In my last post I left off right after telling you I had just found out that I had stage 2 breast cancer in my left breast and lymph nodes. After getting that call, I quickly called my husband who was on his way to work. He called in and told them he wasn’t coming to work that day and came right home. I told our eldest girl, who by now had figured out that something bad was going on.
That poor girl. My heart aches when I think about it. At that time, she was having cancer treatments herself, for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. And she was on steroids that week, which just must have made it so much worse. Then to get that kind of news. Knowing how hard it is going through chemo treatments. I was her primary caregiver too, so between the two of us, we were just a hot mess at that point. Thankfully, she had been nearing the end of her treatments, so she was improving day to day. (More to come on her story later.)
The following week, on my 29th birthday, I met with the doctor again. Her opinion was that I should have a double mastectomy straight off, along with a complete hysterectomy. That was without any further scans or anything to even determine how far this cancer had spread. I remember sitting there in that little windowless room, looking at this woman, with her dark fake and bake tan, and thinking, I can’t take advice from this woman. She doesn’t have a clue. So, I decided to pursue a second opinion. The next cancer doctor that I saw wanted to run tests to see how far the cancer had traveled. I applauded his intelligence.
In the following weeks scans were taken, bloodwork was drawn, and a port was placed in my chest for the administration of chemo. In the course of all of the testing, they confirmed the cancer in the left breast and the lymph nodes as well as finding a suspicious mass in my thyroid. Since they didn’t believe the mass in the thyroid to be breast cancer, they decided to bench that problem, especially after the ‘inconclusive’ result, until after we were finished with all of the breast cancer stuff.
That June I started chemo. One big dose of chemo, every other week, for a total of 8 doses. You can do the math, but I had a week delay at one point so it actually took 17 weeks if I’m not mistaken. I remember that first day. I went in with my husband Doug for my first round of chemo. I didn’t know how quickly I should expect to feel the effects. Kate’s treatment had been very different than what I was getting. We got all done and headed home. Got home and I thought, ‘I’m feeling pretty decent. I’m going to go to the grocery store.’ (Why we didn’t just do this before coming home, I have no idea.) I loaded up some of the kids and headed for town. I was going along, doing my thing, no problem, feeling alright, when all of a sudden, wham. It was like I hit a brick wall. I just about fell over it hit me so hard. One of the kids went and got me a scooter (We call them granny wagons. That’s totally Kate’s fault, I’m just saying.) just to get me through the line and out to the car. I didn’t underestimate the short term effects of chemo like that again.
When I first started chemo, I had completely refused to consider the possibility of losing my hair. Especially with the possibility of it coming back as crazy chemo curls like our daughter’s did. (She totally rocked them though. They looked really good on her.) I was terrified at the idea of seeing myself walking around with that big curly hair. So. I decided that the solution would be that I just couldn’t lose my hair. That solution unfortunately didn’t work out. I don’t think my hair lasted two weeks. Within days of starting chemo, my hair started falling out. My head started to feel like there was all of these little pins poking me whenever I laid down. It was actually my hair that was poking me after it fell out. It drove me crazy. (As far as I know, I am the only one to have this feeling on my head with the hairs. Maybe it’s my fibromyalgia, I don’t know.) After about ten days, I went in to a hair stylist and had the bulk of my hair cut off, hoping that that would help and that I would be able to tolerate it after that. That lasted, at most two days. I couldn’t stand all these crazy little pokes. So after a couple of days, I walked into the bathroom, and when I came back out, it was without hair. I buzzed it off myself. It about half killed me though. I can’t even describe to you how it feels to look at yourself in the mirror, as a woman who has had long hair almost all of her life, and pick up those clippers and raze off the remainder of your hair. It was absolutely sickening. I almost threw up. It was so awful. What was almost worst after that, was looking in the mirror and thinking, ‘Oh dear God, I look like my brother.’ To this day, it’s a shuddering thought.
I started chemo in June. I want to say I finished up the end of September. Surgery to remove the cancer, not a mastectomy, but rather a lumpectomy, (removing only the part of the breast with cancer.) with additional lymph node removal, was scheduled for the middle of October.
The day of the surgery arrived. I learned something new about myself that day. I absolutely HATE having a bunch of people show up when I am having surgery. So many people it felt like, showed up that day. Doug of course was there. But so was my biological parents, my grandparents, my sister in law, (although she was mainly in the hospital to see someone else and was just stopping by.) and our pastor. There may have been some other people, but I really don’t remember anymore. Seriously, having all of those people there, (especially my mother, who was this emotional hot wreck and mess), just made me feel like I was literally going to die and not make it through surgery. Since that day, I have been actively discouraging people from showing up at the hospital when I’m having surgery. If they want to come see me at home afterwards, that’s great. If they want to come see me if I have to stay at the hospital, fine. But if I am just going in for an in and out surgery, forget it. All I need then is the one person to drive me to the hospital and bring me home afterwards.
Now, up to this point, thankfully I hadn’t had very many surgeries in my life. And up to this point, I had always been given something to kind of knock me out or loopy at least, before being taken into the operating room. But not this time. I had never seen an operating room before in person. And I gotta tell you, I could have done without it this time too! I really don’t even remember now what it looked like. I just remember looking around that room at all of the equipment and just feeling kind of freaked out. I remember thinking something along the lines of, ‘Why am I even awake right now?! Why is this happening?’ I’m not sure that there is ever a point when any of us feel comfortable with going into an operating room, but if there is, I still haven’t gotten there. (Hopefully I won’t have to!) But there really isn’t anything quite like that first time.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up, the surgery was over and my foot HURT like nobody’s business. So, there I am, laying there is this hospital bed, after having had surgery on my left breast and foot, asking everybody why my left heel hurt. Like really bad! I was kind of foggy at the time, but I do remember asking if they had dropped me on my foot during surgery. I don’t remember how many people came along and looked at my foot, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. We never did figure it out and at some point it finally quit hurting. It was the oddest thing though. Go in for essentially breast and armpit surgery. Wake up with foot pain. Go figure.
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