The Last Day

Today is a weird sort of day. I joked all weekend that we were into bonus material; anything I accomplished was extra. I've accomplished a lot in the past few weeks, but there is still so much more to do that I know I won't be able to do for a long time. I can't decide if I want to run around like a chicken with my breast cut off today or just... chill. And enjoy what I've come to think of as The Last Day.

The last full day of my old normal.

My last day with my two God-given breasts. It's a weird feeling. I feel... I don't know. In a way, I'm so sick of all of this, I have no energy left to feel. I just do. But the anticipation of how I am going to feel after I wake up tomorrow with a hard lump where my breast used to be and a drain with bloody discharge leaking out of it is what has me the most worked up. I've had a long time to contemplate this - two months - so you'd think I'd be over it by now, but I'm not.

Because the reality is that you just don't know how you are going to feel until you are actually there. Maybe I'll feel fine afterward. Maybe I'll be one of those people who bounces back right away and is driving within a few days, returning to work, and moving on with life. Maybe I'll feel so fine I'll cancel the reconstruction. Maybe I'll be able to let my family go on the trip they were planning for this weekend. Or maybe I won't. Maybe it will be even worse than I'm expecting. Maybe I'll sink into a deep depression and want to kill myself. Maybe I will feel anger and self-loathing every single day for the rest of my life.

So many women declare with such bravado that they would definitely have no problem having their boobs cut off and living the rest of their lives happily free from wearing a bra. They say this because they think it will make me feel better, but it doesn't, because I know that it's not true. I also know they aren't lying; I just know that they don't know what they would actually choose if it were really them. And in the end, very few women choose a bilateral mastectomy with no reconstruction. Even nipple reconstruction, which seems like a lot of trouble for such a trivial body part, and one that I despise no less, isn't completely off my table right now, in the event that I end up losing my nipple. I never would have guessed even six weeks ago that I'd desperately want to save my nipple.

People react to their cancer diagnoses so differently. For me, it took a long time for the reality to sink in. My parents and my husband took my initial diagnosis much harder than I did, mostly because I was too stupid to understand how truly life-changing this would be. Even when there was a very real possibility that the cancer had spread into my rib, I wasn't that worked up. I was just thinking there must be a quick fix for this. Ribectomy, anyone? (Who needs their rib, anyway?) I didn't know that this would technically put me into Stage IV, terminal. Others seem to react with more hysteria initially; the visceral OMG GET IT OUT OF ME! GET IT OUT OF ME! reaction that leads people to get bilateral mastectomies for 0.5 cm, stage 0, grade 1, ductal carcinoma in situ within a few weeks of their diagnosis. It is the treatments that give these people comfort, whereas for me, it's the treatments that I loathe. I don't know if I will ever feel that elation over 'having the cancer gone' that some describe after a mastectomy. Then again, maybe I will. I don't know.

Some people have told me it's too bad I've gone through all of this, only to have it end this way. I could have had this done in May, and I would be all recovered now, happily getting monthly shots to put me into menopause, taking an aromatase inhibitor, and in the middle of a lecture this very moment, instead of at home. But the truth is I wasn't ready back in early May. Even after lumpectomy #1, I wasn't ready. Even after lumpectomy #2, I wasn't ready; I honestly would have considered a third re-excision if every single one of my doctors hadn't counseled me otherwise. I actually feel pretty strongly that I have cancer in my right breast, too, I just know it. I probably ought to proceed with a bilateral mastectomy, but I'm not ready for that. It's easier for me to wrap my mind around having to go through all of this again sometime in the near future than it is for me to wrap my mind around a bilateral mastectomy, and since none of my doctors counseled me to have the double, I continue to proceed one conservative step at a time. All of this is part of my 'new normal' of living with cancer.

I started praying for my surgeons ever since I had a date for my mastectomy, and I feel that God must be mocking me in some way by doing this to me. Nonetheless, I will keep at it.

Blessings

• I'm grateful to be back in the hands of Dr. L, and thankful for who she is. After she was so helpful to me last Tuesday, I sent her a thank-you e-mail, and concluded with: Please take care of yourself this week. (No darts please!! :)). She replied: You are so sweet, I'm so glad we could help out. (...) I absolutely plan to stay away from darts, especially now! Gives me the willies just thinking about it!! See you next week! Jane
• I continue to be thankful for the love and support from my family, friends, and colleagues.  
• I'm thankful for a new Chair who has worked tirelessly to make my work situation as minimally stressful as possible, complete with the e-mail he sent me last Thursday: I met with [The Dean], [his administrative assistant] and [the head or HR] today about your leave. The bottom line is you are totally covered and will receive full pay for the semester. Even if you don't do another minute of work for ABC College this semester, you’ll still have at least 5 days of sick leave left. You might even have 10 if you continue to accrue sick leave days over the semester – [head of HR] is checking into the official policies on this. If you want to come back before the end of the semester and work on "other duties", you can stop drawing as much from sick leave. Everyone is very happy to be flexible with how we structure your leave, so don't worry about it. We'll sort it out when you feel ready to come back. For as much as I complain about work, this is a true blessing.

