Bliggity Bloggity Boo(b)

Wiggin' out

For those of you who have heard my spiel, I usually say please don't wig out, but I've got breast cancer.

Well, today, I went wiggin' of a different sort.  My friend Lillian, who recently has had breast cancer, is going thru chemo, and has the most incredible wig that looks just like her real hair. Can I tell you that we had so much fun?

Patti is a fabulous woman who retired from a job in Hollywood where she used to make wigs for movie and TV stars.  She's very bubbly and sweet and treats you like a queen. She works out of her house and has a cute vanity and chair set up in her living room.  The first one I tried on was too blonde, and long in the front and hung down around my chin. I hate hair on my face and it gave me the heebie-jeebies like it was a spider or something. I tried on a couple more, and finally, the one I had chosen from the catalog.  OMG - the color is exactly like mine, and it is so similar to my own hair.  It's a bit too thick, but she'll thin it out for me and style it prior to my going bald.  I'm so excited to be geting it!

Then, Lillian and I went out to lunch at my new favorite fish taco place.  I'll still be a huge Rubios fan as this place called Pelly's is over on the coast.  If I have to do my radiation over there, you know where I'll be hanging out for lunch. I don't even know what kind of fish they used, but damn it was scrumptious.  Lillian had a lobster taco and said it's really great too.  I'll probably get one of those next time.

Exercise for the day - 3 mile walk with Gabe.

Second opinion

So I called Dr. Barone's office this morning, and got an appointment with her at 3:00.  Pretty amazing that they got me in with practically no notice.  She too was awesome. We talked in her office for nearly an hour, and then she examined me.  The only thing she differed on is that she would recommend doing the expansion implant right away and the full re-construction later. But, she did not have the advantage of seeing the MRI and mammo, because she was in an entirely different hospital system.  It was good to hear from yet another doctor, and we were looking forward to our next doctor's appointment with the director of oncology in our medical team.

Exercise of the day - Wii Fit for 30 minutes, and a 3 mile walk with Gabe.

If you ever need a connection

ask my brother, Scott. He knows everybody, or at least can find somebody for you. He calls me up and says his best friend, Bim, has a cousin who is a very prominent breast surgeon in New York City. Within 10 minutes, I get a call from Bim, who says he'll contact her to see if she'd talk with me. Bim calls her, and within 5 minutes calls me back to say she can talk with me this evening, any time before 10:00 p.m.  It's 9:00 p.m. her time right now.

Her name is Dr. Alison Estabrook, and what a sweet, warm, and caring person she is. I explained my situation to her and she asked me to fax my mammo and pathology reports to her so she could look at them. Then, she called a friend of hers who is a breast surgeon in San Diego, to see if she could see me.  Her friend, Dr. Julie Barone, left me a voicemail about 20 minutes later saying that I could call her secretary in the morning and ask her to fit me in that day.  And she did!  Wow - talk about connection.  Big thanks to my favorite bro.

Exercise of the day - 4 mile walk with my buddy, Gabe.

She must be taking happy pills

Today we went to meet the surgeon and we LOVE her!  She's so fun and bubbly with endless energy - just my type.

But first, this is what we saw while waiting for our appointment.

When we first got to the waiting room, another woman, probably in her 30's, slowly dragged herself in and sat down. She definitely was a cancer patient, complete with a black scarf and bald head that made her look like a morose nun, definitely not the Flying Nun. She went in before me and apparently saw the same doctor. She left just as quietly and sadly as she entered. I'm sure mine and Denny's joking with each other in the lobby was an annoyance to her, and she probably thought that we have a happy, healthy life.  I would have loved to talk with her, but I didn't want to be rude and intrude.

When we go in to meet the doctor, she's full of energy and lauging and talking like we're old friends. Several times while talking with us she'd put her hand on my arm or hand. Very sweet. She reiterates once again about why the mammo, chemo and radiation, and we definitely feel more at ease with the medical language with each and every visit.

During the conversation, I ask her what the recovery time is from a mastectomy, as I'm potentially going to be hired for a job that I'm really excited about, and want to start ASAP. She laughs and says, with your attitude, you could be back to work in 5-7 days.  Woohoo! That's the answer I'm looking for. Then she goes on to say that she just saw a woman who is handling her treatment very poorly, was asking to be off work for 20 weeks because she just couldn't handle it yet. I'm sure she was talking about the sad nunnish (is that a word?) lady we saw in the office.

She said her patients with great attitudes always recover quickly, so yes, my Pollyanna 'tude is a good thing.

Oh, and for our date, we went to my favorite place...Rubios! Mahi-mahi health-mex tacos and a tall glass of Lipton ice tea, with lemon. How could you be in a bad mood after eating that?

Exercise of the day - 1 hour 10 minutes of Wii Fit.  I gotta get my hula hoop and ski jump fix before surgery.  No jerky motions for awhile after.

Mammo - check! Ultrasound - check!

Just two more things in preparation of the big day.  The tech doing the mammo found nothing, and the ultrasound tech found nothing as well. I'll see the official results on Monday, when we meet with the surgeon.

