February 4, 2005

I just realized that it has been awhile since I sent out an email to you guys.  I am still feeling surprisingly well, considering I still have the chemo coursing through my veins every week.   I am expecting that my surgery will be March 4, but I won't  know that for sure until everyone reviews my new MRIs.  Ray has to give the go-ahead as well.  After surgery, I will keep going with chemo for another three months.  I have still been teaching biking classes at the Y, but I will be taking a break from that for a couple weeks after surgery.

The surgery will be a mastectomy, because let's face it...with my chest size, if I have a lump removed, there really won't be much left!  Because I will have radiation after chemo is over, I can't do reconstruction until after the radiation.  Radiation changes the properties of the skin, and can cause problems with the implants.

I could enlighten you with pages and pages of information about breast surgery issues, but that would be more than you really wanted to know.  Lately I feel more like a medical researcher than a marketer/advertiser/graphics person!!  I have spend a ton of time
reading up on the issues relating to surgery and reconstruction.  The information has been mind-boggling.  I read a book last week called "Why I Wore Lipstick to my  Mastectomy," which is about a 27-year-old woman who had a mastectomy.  She was a producer for 20/20 at the time.  I have been reading an average of three books a week, thankfully not all of them cancer-related.  Anyway, I digress...this woman had a tattoo put on her reconstructed breast!  While Ray has told me that as my surgeon, he strongly insists that a tattoo is a bad idea, I still
have that idea filed in the back of my mind for next year!

After all this reading, a curious thing about people and their reactions to becoming cancer patients has me puzzled.  Barbara Delinsky wrote a book that contains stories submitted by women who have had cancer or cared for a woman who had breast cancer.   A recurrent theme is that, for many women, cancer is a huge wake-up call -- a life-changing event -- because they begin to live their lives differently.  I recently asked a couple friends about what they thought of this.  I was trying to figure out why I still feel like I am living each day the way I did before.  I was driving down the road the other day and was laughing out loud about something I was thinking about, and then here's the thought that went through my head next:
"This is so funny.  I have cancer, and I am being just as goofy as I always have been.  Is this the way I'm supposed to behaving?"  Is there a "right" way to act when you have cancer?  One of my friends told me this is happening to me because I have ALWAYS lived to have
fun, be silly, and to get the most out of each day, so I haven't needed the cancer to change that.  Maybe that makes sense.  I don't think anyone knows what kind of person they will be when they become a "cancer patient."  I certainly didn't think I would be this laid back about something like this, but.....
1. I sure am glad that I am "this type" of cancer patient, and
2. I hope none of you ever has to find out what "type" you are :-)

I suspect that over the weeks leading up to surgery that I will have only Herceptin so that my white blood cells will be numerous enough to fight potential infections (my other two chemo meds are the ones that reduce my white blood cells).  So Genie will probably not be scheduling people to bring dinner during that time.  When I have surgery, I imagine she will start up a heavier schedule for a couple weeks, then back to the way it is now when chemo starts up again.  A gigantic thank you to all of you who have the time in your busy schedules to help with these dinners.   You can't imagine the huge difference it make to us.

If there isn't any new news, I will send an update right before surgery.  If you don't hear from me, you can assume all is well!