I Promise You That It Will Be Okay

Posted by samiam0403 in Uncategorized

It’s been a year since I posted. Yikes. In my defense, a reminder of what I closed with, “…I ask that when you impatiently check to see if there’s a new blog up (as I’m sure thousands of you do, daily), please remember that I am living. For every blog I don’t post, there has been a sunset viewing on the beach with my mom and dad, a dinner out with a friend, a movie date with my husband, a concert mini-reunion with friends, a buddy tattoo to commemorate a truly great weekend, a giggly grown-up slumber party, or a quiet evening at home with my man catching up on a cool new show (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, if you must know). I’m sure there are people out there doing much more interesting things with their lives, and wringing every last moment out of every last second – but for me, I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing. And that, dear reader, is what I call living. Until next time, boys and girls.”

I guess it’s now officially next time. I’ve been doing all of the above. Probably the only change would be the last cool new show we watched, which was ‘Stranger Things’ on Netflix. If you haven’t watched it, you should. We also had a lot of concert mini-reunions, another awesome girls only cruise with my mom and sis-in-law, another incredible music cruise, more tattoos, and some trips to London just for funsies. It’s been a good year. Scratch that, it’s been a great year. A year that makes me wonder how I got so damn lucky to have so many incredible friends and family all over this planet. Oh, I almost forgot! I got promoted in the last year, as well. I still don’t know who thought THAT was a good idea. So the job is still good, but I’m starting to look towards the next year or two, and retirement. Been doing this military thing for coming up on 24 years now – and I’ve never felt more like this is a young person’s game. I’m about done. Weird.

So here we are, 4 years post-cancer. It really is more and more like something that happened, and less like something that I deal with. Having my follow-ups with my oncologist finally move to every 6 months helped. A lot. Being reminded every 3-4 months for 3 years makes it hard to forget. So imagine my surprise when I realize I have spent the last 2 days being angry and snarly (more so than usual, thank you very much) and realizing that it’s because of my non-cancery doctor’s appointment this week.

For those of you not following along with my daily life, I’ve had some issues with my bladder ever since ‘the cancer.’ CT and PET scans showed everything was still non-cancery, so I chalked it up to damage from the surgery. Finally, after having pain so bad that Rudy almost called 911 one night, I went to the doctor. Again. I got referred to a civilian doc who thought it was something called interstitial cystitis (IC) based on my symptoms. It’s a non-curable, possibly auto-immune, disorder that no one really knows much about. Yippee! He recommended a cystoscopy to have a look around, and hydrodistention to possibly treat it. A possible cure? Yes, please! I finally had that procedure on Tuesday this week.

Everything went swimmingly. After reading accounts of people waking up worse off than they were before, or in ungodly amounts of pain, I was pleasantly surprised to wake up from surgery feeling a-ok. The doc had some words with Rudy and said they’d make a follow-up appointment soon to go over the results. At some point, I saw the copies of the pictures he’d taken of my innards, and asked Rudy to get a copy. He took a stellar pic with his cell phone like a good husband. (He may or may not seriously regret that decision, by the way.) After we got home, and the drugs wore off, I took a look at the pics. First reaction – meh. They look exactly like what IC is supposed to look like. Then I asked Rudy why half of the pictures were of a weird lumpy spot, since they were nothing like what IC looks like. He then said the words that I’m pretty sure have turned me into a nutcase this week: Those are spots he took a biopsy of, but he said he’s pretty sure they’re not cancer.

Fuck.

If you think I haven’t googled the ever-loving shit out of bladder cancer, you don’t know me very well. Because the first and only time doctors said those words to me (3 doctors, as a matter of fact), it WAS cancer. So sure, I know the odds are in my favor. It’s really highly unlikely that it’s cancer. I know that. I do. But for the first time in a few years, the asshole voice in the back of my head is back. I hate that voice.

That being said, apologies in advance if, in the next week or two, I am more distant/bitchy/forgetful/snarly than usual. I’m trying. I really am. And as usual, fuck cancer.

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A New Post? It’s Like Christmas In July!

Posted by samiam0403 in Uncategorized

Welcome back, dear reader. I know you’re thinking I must have had an oncology appointment today or yesterday since I’m writing again. Hah! Wrong! It’s actually not for two more weeks. So there. I like to keep you on your toes. Today’s blog is just because. My follow-up from my last surgery went fine – I got a ‘you’re healing nicely’ pat on the head and an order to come back in 4 months for more tests and another checkup to make sure there’s no new cancer.

And so, here we are. Life is good. Since I wrote last, we’ve had family and friends come to visit, and our home is feeling more home-like than ever. The cancer is, for the most part, very slowly fading into a thing that happened. Fingers crossed that my next appointment goes well and it can continue to fade as a daily concern. With that being said, I am still a member of a few on-line support groups. (No insult meant to loved ones, but unless you’ve had cancer, there are just some things I can’t make you understand. And unless you’ve had the specific cancer I’ve had, there are even more things I can’t make you understand.) So. I still read and comment when I think I can help answer questions for newly diagnosed women.

Having been a member of various groups for almost 3 years now, I still find it odd that there are these personal things I will share with complete strangers. I find it strange that there are little cliques within them. I find myself wondering if there is something wrong with me that I can’t mouth the, “Fight like a girl!” and “Don’t stop fighting!” platitudes that others do. I do my best to share my experiences when appropriate, offer advice when asked, and only comment where I think I can do some good. I find myself saddened every time a group member passes, and that the world is a bit darker today, even if I barely knew her. I find myself thinking that if I ever do die from cancer, I swear to God I will come back and haunt anyone who ever says that I “lost the battle with cancer.” I don’t know why, but that particular phrase annoys the ever-loving shit out of me.

I paused after writing that last bit, and googled “lose a battle to cancer.” The search results were incredible. It seems I am not the only one who thinks that the phrase both diminishes and insults the person about whom it is uttered. It just makes them seem like they didn’t try hard enough – that any of this was within their control. That they failed. I found this article/letter made the point much better than I ever could, and with just the right amount of snark. (Which, if you know me at all, means a lot. A lot of snark. Tons even. I think she’s my soul-mate. Hauntings for everyone!) And for a more eloquent, snark-free explanation, I’m going to borrow Stuart Scott’s words: “When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, and the manner in which you live.”

With that, I ask that when you impatiently check to see if there’s a new blog up (as I’m sure thousands of you do, daily), please remember that I am living. For every blog I don’t post, there has been a sunset viewing on the beach with my mom and dad, a dinner out with a friend, a movie date with my husband, a concert mini-reunion with friends, a buddy tattoo to commemorate a truly great weekend, a giggly grown-up slumber party, or a quiet evening at home with my man catching up on a cool new show (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, if you must know). I’m sure there are people out there doing much more interesting things with their lives, and wringing every last moment out of every last second – but for me, I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to be doing. And that, dear reader, is what I call living. Until next time, boys and girls.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

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Hi. I know it’s been a while. It’s not you. It’s me. Really. I just needed some space. Seriously, don’t cry. It’s nothing you did. It was all me.