Hopes

• I pray for Dr. L, for her safety, health, and clear mind tomorrow. I ask the same for Dr. G, the plastic surgeon who will be assisting her. 
• I pray the surgery goes as she planned, that she will be able to do a nipple-sparing mastectomy.
• I pray for clear margins, that after all of this I won't have to do radiation or chemotherapy.
• I pray that I will make it through with no complications, and that the pain will not be too horrendous. And if it is, I pray for the strength to get through it.

I realize a lot of people have life-changing things happen to them without the luxury of contemplating them. Sometimes people are thrust into things full force, waking up the next day with a 'new normal' that is so devastating it boggles the mind. But people are shockingly resilient. We often admire the strength of others, not believing that we have it in ourselves to behave the same way, but I believe we do. At least, I pray that we do, that I do. While I'm thankful for the time I've had to come to terms with everything that is happening, I need to stop circling and start moving forward again. I pray this surgery happens tomorrow. I pray that all of my mourning is done, and that I will wake up feeling happy.

From the Inside Out

All is quiet on the cancer front. If I were to stay totally in the moment, I would say that I'm overcome with happiness to be here, in front of my computer, taking a break from doing projects around the house, rather than recovering from surgery in the hospital. But staying in the moment is futile, counterproductive, even. Conditions like this require planning, both for the short-term (How will my daughter get home from school when I'm in the hospital?), intermediate-term (Who will cover my classes for me when I'm gone?) and long-term (Should I consider putting more money into life insurance?).

My daughter doesn't have school today, and since I was supposed to be in the hospital, she was supposed to have a play date at her friend's house. However, since I'm not in the hospital, and I figure my daughter will probably be over at her friend's house a lot in the upcoming weeks, I offered to have her friend over here instead. I love this friend; she is the only nine-year-old girl I know who might actually be just as weird as my daughter. She's the only girl I know who responds to my daughter's bizarre and out-of-blue comments by laughing and declaring, 'Ellie! You are my favorite friend!'

I just had a rather endearing conversation said friend. I had just cooked the girls pasta for lunch, and while they were eating, I was doing a meatball-cooking marathon, because there is nothing I love more than coming home from a long day at work, having no idea what to make for dinner, and discovering a bag of frozen meatballs in the freezer. Plus, I was cleaning out the refrigerator and found a pound of sausage and a pound of on-the-bubble ground beef that needed something to happen to it ASAP. My daughter had left the kitchen for some reason, so it was just me and Friend. Exercising proper etiquette, Friend tried to make conversation with me about my cancer.

Friend: So... it looks like you're doing a lot better than...
Me (thinking): Oh I can't wait to hear what follows this.
Friend: ... than... before.

It came out awkwardly, but somehow, probably because I know a few things about nine-year-olds, I know what she was trying to say. You look a lot better than I expected. As in, Wow, you don't look gravely ill. You don't look like you might be dying. She was trying to reconcile this woman who just cooked her lunch and was making meatballs and looks perfectly normal with the woman everyone has been talking about in serious, hushed, tones: OMG did you hear Ellie's mom has cancer?

And it struck me what an odd disease this is. Because you can look and even feel completely normal, despite having this potentially deadly condition. And not only that, you can look normal and sometimes even feel fairly normal up until pretty close to your death. This disease, it gets you from the inside out. Of course, there are others that do the same, but it's hard to think of many that can leave so few traces on the outside that something is going terribly wrong inside. Even the hair loss everyone associates with cancer isn't from the cancer itself.

Right now, I look and feel great, especially now that I've been able to sleep again. On any given day, I feel far more like a woman who desperately needs hip surgery than a woman who needs a mastectomy, oophorectomy, and possibly hysterectomy. Aside from the lump in my breast, cancer has given me no concrete symptoms. And even if it metastasizes, it will likely be caught by a scan before it causes me any health problems. It doesn't usually end well for people who don't discover cancer until after it starts to give them problems. How many of us have heard a story about someone who went to the doctor because of abdominal pain and died less than a year later from some sort of cancer that had been eating away at their insides?

It is confusing. It is confusing even for adults, so many of whom tell me that I look great and they cannot believe I have cancer. Why shouldn't I look great? As someone on another blog said, I don't have cancer of the face. LOL. And while I'm glad to look great, sometimes it is difficult to look and feel so normal. Hell, I could making all of this up! Or maybe there was a terrible mistake on my test results and I don't even have cancer. I don't feel ill. I don't feel like I might be dying. The treatments are worse than the cancer itself.

All these thoughts, they ran through my head in a brief instant after my daughter's friend valiantly tried to make conversation with me and I tried to think of an appropriate response. So I offered: 'I feel much better now than I did after my surgeries over the summer.' Then I added, 'But I'm getting ready to have more surgeries.' She looked at me for a moment, then said, 'Are you nervous? If it were me, I'd be SO SCARED!' I thought for a second, then admitted to her that I'm scared. I'm not scared about the surgeries so much as I am about the future. But I wouldn't expect a nine-year-old to understand why all of this makes me scared for the future, nor do I even want her to. In fact, I've spent a lot of time trying to cover up the fear, to protect my kids from it, perhaps too much. All they know is that I yell a lot these days, which in a child's mind means I might not love them anymore. But being scared about surgery is something a child can understand, and perhaps a good compromise for conversations with my kids. A child can understand Mommy is nervous about surgery, but not Mommy is nervous the surgery won't take care of her problem, that it won't be enough.

