Category Archives: Breast Cancer

Top Bollocks

Posted on by
1

So, I’m living in London, right? Might as well take advantage of that and learn some really useful expressions. And try them out. Feel how they roll off the tongue. Such as the title of this here post. Top bollocks.

Now if you don’t know what bollocks are (yes I do realise that this is a household word for my British readers) it’s most literal meaning is testicles. And of course used as an exclamation it means, among other things, rubbish, in the British sense of the word (a/k/a crap). But what, exactly, are top bollocks?

My husband came home the other day and asked me to look it up because he’d heard it at work and wasn’t sure what it meant. “I think it means boobs.” Said Bill. Well, sure. That’s the obvious answer. But it occurred to me that it might have more than one meaning, particularly if it’s being used so liberally around the office.

Anyhow, I told him that I thought it also meant something good — like the bees knees or ne plus ultra or the like. You know how they made us yell out “top banana” at the Panto (if you don’t know what a panto is you will have to look it up because it is too lengthy an explanation but let’s just say it is a quintessentially British form of entertainment involving, among other things, acting, singing, making predictable off-colour jokes and beefy men in drag) for no apparent reason? Well if we have “top banana” why not “top bollocks.”

So naturally I looked it up on Urban Dictionary and I was right. One of the meanings is “something or someone that is the best in their company or position.” See here for examples of sentences using this brilliant term. Oh and yes it also does in fact mean boobs. As in, “she has lovly [sic] top bollocks.”

Well after about a nanosecond I realised that I had to write a post about top bollocks. It is so apt, you see. Because as you know I’m going in on Tuesday morning to get my very own set of “lovly” top bollocks and I’m fortunate enough to have a surgeon who is the top bollocks. I’m not making that up. He is. It even said so in Tatler’s who’s who a few months ago so it must be true.

You really don’t want just anyone fiddling around with your bits and pieces. You want the very best. The top bollocks himself.

This brings me to another term, one that I had never heard or indeed read before this evening. I came across it quite by accident whilst (oh yes I did just write whilst) looking up the expression “plumb forgot.” I had never written that down before and wasn’t sure about it. And to my great delight, the word “plumb” was used in the definition and example sentences for another really excellent expression. One that has catapulted itself to the very top of my list. I’d even venture to say that it is among the top bollocks of expressions and I am now going to try and use it as frequently as possible, although perhaps not in polite company.

The expression is “fuck eye.” Now don’t go confusing this with the verb “eye fuck,” which as you know or could probably guess if you are not a daft prick means to fuck someone with your eyes. No, not literally, just, you know, give them that look like you want to.

No. Fuck eye is a noun, not a verb. And here’s what Urban Dictionary has to say about it:

1. fuck eye
1. A person who can’t read a tape measure, cannot reasonably determine if something is plumb/level/square, or cannot tell if two (or more) different objects are the same color. Generally speaking, someone you don’t want doing any type of finish work on your house.
2. Someone who, at an early age, has been hit about the head something fierce, and now one eye wanders.
1. Johnny: Ma!?! How does this picture look on the wall?
Ma: Johnny, have your brother hang it. You’ve got fuck eye, son. It’s not even close to level.
2. Dude 1: Dude, seriously, you’re not even looking at it with your right eye.
Dude 2: Dude, you know I got hit in the head with a baseball when we were kids.Dude 1: Oh, that’s right. I forgot you’ve got fuck eye from that! My bad.

Um, if you don’t think this is funny you are a right wanker. “You’ve got fuck eye son.” I mean, seriously. I’m still laughing about it and I looked it up by accident about two hours ago. And try saying it, as I imagine it, with a Texas accent, which makes it even better. I have to believe that this is a very American expression.

So, to conclude today’s lesson, let’s use my British meets American expressions in context, shall we? Mix things up a bit, just for shits and giggles.

Friend: “So, Emily, are you excited about getting a new set of top bollocks this Tuesday?”

Me: “Why yes I am rather chuffed (that’s “pretty stoked” for my American readers). I’ve got a top bollocks surgeon who is the top bollocks himself.”

Friend: “Brilliant. You would hate to have some fuck eye do the job.”

Me: “Indeed.”

D-Day

Posted on by
6

Well, here I am one week before the last “major” step in my fun-filled journey. That’s right, people. It’s D-day. Time to get my new tits.

I guess C-day would be a more apt description of the event since Ds are not in the cards. Actually I have no idea what cup size they will be because we are sooooo scientific and just above all that pettiness — we go by cc’s, not cup sizes. Where was it that I read or heard or saw in some 80s movie that more than a handful is wasteful, anyway (cough… bullshit)?

So I’ll be all cliché and ask you to please send me positive vibes next Tuesday at 9:00am Greenwich Mean Time (and those of you who started to cry after you read that I will, alas, not be restored to my former bodacious glory can pray for a miracle after you stop blubbering. Just stop it. You know who you are).

Seriously though. It has been nearly a year since I went to the very same hospital where I’ll be going next Tuesday, let a man draw all over my boobies with a Sharpie, waved good-bye to my husband and was wheeled into the OR (or the theatre as they call it here — sounds so dramatic doesn’t it?) for the removal of my breasts. You know, it’s a funny thing. I was not nervous. Not at all. I slept like a baby the night before my double mastectomy. Because I wanted that cancer out of my body and frankly felt as though the day couldn’t come soon enough.

I’ve had a year to think about that now. I’ve been through a lot and have gained some perspective. For one year I have had expanders for boobs. Expanders are like implants but they are not meant to be permanent. They are place-holders, pocket-preparers, envelope-makers. Each expander has a metal port into which a hypodermic needle can be inserted (once it has pierced the skin covering the expander — you cannot see the ports) either to inject or remove saline, thus changing the size of the “boob.” And I’ve tried just about every look under the sun. From “pumped up” to pretty darn flat and everywhere in between. This is for a number of reasons, having to do with slowly inflating to create a good pocket and allow the tissue to stretch and recover around the expander, and having to remove some liquid temporarily to get a good angle during radiation treatments.