Why yes, I am back with a new blog entry. It’s mainly because I’m bored – I’ve been on convalescent leave for the past week. You’d think a week and a half off of work with a large quantity of prescribed narcotics would be fun. It’s not. I alternate between being too high and too sore from surgery to do anything. When even watching television takes too much energy and concentration, it’s bad. A walk to the beach 2 days ago wiped me out. (For reference, the beach is a 1 minute walk away.) The good/bad news is I still have 5 more days off of work. Five. More. Days.

The last time I wrote anything was November. We had just moved in to our rental place on the beach and I was starting training for my new job. I was supposed to be, but not highly motivated to be, looking for a new oncologist out here. We fell in love with our little beach town and promptly bought a house overlooking the Gulf and settled in with our pup Dexter. With so much space, we went and rescued an in-danger-of being-put-down-next mutt. She’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but Lucy is (mostly) a good girl with a huge heart who completes our little fluffy family. I also finished training for my new job and all was good here in Florida.

After much foot dragging, I started the process to find a new doctor and fulfill my promise to my old doctor. I quickly learned that while where we live is a tiny little paradise, the medical system is not quite up to par with what I was used to in L.A. It took days to find the specialist I needed and eventually we found 1 (ONE!) in a 3 hour driving radius from where we live – and he’s not even in my insurance network. Happily, TriCare has no problem covering all of my medical bills anyway.

***Quick recap for those of you joining the program late – feel free to skip over this paragraph if you’ve read my ramblings before*** In 2012, I was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan. One of my pre-deployment tests came back juuuust wonky enough to prevent me from going. That one itty bitty test that I wasn’t even due for for another 2 years saved my life. After much testing and biopsies, I had a rare, aggressive, already-invasive cervical cancer. After 1 major and 2 minor surgeries and the removal of most of my lady-bits and a whole bunch of lymph nodes, I was declared NED (No Evidence of Disease – we don’t get to say ‘cancer-free’ until 2017). Due to the scarcity of info on the cancer (my favorite was finding one sentence about it in a medical textbook under the heading: Other Rare Cervical Cancers), we *think* it has about a 35 percent chance of recurring. Recurrence is bad. Recurrence drops my 5-year survival rate from 85%-ish to 15%-ish. Because of that, we chose not to do chemo and radiation and instead save the big guns for the future if needed. (You can generally only use a round of radiation on an area once.) Follow-up appointments were once every 3 months for 2 years, and once every 6 months for 3 more years, then you get to party your ass off and be declared cancer-free. At my 2-year checkup, my tests were once again ever-so-slightly abnormal, and my oncologist made me promise to get set up with a new doc here in Florida ASAP and to have further testing done. And he told me I would not be ‘graduating’ to 6-month checkups. Jerk.

Now fast forward to today. In February, I finally went for a checkup with my new guy in Pensacola. 3 freaking hours away. He did some more tests and saw 2 teeny-tiny spots of concern that he thought were probably mild cellular changes that would likely regress to normal on their own. Luckily, he decided to go ahead and biopsy one. After much phone tag, tears of frustration, and wanting to throttle his office staff as time passed with no answers, he finally called me back with the results. Instead of the low-grade changes he was expecting, I had instead graduated to high-grade cellular changes on what lady-bits I have left. Essentially pre-cancer that needed treatment now. He recommended surgery as soon as I could get in to check more thoroughly, take more biopsies, rule out cancer, and then laser the crap out of everything to remove any abnormal cells that might be even thinking about turning into cancer. Yay me. Luckily, he informed me that it is NOT a recurrence of the cervical cancer.

After doing some research, it turns out I have hit the rare lady-bits cancer jackpot. What I have now is generally found in older women – like 20-30 years older than me – and has an occurrence rate of around two in a million. So unfortunately, I basically have a new, second cancer hanging out in the wings, waiting to make an appearance. There is no standard treatment, because it is so rare. What treatment there is, is barbaric as f$^k quite frankly. Menfolk, avert your eyes for this next bit. No, really – you probably don’t want to read this. Last chance to go read ESPN’s website or something manly instead. Ok, you had fair warning. So. Treatment for this pre-cancerous crap I have is generally internal radiation (yep, internal radiation – ladies, guess where that goes?), a topical chemotherapy that has been referred to as ‘hell in a tube’ that no woman who has used it recommends, a partial or total vaginectomy (yes, that is exactly what it sounds like), or the much less invasive surgical removal and laser ablation – which is what I had done. Unfortunately, the success rate for what I had done is around 50%. If this last surgery didn’t work and it comes back repeatedly, then we get to start looking at the other options. Again, yay me.

Ok menfolk, you can come back now. Icky lady-part discussions are over. On to talk of cute nurses and drugs – yippee! I had my surgery last week at Sacred Heart in Pensacola (you fellow Scrubs fans out there have to know how happy this made me) and I was pleased to discover the lack of giving a shit I’d dealt with previously is apparently only confined to office staff. The nursing staff was outstanding – I daresay better than at UCLA. They made me laugh, they got our warped sense of humor, and best of all, they gave me drugs in my IV (twice!) when my surgery got pushed back 3 hours. (When you’ve already been fasting and haven’t had coffee, 3 hours is a HUGE deal.) I cannot say enough good things about them. When I finally rolled out of surgery, they were there to gently wake me up and generally be nothing but sweetness to me.

Then my doctor had to show up and be a big old buzz kill. While initial reports from the lab were that none of the biopsies were cancerous, he found 4 spots of pre-cancerous dysplasia this time. Given that this stuff is supposed to take years to develop and get anywhere approaching cancer, I progressed from being clear in August, to 2 high-grade spots in February, and then to 4 high-grade spots in April. This does not make for a happy Samantha. I’ve got a follow-up appointment in a week and a half, and then I’m still on the tests-every-three-months follow-up schedule until I get 3 normal tests in a row. I’ve resigned myself to the likelihood that I may never have 3 normal tests in a row, and that I’ll be dealing with this for a while. Pessimism? Maybe. Reality? Maybe. But I’ll get the joy of being pleasantly surprised if it turns out differently. And I have noticed that this time feels a lot different than the last go ’round. Sure, waiting on test results and doctor’s appointments tend to make me insane for a day or two, but I haven’t once woken up furious, I haven’t lost sleep, and I haven’t once worried about my impending demise. I’d call that real progress from where I was in 2012.