No one has asked me if I'm scared before, at least not in such a forward and point-blank manner, until today. Perhaps with adults, it's a given, something that doesn't need to be stated up front. There is so much of this to be afraid of. We all understand this fear on different levels. Even adults can grasp certain aspects of this better than others. I may look and feel great, but inside, there is fear. So much fear, it scares me.

The Bright Side of a Dull Gray Cloud

I've never been a person who believes all things happen for a reason, unless bad luck and life is unfair count as 'reasons.' However, I do think that sometimes clouds have a silver lining, and things work out in the end, and perhaps that's pretty much the same thing as believing things happen for a reason.

I had to laugh at the response I got from my colleague, Admiral, when I e-mailed him to let him know that my surgery was postponed and I wouldn't be needing food after all. I explained a little bit of what I thought was going to happen in the future, and he replied that he was happy that at least Dr. L was back in the picture - followed by Feels like I'm looking for the bright side of a dull gray cloud. Exactly.

But, I'm oddly at peace with everything right now. I'm not sure how long it will last, but for now, I'll take it.

Today I had to make a pretty big decision about work, which was tough, because I had everything so well planned out, which took me I don't know how many hours of banging my head against the wall. Basically I had planned for my colleague to cover for me through the first exam, and I would return on October 5th. This was sort of pushing it, since my surgeon recommended six weeks off, but I figured I could make it work. Unfortunately, with my surgery now being delayed by at least two weeks - I'm still skeptical about the September 8th date - it complicates things. There is no way my colleague can cover for me past October 5th. Her schedule right now is so insane, I'm not even sure if she can cover for me through September, at least not without quitting at the end of the semester. She is brand new, has never taught this class before, and has five sections of it, each with 80 students. Talk about being set up for failure.

Fortunately, there is an adjunct, Dave, who is chomping at the bit to teach more classes, and has volunteered to teach anything we throw at him. He is retired, and, I think, bored. And lonely. Basically I think he just really likes to hang out at the university and feel like he is a part of something, which I totally get. He is a nice guy, and the students like him, but man, the guy can talk. I usually try to avoid him because it's not often that I have an hour at work for pointless gabbing, and if I do, I prefer to do it with some of my closer colleagues.

But anyway, it turns out Dave will be a lifesaver. Today he and I and the colleague who is currently covering for me met with the Chair to discuss various options, given my new situation. Dave said he was more than willing to cover for me until I was able to return, which I appreciate, but I also think it is not in the best interest of the students to have three different instructors. If it were an upper division class, that would be one thing, but 90% of the students are first semester freshmen, and their minds already seemed blown that they are getting a 'substitute' for the first six weeks.

We threw around all sorts of different scenarios about how Dave could cover for me and how we could make my return easiest for the students, and on and on until everyone's heads were about to explode. But eventually I realized that it would be much easier for everyone, myself included, if I just took the semester off. I have enough leave to do this, and while I'm nervous about blowing all of it at once, that's why it's there, right? Like... sometimes I get all pissy about taking money out of savings to pay medical bills, then I think to myself, well duh, isn't this why you are supposed to have savings in the first place? To pay for stuff like this? Supposedly I've earned 11 days of leave for every year I've been full-time, which would give me 55 days. I think I could actually argue I should have more, because I've been here for six years, only I dropped to 75% the semester after my son was born, and because it was easier, the university made me 87.5% for the entire year. Anyway, technically a semester is 80 days, but there's wiggle room. For example, I already taught a three-credit course, which is 25% of my load. Also, I'm working now. Basically the Chair made it clear that I could take the semester off using my leave and We'll make sure you're taken care of. I mean, duh, what idiot would REJECT that offer?!

Eventually the Chair looked at me and said, 'What would be the least stressful option for you, Waning?' When he said it like that, it was a no-brainer. I said I thought it would be the easiest for everyone, including the students, if I just took the semester off. After all of these ridiculously complicated scenarios we were throwing around, everyone seemed relieved I had finally come to my senses. I guess part of my resistance was in response to how freaking long the summer seemed, and how much the time flew by once I went back to work and started teaching. I do think I'll be bored by mid-October, once I'm hopefully feeling better. At the same time, teaching is stressful, and it's especially stressful trying to coordinate with so many other people, dealing with the 'baggage' they leave behind, etc., etc. And I certainly don't need more stress in my life right now.

I also keep reminding myself that if I need time off in the future (which hopefully I will not), I always have the option to take a pay cut, like I did when my son was born. But there's really no reason to do that if I don't need to. And God knows I need the money right now.

All in all, I feel good about the decision, and it's mostly a relief. Combined with Dr. L doing my mastectomy in less than a week, I am happy with how things have worked out, especially considering that 48 hours ago I pretty much wanted to stab myself in the carotid. As Admiral said, it's the bright side of a dull gray cloud.

Hey, I'll take it.

What a long, strange trip it's been.