The other day I had a strange experience. I attended an exercise boot camp with a couple friends. There I was, struggling on a treadmill at an uncomfortable incline, jogging at an impossible pace (interval training is a bitch, particularly uphill), for me, not having been much of a runner for the past ten years. There was a big ole mirror about two feet from me and I didn’t recognise myself. I looked so slight and sort of weird. And then I realised it was because those jugs of mine weren’t there any more. And what was there wasn’t moving at all (I mean AT ALL). That plus the short hair made me feel kind of boyish. And it dawned on me that my boobs were really part of my identity.

It was just weird. I thought, “gee, my shoulders don’t look as broad as I thought they were.” And “gee, I’m awfully scrawny and lanky…” And I guess it’s because my boobs were sort of my thing, not that they were all-defining or anything but let’s just say they were one of my things. And now they’re not. It’s kind of an odd experience, really.

There are other physical changes too, which no doubt contribute to the sense of otherness. I work out more than I did before this happened. And I am a little older now. So yeah, maybe I am a little more sinewy and lanky. I guess it’s the new me. I’ll tell you something, though. The new me is definitely ready for some new tits. I hope that they move, even a little. These expanders have been better than nothing, for sure, but I’m so over them.

Want to get technical? Here’s the plan: my surgeon is going to go through the same incisions that were made during the first surgery. I’d say my healed incisions are about 3 1/2 inches across the very centre of each breast. He will remove the expanders and pop in — now here’s where it gets creative — my cohesive gel silicone implants. These implants are silicone, yes, but they are “gummy bear” implants, so-named for their cohesive rather than liquid silicone structure. They are still in clinical trial in the US even though they have been around for some twenty years (I don’t know why — ask the FDA). They are particularly appealing for breast reconstruction because they are anatomically shaped (think more tear drop less m&m but they won’t melt in your mouth or your hands) which is supposed to impart a more lifelike look to my breasts. And if I got stabbed in the boob they purportedly wouldn’t leak ooey gooey silicone all inside my insides. Rather, they would stay together, just like a harpooned gummy bear (thus the nickname).

Here’s the bad news: implant reconstruction is tricky in people who have undergone radiation. Radiotherapy damages the blood supply to the tissue that has been subjected to radiation and it also increases the likelihood of capsular contracture — or hard scar tissue — forming around the implant. It also increases the likelihood of other complications none of which I am going to discuss or am particularly concerned about. There’s always something, for Christ’s sake. The gist is that after radiation things can get kind of fucked up and sclerotic and sometimes skin and tissue don’t behave properly. Ah well.

I’m hoping that this doesn’t screw up my results too badly on the side that got zapped. Six months following radiation, that side is already firmer than the non-radiated side, which is nice and soft and ready to behave. The surgeon will try to release some of the scar tissue on that right side in the hope that the new implant will settle and form a better more natural shape. Not so firm and not so high.

I figure if it really gets bad I can just use that boob as a drinks table. Screw it. At least I won’t be setting off any more metal detectors in the airports of the world. Because I really wanted to learn how to say “I’m not packing, I just have breast implants with metal ports” in Thai.

Anyhow that’s about it for tonight’s instalment. Feel free to ask me any questions about any of this. Really you can. I like to be technical. And you might be curious. Or not. Whatever.

One-Trick Pony

Posted on by
Reply

So it’s sort of my anniversary. Or should I say cancerversary? Wait… I think I just threw up in my mouth a little in the face of such a cheesy, fabricated word. Anyhow, it has been a year since my diagnosis. To be completely accurate it has been a year, two weeks and one day. The date I got the call (“yes it does show a cancer … but you’ll have perky tits forever”) really isn’t what I think of as the anniversary, however, considering I was at least 66 2/3 % convinced that the results of the biopsy would not be good a week before the call came in.

I was not being pessimistic, people. I was being realistic. I had looked the radiologist in the eye, said “I am a big girl; what do you think” and she had levelled with me. She was “reasonably concerned” there was cancer present. So although lots of well-wishers told me not to worry and that everything would turn out fine I kind of knew that wasn’t how things were likely to go down. That was when I started dealing.

Which probably explains, at least in part, why this past December was such a tough month for me, as I mentioned in a previous post.

So how is this relevant now that December has come and — blissfully — gone? Well it got me thinking. That’s sort of a lie, actually. Because I am always thinking. In fact I wish I could turn off my brain sometimes. But it got me thinking, specifically, about what the hardest things have been about this experience to date. And I came up with something sort of interesting and to some people, maybe unexpected.

When I think back over the last fourteen months, from finding a lump in the shower, to the investigations, to confirmation that something sinister had taken up residence in my body, to surgery, chemo, radiation and all the delightful direct effects and side effects of such, to recovering after it all, the answer is as clear as a bell.

The hardest things have been (1) the waiting period between finding out that I might have cancer and formulating a plan of action (surgery + ?) after I found out I definitely had cancer, with a little bonus period after my surgery during which I had to wait yet again for more detailed pathology results leading to a further plan of action (chemo + radiation) and (2) most of the month of December, about a year from the beginning of all this crap. So there’s a pattern here, see it? It’s before and after. Those have been the hardest times. By far the most stressful. Not during. Hmm.

People who have been through this or something like it and those who have cared for them or who otherwise know warned me that the initial waiting period would be the worst. And that I might feel “down” after it was all over. The waiting was awful. It was terrifying and just plain old difficult to bear. I concur. But I did not feel down right after the treatment was over. Maybe a little adrift at times, but not really down. Until December when I got hit with a bad cold and a nasty clenching crimp in my back. That reminded me of being weak. Of having limitations. And things sort of deteriorated from there. Part of it was an obvious thing. I did not feel good physically, so it follows that I didn’t feel so hot mentally. The cold persisted and turned into a sinus infection and the back persisted such that I was uncomfortable for a good part of the day, every day. That doesn’t make for a great mood. I was downright cranky.

