Tag Archives: surgery

Thankful

I wanted to write something about how thankful I am for all of the loveliness in my life. I’m hesitating, though, because of the timing. I mean, on the one hand, it’s perfect timing, right? Thanksgiving weekend? And on the other hand, it feels sort of… unoriginal maybe? By this time in the season, we’ve all read what each other is grateful for on Facebook or other media, around the dinner table, etc. While I believe in the power of gratitude, and do believe that we could all stand to be a little more mindful of what is good in our lives, at some point one thing does start to bleed into another, and I fear it starts to lose its meaning, or something. I recognize gratitude fatigue shouldn’t be a thing. I’m just explaining my hesitancy, I guess.

However, regardless of my ambivalence, the fact remains that I have been enormously blessed this year, and feel the need to recognize it. Because whenever anyone says something about losing their faith in humanity, I wish they could see life from my viewpoint. And maybe I feel the need to balance what I see on the news. Because from where I stand, the humanity that surrounds me couldn’t be much better, and I am so thankful for that.

My mom had this experience as she was staying with me after surgery, in which she got into a conversation with a stranger (this part is by no means unusual for my very social mother). The man also had a daughter who had just had a mastectomy, but the similarities ended there. The woman had nobody to care for her except her father, who was stuck at work. She was waiting in the hospital for him to get off of work and take her to his apartment, which wasn’t big enough for the both of them. He was very nervous about how he would give her the post-surgical care that she needed. I’m not even sure if she had insurance.

Contrast that with my experience. I not only am fully covered by health insurance, but I was able to travel to a different state to have the exact surgeon I wanted. I am so incredibly thankful for that, and so acutely aware that I could have just as easily been in her position as I am in mine. During surgery, I had my parents, Brian, and Miko anxiously waiting for me in the hospital, and countless others in other places. After surgery, I was thoroughly spoiled and cared for by family. First, my mom came with us back to Missoula to do everything I needed and every chore I couldn’t attend to, making me feel as if there was nothing she would rather do than make my meals and drain my surgical drains. She made me delicious smoothies, took Miko to and from school, and washed and ironed everything she could find in our house, most of which I didn’t even know needed to be ironed.  The day after she left,  my sister took her place, and took care of my every need and want. Again, delicious meals were made and chores were done. She stayed a week, buying our groceries, running our errands, entertaining us, and making me feel like the most loved sister in the history of sisters. And what’s more, had my mother and sister not been able to come, I can count at least 10 people who might have helped had I called. While they were here, I actually had to turn away help. I was overwhelmed by the goodness of people.

During this whole process, people — and I’m not just talking my immediate circle here — really could not have been nicer or more generous. I’m consistenly reminded of the love around me. All of the cards and the gifts and the flowers and the meals and the messages of hope and love, they have helped me more than I think I am even aware. Because they let me know that while this may be happening to me, I am not alone. That is an incredibly powerful message, one for which I am so thankful (despite being painfully late on my thank you notes).

It’s not only the people in my life I’m thankful for. My sweet dog, Rufus, stayed by my side all summer, while I was at my sickest. When I got home from surgery, he didn’t let me out of his sight if he could help it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until a week and a half after surgery when his breathing became labored that we found out that he had been struggling with his own cancer. While we were putting him to sleep, I was overcome with gratitude that this loyal companion gave me constant comfort at a time when he just needed a little comfort himself. I am so thankful to have been the human to that loyal dog.

So when I am discouraged by the news, by accounts of people trampling others on Black Friday, gun violence, abuse and neglect, I remind myself that this isn’t what I see on a daily basis. And maybe it’s true that the people around me are just especially good (because I do have outstanding people in my life), I like to think what I see every day is a more accurate reflection of humanity. These well-wishes I receive, this need that others have to let me know that I am in their thoughts and prayers, these consistent offers of help and food and sweetness, they aren’t sensational or sexy enough to make the headlines that scare us. But they happen every single day, and serve as a reminder that people can be pretty wonderful. So I am so thankful for all of those reminders. And honestly, I wouldn’t be nearly as aware of this wonderful humanity were it not for my cancer. So, in a strange way, I’m thankful for my cancer as well. As long as I can beat it.

Through Surgery!

For all of you who have been waiting to hear about Lauri’s progress, as of about 5:00 pm, she is out of surgery. Everything went well – Dr. Moline reported that it was all positive – and she is alert and doing fine. Brian and our parents are with her right now as they wait for her to be transferred to her hospital room. She’ll be at Sacred Heart in Spokane tonight and tomorrow night and then Lauri, Brian, Miko and our mother, Shirley, will drive back to Missoula. Our mom will be with her for the rest of the week while she recovers at home and I will be with her next week.