I should be in surgery right now, but instead I'm sitting at home in my nightgown, typing this. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the events of the past 36 hours, and I honestly feel a bit fuzzy, like this isn't real. It's like one of those weird dreams you have where nothing makes sense and when you wake up you're like, 'Ah! No wonder nothing made sense! It was all a dream!'

On Monday, I had pretty much theeeeee most stressful day at work, but worked my hardest to put out as many fires as I could before leaving, thinking that I was not coming back until October. I left as a huge ball of stress, and later had to e-mail colleagues to ask them to water my plants for me, take my lunch that I didn't have a chance to eat out of the fridge, to put in a work order to have more chairs moved into my classroom, etc., etc. I wanted a day with no work before my surgery, and knew that if I went into work on Tuesday, I'd get sucked into all sorts of things I really didn't want to be sucked into.

When I finally got home, I was practically excited about my impending mastectomy - at least as much as one can be excited about amputating a body part.

Then Dr. T called.

Or wait.

I called him, and he called me back. After my post on Sunday night, I was starting to get a little stressed about the fact that I was getting ready to have this LIFE CHANGING SURGERY, and had heard nothing from any of the surgeons who were going to chop off my boob, then turn the fat in my abdomen into a replacement boob. I mean, geez, my local hospital seemed much more concerned about me when I was just going in to have an ice cream scooper put into my boob in an outpatient procedure. Now I'm having this surgery that requires a 3-5 day hospital stay, and I wasn't convinced anyone really knew I was having the surgery, including my surgeons. I intended to e-mail Dr. T and ask him WTF?! once I was done with my blog post, but he actually e-mailed me before I got to it. He asked me to call him 'tomorrow afternoon,' ( = Monday afternoon) to 'discuss your upcoming surgery.'

No big deal, I thought, he's just checking in. Finally.

Around 6 PM, we were having a conversation that went something like this:

Him: I have the results of your blood tests, and you don't have a clotting disorder. Your CT scan also looks great. But there is something about the surgery that has nothing to do with you.

Me: * silent * I can't believe he's pulling off the oldest trick in the book - It's not you, it's me!

Him: It's me.

Me: * silent *

Him: I hurt my eye over the weekend, and I have blood in my anterior chamber. Basically I can only see out of one eye right now, and I'm unable to do any surgeries.

Me: * silent *

Him: Are you there?

I honestly can't recall a lot of what followed. He did a lot of uncomfortable rambling - clearly, he felt really bad - and I did a lot of uh-huh's and ok's, and yeah's, while not really listening to him and just thinking I cannot fucking believe this! over and over and over.

We left things sort of open-ended because I cannot make decisions about realities I haven't yet accepted. After I hung up I wanted to curl up into a ball and have a good cry, but we had to go over to my parents' house for dessert - ironically, to firm up the plans for the week - so I had to hold it together. Later that night, I did have a good cry, then immediately sat down to start regrouping.

One of Dr. T's recommendations was to go ahead with the mastectomy on Wednesday and delay the reconstruction. However, after talking, I realized I've had zero communication with the surgical oncologist because I just assumed this was mostly Dr. T's surgery, and he was taking care of it. The surgical oncologist wasn't my favorite, but I figured Dr. T was the most important person in the surgery. The bottom line is that with Dr. T out of the picture, I saw no reason to go up to University Hospital just for the mastectomy. So late Monday night, I shot off several e-mails:

1. I e-mailed my Chair, asking to meet with him Tuesday morning. Clearly that October 5th return date isn't going to work for me now. After all my careful planning. Sigh.
2. I e-mailed Dr. F, the surgical oncologist at UH, asking her get back to me about my options, and whether or not she thought she would be able to do a nipple-sparing mastectomy. Since Dr. L seemed confident she could do one, I figured there was really no point at all going with Dr. F if she wasn't willing to try. 
3. I e-mailed Dr. L, explained the situation to her, and asked her if she could do a mastectomy for me ASAP (like, next week). I told her I completely understood if she couldn't, in which case I would keep my appointment up at UH on Wednesday. However, if it were possible, I preferred to do it with her. I crossed my fingers she would get back to me promptly because I really needed to make a decision fast. 

On Tuesday morning, I was meeting with my Chair about the possibility of just taking the semester off, if need be. He said he would look into the university's policy on sick leave, which is weird territory for faculty because no one really takes 'sick days.' But apparently we do have them. In fact, after six years, I have 55 days of leave. You learn something new every day. While in the meeting, my cell phone rang, and I apologetically pulled off the pompous this call is more important than you are, and said I really needed to take the call. And I'm glad I did, because it was Dr. L. She said she had just gotten my e-mail and yes, she could do a nipple-sparing mastectomy for me next week, and she had already arranged for me to meet with the plastic surgeon she works with; he could see me at 11:30. All this by 9 AM. (See? This is why I love her!) (And I knew there was a reason I brought her flowers the last time I saw her, other than the fact that I love her. You should always have a surgeon on hand who is willing to do a last-minute mastectomy for you.)

I wrapped up my meeting with my Chair, went to my office to answer a few of the ten bazillion e-mails that are inevitable the first week of classes, then headed off to my appointment with Dr. G, the plastic surgeon. While I was waiting, my cell phone rang, and since I wasn't sure when I would be called back, I didn't answer it. I checked my voice mail, though, and it was Dr. F, the surgical oncologist from UH. She asked me to call her back on her personal cell to discuss options. Seeing as how I was working my own set of options, I immediately felt guilty, like I was cheating on her.