I know now that everyone and his dog seems to have had a nasty cold over December — some even got two colds. I am not special in that regard. It just especially affected me because it made me think about feeling unwell and the last time I had felt unwell was while I was undergoing chemotherapy. It was a lack of patience on my part. An “I’m well now and it’s over and there is no time or space for being sick because I refuse to be limited.” And the back thing was similar. It screwed up my workouts, deprived me of endorphins, made me lose a little muscle. Made me see a dip. I don’t like dips. I’m into crescendos.

I feel much better now. Much. It’s a new year and I have a feeling that despite the conventional wisdom, thirteen is going to be my lucky number. Or at least better than twelve, which, as a friend put it who also had a hell of a 2012, can totally kiss my ass.

In retrospect, although undergoing treatment was not pleasant, it really wasn’t that hard, relatively speaking. My mission was clear; beautiful in its simplicity. It was sort like I became this one-trick pony and the pony’s focus was this: kill it. I was an assassin. Single-minded, willing to do whatever it took to carry out the hit. The wire had already hit my numbered Swiss account and I would go and go until the hit was carried out.

What else made it bearable? It was temporary. I’ll shave my head today, but my hair will grow back tomorrow. I’ll feel shitty and have metal mouth and queasiness today but I will have my appetite back tomorrow. You get the gist. It was something to slog through, not a permanent state of affairs to which I had to adjust. And I started to write and then I learned a hell of a lot about myself.

I was also incredibly fortunate to handle the meds pretty well. Although I rested in bed on the afternoon following treatment and went to bed early every night, I wasn’t in bed all day and I still exercised and generally enjoyed a good appetite. None of my side effects landed me in the hospital, even though some were infuriating (such as the swollen thumb episode).

What’s my point? I don’t really have one. I’m just musing. People say I have been strong. That I sailed through treatment. I don’t really know if that is true. Maybe it was just easy for me to have a singular focus and to get through something I needed to get through. Put all life’s little stresses on hold. Sleep well at night because I knew what mattered and what didn’t. Wasn’t going to get worked up about the little bullshit over which I had spent plenty of time obsessing in the past. Big deal.

We’ll see how the next couple of months pan out. I have a date on the calendar for the acquisition of my new tits. That’s pretty exciting. Sort of. If you told me I would move to London and a year and a half later be going in for a set of silicone tits — ahem — after having had my original tits removed — I would not have believed you. I still find it hard to believe except that anything has to be better and more comfortable than these saline expanders with metal ports that feel about as hard as boulders sewn under my skin. I’m ready to move on. Ready to take the next step. We’ll hope for the best. See where it takes me. Plan on bikini shopping in the near future.

And then the world is gonna be my oyster again, bitch.

 

Titty McTittenheimer

Posted on by
2

Have you seen the movie Friends with Kids? There is one particularly uncomfortable scene where the couples go for a ski weekend in a log cabin where Jon Hamm (you know, the hottie from Madmen), having had a few too many (one over the eight for my English readers), refers to Megan Fox’s character as “Titty McTittenheimer.” This, during a rant in which he declares that the romance between the male protagonist and Megan Fox’s character will never work because she is basically just an immature pleasure-seeking pair of tits who isn’t interested in settling down.

Why the fuck am I telling you this? You might ask. Well, ever since that scene and my deflation many months ago (see Smaller Tits in Sixty Seconds if you have no idea what I am talking about), I have wanted to have a reason to write a post with this title. And the day has come, my friends. The day has come.

I realise I ain’t no Megan Fox. But a year ago I had a reasonably sized set so it wouldn’t have been totally out of the question to refer to me as Titty McTittenheimer. What? About a month ago when I went to my plastic surgeon, you may have read, I was turned away… no enhancement to be had. Some mumbo-jumbo about wanting things to settle down a bit more post-radiation. I walked out of that office rather pissed off. Realised I had been totally prepared to bust out of there, literally.

Last Thursday I went back. Expecting to be turned down for the second time in a month. Turned loose once again on the streets of London sporting the small-chested waif look. Listen, by the way, if you are flat-chested or small-chested, please do not be offended. This isn’t about you and how great you look flat-chested. Because I could give a shit that being flat-chested is a good look. It is a good look and I even got used to that look on my own body. You can argue all you want but believe you me it is just plain weird to have a very different-sized body part that has been a part of you for most of your life suddenly gone, or at least drastically changed. It may be a good look but it just hasn’t been my look. You dig?

Anyhow, about five minutes after I went into the office I found myself on the table getting bigger jumblies by way of a magnetic device resembling a stud sensor, a generously sized hypodermic needle and some saline.

I went to a dinner party that night and in front of all the guests I asked my husband if he noticed anything different about me. In case he needed help, I gestured to my chest. Don’t worry, all the guests are friends and knew what was going on. Not that I mightn’t have done the same in front of complete strangers, mind you, because Honey Badger really does NOT give a shit.

Then it dawned on me. I have truly become shameless. It’s sort of free license for me to be the complete ass that I always have been. Now I just have an excuse.

I can now get away with statements such as “hey, how do you like my tits?” And “want to have a feel?” And these are received as completely normal and some people even take me up on the offer. (NB: do not have a feel uninvited because I been working out and I’ll kick your ass, MF). Our friend Peter wanted to know if my temporary boobies were filled with air. I said hell no, it’s helium! Wouldn’t that be a trip. So to speak.

Okay let’s get serious for a moment. What the heck is going on? So we are doing this all in preparation for phase two of my reconstruction, or as my friend Mark puts it, my “intercambio de tetas” a/k/a tit exchange iffa ju don speek eh-Spanich.

