Im not kicking the bucket so it cant be a bucket list...so why not a fuck it list? What am I waiting for? Regardless of the outcome-what AM I WAITING FOR?
1. I've always wanted to play the drums-so Ive got Maddy to teach me 59 Sound by Gaslight Anthem..BIG undertaking-by hell-why not?
2. Start planning for a National event to kick off Breast Cancer Awareness locally-more about this later.. 3. My all time favorite video starring my fave actor..I must learn this dance *except 4 the flying part 4. Ive always meant to read Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy. Everyone Ive ever loved has enjoyed this book. 5. Take Mira and Robert to Greece..she's never been in a foreign country..unless Alabama counts. 6. If I have to do chemo, I will dye my hair the most obnoxious colors you can imagine before it falls out. 7. move my blog to wordpress, where apparently i can do all kinds of nifty things as opposed to this simplistic blog... more to come as i get inspired... |
important dates
April 20 - Family arrives, me and the huz head for Charleston April 21 - Pre-op appointments with Dr. M April 22 - The biggest cut of all happens at Roper Hospital as well as a sentinel node biopsy-all told its an 8- 12 hour surgery. Yeah. Im a lil scared. April 30- Return home after release by Dr M, hopefully in time for me to make the Relay 4 Life Survivors Walk in Jville NC with my coworkers. Ill be the weakling in the Best Buy wheelchair LoL Websites with info on DCIS
some websites I found of interest about my BC..
Ductal Carcinoma In-Situ Explained NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology NIH Consensus 09/2009 While informative, I'm a little leery of whether-or-not-we-call-cancer-carcinoma segment.. I realize how 'lucky' I am that its DCIS and not something else..but it is cancer..and I think it's silly to spend medical monies to figure out how calling DCIS not cancer affects women. USA Today Article Higher Risk of Recurrence in "younger" women for DCIS |
How it all started...
Here I am, July 2007-getting married at Pemaquid Point in Maine to the man of my dreams. The happy tears on my face said it all. It's been the best 2 years of wedded bliss ever-we've never screamed or yelled at each other, he adores me. He cherishes my daughter and together our differences give her a great balance, if not a better chance at being a well rounded woman someday.
Amonth ago I found a lump on my boob. It was obvious, randomly appearing and instantly alarming. I showed it to my Robert and the next day I made an appointment with my regular doctor. It wasn't till I made that appointment that it became real for me. Robert seemed almost breezy about the lump-which I can always rely on him to temper my ability to see the worst in things. He levels me out in this part of my "imagine the worst" scenarios. At work, I kept it to myself. Initially I thought that even mentioning it to others would make me seem as some sort of drama queen.
At my doctor appointment she scheduled me a mammogram and ultrasound at the Imaging Center. I've never been completely at ease with my choice in physicians here in Jacksonville, NC. That day she told me that the nurse would set up a referral and call me by the end of the day as she *the doctor* felt it should be handled ASAP. No one from my doctors office called. In fact, I called them the next morning-they told me that I wouldnt get a consult for 4 days. Hmmm. My husband called and demanded what I'd been originally told. Suddenly they had the ability to honor their original declaration and I had an appointment.
My first mammogram. I've heard stories *most of them bad* but actually, mammograms are a piece of cake. All the pinching and pushing that women talk about, I barely noticed. In fact, I was feeling pretty darn foolish in there with no shirt and a huge apron covering up my ninnies. I was sure that everything would be negative and they would label some kind of psychotic hypochondriac. (this particular neurosis of mine refers back to my mom, who when I was a kid would clutch her heart and claim she was dying everytime I didn't do exactly as she wished-very much like Sanford & Son. Although not funny.) Now I'm convinced that everytime I get sick, it's probably all in my head.
After the first mammogram series the woman taking my topless pics asks me nonchalantly if I'd noticed a second lump on the topside of the same tit. This is when that whisper shushed through me and all my fears of sounding like an overreacting female were blown away. My entire world went quiet. All the silly little songs that I can never get out of my head on a normal day stopped like a record needle being violently pulled off.
A second lump? Nope. After an hours' wait, I had the now necessary ultrasound. I kept trying to see what she saw, half expecting to see some little miniature creature standing on the 'hill' of my lump with a big giant TUMOR HERE sign and a leering grin. I never saw the creature but I saw the lump and my heart sank.
The Imaging Center of course gave me no answers, "back to your doctor tomorrow for results" says they. "its like pulling teeth" says I. But I held out. The next day when I called my regular clinic, they wouldnt even check my chart with a glib little "the results wont be here for at LEAST 4 more days" they hung up. I called the Imaging Center back and they proclaimed all results had been faxed to my doc 3 hours earlier. I switched docs and had the results faxed to where my husband works (another clinic in another town not far far away). He calls me at home.