I had a relatively uneventful visit with Dr. G. I liked him, and I'm glad I met him, as I'm starting to accept there is a real possibility that Dr. T won't come through for me, in which case I need a Plan B. Dr. L had already filled him in on the situation, and he explained that he would have a very minor role in the mastectomy, as all he would be doing was putting in either a tissue expander or an implant to hold everything in place before the reconstruction. He said it would be very easy because my skin looked healthy and 'Your breasts are the shape the designers were thinking of when they designed implants.' LOL. Amazingly, I left with a date and a time for the mastectomy, which had been worked out between Dr. L's people and Dr. G's people while I was having my breasts measured and photographed.

September 1st, 1:00.

I left feeling much lighter than I was feeling just a few hours earlier. It all fell into place so seamlessly, it felt like the right thing to do. Of course, I also 'knew' that Dr. T was the right surgeon for me when I met him, so I understand that cautious optimism is the appropriate attitude.

I left Dr. G's at around 12:15 and went home to grab some lunch before realizing I didn't actually have time for lunch before getting downtown to my 1:00 appointment with our lawyers, to sign the final copies of our wills, powers of attorney, and advance directives. I wolfed down a tomato from the garden and headed out. So much for gaining weight.

The attorneys were sooooo slow. They actually seem like fun people, but every time we've met, it seems that at least one of us is in a huge hurry. My husband had an appointment at 2:30, and my cell phone was exploding with text messages, e-mails, and phone calls while we were sitting there discussing a hypothetical scenario in which I am diagnosed with stage IV cancer, then get into a car wreck and need CPR. Does marking 'withhold CPR' on my advance directive mean I don't get any life-saving measures if I become stage IV, which is technically 'a terminal condition'? Or suppose I become a vegetable during surgery, and my husband is so distraught that I'm a vegetable that he wrecks his car driving home and becomes a vegetable, too. So we're both vegetables but we aren't dead. What then? As one of the attorneys said, she practices 'soap opera law,' meaning we get to discuss all these dramatic and highly unlikely scenarios, the type of things that really only happen on television.

Anyway, eventually my husband had to leave, so the attorneys said they would finalize the papers and send them home with me. While they were organizing all of it, I stepped out to put more money in the meter and make some phone calls. Only I already had a $20 ticket! Jesus H, are you f-ing kidding me? The meter must have JUST EXPIRED; I could still see the meter reader the next row of cars over. Great, just great. I should have just left the ticket and gone back, but because I am honest, almost to a fault, I stuffed the ticket in my purse, put money in the meter, and headed back toward the lawyers' office. I had a little bit of extra time, so I sat down in front of the courthouse to try to call Dr. T, who somewhere in all of this had texted me and told me he could do the reconstruction on September 8th. I wanted to make sure this would work with a September 1st mastectomy before canceling my appointment at UH. He didn't answer, so I decided to go out on a limb and call Dr. F anyway. It was almost 3:00 and I figured she deserved to know that I wasn't going to be showing up for surgery the next day. I couldn't hear very well, because the wind was blowing and there was a lot of traffic and construction, and there are a lot of weird, loud people and weird, loud conversations that take place outside of a courthouse. Dr. F was actually quite nice, and said she was really sorry things had turned out this way. She was also understanding of the fact that I wanted to do the mastectomy locally, and had nothing but good things to say about Dr. L - As you know, she will take great care of you. She said that in 19 years of doing surgery, this was the first time another surgeon had canceled on her, and in 19 years she had only had to cancel surgery once, because she had the flu. So when I ask in an exasperated voice, WHAT WERE THE CHANCES OF THIS HAPPENING?! I now know. They were about the same as me getting a blood clot after my hip surgery. Minuscule.

After picking the final will and other papers up from the lawyers, I headed back up to the university to pick up my son and take him to his annual physical on the opposite end of town. I was supposed to get there at 3:45 to fill out the 'ages and stages' questionnaire but we were pushing it to even make it by 4 PM, which was our actual appointment time. Or so I thought. While we were driving through traffic and I was cursing all the slow people who were not paying attention because they were on their phones, Tara, the secretary from the pediatrician's, called to ask me where I was. LOL. This comedy of errors pretty much sums it up: Tara called on Monday to remind me of Katie's appointment at 4:00 on Tuesday, and I called back to confirm that she meant my son and not Katie, because we don't have a Katie in our house. She said, oh yes, that's what I meant, I just got confused because Katie was the next person on my list. So when she called me this time, I was like, 'What do you mean where are we? I thought our appointment was at 4!' and she said, 'No, your appointment was at 3:30. Katie has an appointment at 4.' Jesus. Finally I just barked at her, 'I've had a really bad day so just tell me what you want me to do.' Meanwhile, I missed my exit onto the freeway because I cannot drive and talk on the phone, and having to drive through the downtown added at least an extra 10 minutes (though we did actually get there at 4:00 on the dot).