We are “preparing the pockets” for my silicone buzzies. I am supposed to get them in February. And finally after some progress I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or should I say the mountains at the end of the valley. I told my surgeon I was going to rewrite the song All I Want for Christmas in light of recent developments. Stay tuned for my inspired version in a future post…

The last year has been a real doozie. And soon I will put myself in the hands of my surgeon once more (well, not just any surgeon, but Mr Titty McTittenheimer, to be precise). This time the directive will be a little more lighthearted. This time he won’t be excising a life-threatening tumour to save my life. This time, he will be, simply, making me my own version of Titty McTittenheimer. Restoring balance and order to the universe. What goes up must come down. What gets cut out must be put back. And so forth. You know the drill. Just call me TM for short.

Life After Treatment

Posted on by
2

I don’t feel like I’ve been writing very much about cancer (per se) these days. Maybe it’s because I am done with treatments going on three months now. In fact, this Saturday will mark the three-month anniversary of my final treatment and it also happens to be my eleventh wedding anniversary. Hot spit.

Being done is super. I’ve been tooling around London a fair bit and when I step back and think about it, it feels oh so different to be going about my business as “a normal person” rather than as “a cancer patient.” Of course, when I was a cancer patient I still tooled around and did things, but somehow it always felt like I was squeezing the good stuff in between appointments.

For a period of about seven months, appointments formed the scaffolding of my existence. First, a myriad* of appointments with surgeons and oncologists and the requisite imaging and scans and preparations for surgery, then the surgery itself and the follow-up appointments. And shortly after that, chemotherapy every other Thursday for four months. Then, two-and-a-half weeks following chemo, five weeks of radiation, five days a week. Plus a ton of extra appointments for random crap like the shingles on my head, a 7mm-deep collection of blood under my right thumb which caused it to look like a sickly Goodyear Blimp and other tedious but not-too-serious medical travails.

When you look at it that’s a busy schedule. So, getting out and doing things not related to killing cancer or dealing with the spate* of problems that killing it spawned seemed extra. As in extracurricular. “Outside of.” It’s Latin you know.

*My dad will be so proud. I used myriad and spate in the same post.

Now that scaffolding is gone. It’s been disassembled and put back in the shed and I am building a new one all on my own. Unless you count the every three-month check-ups. But those aren’t often enough for me to consider them the same way structurally. Not even close.

There was an article in The Times last weekend by a breast cancer survivor (Gail Rolfe). She wrote about life after treatment and how she battled depression. Here is the link but you have to subscribe to The Times online in order to read the whole thing, I’m afraid, unless you get the times delivered and have last weekend’s still lying on the coffee table or awaiting recycling in your blue recycling bag (are they blue outside of Camden? I dunno).  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/mental-health/article3572415.ece

I suppose I am entirely too subjective to judge whether the article resonates with people who haven’t been touched by the topic. It was easy for me to understand what she was talking about, even though I am, thank goodness, not personally struggling with depression. Because I do struggle with a lot of things post treatment.

She made a number of points that I have made in previous posts and have noodled about in some detail. The obvious first one is that it can actually be hard/weird/disquieting/scary (I could go on) when your treatments are over and you are on your own. This is true. That scaffolding has been removed. And you sort of feel like, okay, I made it through that unbelievable shit show, so now what the fuck am I supposed to do?

It’s like that solid, stable bridge you’ve been walking over has just become invisible but you have to move forward because you can’t turn back and you can’t stand still. It is, to say the least, unsettling. And not easy. Did I mention that the bridge has become a suspension bridge, that it shakes when you walk, that the drop below is fatal and that most of the people walking along beside you have fallen back? Now you’re getting the picture. You need a lot of core strength to walk over that bridge. If you are strong and centred it makes the movements easier and more natural. But it takes focus and will and strength. It doesn’t just happen by itself. Unless you are truly unthinking.

I’ve talked to so many people who said they were depressed or freaked out when their treatments ended and had that walking over the invisible bridge feeling. Whose friends didn’t get it because they thought it would just be party party party when the last drop of crap went into the vein or the last photon beam zapped the problem area.

It is so very personal. So very individual. What you feel at that moment.

The biggest deal for me was being done with chemo. Sure I had radiation ahead of me but that didn’t seem like that much of a thing, compared. Being done with chemo was the biggie. As you may have read, I had a number of visitors that last time. My husband and two fellow survivors came to hang out, not all at once. But by the time the treatment was winding down my guests had left and I was alone. And it was great. To have the last bit of that nasty liquid drip in and then get disconnected and bid the chemo suite adieu.

I didn’t feel anything negative in that moment. Of course it may have helped that I was wearing a pink, fringed bob wig, a feather skirt and rubberized leggings at the time. How can a person feel bad in that? Really. It’s like happiness armour.

The point is that for many people that isn’t such a triumphant moment. Or at least it is a moment of major ambivalence or even terror. Keep that in mind if you know someone going through this so that when they are finishing you say “how do you feel about being done” rather than “so you must be so excited to be done!” How the hell can you know how they are feeling? You can’t.

Back to the bridge.

Sometimes my mind wanders into troublesome places and I have to extract myself from that and force myself to take another step on that rickety-ass contraption. Force myself not to worry about the what-ifs and for the moment not to dwell, at least, on the topic. At times like that, being able to forge ahead and take that next step is sort of like having faith, but also just accepting the futility of obsessing over things over which we have very little control. Squeeze the core and advance. And don’t forget to breathe. That’s sort of what life is like even without cancer. Isn’t it? A leap of faith. Letting go. Moving forward.

In her article, Gail mentioned being a member of the club no one wants to join. I get that for sure. I wrote about that very thing. I am downright pissed off that even though I am done with treatment, I am still not really a normal person. I’m a little bit bitter about it. I think about it. It affects my actions daily. What I eat and drink. I get a little antsy if I feel that I am exceeding my self-imposed limit of alcohol (bad for cancer) or that my diet is too high in fat (bad for cancer) or sugar (bad for cancer). It irritates the hell out of me to have to think about things in this way.