For now, I’ve got some lovely narcotics, a husband who is keeping my mood up by tormenting me as I recuperate, and two pups who follow me everywhere and curl up with me every chance they get. All of this AND I still get to live at the beach? I think I’ll manage just fine. I’ll still stress every time I have to wait on test results, but in general I’m content with the fact that if any of this crap turns cancerous any time in the near future, it will be caught and dealt with very early. And we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. Until then, I’ll be off living my life and enjoying the hell out of it as much as possible. Peace out, yo. I’ll write more when there’s more to tell. Right now, I’m off to the beach to see if I can walk there and back without needing a nap. Fingers crossed!

P.S. If there are any ladies with a similar diagnosis who find this via Google or some other roundabout way and have questions or just want to chat, please let me know. I am more than happy to share info I’ve learned from reading research papers and other resources, to answer questions, and to direct you to support groups.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes…

Posted by samiam0403 in Uncategorized

Well hello again, blog-followers! If there are any of you still out there, then thanks. Really. Before I get to my usual rambling, I’d like to apologize for the long absence. I don’t know if it was the fact that things were going ok, or the sheer exhaustion that came with thinking about cancer for 24/7, or just life happening, but I let this get away from me for entirely too long. So let’s do a little recap, shall we?

Last you knew, I was waiting for CT scan results, yes? Thankfully, those came back clear. Yay! Things were going ok (other than the constant pain) and I was getting back to living. Unfortunately, my oncologist broke up with me after that. (Insert weeping sounds here.) Ok, not really – he just got a better job offer. He was hired by Stanford University to be the department head up there. *pours one out for my homey* I was really happy for him, and he transferred me over to a new oncologist at UCLA who just happened to be pretty awesome. And ridiculously good looking, but who pays attention to that kind of thing? I had a few checkups with the new guy, and all was well. Until it came time to schedule another checkup, and I was informed that he was leaving UCLA to go work for awesome oncologist #1. (Stanford is now on my shitlist, by the way.)

So fast-forward to 2014. Still having weird random pains, and generally feeling like crap. Due to some other on-going health issues, I was referred to a GI doc at UCLA. (Funny how once you have cancer, your general practitioner just refers you to specialists for everything…) A few biopsies and a virtual crap-ton of tests later, and voila – I got diagnosed with a new auto-immune disorder and prescribed some ridiculously expensive steroids. (Thanks Air Force for the $1600 a month drugs!) Upside? The drugs work like a champ and I finally, FINALLY, feel like a normal human being again. Downside? The short-term steroid taper that is successful treatment for 85% of patients didn’t take with me, so I’m on them long term. I’m now considered immuno-suppressed (yep, I have a non-existent immune system now), so I have to avoid sick people and due to some weird drug interaction, I can’t eat grapefruit. No great loss on either account, I’d say. Sick people suck, and grapefruit is disgusting.

Feeling good and getting back to normal, right? Well, since we couldn’t have that for too long, I got 2 more cancer-type scares this spring. Yay! To keep it short, after a doc found a lump, I endured a lengthy diagnostic mammogram and a ridiculously extensive ultrasound. But it turns out I don’t have breast cancer. More yay! And after having my primary care doc on base grab my arm and basically demand to carve out a mole, it turns out I don’t have skin cancer either. Stress? What stress? Thankfully, that was quickly forgotten and I got to enjoy a pretty fantastic summer.

Here I am feeling all awesome and normal and starting to forget I ever had cancer. Awesome sauce! But before we left California (oh yeah, we moved recently), I had one last follow up appointment with a completely new oncologist. (Also awesome and good-looking. Seriously, UCLA knows how to hire doctors!) I told him that I was feeling great, and that all the weird pains went away when I started taking the steroids – except for an occasional ache deep in my hip, which I was sure was due to me being old. He did some tests and surprised me by ordering another PET/CT scan. Uh oh. Those are expensive. And usually only ordered with a cancer diagnosis and/or serious suspicions of a recurrence/metastasis. Insert panic/stress/ass-clownage by office staff/more stress/more ass-clownage by office staff/more panic and finally, after a good two weeks, I got the all clear. And there was much rejoicing. However, there was a ‘but.’ My PET/CT scan was all clear, but…one of my other tests came back wonky, and it appears some other bad ju-ju happenings may be a-brewing. Ugh.

My oncologist wanted to do more tests, but unfortunately we were moving the following week. And I’m sure he would have been hired away by Stanford at that point anyway. *snark* But he made me promise, and sternly lectured me, to have the follow-up tests done as soon as I got to my next assignment. We finally got all settled in at our new location (on the beach in Florida!) and I’m working on finding a new oncologist and getting that follow up appointment made. But to be totally honest, I’m not working all that hard. Yeah, yeah, I know. But dammit, I want to enjoy a few weeks of living on the beach, enjoying starting my new job, buying a new home, and basically not thinking about cancer for the first time in almost 3 years. It’s been kind of nice. I wish I could just ignore it, but I know I can’t. Which is why in between training for my new job, buying a house, enjoying the beach, exploring the new town, and generally living life and keeping busy, I’ll find the time to see a doctor. Because I really want to be around to enjoy the new job and the new town. I kind of like it here, and I kind of like living.

If you’ve stuck around this long between blogs, and managed to read this rambling synopsis of the last year, then you, dear reader, are awesome. Kudos to you. May you find yourself being treated by a doctor at UCLA some time soon for something totally non-serious. You know, because they’re good-looking, awesome, and pretty darn nice folks. And you deserve something good for sticking around and reading my blog. Seriously, why did I have to explain that to you? You people should totally get me by now. *shakes head and walks away*

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

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Today’s cancer-related word of the day:  scanxiety. It’s the gnawing worry one feels when one is waiting for an upcoming CT scan and suffering through the long agonizing wait for results. It sucks. And yes, it is a thing. It’s a thing I’m dealing with now.

(Disclaimer – I swear I really am not a neurotic nutbag who thinks she’s constantly on the verge of death. This blog was started as a way for me to share my journey with other cervical cancer patients and for me to empty out the words that build up in my head on occasion. I promise, I am not running about willy-nilly 24/7 convinced that the sky is falling. But the fears that sneak up on me…those I need to get out of my head. What’s the old saying? A problem shared is a problem halved? Or some such nonsense? So consider it me sharing and you taking a portion of it from me. You’re welcome. Just wait until this cancer-thing is behind me and I start pouring out the rest of my neuroses. Mwah hah hah!)

Tomorrow we make the long drive back to UCLA for more CT scans. Pelvic and abdominal, with and without contrast. Then we make the long quiet drive home to wait a week or two for the results. As I’ve said before, the worst part of this whole thing is all of the waiting for test results. I wish they were instant. But instead, we have to wait on the experts to examine all of the snazzy little black and white images of my innards and hope they don’t see any new tumors or spots. Then again, who knows – maybe the whole point of the long wait is to purposefully give your mind time to explore all of the possibilities – as awful as they may be. To wrap your head around the what ifs. To run through all of the scenarios. That’s a new thought – I may have to explore that one some more and let that idea roll around my brain for a bit. Hmm.

