In the Home Stretch!!!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted! Wow, time is flying! The recuperation from my reconstruction surgery has gone very well. It is healing nicely, looks good and doesn’t bother me a bit. I had an appointment in Kansas City with my breast surgeon last week and she was very pleased as well. There are NO signs of lymphedema!

I have been exercising like a fiend, since I got my release from the plastic surgeon. My goal is to get 10,000 steps a day, with at least one 20-30 minute stretch in there somewhere. I get so stiff sitting at work, so I walk all four floors with the steps in between when I get up to go to the bathroom, which is a lot! (I’m trying to drink around 100 ounces of water a day too.) I also try to do yoga at least five times a week and do about 30 minutes of stretching before I go to bed. It’s amazing how much I have already improved in flexibility and muscle strength in the last month. We have a machine at work that measures body fat percentage and it was more than a little scary when I got back. All that laying around this past year redistributed my body mass in the wrong direction! It is getting better though.

My only complaint is knee and feet pain, which only occurs when I have been sedentary for a while (sitting or lying down). I have ordered new shoes a half size bigger than before and are finding them much more comfortable. The new walking shoes have helped too. I have decided to try regular massages (which include hip and leg stretches) to see if it helps. I had one last night and I think it might be the ticket, at least to relieve it somewhat. It is amazing how tight I am in those areas and how much different I felt after.

Scott and I are headed to KC tonight and I will have the last phase of my reconstruction tomorrow (a left breast lift) to give me some symmetry 😊. It is a same day surgery, so it will be a breeze compared to the last one. We will stay the night in KC to be on the safe side and will head back home on Thursday. The doctor wants me to take at least a week off work and maybe two. We will see how I get along, but I’m hoping I will be able to work from home sooner than that. What a blessing that is.

Hopefully, this is the last step in this journey! Prayers for a safe and successful surgery are appreciated! Love to you all!

FREEDOM!!!

The surgical drains are gone!!! Yesterday morning all three drains had output well below 30 cc in a 24-hour period. Dr. Chandler's requirement for removal is that they have less than 30cc for two consecutive 24-hour periods. He had told me I could get them removed locally as long as the requirement is met. So I got on the phone and first asked my primary care physician, but she wasn't comfortable doing it since she hadn't done the procedure. So I called my local surgeon, Dr. Teget, and after he contacted and got the ok from Chandler, he agreed to do it this afteroon. Bless his soul!!! 

So I can no longer play gunslinger while walking my laps around the house, although Scott later thought I also looked like a major league umpire with ball bags around my hips...ha! Well, good-bye and good riddance. I can now sleep and shower without them constantly in my way. Thank you, Jesus!

Cue Pharrell Williams’ Happy Song

It’s been so nice at home these last two days, since Scott has been here. I’m really feeling pretty darn good and would have been ok without him today, but they aren’t very busy at the shop, so he stayed home one more day and has me stocked up with food for the rest of the week and even into the next. I’m so spoiled…and loving every minute of it!

I thought it might be too uncomfortable sleeping in my bed with my belly stretched out straight, so I slept in my recliner the first night. I tried my bed last night and it was not too bad. I did get up and sleep in the chair for a little while when I got tired of being on my back. Side sleeping is not an option!

I am trying to get up and walk around the house regularly. It actually feels very good with my binder on. By the time I finish my last laps later this evening, I will have over 5000 steps today according to my Fitbit. I’m staying on one level, because I don’t think stairs are a great idea yet, so it’s a pretty boring route. I find ways to amuse myself though.

I told you about the three surgical drains I have and how they tend to get in the way all the time. I have them safety pinned to the bottom of my shirt on the sides, two on the right and one on the left. With my binder slung low on my hips and my swinging drains, I feel like a gunfighter protecting my domain! It honestly made me giggle when I thought of it and Scott thought it was comical too.

Because I am so curious and interested in this whole process, I finally got to take a good look at myself in the mirror yesterday. Surgeons sure do like to use a lot of black permanent marker! I have a hip-to-hip incision under my belly button where they took the tissue to rebuild the breast. My tummy is definitely firmer, but a little full right now due to the slight swelling. I have an incision around my belly button (black marker there too) and I’m pretty sure it is a little higher than it used to be. All of the incisions are covered with a clear tape that has ridges. It is starting to come off around the belly button, so I don’t think it is absorbable, but is simply temporary until it falls off.

May Be TMI Alert

They took a section of my belly skin shaped like a boat. I’m assuming that is the “flap” they always refer to, but I’m not sure. I’m anxious to ask my surgeon about that. I believe the fat tissue, artery and veins are attached to the flap. They took out the tissue expander I’ve had in there since they performed my mastectomy, they stuffed all that belly tissue in there, attached the artery and veins to areas within the chest wall to ensure blood flow, stitched the flap to the opening in the breast, and “voila” brand new breast that is all me and not some foreign material! It is fascinating!