You might retort: you don’t have to but rather you choose to. Fair point. But see even when I go “aw, screw it” and say, have those two chocolate Oreos and wash them down with a cup of hot chocolate despite the fact that I had a small bowl of vanilla ice cream two hours earlier, I think “oh crap that wasn’t so good.” But as my oncologist said, you have to live your life. I can’t live it on a seaweed and raw cabbage diet, people. And I can’t let myself go and not take care of myself either. I am not into extremes. So I take the middle road which goes something like this: eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, indulge from time to time and try not to beat myself up about it too much.

You will say that over time this will change and I will think less about these things. This may be true. In fact I hope it is true. But knowing myself, I will always be careful. Or at least more careful than I was when I felt a little less mortal.

I got a newsletter from the lady in charge of the organic farm that delivers produce to me every week explaining that she had found a lump in her breast and had a scare but that her biopsy had come back clean and she was exhilarated and felt “immortal.” Interesting. I think if I had had that result rather than the shit luck I had I still would have come out feeling a little more mortal, not the other way around. I mean, something’s gotta get you. Think I should call her up and suggest that she might have a heart attack tomorrow? I know, probably not.

So this other thing on my mind post treatment is, go figure, boobs. Why not since they seem to be on everyone else’s mind too.

To wit: a day after the article about depression after cancer treatment was a spread in The Sunday Times magazine (the cover of which featured a model with a t-shirt on that had a rather grotesque–I thought–photo of naked breasts on it) about the longstanding obsession with breasts and how prudish we have become about naked breasts. It touched on topics such as the topless pap pics of Kate Middleton, how uncomfortable English women feel about sunbathing topless, how bipolar America is about boobs (simultaneously prudish and obsessed) and it contained a timeline about the naked breast including “historical” events such as Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. It even had a quote by Marilyn Monroe lamenting being defined by her tits (well, and ass).

I didn’t really get the whole point of it. But I guess I am jaded. The article promised that I would not think of breasts the same way after reading it. Um, whatever. Like I needed to read that to get some perspective. I mean, step into my office for a minute, honey…

Just a week ago I visited my plastic surgeon, thinking that at long last he would put back some of the saline that he was instructed to remove from my temporary implants prior to beginning radiation in June. If you didn’t read my posts about that, it had to do with exposing more of the left breast to radiation than was desirable given that my cancer had been only on the right side. (The temporary implants, called expanders, are really place-holders for my permanent implants which I should get sometime early next year. The process of inflation is to form a good “pocket” in which the permanent implants will lie). The long and short of it was that I was too, and I quote: “pumped up” for them to get the correct angle so they had to partially deflate me. It was not an awesome experience.

It has been a few months and frankly I’ve grown used to a flatter look. But for some reason, (maybe because the killing it part is over) lately, I had sort of gotten focused on getting some volume back in the rack. So I was rather nonplussed when my surgeon told me that in fact he thought we needed to wait a little longer before inflating me. The skin looked good, better than it had the last time he examined me, he assured me, but things were still a bit inflamed from the radiation and he wanted to see if they would settle down and soften up a bit. Which of course raised a number of questions. What if they don’t? What if this is as good as it gets? Will I have to settle for a smaller size? Will the surgery get screwed up regardless of size? What kind of implants should we use? Has the plan changed? Is there a plan?

I felt like yelling “but I want bigger tits and I want them NOW” à la Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Just to see what would happen.

It’s really quality not quantity that concerns me, at the end of the day. Oh shut up, male readers. I am being serious. If he can make them look decent I don’t care if they are petite. It would be nice to feel a little less like part of that club no one wants to join and a little more like just another chick with boobs, hanging out in the ladies locker room. Not that I am planning to parade around topless once I have my new set. At least not at the gym. But I might if they are really top quality. Just to see if anyone notices they’re plastic.

My surgeon once told me about a breast reconstruction patient he had once. She was an ageing rock star’s (don’t worry he didn’t tell me who) girlfriend, who the first time she came to his office, produced a tiny dress from her hand bag and said “do what you have to do but it has to look good in this.”

You know what, I can really respect that. Honey badger don’t give a shit as long as it looks good.

How I got from deep thoughts about life after treatment to this point I am not quite sure but it’s all part of that journey on the invisible bridge.

One Too Many

Posted on by
Reply

This morning I had my first post-treatment check-up with the breast surgeon. I will be alternating appointments between my breast surgeon and my oncologist so that I see one of them every three months for the foreseeable future. I haven’t asked recently when that will switch over to six months, and so on, because right now every three months seems pretty comforting. I’ll want that safety net there for a good long time before I walk the tightrope with only the cold, hard, popcorn strewn floor below, thank you very much.

Many people have asked me “what’s next” now that surgery (other than phase two of reconstruction a/k/a my tit exchange as one friend so aptly put it), chemo and radiation are finished. This is their gentle way of asking what can be done to make sure that I am okay and that the cancer has not come back.

People are often surprised to learn that these doctors visits will be composed mainly of a physical check-up and questions about how I am feeling. Scans are not always routinely performed on patients who did not have a lot of positive lymph nodes at the time of surgery and even when scans are done they do not tend to change outcomes.

Having thought about it I am not too keen on getting scanned and thus subjected to even more radiation on a regular basis. Some cancer survivors find scans comforting, but from what I’ve learned from my doctors, I might actually find them anxiety producing. Time will tell.

Blood tests are sometimes performed at the check-ups to test for tumour markers, etc. but the results can apparently be confusing. So again, the main tools used are the physical exam and talking to the patient. Old school.

That brings me back to this morning’s check-up. My surgeon examined me and said that my skin looked very good after radiation. He then palpated the skin around my expanders (my temporary, saline implants) and under my arms and finally did an ultrasound to see how the expanders were lying under the skin and whether and to what extent there was inflammation following my treatments. All looked good.