At this point, I have been in remission/NED for almost 10 months. The ‘normal’ recurrence time frame for ‘normal’ cervical cancer, if it happens, is around 1.5 – 2 years post-treatment. Too bad I’m not normal. I won the odds lottery with a rare sub-set of an uncommon cancer, aka adenosquamous carcinoma, and it likes to come back and visit a lot faster – usually in half the time as ‘normal’ cervical cancer. I think the average is 9 months or so after treatment. I’ve been having some weird and worsening pains in my upper abdomen, hips and pelvis for a few months now. It started as random stabs of pain and has slowly become constant with random extra stabs of pain that take my breath away. I do not like it and I am not amused. Hence the reason for the new scans.

There are, of course, a multitude of other reasons that could, and probably do, explain the new pains. It could simply be adhesions from the surgery – that’s where as you heal inside, things kind of stick together and stay that way via the magic of healing and scar tissue. It could be that my hernias that I had repaired 10+ years ago have re-herniated and need to be repaired again. It could be that I have the new trendy gluten intolerance and it’s messing with my stomach and intestines. It could be that I have an ulcer. It could be that I’m just getting old. It could be any of a thousand things. Or it could be that my cancer missed me and wanted to come hang out again. Because you know, that bitch just can’t take a hint.

As I’ve been poking around the interwebs trying to edumacate myself and see if there are any new advances/breakthroughs in cancer research, one of the truly frustrating things is a lack of information. (What?!?!? A lack of information on the internet? Impossible! But true.) There are two main types of cervical cancer and most research dollars are logically spent on them. Unless you have squamous cell carcinoma (75-80% of all cervical cancers) or the less common adenocarcinoma (20-25% of all cervical cancers), you’re kind of out of luck as far as research goes. If you have either of those types of cancer, you can rest assured that there have been hundreds or thousands of studies done on your cancer and that the common characteristics are largely agreed upon. The less common cervical cancers that COMBINED make up about 5% of all cervical cancers – clear cell, glassy cell, small cell and adenosquamous carcinomas among quite a few others – have scant available information. (Hell, even my spell check doesn’t recognize adenosquamous as a word.) I usually just find a short blurb under the heading of ‘Other Rare Cervical Cancers’ in scientific journals and books. ‘Hey, here’s some other cancers that we don’t see very often so we don’t bother researching. We don’t know much about them, so good luck’ is the vibe I get there. Awesome. I really hope that UCLA is using my info for a study or research or something. It would be nice to contribute in some way that might lead to someone further down the road finding useful information on this cancer. Because the info that is out there SUCKS!

**Warning – the following paragraph is a lot of contradictory statistics and pessimistic snarling. Feel free to skip over it while I get some depressing crap out of my head. Thanks.** It is incredibly frustrating to read contradictory studies that vary so widely in their results. In the past 10 months or so, I’ve read that at stage 1B, my cancer (and no, I’m still not used to typing ‘my cancer’) has a 10-15% recurrence rate. And that it has a 70% recurrence rate. That it has an 85% 5-year survival rate. And that it has a 27% 5-year survival rate. That it’s highly aggressive. And that it’s no more aggressive than any other cervical cancer. That it has a poor prognosis. And that it has a similar prognosis to ‘normal’ cervical cancer. And then there’s my personal favorite that I learned today – one medical textbook reported that the 5-year survival rate in stage 1B patients whose biopsies showed lymphatic invasion is 69%. If there is blood vessel invasion, then it’s around 30%. Fun stuff, huh? Guess who had angio-lymphatic invasion? (‘Angio’ refers to blood vessels for those of you who skipped anatomy.) Turns out having early-stage cancer is good (‘good’ as in treatable. Not ‘good’ as in yay cancer!). But having early-stage cancer with tiny cancer cells floating throughout your lymphatic/circulatory system is bad. Doctors are understandably hesitant to be throwing chemo and radiation at every patient with early-stage cancer, but it turns out that can actually be a bad thing. Surgery without chemo/rad as a follow up is largely the norm for stage 1, but can leave the possibility open to one of those tiny floaty cancer cells finding a new home somewhere else and sneakily taking up residence without anyone noticing. Multiple studies have shown that in later stage cancers (2, 3 and 4), that same finding simply isn’t a factor. That microscopic invasion makes zero difference unless you’re stage 1. Whee hoo! So glad THAT’S the one thing multiple studies agree on. *eyeroll* **Annnnnnd end snarly depressing cancer rant**

So yeah. CT scan tomorrow. I’m feeling a little better about it after rambling through today’s blog. I just have to keep reminding myself that one groovy thing I’ve got going for me is that I know I’m not a number or a statistic. So here’s to being like all the normal ladies with normal cancers and continuing to be cancer-free. I guess we’ll find out soon. Just not soon enough for my liking.

Stoopid scanxiety.

The Road To Recovery

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In the 9 months since my surgery, I’ve had ups and downs, made a ton of progress on the healing front, lost one oncologist and gained a new one, had another minor surgery to remove scar tissue, had another mini cancer scare, and finally generally come to a truce with the snarky voice in the back of my head. Sure, I’ve got another CT scan scheduled in a few weeks to make sure that some new/increasing pains aren’t a cancer recurrence, but overall I’m good. I’m looking forward and have an appointment in August with one of the best tattoo artists in LA for my celebratory one-year cancer free tattoo. Fingers crossed I didn’t jinx myself by making that appointment.

Now let’s see…where did I leave off? Ah yes – finally getting home from the hospital. I have to say, recovery was a bitch. I would have given anything to be able to sleep on my side. Or my stomach. Or flat on my back. Or to be able to stretch. Or eat real food. Or to not ever sneeze. Or laugh. (Good thing I’m married to a comic, eh?) Even with large amounts of painkillers, I was still uncomfortable and generally unable to sleep for longer than an hour or two at a time. And even then, I slept on my back, propped up with pillows and with pillows under my knees. I kept a small firm pillow by my side in case of a sneeze or a laugh – holding that pillow against my stomach kept me from screaming in pain if either of those things happened. I still needed a good 10 minutes to recover after I sneezed the first time post-surgery. Yay abdominal surgery and oodles of stitches! But overall, things were mainly irritating, uncomfortable and frustrating. The pain was largely managed by my popping a lovely dilaudid every few hours. (Seriously – best pain medicine EVER!) Other than having my mom here, the dilaudid was my favorite part of recovery. My husband would say in public that his favorite part was hearing that they successfully removed all the cancer. I think my husband would be lying. I’m convinced his favorite part was getting to stab me with a needle every day for 2 weeks. (I got sent home with a 2 week supply of syringes filled with blood thinner to prevent blood clots while I was mostly immobile.)