After the appointment, I raced home, helped my husband with dinner (OMG I was starving!), then after dinner, some of my lovely friends came by for what was supposed to be a last-glass-of-wine get-together before my surgery that was supposed to be happening the next morning. I realized around 7:45 PM that I needed to call my mom and let her know for sure that I didn't need her to come by at 3:30 AM this morning, so I excused myself to make a quick phone call. On my way back outside, my cell phone rang, and it was Dr. T, so I answered, because we had been e-mailing and texting back and forth and doing a lot of phone tag, so I wanted to touch base with him. I could tell he was still feeling bad because he talked for a really long time, and by the time I got back outside, my friends had left. OOPS! I felt bad, but I was too tired to feel bad for very long. I mean gosh, what a crazy day.

Crazy!

And surreal.

After we got the kids in bed, I pretty much crashed. I was so worn out - both physically and emotionally - that I fell asleep with no sleep aids whatsoever before 10 PM and actually slept like a baby until 2 AM. I dozed on and off between 2 and 6, and finally got out of bed around 6:30. But it was weird not having anything pressing to do.

It's 11:30 and I'm not even dressed yet. I think I'm still recovering from yesterday. So I shall wrap this up, go take a shower, get dressed, then head up to work for a meeting with my Chair and the good folks who are covering for me during this saga. And then I will take my kids to gymnastics.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Best Laid Plans

I don't actually have words to describe what the last 24 hours have been like, but to make a long story short, after all my anticipation, nothing is happening tomorrow.

Apparently Dr. T hurt his eye and can't see out of it.

After a ridiculously hellish day today, and I do mean RIDICULOUSLY HELLISH, I've rescheduled the mastectomy to happen in town, with Dr. L, on September 1st. Supposedly the reconstruction is happening a week later, on September 8th. I won't hold my breath, though.

I'm still waiting to wake up from this bizarre dream.

3... 2... 1

So wow, it has been a while. I've been insanely busy and insanely stressed out, way too stressed out to form coherent enough thoughts to write in a public blog. And for the first time in a long time, I can't blame it on insomnia. Over the past 10 days, I've slept like a baby for at least five hours a night with either melatonin only, or nothing at all. Just because I feel like all hell is going to break loose this week, I feel like I should do a quick recap of what I've been up to since I last wrote.

• Last Tuesday, I wrapped up my five-day intensive human biology course. I think it went fine, but... after six years of teaching in higher ed, I've learned that you just never know. So... whatever. Part of my insane stress levels over the past week have been due to trying to coordinate with the colleague who is going to be covering the first six weeks of class for me. Let me just say that I'm fully prepared for really horrible evaluations this semester. 
• On Wednesday, I went to work in the morning, then went to get the CT scan that Dr. T had requested. (So I guess things are on? Seriously, I don't really know where we are right now, and it's a good thing I've been so busy, or I'm sure I'd be annoying Dr. T so much that he would be changing his mind about accepting me as a patient right about now.) Fortunately I didn't have to drive all the way to University Hospital, but was able to get the scan done at a UH clinic about 45 minutes away. I left plenty of time to arrive by 1:45 for my 2:00 appointment, though after driving around suburbia for 15 minutes, I actually ended up getting there right around 1:45. Fortunately, they were quite prompt, and the scan was fast - even with the IV and contrast dye and everything, I was back on the road by 2:15. Pretty impressive!
• I made it back into town in time to join my husband for a 3:00 appointment with a lawyer to talk about redoing our will, power of attorney, and getting an advance medical directive. That was actually a fairly depressing conversation, although the lawyers kept it light-hearted, which was a good thing. I mean, let's face it, this isn't a conversation anyone really wants to have, regardless of the circumstances, so I'm sure they are used to trying to maintain an appropriate mood. After the meeting, I raced off to pick my son up at daycare while my husband stayed to pay the bill. LOL. In case you are curious, the basic 'will package' is $1,200, which was much less than I feared after walking into the swanky office in the heart of downtown ( = expensive real estate). 
• On Thursday, I went into work, and FINALLY met face-to-face with the woman who is covering my class for me while I'm gone. See bullet point #1. I'll hold off on commenting further for now. I left around 2:15 to go pick my daughter up from school, then drive back up to get my son at the university daycare, and take both the kids to a make-up gymnastics lesson, because we missed Wednesday's lesson. We got home just in time to head off to a beginning-of-the-year department party downtown. It also happened to be the same night as the open house at my daughter's school. So, my husband went to the party for an hour, then left to go to the open house.
• On Friday, I went into work for a few hours, hoping to get my syllabus printed off, but didn't. See bullet point above and bullet point #1. I left at 11:15 to go get my hair chopped off. Almost seven inches!! I really wanted to grow it long enough to donate it to a wig cause, but I wanted it gone. I needed a change. I usually just get my hair cut at a cheapie place but figured I needed a 'real' hairdresser with references (LOL) if I were going to go from having hair halfway down my back to a total butch do. So I went to my mom's hairdresser, and invited her along. Afterward, she took me out to lunch, and we had a really nice time. I think she appreciated being a part of this small but yet rather big moment. I haven't had really short hair in about 15 years, and I'm absolutely positive I still wouldn't have really short hair if I weren't having a mastectomy on Wednesday. 
• After lunch, I raced back up to work, said 'fuck it,' typed some shit into my syllabus without the approval of my substitute teacher, and printed it off just in time to get my son at daycare before 4:30. 
• Saturday was my son's birthday, and I somehow managed to pull off the most last-minute party EVER (thank you Whole Foods!) at the swimming pool. Even low-key parties are a lot of work! But I'm glad I did it. My son turned four, and is starting to understand the concept of a birthday party. He had been requesting a Spider Man birthday cake for a very long time, and it would have been sad to have had a Spider Man cake with no party.
• Since the party was just as much for the adults in my son's life as it was for him, we had pear sangria at the party, which kind of ruined me for the rest of the day. LOL. I had enough to drink that I actually went off the diving board. Fortunately, I had not had enough to drink that I agreed to try the crazy shit all the other people who had also had a lot of sangria were telling me to do. But God was I sore last night... and today, too. 
• Today I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned. Our house is a disaster, and I just feel really unsettled going off for surgery and knowing I'm not going to be able to do much for, like, a month, with the house being such a train wreck. My mom actually came over and helped a lot by sorting through a huge pile of clothes that has been sitting on our dining room table for several weeks now. I guess it has been annoying her. LOL. One of my husband's colleagues gave us four trash bags full of hand-me-down clothes, for which we are absolutely grateful! Nonetheless, going through them is always a task, and one I just haven't found the time for, so my mom was a super help!
• Tomorrow... I have to teach. Even though I'm going to be gone after tomorrow, my colleague and I thought it best if I did the first day of class, seeing as how the classes are ultimately my classes. Plus, I want the students to know who I am when I return in October. I'd rather them think of my colleague as my substitute rather than me being her substitute. Plus, the first day of class is important, and... um... I trust myself more than I trust her. I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to tell my students tomorrow, but figure I have six hours of sleeplessness to figure it out. Ha. 