Following this, I showed my surgeon a small cyst on my right arm (people who have found lumps on their bodies that turned out to be cancer do NOT like to find random lumps on themselves) which he dismissed as a typical subcutaneous cyst, which probably predated my cancer. For good measure I had him look at a small, dark mole, which one dermatologist had insisted I biopsy immediately but which a second opinion had determined to be “nothing sinister.” He concurred with the latter opinion and said we could watch it.

Once I was out of questions about lumps, bumps and marks I figured I would get his input on the big picture. “Is there anything else I should be doing?” I asked. Now, I have already asked four oncologists their opinions about such things, given the morass of extreme cancer diets and information out there claiming that one has to do this, that and the other thing to stay healthy.

My surgeon knows how I am. In other words, he knows that I eat a relatively healthy diet, that I exercise regularly and that I am not planning to gain weight. And his answer was basically “nope.”

This is a relief because I hadn’t planned on going macrobiotic or anything. If I even tried to do that I might become psychotic, which could be a more serious health issue than cancer, or extremely bitchy and irritable, which could be a serious health risk to others around me. Or just a plain ole insufferable bore, which many people who embrace extreme diets and such are (sorry if you are one of them and you are offended but the great majority of people really don’t give a shit that you ate only kelp and green tea today).

While I was at it I polled him about alcohol consumption, especially considering a recent study I read indicating that as few as TWO drinks a week can increase the risk of estrogen-positive breast cancers. I really hate studies like that. I mean, two fucking drinks? Good grief. Not that I was a big boozer before all of this, but I do enjoy a nice glass of wine for crying out loud.

He said that it was very hard to separate alcohol consumption in those studies from other factors and that in the grand scheme of things he wasn’t too concerned about an increased risk if one didn’t drink excessively.

It all boils down to what my London oncologist said to me one day. “You have to live your life.” And you do. You can beat yourself up about every minute thing or you can get on with it and be reasonable and once in a while indulge. Isn’t that what makes life enjoyable on some level?

Therefore, when I got home this afternoon I took the last of the chocolate chip cookie dough (homemade gimme some credit) out of the fridge and baked up a sheet of cookies. My older daughter had a play date over so it was a good excuse.

“Okay, each child may have two cookies,” I said. Then when they weren’t looking I shoved four of them into my mouth in rapid succession. After a dinner of seared chicken breast, rice, mushrooms, roasted broccoli and purple cauliflower, which I swear tastes better precisely because it is purple — or at least that is what I told the kids when I said they couldn’t have any more cookies after dinner if they didn’t eat it all — and “one unit” of white wine, I ate two more cookies.

Following the sixth cookie I stopped, held my stomach and assessed how I felt. “Oh boy. I think I ate one too many cookies,” I told my five-year-old.

Without missing a beat, she responded, “I think I ate one too many cauliflowers.”

Ain’t life beautiful?

I Smell a Rat

Posted on by
Reply

Like, literally.

So here’s how it all started. On the very last day of radiation treatment (#25 of 25), which was Friday, July 27, I was home puttering around in preparation for our trip to the States the next day and I popped outside (the British are always popping here and there to do things and this has thoroughly infected my speech patterns by this point so deal with it) to put the trash out.

After closing the lid of the rubbish bin (that’s trash barrel for you die-hard Americans) I caught something out of the corner of my left eye on my way back in the door. I directed my gaze down the precipitous steps leading to the basement.

And there it was, looking back at me. A rat. The size of the animal and the length of its tail betrayed immediately that it was no mouse.

I didn’t think much of it, though. I figured, it likes the trash. We live in the city. Until I went out and returned several hours later and saw it (or one of its pals) again in the same place. That did not seem like a good sign. And it had the nerve to peer up at me again before it slunk out of sight.

At the bottom of the aforementioned steps there is a water pipe/drain that leads into the house. It occurred to me that they might have found a way into the basement via that or other similar means. So I reentered the house and went into the basement from the inside on a recon mission. I saw right away that something (here’s a hint: it was a rat) had chewed up one of the tiles of the drop ceiling (you know those tiles in unfinished basements made of some sort of cardboard-like substance) and the debris from this gnaw fest was deposited below. Ew.

So on the eve of our departure I discovered that there were rats in the house, or at least in the basement, which still counts as “in the house” in my book.

Crap, I thought. Via my pal, Susan, I got in touch with the pest control dude, whom we had had out to the house to investigate whether we had mice in the basement only a few weeks prior. This was after my husband found a dead mouse down there (which I now suspect was not a dead mouse but a dead baby rat) and I had heard some scrabbling in the floor near the base of the main staircase. Nothing had been found.

In my absence, Susan and our nanny, Agnieszka, met the pest dude at the house a few days later. He placed some bait in the basement and checked for possible points of ingress, of which he identified two, one in each of the adjoining houses on either side of our house. “Don’t worry,” he reassured the ladies after placing the bait, “they won’t die in the house because they will go out looking for water.”

This statement was later revised by the dude to something like “they are very unlikely to die in the house.” Oh sure.

There are other points on which the pest dude was severely lacking. How about for starters that I questioned him long and hard when we returned from our trip about whether the rats could somehow gain entry through the water pipe or any holes near it where I had repeatedly seen the culprit(s). He said unequivocally no. But then the contractor who was working on the house next door and who knows this house like the back of his hand informed me this was total BS and of course the rats could get in that way and he even poked around and observed that there were holes around that drainage area. HELLO? I could go on… In fact I will, later. Read on.

Some days after the initial baiting, Agnieszka met the dude at the house. It hit them hard as soon as they opened the front door. The unmistakable stench of decomposition.

The dude descended into the basement but could not find the body. He told Agnieszka to light some scented candles and that everything would be fine and dandy. Just wait it out, he advised.

Horrified, Agnieszka scrubbed the floors and opened doors and windows trying to air the house and abate the stank. She purchased room freshener and a scented candle. All this while I was across an ocean, blissfully unaware for a couple more hours that our house had become a rat graveyard where a rat can’t get a proper burial.