Excersise of the day - taking Gabe for a 4 mile walk.  He's getting a bit better on a leash, but he still yanks me around a bit when he finds a great pee bush.

Double D

No, it's not what your thinking. AT ALL! It stands for doc and a date.  You see, Denny and I started this trend that every time we go to a doctor's appointment, we make a date out of it and go out for either breakfast or lunch.  It's been fun and gives us time to talk about all the coming events.  Not that we're planning a party or anything, but we will celebrate our having kicked cancer in the ass when it's all said and done. You're invited.

Today, we met the plastic surgeon.  Another great doctor who was very friendly, open, and explained everything really well. She did not recommend immediate reconstruction, as the implant expander (they slowly fill it with air to stretch the skin in preparation for the real implant later on) tends to get in the way of the radiation.  Not to mention I didn't want to have one regular sized boob and the other one a variety of sizes over the next year.  Hell, what do you think they make those prostheses for anyway?  It works for tons of ladies, and it will work for me.

The cool thing is that she has 2 different ways of doing the reconstruction.  There will definitely be an implant, but she also grafts skin and muscle from either the stomach (can you say tummy tuck?) or from the back, just under the shoulder blade. Well, I didn't have enough extra in my stomach (that's probably a good thing), so she'll take it from my back.  She actually makes the incision just under the left shoulder blade, and will wrap the muscle around the front to help a more realistic looking and feeling breast.  Pretty cool huh?  OK, this may be TMI for a few of you, but you can always quit reading my blog.

Oh, I had two very good friends, Jane and Veronica, who offered to be tummy tuck donors, but they gotta use my parts.  Sorry ladies, we would have been true sisters sharing the same skin, which could have been another blog in itself.

Our breakfast date took us back to the Center City Cafe. Yippee, Caroline was there, so we got to visit. I had a Belgian waffle that was to die for. Good thing I do a lot of walking and playing with my Wii Fit, or I'd be gaining weight daily.

Another new friend

Today we got to meet the radiation oncologist and we really liked him too.  Yay, 2 for 2 positive specialists, we're on a roll.  He was able to show us the MRI results on the computer monitor. Since we still had never seen the mammogram because my lame doctor didn't have the guts to show it to me, it was great, well really not great, but at least we finally got to see how big the beast is.  The one spot was less than a 1/4 inch, but the other had grown to around 3 inches.  Very scary that it could take off that fast in only 6 months. There also was a new small spot on the right breast, so I'll be going in for another mammo and ultra sound soon.

Advertisement:  Ladies, and guys start nagging your ladies, go get that mammo - it could save your/their lives.

Back to your regular program. (I think that's what they say - you all know me, I don't watch TV, or was that a radio line?)

So he told us that I would most likely have chemo for 4 months, followed by 7 weeks of radiation, because the cancer was invasive and had grown so agressively.  Let's all hope the price of gas goes down because my SUV gas sucking hog will be hauling my butt to Torrey Pines 5 days a week for 7 weeks.  Maybe we should just stay at a resort over there and play golf during the day.

Oh, and our breakfast date was at the Center City Cafe, where Denny's ex-sister-in-law, Caroline works. It was her day off so we didn't get to see her, but we had a yummy meal, juevos rancheros for me.

Exercise of the day - Wii Fit for 50 minutes.  Ta-da! My Wii Fit age is 41 today!

Kinda like Star Trek

Today I went for an MRI to see what they could see.  I knew about the part where they put you into this long space ship looking machine, but actually doing it was pretty weird.  The head phones and country music - yes I got to listen to Allan and George to keep me calm, really helped, but damn, does that machine make some loud ass noises.  And, they're all a bit different.  But the lovely lady behind the curtain would interrupt every so often and quitely tell me which new noise I was going to hear and how long it would be.  Overall, it wasn't too bad, but then I had taken some kind of loopy drug just prior, so I really couldn't care less what was going on.

Attitude is everything

I truly do believe that attitude is everything, and while I shed a couple of tears after I hung up with the doctor, my next reaction was damn it, I'm not going to get dragged down by this. I hate feeling bad. I hate being angry. I hate being upset. I hate stomach aches. I hate headaches.  And I truly hate having puffy eyes that makes everyone ask me if I'm OK. I So I was bound and determined that I was going to be as positive as possible and fight this to win, while maintaining a happy face.

I made it my mantra as I broke the news to friends and family, that I intend to stay positive and upbeat, and if they need to have a meltdown and cry, "please do so in your own neck of the woods". Sorry I'm being self-centered about this, but I need to do what I need to do to move forward and stay healthy.

My dear friend, Pamela, bless her heart, when I first told her she seemed to be OK talking and then all of a sudden said "I gotta go. I'll call you later".  She then sent me a quick email and apologized and said she was about to lose it and start crying, and didn't want to bring me down. I sent her a quick thank you note and told her how much I appreciated it. It's not to say that I'll never cry with someone, but for now, I don't want the negative energy and just need to do this my way.

