13 September 2011

I Look Maaaahhvelous!

I'm feeling and looking pretty good these days. Evidently I should have cut my hair off years ago. Folks keep telling me it looks great.  I'm getting lots of exercise, I'm ridding my life of stressors, I'm eschewing responsibilities in favor of naps and massages. All things that contribute to my aura of well being. In fact, I've felt better in the last few weeks than I have in years.  Sometimes I feel like if I could just suspend time I'd be fine - kind of continuing on in this waiting-for-surgery mode, taking care of myself, accepting help and prayers from others, I feel like I could do this indefinitely. Unfortunately, people are gonna get pretty sick of coddling me, and oh yeah, the cancer is still growing.  Having cancer isn't half-bad... fighting cancer is going to be the kicker.  I find it incredibly ironic that all this well-being and marvelousness will cease once my medical team actually tries to get the cancer OUT of me.

Surgery is not nice. It kind of pisses your body off when you have bits removed. Like "Hey, I was using that! What the hell do you think you are doing!?" so I'm going to have to suffer the wrath of my chest trying to figure out what happened to the boobs that were there yesterday. And surgery comes with risks of complications - infection, saroma, scarring, residual pain, unintended consequences.

And I still have a big stepping stone ahead of me - the results of the surgery.  First, will the margins be clear?  Will my surgeon be able to remove the cancer without a shadow of a doubt?  Chances are good there since I have big boobs and the cancer is right under the skin.  Second, have any renegade cells leeched into my lymph system?  Short answer will be found while I'm on the table, but chances of a false negative are high with a quick look.  We really won't know until the nodes get cultured in a lab and someone has a good long look at them.  It'll take about 5 business days.  Then I get to move on to the oncologist.  I still really don't know anything about my follow up treatment beyond Tamoxifen.

As my surgery date looms, I am becoming more nervous about this whole thing.  Sitting in Dr. Boob's office a month ago, it was easy to say "double mastectomy."  Three days out it doesn't feel that easy anymore.