Then I got the email from Susan. “Brace yourself,” it warned, “this is a stinker.” I read on. The pest dude sent a message about the fact that a rat had died in the house. The long and short of it was that this sometimes happens and that it isn’t nice but it is better than having rats running around down there.

I called him up and ruffled his feathers about his claim that the rat wouldn’t die in the house. He was somewhat unnerved by my American directness via pointed questions, though they did not rise to the level of accusations, my being a reasonable person and all.

From that morning I got the news I began to prepare myself. Tried to swallow that after all the shit we’d just been through, what would greet us upon our return to the Old Country was the reek of decomposing rodent in our home. For some reason, even though I was told that it would soon pass, this really bothered me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

An impending sense of horror insinuated its way into my consciousness. I would be distracted momentarily, but then something would jerk me back into thinking about the dead rat smell that awaited us. And the possibility of more rats in the house.

Our flight home was uneventful. When we opened the front door, we smelled it for sure. But it was not as bad as I had anticipated. It probably couldn’t have been considering how mental I had gotten about it. I thought to myself, “this is gross but I can deal with it.” We got settled, went out to dinner and came home and went to bed. We could not smell the rat from our bedrooms.

The next day, my husband went down to the basement to investigate, the real point of which being to determine whether any rodent activity had fouled his latest batch of home brew, which lay in waiting in the tiny finished room adjacent to the basement. He popped (there it is again) upstairs and informed me that he had heard a noise in the ceiling near the stairwell that sounded like an animal breathing or snoring. I thought he was kidding. But he persisted.

So I accompanied him back downstairs. We stopped. We listened. And by George, there it was. A sort of low, soft, exhale somewhere between a growl and a snore. We exchanged a look. I acknowledged that I could hear it. And at that moment we started to fear the worst. That there was not only a dead rat in the house but live rats as well.

As it turns out, we never did discover the source of that guttural sound. But it was enough to prompt a call to the pest dude to demand that he come out forthwith and deal with the problem in case any rats were still in the house. After some initial resistance, he agreed to come out. And it was during this meeting he informed me the rats couldn’t have come in at the base of the stairs where I had initially spotted them.

I began to lose confidence in him at that point and what made it worse was that he was, to put it mildly, rather verbose, or as a friend once aptly put it about his own loquaciousness, intoxicated by the exuberance of his own verbosity. My first clue should have been that when I offered him a parking permit and asked how long he thought he would be at the house that day, he rejected the half hour card in favour of an hour-long one.

The second inkling was that every time I asked him something that I believed to be relatively cut and dried (you know, straightforward questions), he looked pensive, hemmed and hawed, and said “let’s start at the beginning.”

Good Lord, I thought. We might end up needing an exterminator for our exterminator at this rate.

Shortly after his deficiencies became apparent to us, our estate agent hired another company and informed the pest dude of our transfer of affections to said company. He really had lost me when I suggested we plug an obvious rat-sized hole in the ceiling of the “beer room” and he said not to bother because for every hole you plug there are ten more where they can get in. And that hole led to the main part of the house! Why don’t I just roll out the red carpet, for fuck’s sake, and line it with biscuits and chocolate.

The next day I had an epiphany. Maybe the reason that the dead rat had perturbed me so — aside from the obvious “oh we have just been through so much and now we have to contend with a smelly dead rat woe is me nonsense” was the following:

You discover when you least expect it that a nasty, potentially harmful and most certainly unwelcome presence has invaded your home.

You do not know and may never know how it got there and whether it has friends and if so where the friends are and how many there are.

You set about finding out as much as possible about this unwanted visitor, and formulate a plan of attack based on the information available.

You poison the intruder.

Then you set about trying to prevent a similar intruder from returning.

You succeed in killing it.

The execution, however, is a highly unpleasant messy business with unforeseen consequences. The whole thing is rather an ordeal.

After the killing, there is a terrible stench. Everyone tells you that it will fade over time. You want to believe this but it is difficult to imagine because for so long you have smelled it, breathed it, lived it.

Sometimes you think that the smell is gone but then you catch a whiff and you know that the carcass will always be there, albeit out of reach. A reminder of your ordeal.

To tell you the truth I don’t care where the bloody skeleton is as long as it is dead as a fucking doornail. The smell is already a lot better. It will indeed go away eventually. But I will never forget it. I will always know that smell.

The really good news is that the beer was undisturbed. And is damn good.

It’s the little things in life.

A Further Look at Airport Screening Issues

Posted on by
Reply

Howdy. You may have read my posts about encountering airport security at Heathrow. If not click on Things I Am Prepared to Say to Airport Security (before) and End of Shit (after).

Well, it turns out that a host of ladies sporting bionic buzzies have had troubles with so-called insensitive TSA employees. My friend Dee just sent me a link to an article about the very topic. Check out http://globaltravelerusa.com/web/view/tsa-apologizes-to-breast-cancer-patient-for-embarrassing-screening-at-jfk#.UCTliYaeypY.email. The gist of it is that last fall, a lady who had recently undergone bilateral mastectomies with reconstruction and had those expanders with the metal ports in them set off the screening gizmo at JFK airport and was not exactly treated with kid gloves.

Now look, I am the first to speak out in favour of heightened airport security in this crazy world we live in. Anyone could produce a document from a “doctor” indicating that they have some prosthesis that might set off the screening thingie.

Nonetheless, I agree that a modicum of civility is warranted. Even if the TSA folks are not satisfied by a card or a doctor’s letter proclaiming the presence of a prosthetic medical device (and I ain’t saying they should be), should not the bearer of such be offered a private screening if so desired? You can cop a feel or have a look, but only in the champagne room, please.

Luckily for me, I am not easily embarrassed and did not mind being patted down in public at Heathrow airport. I don’t think I would like having to go into a private room and take off my top, but if asked I would do so. Safety first, after all. I really don’t give a shit.