Lauri was admitted this morning at 10:30 am. Her surgery was scheduled to start at 12:30 pm, which it did.

As I get any additional updates, I will post them.

Thank you so much for all of your kind thoughts, words, deeds and love. I know that it has really eased the hearts of Lauri, Brian, Miko and the rest of us. Knowing that Lauri has so many people’s kind intentions supporting her through this experience is a real blessing.

Anticipating surgery

I’ve been struggling with how to write this post for some time, knowing that it was inevitably coming. On the one hand, this feels so incredibly personal to me, and I feel some unease in talking about it in this somewhat public medium that is read by people with whom I normally maintain some sense of boundaries. Like my professors. Or my parents. Or Miko’s teachers. And on the other hand, writing this blog has been such a gift to me, for which I have been doubly reinforced. First, by the act of writing itself; sharing my personal process has been instrumental in moving me through it. Creating something, even if it’s just this electronic account of my feelings, during a time in which it is all too easy to only think about sickness and death, has fed me in a way I can’t quite describe. And second, by the gracious and generous responses I get from people who read it. I feel so priveleged that I get to put this out there, and that people actually take their valuable time to read it, and then convey to me their reactions. And so because of all of that, it has been really important to me that everything I write here remains absolutely authentic to my experience, even if that feels a little uncomfortable at times.

So, what feels so uncomfortable? Well, up until now, I’ve been talking about my cancer in this somewhat generic way. Despite the differences in treatment protocols, really, this experience could be relevant to people with lots of different types of cancer. But today, I’m talking specifically about something I keep pretty hidden, about my breasts themselves, rather than the cancer inside them (ok, it’s just inside the left one, but I’m having both removed, so I’m talking about both here). And it feels uncomfortable to be trying to talk frankly and openly about something that is so sexualized in our society, to an audience that includes people with whom I am generally more guarded. Maybe this indicates some level of prudishness on my part, more than I recognized before. Regardless, I’ve been struggling with this post. So I’ll just talk about my fears as thoroughly and authentically as I can, and hope that I won’t cringe later.

On Monday, (yes, 11/11, checking in at 11) I will have both of my breasts removed. While this may seem obvious, it keeps occurring to me with a start that they will be gone permanently. Not just until treatment is completed, which is sort of what feels like should happen, but forever. These parts of my body that are so personal and private to me, will first be taken to a lab to be coldly and clinically dissected for evidence of disease by someone I don’t know and wouldn’t recognize me on the street, and ultimately just be added to biohazard trash, along with needles, gauze, plastic bits of disposable medical equipment, etc. Someone who I don’t know is going to see and touch my breasts without me there to give permission, and then will throw them away. That feels unreal to me. And more than a little unfair.

And these parts of my body, they mean something to me. I actually like them. They feel more integral to who I am than, say, my elbow or my little toe. I think that’s in part because they are a huge symbol of my personal gender identity. Maybe this feels counterintuitive, since I joke so much about how little attention I put toward valuing my appearance. But for me, it’s maybe because of that fact that they are important. They are the one consistent part of me that make me feel feminine, and I like that. They do this without requiring me to put on make-up, do my hair, or put time and thought into my wardrobe. So they’re like my lazy femininity (which, now that I think of it, is an apt description of my gender identity itself). But the point is, this personal and important part of my body will be gone forever in less than a week, and I’m experiencing that as a profound loss. I hear other women experience this same process somewhat eagerly, like they can’t wait to have their diseased breasts removed. And that makes sense — the surgery is literally lifesaving. But that’s not how I feel. I am definitely grieving.

The other main thing I’m feeling is dread. Dread about a few things, the first of which is my appearance. Let’s face it, I don’t have a boyish figure, so this post-mastectomy look isn’t going to go well. I will have no curves up top, will still have my ever-growing mid-section, and my surgeon just told me that my chest bone protrudes more than that of the average woman, which will be more obvious after surgery. Lovely. People keep asking why I don’t just wear prosthetic breasts if I’m so concerned about how I’ll look. And I get it, easy fix, or so it seems. But for those who know me well, know that I have the tendency to be overly literal, to over-explain things that don’t actually need explanation. When I don’t, it feels like I’m not telling the whole truth. And that’s how prosthetics feel when I think about them. Like I’d need to explain to everyone I come in contact with that they’re not actually my REAL breasts, should the subject come up. Not that I generally (or ever) engage in conversations with just anyone about my breasts, but the feeling is still there for me. It’s also the downside of having been so open about my treatment. Everyone knows that I am having a double mastectomy, so wearing prosthetics feels like an extremely transparent lie. I recognize this as a strange little quirk of mine, and I don’t feel this way about others who choose to wear prosthetics, but I have decided that if it doesn’t feel authentic, I can’t do it. So, I’m left with this impending body shape that our society views as weird, and I’m finding I care about that more than I thought I would. In fact, as I get closer to surgery, I rarely think about it without crying. And I think about it a lot.