Eventually I was able to start getting around a bit better and was able to sit up and watch tv in the living room like a normal human being. Granted, even sitting up for an hour or two was exhausting and required a nap to recover, but soon I was back to vegging in front of the television like a good little American with no trouble at all. But I still slept – a lot. The simplest things exhausted me. I wasn’t allowed to lift anything over 5 pounds per doctor’s orders. I wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than the tv remote per my husband’s and mother’s orders. I was repeatedly told, ‘you only get one chance to heal properly.’ After a few weeks, that got more and more irritating as I got more and more stir crazy. But that is a true statement – even if you get tired of hearing it.

Finally, after a few quick return trips (where I realized exactly how many potholes and bumps there are in the roads here – OWWW!) to UCLA for post-surgery checks and let’s-see-if-Samantha-can-pee-yet checks, I got the catheter removed about 2 and a half weeks after surgery. Which sounds great, but wasn’t so great in reality when I had to drag myself out of bed in the middle of the night. *sigh* Slowly I started getting my strength back and was able to remain upright for 3 or 4 hours at a time. And 4 weeks after I was released from the hospital, my convalescent leave (6 weeks recommended by my surgeon) expired. The military docs only approve 4 weeks at a time no matter what the surgeon recommends. (Unless you give birth – then they’ll sign anything. Jerks.) So a month later, I dragged myself to the base hospital to meet with my brand new doctor. Oh, sorry. My brand new physician’s assistant. (Apparently I don’t rate a real doctor on base, even though I know they exist.) I told him I needed 2 more weeks – there was no way I could work 8 hours a day – and eventually had to beg him to give me 5 more days at least. His rationale for not extending my leave? I drove myself to the appointment. Never mind that when I got home, I went immediately to bed for 4 hours because I was so exhausted I could hardly move, or that I was in extraordinary amounts of pain. Never mind that my surgery had multiple complications and that I required a hospital stay 4 times longer than normal. Nope, I should have been good to go to head back to work. Awesome. Luckily, I have a great boss and a great commander – they told me to take my time and work up to full time. My first day back to work after 5 weeks at home lasted about 2 or 3 hours – after which I went home and went straight to bed. Good times.

After a few weeks of half-days, I eventually got back to working full time. I still am disappointed in the base hospital – the standard time off for my operation is 6-8 weeks. I got 5. Nicely done, Lt Physician’s Assistant. I honestly feel that this impacted my recovery in a negative way. But hey, at least he got me a referral to a physical therapist for my numb hand and numb leg. No wait – he actually made me pick one to get treated. Hand or leg. He told me he couldn’t get me a referral for both. I picked my numb right hand – figured I might need that to write or shoot or basically function. Too bad the physical therapist he referred me to doesn’t deal with nerve damage – which I learned when they called me to chat about what they could or couldn’t do for me. Rather than deal with Lt P.A. again, I spoke with my surgeon about it and decided to just see if my nerve damage would improve given time. And it did. Mostly.

Overall, I learned that when people say it takes a year to fully recover from a hysterectomy (radical or otherwise), they are 100% correct. It’s a ridiculously common surgery in this country (don’t even get me started on how quick doctors are to recommend them), so I think people think they’re no big deal. (A friend of mine who had the same surgery had a ‘friend’ tell her, ‘I know how you feel – I had my wisdom teeth pulled once!’) They really are a big deal. A normal hysterectomy is considered major surgery. A radical hysterectomy even more so. Add in the moving around of organs, tendons, nerves, veins and arteries to get to the lymph nodes that also needed to be removed, and it’s an even bigger deal. But 9 months later, I’m getting there. I’d say I’m about 95% right now. Sure, I have weird pains still and I still have a large chuck of my thigh that is half numb, but at least I can move my leg. And I’m still *knock on wood* cancer-free. Things could have turned out a lot worse.

Cut Me, Mick!

Posted by samiam0403 in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , ,

After lots of rambling blog posts, I figure it’s time to get back to the story. Last I left off in the whole cancer saga, I had been diagnosed, ran off to Vegas to get married and was getting ready for a major surgery that we hoped would leave me cancer-free. And that is where we pick up today.

August 9, 2012 – that was the date for my surgery. My mom had made plans to come visit and help out with things, and we wisely had her come out the weekend before. Since she’d never been to California before, we wanted at least a few days to do touristy stuff and to just visit while I was still a fully-functioning human being. We did Hollywood and the Walk of Fame, took pics of the Hollywood sign, stopped by Grauman’s Chinese Theater, had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and did a LOT of walking. We stopped by the Santa Monica Pier and took pictures of the ocean and enjoyed the evening air. We did some shopping and went out to dinner and just enjoyed each others’ company as much as we could in the few days we had before I turned into a bedridden druggie. I felt bad that her birthday was the day before my surgery and I had to spend that day doing prep for the surgery. Boooooo! Thrilling way for her to spend her birthday, I’m sure. But she didn’t complain once, nor did she rub in the fact that she had a birthday cupcake and could eat real food all day. She’s an awesome mom.

For those of you who’ve never had the joy of major abdominal surgery before, you get to spend the day prior eating zero solid food. Clear liquids only. Jello is ok, but not cherry-flavored/red jello. Of course – my favorite. Then the evening before, you get to do what’s called bowel prep. That involves drinking magnesium citrate and then suffering for hours. All of that is to ensure that your guts are good and empty when they start digging around and flinging scalpels about willy-nilly. It’s awesome. I never want to drink beef broth or chicken broth ever again. Jello can piss off as well. Thankfully, coffee was approved. 2 days in a row without coffee would have had me in jail for murder. And that is how I spent 8 August. Sipping broth, eating Jello and snarling at the TV any time there was a commercial with food on. I think I nearly heaved the couch at the TV when an especially tempting steakhouse commercial kept playing over and over and over…Oh, and I smoked. A lot. The plan all along was to quit smoking when I had my surgery. But by God, I was starving and nervous so my smokey treats were a source of comfort. We were all rather subdued that night – little chats here and there, but overall I remember us being kind of quiet. I talked to my dad back in Ohio, and I don’t know who else. We got my bag packed and puttered around the house until it started getting late. I had one last cup of broth (no liquid at all after midnight) then headed off to try to get some sleep.