But not every person embraces the honey badger way. I read about one poor lady who had to remove her bra for the authorities and about another whose prosthesis was manipulated from side to side by a TSA employee. Not really a turn on.

At the end of the day, most people don’t know a damn thing about breast cancer or prosthetic devices. The TSA is not going to concern itself with whether you have had a hard time being treated for x, y or z over the past months and whether their exam of you gives rise to emotional trauma. They just want to process you and make sure you aren’t going to blow up at 35,000 feet. And after the shoe bomber and other pathetic sacks of excrement like him, you can hardly blame them.

I have to fly three times in the next ten days so I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get mistreated and will let you know how it all goes. If I get invited into the champagne room I can tell you right now that I plan to charge for it.

 

Roasted Armpit with a Side of Impatience

Posted on by
2

So my vacay is going pretty well and I feel great. Except for one thing.

My armpit really hurts.

My skin is healing up all nicely from the radiation but for some reason (maybe because it is an ARMPIT), there is a spot in my axilla that got rubbed raw. And it really hurts. Reminds me of one of those hot spots that our dog used to get on her bum after chewing her fur a little too vigorously to address a persistent itch. Yes, I know. Gross. I’ll refrain from photographic evidence since you all are still reeling from the super attractive thumb pics.

The rest of the area that got blasted just looks like a healing sunburn.  Sort of dry and brownish/pink. But not too awful.

Now, I realise that in the grand scheme of things this is not that big of a deal. But it is kind of pissing me off because I’ve had enough and it is cramping my style. That and the fact that my stupid thumbnail still refuses fall off. I am keen to get it off so that I can race to the nearest CVS (that’s an American pharmacy for you non-US readers) and buy me some ultra classy Lee press-on nails. Maybe with an American flag on them so that I can be patriotic and shit while I am on this side of the pond. Oh and so that I can do dishes again (not).

But enough kvetching about my leftover symptoms. Let’s talk about the good news. The good news is that my hair is growing back industrial strength. And my little head is so fuzzy that people have been rubbing it (yes, even people I don’t know that well) because it is apparently so irresistible.

It’s sort of like when you are pregnant and people feel entitled to come up and touch your tummy. I hope that in some months time when I have the final iteration of my newbs, people aren’t going to come up and cop a feel (unless of course they’ve been invited).

My eyebrows grew back so fast that I don’t even need pencil anymore. Here let me attach a photo so you can see for yourself. I will also reattach that lovely one that I took on July 13 so that you can see what a difference a few weeks makes. Both photos are with no make-up.

BEFORE (I look rather like a raw chicken, no?):

 

AFTER (five minutes ago):

I even have eyelashes although they are still shorties. I bought some duty-free crap on the plane over here that is supposed to make your lashes grow longer, stronger, darker and curlier. It is probably just snake oil but I had so much fun buying it I don’t care. Plus it is French. Ooh la la. If it works I am planning to put it on my upper lip as well so that I can have a nice long curly black moustache for my post-treatment new look. Just kidding.

There are some places where hair just isn’t welcome. No hair zones. Too bad you can’t pick and choose where you want it to grow back. It’s a cruel joke that after months of having smooth and kissable bare legs I will need to shave soon. Ah well.

 

Survivor in the New World

Posted on by
2

Yesterday my husband and I drove from the Cape to Boston so that we could finally meet the oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute with whom we have been talking on the phone and corresponding via email since my diagnosis in January of this year. Think of him as my oncologist pen pal.

I had both of our children at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital very close by and numerous doctors appointments in the Longwood medical area over the eight years we lived here so I had passed the Dana Farber maybe a couple dozen times.

During those eight years of driving past the DFCI, however, “cancer” had occupied in my consciousness only a small corner as a nebulous malady. I stopped thinking about cancer as soon as the buildings were behind me. But yesterday was different.

Yesterday we pulled up and there it loomed. The Dana Farber Cancer Institute. This time we were driving right to it, not stealing a glance as we whizzed by. And we were going there for me.

It was pretty fucking weird. Even though all my treatments were over. Even post “end of shit.”

We parked the car and walked in to register for my appointment. I was issued a Dana Farber card, a bracelet and a badge. Cancer bling.

I was a little apprehensive. It’s odd coming in to see someone new, especially a heavy hitter, about something for which you have already been treated by someone else. On another continent. We had shipped my pathology over here and all of my medical records. So the DFCI had it all and had time to review it with fresh eyes. I wondered whether there would be a difference of opinion. And what the hell they would do about it ex post facto.

But despite my slight uneasiness about the situation, I knew that seeing someone in the US was the right thing to do. Good to have a reality check. Good to have someone in the New World who knows me and my case.

And you know what? It turned out just fine. Doc said I looked good and that he was satisfied with the treatments I’d had. There were no red flags. This was a relief, considering that twenty percent of the pathology the DFCI receives from other hospitals warrants some difference of opinion from its pathologists, including, at times, that there isn’t any cancer at all. Can you imagine coming in after surgery, chemo and radiation, or some combination thereof, and finding out that you never needed any of it? I would hope that in most cases, that significant a difference of opinion is rendered prior to and not following intervention. Dang.

It dawned on me that it wasn’t until the oncologist had made his pronouncements that I felt officially finished with treatment. Because until then, there was still that infinitesimal question mark about whether all the right stuff had been done.

So now I get to sit around and watch my hair grow back and wait for my thumb nail to fall off and fun shit like that. Lament the fact that I sort of missed the boat on my planned chemo makeover video because in two short weeks my eyebrows grew back with such vigour that penciling them in is just gilding the lily. Stop being a cancer patient and resume life as usual. As a survivor. A hairy survivor (but more on that later).

Someone once asked a group of us if we took issue with the term “survivor” and said that a lot of people dislike it and really struggle with it. What? Why? I raised my hand. I said “well, it sure beats the alternative.” Ain’t it the truth.