and a half years ago when the doctor who'd seen my tumor on ultrasound said, "I want this out and in a jar." That tumor that landed in a jar days later was cancer. And so every time I'm screened and every time I see my oncologist for a follow-up (coming this Monday), I'm never really sure how clear or how great things will be. I'm sure for now, though. My boobs show no sign of cancer. My mood shows no sign of worry. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Sigh.
photo courtesy of JerrytheSaint on flickr
Just three and a half short years ago, I was wondering if I'd live long enough to baby my babies. They were almost four years and 18 months old when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and more than anything in those early cancer days, I feared for my life—which made me fear for theirs. Who would hug and kiss them, snuggle and cuddle them? Who would make their favorite snacks, pick out the best-fitting shoes, cut their little finger and toe nails, and dry their little boy tears when skinned knees and scary dreams made them cry? Surely, I was the only one who could stay home with them all day, the only one who could help them become social beings, the only one who could help them manage the days leading up to their solo journeys into the world. OK, I admit: their dad would do a pretty good job in these areas if left on his own. But I was—still am—selfish. I want to be front and center in their lives. Thankfully, three and half years later, I am.
Breast cancer hasn't taken me away from my boys—but something else threatens our togetherness. That something: Joey. It's not his fault he's separating from me. It's his age—he's seven.
Today, while driving into his elementary school parking lot, Joey said, "Mom, can you just drop me off at the curb tomorrow?" Gasp! I always walk him into his classroom, talk with his teacher, wish him a great day, and kiss him goodbye. A few months ago, I wondered if the kiss was a bit much for a first-grade boy. I asked Joey if it made him uncomfortable, and he told me it did not. Now, however, he has apparently decided the kiss is too much and so is my presence in his personal school space.
“Yes,” I told Joey. “I can drop you at the curb tomorrow.”
I knew this day was coming. And here it is. My baby is no longer a baby. He's growing up, becoming independent, plotting his departure from my grasp. It makes me sad. And it makes me happy, happy because I am alive and present and I get to watch my first-born guy wiggle his way out of my care. How sweet it is.
It's been 16 days since my tummy was tucked.
And I'm back.
Back to standing upright, back to driving my kids to and from school, back to walking for exercise, back to my bed—so long, recliner.
Still no running, still no functioning without a compression garment wrapped around my middle, still a bit of swelling—which means still no blue jeans—but mostly, I'm back. It feels good.
John feels pretty good too, despite a small skin cancer surgery he had yesterday to remove a squamous cell carcinoma from his left hand. The procedure—called Mohs—went well. The doctor got the cancer by taking just one chunk of skin. Armed with a few stitches, John is on his way to a speedy recovery.
In honor of Skin Cancer Awareness Month—it's this month, May—take a peek at this site, home of The Skin Cancer Foundation. While there, find out how to best prevent, detect, and treat this all-too-common disease. By too common, I mean this: About one million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma each year. About 250,000 get the squamous cell variety. And nearly 60,000 are stricken with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Before you're done investigating this disease, pay a visit to my friend Miss Melanoma. She'll surely convince you that skin cancer is nothing to mess with. Her nine toes are a constant reminder.
If you find yourself in the market for a tummy tuck—translation: You’ve gained lots of weight, had great success at losing it, but find shockingly a good chunk of skin dripping from your mid-section—and you actually go through with this major abdominal procedure, like I just did, I have one solid piece of advice for you: Do not try on your jeans eight days after surgery, like I just did.
Why?
Because not only will you find that you are not several sizes smaller—a possible eventual result of the tummy tuck—you’ll discover that your pre-surgical jeans will have somehow shrunk in size during the short amount of time it took for you to go under the knife and then come out of your pain-medicated fog.
Yep. The jeans will be too tight. And if you’re like me, you’ll convince yourself that your hips and butt have grown in epic proportions in the mere week you’ve spent recovering from that belly-perfecting operation.
OK, so my body parts are likely the same size as they’ve been for some time now. I’m just swollen. Not above my incision that runs underneath my new belly button, from hip to hip—this looks amazingly flat and tight and well, perfect. But below the taped-up cut my doctor carved into my stomach is a bulging, newly-pregnant looking clump of skin that is pushing out so far my jeans can’t rise above. It’s solid. It’s jam-packed. It’s driving me crazy.
I’m an impatient patient. I don’t like that I must wait weeks—months even—to see my final result. I’m so impatient I told my doctor on post-op day number six that it seemed the problem he removed had moved down lower. “No,” he told me. In time, it will be flat. Flatter than it’s ever been, he said. And then he issued me this strict warning: Do not shop for new clothes for three months. Two days after he handed me this advice, I’m tugging at my favorite Lucky jeans, trying to inch them up over my swollen mound. Am I crazy? Perhaps. But I can also learn from my mistakes.
My jeans are back in the closet, and my stretchy athletic shorts are back in place—where they’ll stay until my body heals and rebounds from its trauma and I attempt once again to hoist those denim blues up over all my body parts.
In three months.
You are currently browsing the my Breast Cancer blog blog archives for May, 2008.