Related to that, I also dread seeing people for the first time after surgery. It’s like how I felt about seeing people after going bald, only more pronounced, because it’s forever and way more personal. I’m dreading the first inevitable, furtive glances that people who know me will naturally give me, curiously taking in the difference in my appearance. I’m dreading the urge I will have to scan their faces for signs of pity, and the defensiveness I will feel when I find it there. I’m dreading hugs. Hugs will feel different. Closer maybe? Less soft? Physically uncomfortable and/or painful? All of that plus more I’m not thinking of, and yet I know I’ll want the hugs. Or at least I think I will. I’m a hugger.

I’m scared about how I’ll feel emotionally after surgery. To wake up, and take that first look myself, and have it all hit me. Because while it feels real to me now, I’m aware that I have no idea how it will feel until after surgery. And so all of this, all of these reasons for dread will no longer be hypothetical, but will be my new reality. And it feels like that will likely feel like a sad reality, at least at first while I adjust. I’m scared that the adjustment will take a while; I talked to a lovely woman the other day who spoke openly to me about her mastectomy three years prior, and she still choked up. I don’t want to be sad about this in three years. I want to be happily engaged in my post-cancer and post-grad school life. But life keeps showing me that I don’t always get to pick how things go.

The most recent thing I’m feeling is this unease related to time. Not only are the days until my surgery flying by, but it just occurred to me that, practically, I have less time than others. Three or fours fewer hours. For my family waiting at the hospital, or others waiting elsewhere who are aware of the time that surgery will take place, they have all of those hours until surgery is over. I have until I get anesthesia. Then I wake up without experiencing the interim. And while I of course don’t want to be aware of the act of surgery, I’m feeling a little panicky at the idea of losing those hours. Those are my hours, and I don’t get to experience them. They are being taken from me, just like my breasts are, and I can’t do anything about it.

So this is how I’m anticipating surgery. This unease, this dread, this grief, punctuated by moments of just wanting it to be over, open to the possibility that maybe I’ll feel just fine and will actually like my body more. Until I know that, though, my breath catches more, my attention jumps all over the place, the lump in my throat grows.

As a practical matter, for those who are nervous with and for me, my sister will update my blog on my surgery day, after she hears how it went. Hopefully she won’t abuse this responsibility and share stories or pictures of my painfully awkward teen years, but she’s an older sibling, so who knows.

Countdown to Wednesday

I’m on a countdown, it seems. Every minute that passes puts me closer to Wednesday, which in turn puts me closer to Capital K Knowing. I’m finding it’s one thing to know you have cancer in this vague sort of way. Seems we caught it early, but possibly not. Seems not to have invaded too much surrounding tissue, but we’ll find out. Don’t know which hormones it’s recpetive to, so don’t know which of the many treatments are indicated. Just know I have the big C. And while I usually hate more than anything not knowing as many details as possible, there’s also a way in which it is comforting. There’s hope in the not knowing, or in the Only Vague Knowing. It’s still within the realm of possibility that I could wake up on Wednesday after surgery and find out the cancer was much smaller than expected, and was taken care of by surgery. I could still find out that no lymph nodes were involved, or no further surgery or chemotherapy will be required. There’s still plenty of reason to be optimistic. So like I said, it’s one thing to know you have cancer in a vague sort of way, and another to know all of the details.

After I Wednesday, and certainly after I get the pathology results back, though, I’m locked in. The optimism could be replaced by sheer happiness at fantastic news. Or. And it’s the Or that has me temporarily enjoy the Only Vague Knowing and fear the Knowing.

So a run-down of Wednesday. First, I check in super early to get an injection of radioactive blue dye. This will travel to my lymph nodes to make it easier for my surgeon to find them for a biopsy. I will then be taken to the imaging facility, where a series of wires will by placed via ultrasound, guided by clips (or as the radiologist called them, internal bling) that were placed during my second biopsy, to make the cancer easier to find during surgery. Then surgery, in which they will hopefully remove all of the cancer, plus a margin of clean tissue all the way around, just to be sure, and take a biopsy of my lymph nodes. Then I wake up and hopefully don’t become dependent on pain pills.

Then I wait. So I can Know. I’ll tell you how it goes.