The morning came entirely too early. We had to be at the hospital at around 5:00am, which meant leaving the house at around 3:00am. Ugh. Coffee was made for the cancer-free humans in the house and I paced around and smoked. I finished my last cigarette and we piled in to the car and started the looooooong drive to LA. On the bright side, traffic was the lightest I’ve ever seen it – mainly because no sane human beings are on the road at 3:30am. Or if they are, they’re just getting home from a really fun night. Drive drive drive…fast forward to arriving. We got all checked in, and waited. Then we got called upstairs to the next waiting room. I did some paperwork probably signing everything I own away to UCLA and absolving them of any responsibility if I died or ended up with a missing leg – I really don’t remember. After that, things are a blur. I got a snazzy hospital gown and met the 8,000 or so people who would be assisting/observing/cutting/keeping me drugged during the surgery. My oncologist/surgeon stopped by and my mom finally got to meet the man we’d been raving about. The best part came when the IV was in and they started the drugs that would help me drift off to a happy place. Ahhhhhhhhh.

And then I woke up to a nurse pulling off pieces of my skin. No lie. I was in the recovery room – still not 100% awake – and she was removing the circular sticker thingies that they attach monitors to during surgery. Unfortunately, my skin decided it would rather go with the stickers than remain on my body. Thankfully she figured it out after the first one and a half sticker removals. The blood and shrieking was probably a good clue for her. And then I fell back asleep. I remember drifting in and out a LOT in that room, and having lots of people ask me questions. I provided such intelligent responses as, “mmmph” and “uhhhhhgh.”  Or so I imagine – I was still high as a kite and was trying to hide from the pain. Finally I was awake enough to provide slightly more intelligent responses such as, “yes” or “no” and was moved to a curtained-off cubicle to recover until it was time to go home. Yep, that’s right. A radical hysterectomy and lymph node removal can be done as out-patient surgery, but they typically at least keep you over night. Thank you, American health care system. (As an aside, my grandfather had surgery to repair a hernia back in the 70’s or 80’s (I’ve had 2 hernia repairs – both out-patient) and he spent a WEEK in the hospital to fully recover.) The plan was to move me to a real room if one became available. If. In the meantime, all I could hear was people shuffling by my bed, nurses laughing and general mayhem. Not terribly restful. After much complaining (not by me – I was in a drug-induced stupor), the problem was figured out. Since my surgery had been done partially by laparoscope, the nurses saw that term on my paperwork, stopped reading and just assumed I’d had a minor surgery and I’d be up and headed home shortly. Ummmm, no. I believe it took a chat with the roving patient advocate to get things straightened out. Suddenly I was at the top of the list for a room. When one became available. And then the fun started.

After a few hours of seeing exactly how frequently I could push the button for my pain-killer pump/drip (some kick-ass dilaudid once every 6 minutes if you must know), it was time to kick my butt out of bed and make me start trying to walk. I was a champ and made it around the ward twice. I’m awesome. When I went to get back in bed, we noticed one slight problem. I couldn’t move my left leg side to side. At all. And then I noticed that my right hand was completely numb. Suddenly we had multiple neurologists stopping by to poke and prod and try to figure out how I ended up with nerve damage and how extensive it was. *sigh* But on the bright side, they suddenly found me a HUGE private room with a couch and (eventually) a recliner so Mom and Rudy could take turns sleeping and sitting next to me throughout the night. On the down side, I ended up staying in that private room 4 nights. Apparently I always have to be an over-achiever.

To make a long story shorter, the surgery and recovery sucked. Hospital stays suck. It never failed – every time I would finally start to get some sleep, someone would come in to give me drugs and take my blood pressure and temperature and make sure I was generally still alive. Apparently I scared them a few times with my so-low-we’re-not-sure-she’s-really-alive blood pressure, but I like to think it’s because I was just so comfy and relaxed from my happy drugs, and much less stressed after learning that the pathology came back clear and I was cancer-free! I slept off and on for days, I got poked and prodded by therapists and neurologists and had every person who had anything to do with my surgery stop by to check on me, I watched bad TV at 3:00am and I walked. A lot. That was the one recommendation I saw everywhere to help with recovery – to walk as much as possible. One of the worst parts of this surgery is gas pain. Yep. Not the removal of organs and cutting and chopping and stitches – the gas. They actually inflate your abdomen for more room to work, and a lot of the gasses they inject you with end up getting trapped when they sew you up. So picture the worst gas you’ve ever had – that pain that shoots all the way up through your shoulder, and thinking you might actually explode if someone poked you, and thinking that exploding would be better than being in pain. Now imagine that multiplied by 1,000 and you might have an idea. I lost track of the amount of times I cried from the sheer agony, even hopped up on one of the most effective (and most street-valuable) pain medications there is. And walking is supposed to help work it out of your system. It doesn’t, by the way. It just has to dissipate on its own.

The one thing I didn’t do was eat. Or use the restroom. Both of those are things you have to be able to do before they’ll discharge you. I finally tried solid food on day 3 – plain baked chicken. Nope. My stomach was having none of it – thank you 5+ hours of general anesthesia. And to this day I absolutely cannot eat baked chicken. Yay for new food aversions! And I learned that nurses get rather concerned when you start turning beet-red after being given new drugs and that I’m allergic to an anti-nausea medication. I also learned that you may joke that you have a bladder the size of a pea, but in reality you do not. Because another joy of a radical hysterectomy is waking up with a non-functioning bladder. They have to move the bladder out of the way, and in doing so your bladder turns into a lazy bitch. Oh, you’re going to move me out of the way? Fine. I quit. And that bitchy, non-functioning bladder can take months or years to stop being bitchy and lazy. So I got to experience another first – having a Foley catheter. Surprisingly kind of awesome. You know how you’re watching a great movie and you hate to have to run to the bathroom in the middle of it? With a catheter, you don’t have to. You know how you wake up in the middle of the night desperately needing to use the bathroom, but you’re just soooooo comfy that you don’t want to? With a catheter, you just stay in bed. So handy! But seriously, they are typically needed for just a few days after surgery. They removed mine on day 4 (I think) and had me see how things went. I sipped water all day, as usual. Nothing. Didn’t feel like I needed to use the restroom at all. Finally after drinking a ton of water, the nurse suggested I at least try to go, even if I didn’t need to. Nope. Nothing. But I started feeling…off. And then I started feeling sick. And then I started feeling like I’d been hit by a bus. Oops – turns out I had over a liter of liquid in my bladder, and I couldn’t feel it at all. Needless to say, my Foley and I were good friends for weeks. *sigh*

Finally on Monday morning, the gas was gone, I kept down some solid food and was cleared to go home to finish recovering – 4-6 weeks of staying home and taking drugs. Hallelujah! I couldn’t wait to get home to my bed! Granted, I wasn’t looking forward to a 2 hour drive home after having surgery, but hey, that’s what drugs are for. But wait – we need a doctor to sign this, someone needs to pick up your 42 prescriptions, we need you to sign this, we need to find you a wheelchair…ugh. From being told I was cleared to go home to actually getting out of the wheelchair and into the car was easily a good 5 or 6 hours. Just enough time for us to hit a shit-ton of traffic on the way home. Yay! Luckily, as my husband and mom started bickering about the drive, my drugs kicked in and I reclined my seat, hugged my pillow to my stomach and snoozed. Ahhhhh.