Somewhere in all of this, my daughter started 4th grade. I thank God she got the teacher she wanted and has some of her best buddies in her class with her. We had a little bit of a rough start centered around a few things that are ongoing issues, but things are going better now. I pray this surgery doesn't upset the apple cart so to speak.

On a final note, I wanted to share something that a colleague did for me that was super nice. She had mentioned to me that her teenage daughter loved kids and volunteered her to babysit for us if my husband and I wanted to go out for a nice dinner before my surgery. As it turns out, said daughter ended up watching our kids during the department party on Thursday night. I had originally planned for the kids to come with us, since it was supposedly a 'kid-friendly' party. However, after asking around, I discovered no one else was bringing their kids. So, my colleague said her daughter didn't want to go to the party, but would happily watch my kids for us at our house while we were all at the party. That seemed like a good arrangement, and we agreed to that as an alternative to us going out over the weekend. My colleague made it sound like she was volunteering her daughter and I didn't need to pay her, but I felt uncomfortable being a charity cause, especially given that I don't know her daughter. And while I was sure she was a lovely person, given that my colleague is a lovely person and thinks her daughter is a lovely person, I still found it hard to believe a 13-year-old would be psyched about this volunteer babysitting job. So I asked how much her daughter charged for babysitting, because I definitely wanted to pay her. My colleague said not to worry about it - then, as if she had read my mind, she said, 'Don't worry - she's getting paid - just not by you. I'm going to pay her.' So basically that was her gift to me - her daughter's babysitting services. I thought that was very sweet, and it was a novel concept for me. We really appreciated it, and I will definitely keep this type of gift in mind when my kids are old enough to babysit and I have a friend with young kids who has cancer. Wait... hopefully that won't happen. But still, you get the idea.

I continue to be uplifted by the love and support of the people around me. I've always known I have good people around me, but lately I've felt so many of my relationships have moved to a different level. I've been reveling in this love so much that it has actually taken my mind off of what brought us here in the first place. Regardless, I am thankful.

Let the Countdown Begin...

My son, who will be four this coming Saturday, was really into rockets at one point in his young life. He learned to count backwards before he learned to count forwards. In fact, come to think of it, I'm not sure he even knows how to count forward. We'll have to work on that before kindergarten. But we use countdowns all the time. Ten seconds until the shower gets turned off. Ten seconds until the video gets turned off. Ten seconds until Mommy gets really, really angry and puts you in time out. 10...9...8...7...6... 

I now realize I'm finally within 10 days of my mastectomy, and suddenly, it seems like time is flying. I can start a countdown. 9...8...7... Teaching this all-day, intensive class, which started last Wednesday and will end tomorrow has been an absolute blessing. It has been exhausting, for sure, and I've had a couple challenging students, but overall, I'm so, so glad that I am teaching this class. It made last week fly by, and I feel like this week will be over before I know it. Tomorrow is my last day of class, and my daughter's first day of fourth grade. Tomorrow will fly by. That brings me to Wednesday, which will be exactly one week pre-mastectomy. One week. That's easy. After waiting a month and a half, a week is a piece of cake. In fact, I've accomplished so little of what was on my original mastectomy bucket list, I'm sure I can fill up the week with no problem. I've always been a last-minute type of gal anyway.