Now the thing you have to imagine, is the fact that this old belly skin flap of mine has not seen the light of day for years! Think white…very white…pale, red-headed complexion white. Stick that little boat shaped white flap of skin in the middle of a poor breast which suffered some pretty wicked radiation and recovered extraordinarily well, but still has a slight pink tinge. Add to that the lovely black marker and what we have is a new breast that looks very much like a smiley emoji, without the eyes! I’m dead serious…I have this guy 

for a boob! I didn’t just giggle at this thought, it made me laugh out loud! It is so fitting for me and reflects exactly the joy I wanted to be surrounded with throughout this process. Once the black marker wears off and if I heal as well as I have from my previous surgeries (very little scarring, if any) and the irradiated skin returns to normal, it won’t be there forever. But I’m going to love my happy, little mammary for as long as I have her. She’s endured a lot with me and she deserves to be a happy girl too!

We go back to KC for a post-surgery check on Monday. Hopefully, the drains will be removed then and the real healing will begin.

Have a great week! Love you all!

I'm Home!

Home with my new favorite socks!

I am home in my favorite chair with my new favorite socks the hubs purchased for me while burning some time in KC. I started getting up and walking the halls at the hospital yesterday afternoon and took my first shower this morning. I did get a sponge bath which was nice, but not even close to the same! We were grateful for the early release, since we are supposed to get a winter storm in Hays starting later this evening. I am getting around really well, and am not walking as hunched over as I expected.

The day after surgery!

I have three surgical drains this time, one at each hip and one under the right arm. That is the worst part for sure. They are a gross necessity and having three means one or more are constantly in the way. I thought I had devised a perfect solution when I got out my mastectomy camisole, which has these lovely little pouches you can slip them in to get them out of the way. Unfortunately they all then lay right around the belly area, which is where I have to wear a binder when I am up and about and it’s not very comfortable wearing the binder directly against the skin. I’ll keep working on it and might come up with a better solution yet!

The finished product from Kinley,
including a train (in orange and purple),
the sky (in blue), and a tree
(in green) and a “hun”
(which mom helped with in yellow)!
So precious!

I have the BEST home health nurse a girl could ever ask for. He takes care of my every need, including stripping and emptying the drains and he makes me laugh as he does it. Laughing hurt a bit right after the surgery, but that is getting much better too! Thank you all for the good thoughts and prayers. I am a BLESSED woman! 😘

Whew! First Phase Done!

Surgery is done and I am getting awesome care between the nurses and Scott! The number of OR staff who came to visit in pre-op before they knocked me out was amazing. I can’t imagine how many people were in that room. Dr. Chandler said it was challenging (apparently some of my vessels were extraordinarily tiny), but everything went well and he is pleased. It was right around 8 to 8-1/2 hours total. Everyone here at KU is amazing. The same experience as we had with the mastectomy. Tomorrow will be the interesting day, as they want me to get up and start moving. 😳

They will be coming in every hour for the next 24 to ensure the blood is flowing through the “flap”. They use a small stylus-sized Doppler, and it sounds very similar to a baby’s heartbeat, without all the fluid noise of course! 😂

I can tell the tummy is going to be the more painful of the two. They gave me a block in the area prior to surgery, which will help significantly. They said it should last a couple of days. Yay!

Thank you all for your good thoughts and prayers! You are my warriors and I love you all!

Let’s Do This!

Well..Thursday morning is the day! My appointment on Monday went well and I managed to ward off all the crud that is going around. I’m anxious to get it done, so I can check one more step off the list! There is one little hitch I found out about on Monday though...I have to do this reconstruction in two surgeries (at least). Ugh! I have decided I either don’t ask the right questions, don’t listen, hear what I want to hear, or they just haven’t been clear about the timeframes with each step! It’s probably a combination of all of those things. This surgery will be the DIEP (tummy tuck and reconstruction of the breast with the mastectomy). I have to wait a couple of months for it to heal and then come back to have the lift done on the healthy one to make it match. There is also the possibility of additional fat grafts, if needed to fill in where necessary.  It makes perfect sense now. So...I won’t be done quite as soon as I had hoped, but there is still a light at the end of the tunnel. God is good, all the time! So, again, your prayers are treasured and appreciated! Love you all!

God's Little Nudge

(Note: I started this blog post early in this journey and found it difficult to finish. I’m not exactly sure why. I’ve asked myself this question multiple times and the only thing I can think is I was so determined to focus on the positive, I didn’t want to take the chance of beating myself up. I have come to terms with it now and it seems fitting to share it on this one-year anniversary of my diagnosis.)