So there you have it. The story of my lovely hospital stay. There’s obviously much more I could tell, but that’s the summary. I wouldn’t wish this surgery on my worst enemy. Wait, let me think…actually, I would – because I’m kind of bitchy that way. The pain, the sheer helplessness, the pain, the constant stream of strangers in and out of your room who poke and prod you, the pain, the feeling of dehumanization you go through even with an outstanding medical staff, the pain and the frustration of your body just not doing a damn thing you want it to – it all sucked. But even with all of that, there were moments that were pretty awesome. Waking up at 2:30am and having your mom by your side immediately ask if you need anything. Hearing your surgeon tell you that your lymph nodes and all the other tissue they removed came back clear of cancer. Having your mother-in-law and her husband drive out to check on you and pray for you. Seeing your husband smiling through tears as he holds you and whispers, ‘my wife doesn’t have cancer.’ Having your boss stop by the hospital on his way back from a TDY just to make sure you survived surgery – even though it’s out of his way and he’s still got 2 hours to drive to get home. Phone calls to make sure you’re ok from your crazy Las Vegas family that adopted you as one of their own. E-mails from around the world from friends. The first hot shower when you finally get to wash your hair after days of laying in bed – even if it was short and you had someone waiting to see if you’d pass out or not. That first sip of coffee after days without. Realizing that it has been 5 days since you’ve had a cigarette and realizing that you don’t even remotely want one. Realizing that it was a long, painful and agonizing road, and there’s still a long way to go, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel – yeah. That was good.

There’s still a skosh more to go with the story, but not much. I really just wanted to get the surgery/hospital stay portion of the story out of the way. I’m sure my husband and my mom could write pages about how those 5 days went, but I wanted to write my part of it as I remembered it in a general sense. There was a lot of frustration and anger and sadness and depression that I haven’t captured here – the surgery combined with a mini surgically-induced menopause is a horrible emotional storm – but I’ll save that joy for another day. For now I think reminiscing about the surgery and hospital stay is enough fun. 

It’s Not a Toomah…No Really, This Time It’s Not.

Posted by samiam0403 in Uncategorized

Today I was reminded by more than one person (yay for people actually reading my rambings!) that some people actually kind of care about me and that I had left the world in limbo after my last blog post. Sorry all! So drum roll please…the mammogram came back clear! Whee hoo! Still no idea what the lump was and I’m not worrying about it for the moment for a few reasons. First, I have my 3rd quarterly follow-up with my new oncologist at UCLA next week. I’m thinking he might order up another CT scan, and if so, that seems like a good way to kill two birds with one stone. (Look at me all saving the government money. You’re welcome, fellow taxpayers.) And second, I figure if he doesn’t want to do another CT quite yet, then I’ll whip out my pre-approval for more tests and get it done. But for now, I’m going to see how this new doctor is and what he wants to do. I am going to miss my fabulous German oncologist, but I’m sure he’s kicking cancer ass and rocking his new job as department chief at Stanford. And of course I’ve done my research on the new guy – he’s just as well-trained and awesome as my last doc according to everything I’ve found on-line, so I’m pretty happy. Thanks to the Air Force and TriCare for actually providing us military folk with some pretty damn good doctors occasionally.

So yeah. For now things are good. My husband and I had a fabulous time celebrating my 40th birthday a few weeks ago. We spent 10 nights in a suite on a southern Caribbean cruise followed by 4 nights in Vegas. And it was incredible. Sun, snorkling, gorgeous water, sharks, sting rays, sea turtles, rum punch, beaches, swimming, great food, cool shows, amazing crew, ginormous balcony, our own butler, really nice fellow guests and a generally un-hurried atmosphere made for a really fun yet relaxing cruise. (And the fact that the ship had a sports bar with freaking awesome wings served until 5:00am was pretty spiffy too. Those really hit the spot at 1:00am…) In fact, we had such a lovely time that I am already booked on another Norwegian cruise later this year with my mom and sis-in-law. Again, in a suite. Because I’m hooked on that whole butler, concierge, make a phone call and have someone bring you a different type of pillow or dinner from a restaurant that you’re too lazy to go to or more grapes for my bowl of fruit or a DVD or…Just kidding – actually, we didn’t use our butler for much at all beyond his daily stuff that he does anyway. (Honest! I only play a demanding bitch on TV. Or when I’ve stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.) I think we had our butler bring us dinner once. (Pizza and a cheeseburger, because we’re classy that way.) Beyond that, we were hella low maintenance. But he did a fine job of making sure all 3 of the different pillow types I had requested pre-cruise were waiting for us when we got there, along with some extras. And he kept the bowl of M&Ms I had requested full at all times. And he made sure we always had all the fixin’s for our coffee maker and espresso maker. It’s the little things, you know?

One thing I did bring home from the cruise was a few extra pounds from all that delicious food. And that was even with using the outdoor track and the gym a few times. So I’m finally back to eating healthy and getting back in to working out. I’ll be down to pre-cruise fighting weight in a week, tops. I’d already be there, but someone *cough* my husband *cough* gave me his horrible awful cold that he got on the cruise – I got sick the night we got back to California. Perfect timing. Worst cold I’ve ever had – I was useless for a week. Felt fine after that, then got my arse kicked with some stomach flu thing last week and spent Friday throwing up. Good times. (It’s moments like this when you’re really appreciative of me sharing the details of my life, right? Admit it.) I have never ever ever been sick as often as I have been since this whole pesky cancer thing happened. I can’t imagine how much worse off I’d be if I weren’t eating healthy, taking vitamins and working out. I actually did a little research on my own and learned a few things though – one of which is the probable reason for all the diseases I keep attracting. (Just call me the Pied Piper of viruses…) While I swear I took biology and physiology and health and all that good stuff back in the day, I don’t ever recall learning much about lymph nodes. But apparently they are an integral part of your immune system and do a snazzy job filtering out all the nasties you pick up on a day-to-day basis. Who knew? So having around 20 of them removed probably didn’t do a whole lot to boost the old immune system. So that’s my I’m-a-Google-expert rationale for why I keep getting sick so much more often.

And that, boys and girls, concludes the Gorgeous Blonde’s ramblings for today. Mainly I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m still alive and doing fine, and give a little reasoning for why I wasn’t around to update my blog. (As an aside, it took me 5 tries to type that sentence as I got a wee bit distracted by my husband singing…and now whistling…Pyromania by Def Leppard. *sigh* Of course that’s in between his cursing at the TV as he plays PS3 and talking to the dog. ADD? Him? Nah…) So there you have it. All is good in our world and we’re getting settled back into the comfortable and quirky life we’ve made here in SoCal. More ramblings coming to a blog near you soon. But not too soon – the Kentucky Derby is this weekend so I will be ignoring everyone Saturday, and Sunday I’m off to buy a bridesmaid’s dress for a wedding later this year. But after that, I’ll be back. Promise. ‘Til next time, enjoy your spring and do one thing today that makes you happy. Now…go!