I was probably most nervous about telling my sister the news. Sis had lost her husband to colon cancer 16 years ago and cancer was definitely a 4-letter word for her. I called her at work (not what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to wait 'til the evening to tell her). I front loaded her with "don't wig out on me and I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about this, but I have breast cancer, and I plan to fight it". She said (later) that her knees got weak, and I could hear her voice crack just a tad, but she hung in there and laughed and joked as I told her what I knew.  Then, later that afternoon, she stopped by the house to see if the phone conversation we had earlier was really real.  I assured her that it was and re-iterated that it is what it is, and I'm going to fight it with a positive attitude. I know I'm probably unfairly asking people to bear with me and be positive, but hey, everybody seems to be afraid to do anything contrary, so it works for me :-)  It's kinda cool to be in control...sort of.

This morning, Denny and I met with Susan, the surgical nurse. She's a straight shooter who tells it the way it is. We instantly liked her. She was very informative and outlined the various doctors that I would be seeing. She told me that because the cancer was in 2 spots on 2 quadrants of the breast, that I would have to have a mastectomy, followed by chemo and radiation, and that reconstruction would be part of the plan. OK - so we're really moving forward quickly. No time to sit around and wonder what might be.  She scheduled my first appointment with the radiation oncologist and said that someone else would follow up with more appointments for me.

Just think of all of these new best friends that I'm going to have. They'll all know me intimately in no time at all.

Exercise of the day - 3.5 mile walk with Gabe. We have these awesome hills in our neighborhood that really work the glutes.  Once I get healed from surgery, I'll be putting in some more miles on my bike.

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Follow up from annual exam

When I had my mammogram back in March, 2008, some small calcifications appeared in two different spots on the left breast.  I was re-scheduled for a second mammogram 3 days later.  The results of this mammogram indicated that there was nothing serious, and that I was to be re-examined in 6 months to keep an eye on the calcifications.

I scheduled the 6-month follow up for the end of September, to allow for my change in medical insurance (since being laid off from HP, I had to roll over to Denny's retirement medical insurance). This one showed that one of the spots had significantly increased in size, and the other remained relatively the same size.

I had the mammogram, and 3 days later my doctor called to say that they wanted to do a biopsy on the 2 spots.  I was called the next day and the biopsy was scheduled for the following Tuesday, October 7. The next day, I received a call from a woman who said she needed to schedule an appointment with a surgical nurse. Being confused, I thought she was referring to the biopsy, and I told her that I already had my biopsy scheduled for Tuesday, October 7. She continued by saying that my appointment would be on Tuesday, October 14. I was clueless as to what the appointment was for, and figured it was a follow-up from the biopsy.

So I went in for the biopsy, not realizing what an adventure this would be. We, of the female gender, all know the experience of having our breasts placed in a vice grip and cranking it tighter "just a little bit more".  Good grief, I had no idea that for the biopsy, you not only get cranked tighter, but have to remain in that more than uncomfortable position until they find the spot, zoom in, numb you up "just burns a little - yeah right", then don't move a muscle for the next 40 minutes or so while they cut, vacuum out the bad cells, take the cells to the next room to determine if they have calcifications or not, try and try again to mark the spot with a clip marker which goes in and then falls out, then finally release the vice grip, put pressure on the incision, steri-strip it closed, rest for 5 minutes, then turn over and do the same thing for the second spot.  Thank god the second one was much easier and only took about 20 minutes for the whole process. For those of you of the male gender reading this, who can't imagine what it feels like, just replace the word breast with your favorite private part, and then you'll "get it".

The 3 ladies who worked with me on the biopsies were all awesome. They were very kind and informative and explained everything every step of the way - which I like.  I don't like surprises. They gave me a booklet (the state requires that they give it to all biopsy patients), "A Woman's Guide to Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment" and told me not to read it, as it would probably scare me, and all it talks about is cancer.  "85% of the women who have biopsies don't have cancer, so there's no use in getting worked up over it if no cancer is found".  I liked their logic and tossed the booklet on the nightstand when I got home.  I'm big on not getting worked up over things that might be, and like to focus on real issues...little did I know that I would get to focus on real issues in the not too distant future.

I was told that the results from the biopsy would be available on Thursday or Friday, and that my doctor would call me with the results. Thursday and Friday came, and I didn't receive a call with the results. So I called my doctor and was told he only works half days on Fridays and wouldn't be in until Monday. I asked if anyone else could give me the results and was told no.

I started thinking about the series of events over the weekend, and it was really bothering me that I didn't understand why I was having an appointment with a nurse on Tuesday. So I Googled her name and the clinic she works at and discovered that she's a surgical nurse in the breast care center. She was listed along with other oncologists, radiation specialists, etc. so obviously I had cancer, but still had not been officially informed.

Monday morning I got a call from my doctor.  This is verbatim how the call went. "Hello, Susan?" I'm calling to see if you've made an appointment with the surgeon yet." I replied, "Well, I have an appointment with a surgical nurse in the morning". His response "Good, good, because your results came back and you have cancer". To say he is bedside manner challenged is putting it mildly.  Note, that he didn't even identify himself when he made the call, but I quickly figured out who he was.  Hello - are you not required in medical school to have some sort of training in bedside manner?  Isn't there some sort of obligatory refresher course for those who struggle with this?  Apparently not...but there should be...just my humble opinion as a patient who was kept in the dark way too long.