Many of you have asked, "How did you find it?" The cancer, of course. The discovery was such a God thing that it still amazes me.

First, I should confess to my stupidity. I take pretty good care of myself. I see the dentist and the dermatologist every six months. I go to the doctor for my annual exam and for many years I had annual mammograms.

Then I started reading some information from Suzanne Somers about bioidentical hormones. At the time (about seven years ago), I was having a few menopausal symptoms, mostly night sweats and an occasional emotional breakdown, which if you know me, is not me at all and I hated it! I started doing some research and found a few friends who were using bioidenticals and raved about how much better they felt and amazingly there was a doctor out of Wichita who had an extension practice in Hays, who would prescribe them. Basically, I would go in every 6 months and based on my bloodwork and hormone levels, the pharmacy would compound a hormone replacement lozenge. The hormones used are chemically identical to those your body produces. I loved them! Symptoms gone…I felt great! My sweet, kind, pharmacist daughter-in-law, would occasionally hint that I should consider going off of the hormones, but I continued to ignore her and kept using them. Why not? Again…I felt great!

About a year later, I read another article or two about mammograms and how the harm from the radiation was probably just as dangerous and likely to cause cancer. The clinic where I got my hormones offered a thermography service. It is based on the principle that metabolic activity and vascular circulation in both pre-cancerous tissue and the area surrounding a developing breast cancer is almost always higher than in normal breast tissue. A technician takes a thermal image of the breasts from several angles and the resulting image is supposed to reveal early detection of breast cancer. New images are compared to the previous ones to recognize changes. So, I stopped doing mammograms and did breast thermography every year instead. The thermography results came back fine every year (although after reading the results after my cancer diagnosis, the last one indicated there might be an area to watch). I didn’t think a thing about it and neither the technician, nor the doctor, mentioned anything about it.

To add to this foolish mess, I have always been terrible about doing self-breast exams. I just didn’t do them.

So early in December 2016, Scott and I decided to spend a long weekend in Kansas City to enjoy the Plaza lights and one of our favorite Irish singers who performs at O’Dowd’s on Sunday nights. We had a wonderful evening and headed back to the hotel, where Scott watched a little football and I scrolled through Facebook. It was then I got my little “God nudge”. I have no idea who posted it, but there was an article about paying close attention to your body, particularly your breasts, for any changes. I don’t even think I finished the article before I scrolled on.

The next morning, as I was stepping out of the shower facing the hideous mirrors they tend to mount right in front of you, one of the suggestions in the article I had read the night before popped into my head. So, I lifted my arms and took a look at my breasts. Hmmmmmm…I noticed there was an area on the upper outside part of my right breast that looked raised. I felt the area and thought it felt like there might be something there. I said nothing to Scott, but decided I was going to call and schedule a mammogram when we got home. Of course, it came back suspicious (then I told Scott), which led to an ultrasound, which led to a needle biopsy, which revealed my initial diagnosis one year ago today. A later MRI led to another needle biopsy, where it was discovered I had cancer in two areas of my right breast (Stage 3), which took me on this little journey.

The pathology showed the cancer was hormone receptive, so the hormones I insisted on taking were feeding the cancer all along. The cancer was also a slow growing variety, so I had it for some time and the thermography did not reveal it. I really wanted to beat myself up over my stupidity, but I didn’t. It wasn’t going to help or change anything. With all the conflicting reports from “experts” these days, how do you know who to believe?

What I do want to say is this: Be sure that you, or the woman you love, gets regular mammograms. Pay attention to your body and do regular self-exams (or encourage her to). I was faithful about getting yearly mammograms until I chose to go down the thermography path (which I faithfully did every year too). It was obviously the wrong path! This is especially true if you are doing hormone replacement therapy, traditional or bioidentical.

On January 18, we start the last leg of this journey, which is my reconstruction surgery. We have chosen a DIEP flap surgery, which is a type of breast reconstruction in which blood vessels called deep inferior epigastric perforators, as well as the skin and fat connected to them, are removed from the lower abdomen and transferred to the chest to reconstruct a breast after mastectomy without the sacrifice of any of the abdominal muscles ~ Wikipedia (easier to copy this than try to explain it in my own words – as if I could!). It will be pretty intensive (aka looooong) and will require several days in the hospital to ensure everything is functioning properly before they send me home.

So, I am asking all my prayer warriors once again to help me through this! You have been the wind beneath my wings throughout this journey and with God’s help (and a lot of help from Scott, my hero), I know I will get through this too. Thank you and may God bless you all in 2018!