Gimme Three Steps…

Posted by samiam0403 in Uncategorized and tagged with , , ,

One step forward and two steps back. (Apologies to those of you who thought this might be a blog about the awesomeness that is Lynyrd Skynyrd. It is not. The title just popped into my head after I typed the first sentence. Maybe next time.)

Just when this gal was getting her life and head all squared away after the mind-fuck of cancer, the snarky little cancer voice that lives in the deep recesses of my brain decided to rip the duct tape off her mouth and say, ‘not so fast, toots. You’re not getting away that easy.’ Dammit.

A few days ago, all was good. I was feeling great, working out 6 days a week, eating healthy and generally kicking ass one day at a time. I was determined to turn 40 being more awesome than ever. (Yes, I turn 40 in exactly 13 days. I’ll be in St. Thomas, so if you haven’t had time to buy me a present yet, you’ve got a little extra time…) I had made an appointment on-base for my annual physical and was looking forward to bragging a little about how awesome I was feeling. The day of the appointment rolled around and the doc and I chatted about how I was doing after the cancer – both physically and mentally – how things were going with my routine oncology visits, and my general overall health. He seemed really happy with how I was doing and moved on to the poking and prodding part of the physical. Lungs and heart sound healthy, good blood pressure and heart rate, eyes are still 20/15 (thanks for the PRK, Air Force!), ears and nose look fine, no weird lumps in the neck…groovy. I am kicking butt for a change! Yay!

Then he asked me when I’d had my last ‘well-woman appointment.’ Ummm…it was a year ago when I started having the whole cancer issue. He told me I still needed to do them for the simple fact of needing breast cancer screenings. Ugh. So rather than make another appointment just to have a chick doctor, I went with the option of having him do it instead. After the last year of exams, surgeries and hospital visits, I’m not terribly bashful about who sees me nekkid any more when it comes to doctors. So he found a chaperone to make sure no inappropriate shenanigans occurred (wait…are there appropriate shenanigans? Discuss.) and started the exam as I proceeded to start counting ceiling tiles. Then I hear a ‘hmmm.’ No. No ‘hmmm.’ I don’t like ‘hmmm.’ He focuses on one spot and asks me if I’ve noticed any unusual or new lumps. I mentally sighed and thought, ‘don’t you think I’d have mentioned it, jerkface?’ (My inner voice is kind of a bitch.) Then I just said no. He continued feeling one spot and asked when my last period was. I continued staring at the ceiling, physically sighed and just let him think about what he’d just asked me. (For those of you who failed health class or haven’t followed my story, when one has a radical hysterectomy, one doesn’t have periods any more. The more you know…) It took a few long moments, but the light bulb finally went on as he rather sheepishly said, ‘oh, sorry.’ He then proceeded to tell me that he had found a 2 cm lump and that it was likely non-cancerous, but what with my history of ‘erratic cancer,’ he was going to send me to have a mammogram. Awesome.

We chatted a little more, and then I was done. I was ok until I got to my car. Then that bitchy cancer voice piped in with, ‘huh, where have you heard that before? That a tiny little thing wasn’t cancer and that you just needed one more test? How’d that work for you?’ Damn. And with that tiny little whisper, I had a tiny little breakdown. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before – that the really awful part about cancer isn’t just the physical part. It’s the constant fear of what your own body might be plotting behind your back. It’s about keeping your sanity. Trying to move on. Trying not to worry about every little pain. Trying to logically tell yourself that odds are, you’re fine. All while that little voice in the back of your head that you thought was gone is getting louder and louder, and all the duct tape in the world won’t shut it up. So I wiped away a few tears, sniffled a little, then put on my big girl panties and went back to work. Things still hadn’t really sunk in yet, and I was just feeling numb. So not even thinking, I shot an e-mail to my husband and let him know how my appointment went. Oops. Perhaps a phone call might have been a better idea. My phone rang within moments of hitting send and I felt like a shit. I could hear the weight and worry in his voice, and I knew he needed me home. We made plans to have lunch together and then see how I was doing after that. I knew I would get absolutely zero work done, so I took a half-day, closed up the office and headed home. We held each other, we went out for lunch, we joked, we laughed, we contemplated getting me a very large margarita, we talked and generally tried to quash the worry. Then we headed home and I did my penance for my crappy lunch by working out for the second time that day. After that I googled a little and put off making the phone call to my folks that would start them worrying all over again. I actually considered not telling them, then realized that my mom would fly to California in a heartbeat and beat my ass if she found out that I didn’t tell her as soon as I had an inkling of another health issue. So I called. And now they worry and wait with us.

My first mammogram is now officially complete. And no, they are not fun. Slightly uncomfortable, yes. Painful, no. I’d heard not-so-good things about mammograms, and was a little concerned.  So on the bright side, I no longer have the worry of that unknown looming over me. Yay me! While I certainly won’t be running off to have my boobs mushed voluntarily, I at least won’t have a problem going for an annual check. So that’s a good thing. But now comes the bad thing – the wait for results. Or even worse – no results and a request for me to come back in for more tests. Because the one thing the technician told me was that at first glance, they didn’t see anything, but that I have dense breast tissue. *sigh* Of course.

For those of you still reading my rambling, dense breasts make reading a mammogram very difficult. Cancer shows up as a white ‘splotch’ on a mammogram because the x-rays don’t pass through it well. ‘Normal’ breast tissue is fatty and x-rays pass easily through it – so it shows up as dark on a mammogram. Dense breast tissue is less fatty and more comprised of connective tissue which doesn’t allow the x-rays to pass through easily – and shows up as white. See the problem here? I’ve read that trying to find cancer in a dense breast via mammogram is like trying to find a polar bear in a blizzard. Again – awesome. The other kicker? Having dense breasts has been found to increase your risk of breast cancer 6-fold. (And by the way, ‘dense’ is a radiology term that you’ll only find out with a mammogram – not something you’ll find out by groping yourself. So stop it.) What else increases breast cancer risk? Being tall. I shit you not. Being an ex-smoker doesn’t help either. Nor does never having kids. After doing some research, I’ve found that damn near everything increases your breast cancer risk.

So with that, I’m doing my best to keep breathing, keep living and not to completely lose my mind while I wait. Because the reality is that there’s an 80% chance that the lump is completely benign. I rationally understand that. And I’m sure I’m fine. But dammit, it’s going to be a long week or two until we find out for sure.