Sunday, January 29, 2012

Six Weeks Later...And One Year Later...

It's been six weeks since my reconstruction surgery.  I'm feeling pretty good now, but it has taken the full six to recover, and I'm still not all the way there.  Just this week I have been able to pick up and carry Griffin short distances, but it does tire me out and my tummy will hurt afterward.  There is no way I can carry him in a backpack or sling, which is what I would normally do with a squirmy toddler.  But I am back to walking the girls to and from school most days, doing light household chores, and this coming week I'm even going to try returning to Zumba class.

I still can't get over my sudden flat stomach...it just amazes me that I went down two pant sizes overnight.  The weird thing is, now I kind of miss my mummy tummy, or at least the visible evidence that I carried and gave birth to four beautiful babies.  First my breasts were gone, now this...kind of feels like the physical parts of me most connected with being a mother have been erased. But mostly, despite the long scar, I am quite pleased with my new silhouette.

My new breasts are okay, soft and natural-feeling (especially compared to the expanders) although the radiated one feels a bit tight and lumpy...but they are a work-in-progress.  The left one is noticeably lower than the right, and will be lifted up a bit; the right nipple will be removed and reconstructed; and a little fat will be 'rearranged' from certain areas and used to round out the right one.  The pieces of abdominal skin that are now on my breasts, which make them look patch-work-y, will be used in the nipple recon, so afterward they will be gone and I'll just have one clean incision line...much better-looking.  All this will happen during my "nipple and tuck" surgery, on February 29.  It will be at VA Hospital Center again, but it will be a short procedure with no over-night stay and only a week recovery.  If you can, send me some positive vibes on leap day!

January 18 was my one-year-from-diagnosis anniversary.  It did not feel like a victory, as I'm sure a five-year anniversary will feel...rather, I felt very emotional, and kept reliving everything in my mind and feeling the trauma all over again.  It helped immensely to go out to lunch that day with two amazing friends, Sara and Jessica, which took my mind off things.  Nathan brought me flowers and a card to cheer me up.  But later that evening, I realized that a pain I'd been feeling in one of my vertebrae for a couple of weeks was actually worse than I thought, especially when I put pressure on it, and I suddenly decided to worry that it was a bone metastasis (I had just heard that hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer is more likely to metastasize to the bone, and the spine is one of the places it commonly does it).  I emailed my oncologist, and she had me come in the next day.  She didn't seem too worried, and advised me to try taking ibuprofen for five days to see if that made the pain go away; and she wrote me a prescription for a bone scan in case the pain was still there in two weeks.  The ibuprofen did seem to help...the pain nearly went away completely...but it is still there, so I'm keeping vigilant and will maybe schedule that scan if I still feel it at the end of this week.  It's a constant struggle...my mind is always vacillating between being sure that the cancer is going to come back, and being sure that it can't possibly happen to me.  I have a feeling the one-year anniversary of my first chemo (Feb 22) is going to be even harder to get through, as that marks the very last time I was able to nurse Griffin. 

My lovely children and wonderful husband and amazing parents are all doing well; I am a lucky woman to have had such a great family to help me during my recovery.  I'm so glad it's over!  And I couldn't have done it without everyone's help and support...thanks to all of you who brought meals, donated money, visited, called, and sent prayers and thoughts...it all means so much to me.
Love you all,
Liz