It looks like things are a go as far as surgery. I mentioned that all my blood tests came back 'normal' from the clotting panel my PCP did on me, and so far they are all coming in normal from the tests Dr. AC ordered as well. Apparently I'm normal enough that my plastic surgeon finally ordered a pre-surgery CT scan to help him plan the surgery. Unfortunately, he is insistent that I do the scan up at UH, which is kind of annoying considering a CT scan is a CT scan, no? Whatever. These past 3.5 months have been so surreal I don't even question things anymore. I keep waiting to wake up from this bizarre dream, only apparently I'm not actually asleep. What is three more hours in traffic in the large scheme of I cannot believe this is happening to me things? And my appointment is for 2 PM on Wednesday, which will help Wednesday fly by, at which point I will return home and resume my countdown. 6...5...4...

Anyway, as a follow up to my post about one of my colleagues trying to arrange for department members to bring me and my family food post-mastectomy, I feel compelled to share the following story. Today was the official 'start date' for the new school year, and thus, our first department meeting of the year. The meeting was from 10-12, so I thought I might be able to make the last half hour or so, depending on when I let my students out for lunch break. According to my notes from previous years, I was done with the morning session by 11:30, but apparently old age really does make a person ramble more. LOL. I didn't finish until around noon, at which point I went up to my office, figuring the meeting was over. However, I noticed no one else was around, so I went back downstairs to catch the tail end of the meeting. I didn't sneak in or anything; I opened the door, walked in, dragged a chair across the room, and plopped down between two of my colleagues, and started whispering about what I had missed (obviously a lot, lol, since the meeting was from 10-12 and I was walking in at 12:05). Everyone was sitting in a 'U' formation looking forward toward the Chair, and while I tried not to make a big scene when I came in, I'm pretty sure a lot of people saw me. Around 12:15, the Chair asked if anyone had anything to say about any department affairs, etc., etc., and Admiral raised his hand and said, 'Yes. Waning Moon is having surgery next week and I'm arranging to have the department bring her family meals...' At that point, I honestly JUST ABOUT DIED!! Like... it's not a secret. In fact, the only reason Admiral knows at all is because I've sent out a few FYI e-mails to the department letting them know what's going on. BUT STILL! I felt really uncomfortable having this all 'out there' like this. As I glanced around desperately, a few of my colleagues shot me sympathetic looks across the room, and I quickly grabbed one of my colleague's agendas and jokingly put it over my face. However, as Admiral continued on I jokingly bent over and pretended to hide under the table. Finally, the colleague who was sitting next to me was like, 'Um, she's sitting right here.' I didn't hear anything that happened after that because I pretty much thought I was dying of embarrassment. As it turns out, Admiral didn't realize I had walked into the room (his back was to mine) and was just as embarrassed when he realized I was there after all - for the last 15 minutes of the meeting. Oh boy. Hopefully I didn't offend him; it was honestly just a bit much considering our department is fairly large these days and part of the reason I went to the meeting is because there are three new faculty I haven't even met yet.

ANYWAY.

As the countdown begins, I think it's time for some prayers.

Blessings

• I continue to be so thankful for my friends. I've never been a person who has a lot of friends, and that's okay, because the friends I do have are Quality Friends. They are all helping me get me through this, each in their own way. I have a friend for every need - a friend I almost never mention the C word to; a friend who will indulge me with frivolous shopping; a friend who will bring drinks over and talk until midnight about anything and everything. I am so very grateful for that.
• I am thankful to be in such a better place with my parents than I was in mid-June.
• I am thankful for my supportive colleagues and work environment, even if it's embarrassing sometimes.
• I'm thankful that all my blood work is coming back normal and that I am a candidate for the reconstruction I want to have. 
• I'm thankful for my husband, who has been a rock throughout all of this.
• I'm thankful that I have been able to sleep for the past week.

Hopes

• I continue to pray for my surgeons; that they will not be distracted and will be at their absolute best when they are planning my surgery and operating on me.
• I pray for my children; that they will be okay throughout all of this. They know what is going on in that I am having surgery, but I don't know if they really get it. 
• I pray for my husband, for strength. I think in many ways this has been harder for him than it has for me, and I am sure that what lies ahead will be harder for him than for me - logistically, anyway. 
• I pray for everything to run smoothly for my family. I am the 'boss' of this family. I organize things; I tell everyone where they need to be and when. If I can't take care of the kids, I am the one who arranges their care. I'm the one who corresponds with my son's daycare and my daughter's school and makes sure she gets picked up from school. I pray all of this can continue to happen without me. 
• I pray I'm not making a mistake doing this reconstruction. I pray Dr. T is really the answer to my prayers and that I won't regret this.
• I pray my daughter has a good school year and hits her stride. Yes, this is unrelated, but while I'm praying, I just thought I'd throw that in there. My daughter causes me so much stress, knowing that she is going to be okay would really help in my healing.

In less than an hour, I'll be one week and one day away. While I am dreading this on so many levels I won't even begin to try to get into right now, I also want it to be over. I would say I want it over with so I can move on and 'be done,' but I realize there is no 'done' until I die of something completely unrelated to breast cancer. For the rest of my life, there won't be a 'done.' Nonetheless, I just want this done for done's sake. So let the countdown begin.