He says the lump isnoted as looking 'suspicious'.
Suspicious? I say. Suspicious like the Pink Panther lurking around the seedy part of town in the middle of the nite suspicious? And instantly the old pink panther song begins to go on extended play in my head. Da duh. Da duh. Da duh da duh duh duh duh dada dadada DAH!
I asked him to kindly bring the paper home.
To quote the findings : spiculated mass associated with several tiny pleomorphic calcifications. Hypoechoic borders difficult to measure due to heterogeneous appearance and some areas are shadowing and blah blah blah. I got it. It's bad. Is it 100 percent surely cancer? NO. Do the characteristics seem generally to be those of a malignancy? Even the surgeon who's doing the excisional biopsy seems to think the odds are in favor...I'm okay though. I'm here-right now. Nothing changes the basic facts of my life. Great husband, beautiful intelligent daughter, a job i actually enjoy and good friends.
Amonth ago I found a lump on my boob. It was obvious, randomly appearing and instantly alarming. I showed it to my Robert and the next day I made an appointment with my regular doctor. It wasn't till I made that appointment that it became real for me. Robert seemed almost breezy about the lump-which I can always rely on him to temper my ability to see the worst in things. He levels me out in this part of my "imagine the worst" scenarios. At work, I kept it to myself. Initially I thought that even mentioning it to others would make me seem as some sort of drama queen.
At my doctor appointment she scheduled me a mammogram and ultrasound at the Imaging Center. I've never been completely at ease with my choice in physicians here in Jacksonville, NC. That day she told me that the nurse would set up a referral and call me by the end of the day as she *the doctor* felt it should be handled ASAP. No one from my doctors office called. In fact, I called them the next morning-they told me that I wouldnt get a consult for 4 days. Hmmm. My husband called and demanded what I'd been originally told. Suddenly they had the ability to honor their original declaration and I had an appointment.
My first mammogram. I've heard stories *most of them bad* but actually, mammograms are a piece of cake. All the pinching and pushing that women talk about, I barely noticed. In fact, I was feeling pretty darn foolish in there with no shirt and a huge apron covering up my ninnies. I was sure that everything would be negative and they would label some kind of psychotic hypochondriac. (this particular neurosis of mine refers back to my mom, who when I was a kid would clutch her heart and claim she was dying everytime I didn't do exactly as she wished-very much like Sanford & Son. Although not funny.) Now I'm convinced that everytime I get sick, it's probably all in my head.
After the first mammogram series the woman taking my topless pics asks me nonchalantly if I'd noticed a second lump on the topside of the same tit. This is when that whisper shushed through me and all my fears of sounding like an overreacting female were blown away. My entire world went quiet. All the silly little songs that I can never get out of my head on a normal day stopped like a record needle being violently pulled off.
A second lump? Nope. After an hours' wait, I had the now necessary ultrasound. I kept trying to see what she saw, half expecting to see some little miniature creature standing on the 'hill' of my lump with a big giant TUMOR HERE sign and a leering grin. I never saw the creature but I saw the lump and my heart sank.
The Imaging Center of course gave me no answers, "back to your doctor tomorrow for results" says they. "its like pulling teeth" says I. But I held out. The next day when I called my regular clinic, they wouldnt even check my chart with a glib little "the results wont be here for at LEAST 4 more days" they hung up. I called the Imaging Center back and they proclaimed all results had been faxed to my doc 3 hours earlier. I switched docs and had the results faxed to where my husband works (another clinic in another town not far far away). He calls me at home.
He says the lump isnoted as looking 'suspicious'.
Suspicious? I say. Suspicious like the Pink Panther lurking around the seedy part of town in the middle of the nite suspicious? And instantly the old pink panther song begins to go on extended play in my head. Da duh. Da duh. Da duh da duh duh duh duh dada dadada DAH!
I asked him to kindly bring the paper home.
To quote the findings : spiculated mass associated with several tiny pleomorphic calcifications. Hypoechoic borders difficult to measure due to heterogeneous appearance and some areas are shadowing and blah blah blah. I got it. It's bad. Is it 100 percent surely cancer? NO. Do the characteristics seem generally to be those of a malignancy? Even the surgeon who's doing the excisional biopsy seems to think the odds are in favor...I'm okay though. I'm here-right now. Nothing changes the basic facts of my life. Great husband, beautiful intelligent daughter, a job i actually enjoy and good friends.