Happy Birthday to Me

It's my 1-year-old birthday, or celebration of one year of being cancer free.  I'm tired and don't feel like writing any more, but suffice it to say that I have a smile on my face. 

January is in the Rearview Mirror

Sitting at my desk clearing off papers, updating Victor's missionary blog and I see that I last made a post a month ago.

So, an update on my walk w/cancer.  Well, I've been realizing some one-year anniversaries of when I found the lump, when I first heard the word "cancer" from a radiologist...and tomorrow, Valentine's Day, when Rafael and I went to meet with my surgeon.

He's a great doctor and I do not fault him in any way, but he was the one who broke the news to me that I would be getting the "full treatment."  Ah, that hated word of chemo. 

Needless to say, that Valentine's Day was not one of the best.  We had the last appt. of the day.  R wanted to use one of his Christmas gift cards to Red Rocks close to the hospital...after all it was the Day of Love and we should eat out, right??  Well, my soul was deflated, but I put on a smile and tried my best. 

I had so many words floating through my brain as we sat and I looked at the surroundings...words like cancer, chemo, radiation, cancer, cancer, surgery, cancer, chemo, surgery, chemo, chemo, surgery, chemo, chemo....

I was fighting the tears.  I remember Rafael saying something like hang on, be tough, you can do this....  I felt more like he would be embarrassed if I fell apart there in a public setting.  I know that he cares about me, truly I do, but I wish he would have left money on table, walked me out and let me have the cry that I so desperately was fighting back. 

Men and women handle crises very differently.  Men are like buck up.  Women are like let it go.

So many nights in the quiet of the night I allow myself those tears.

So glad that the ugly month of January has passed, the month where the sun rarely shone due to the imfamous "inversion."  Per the record book, this past January was the worst for not seeing the sun in 16 years (three weeks of grayness), the snowiest month in over a decade (that's good 'cause we could always use the water), the coldest when calculating the average day temperature in nearly 60 years.  Wow, what a month.

I celebrated another birthday in January, woke up and truly felt joy that I was celebrating being around rather than, geeze another birthday, yeah (major sarcasm).  No, truly I felt joy, gladness to be around.

I struggled with depression during January, kept so much of it inside....

I think the grayness of the month didn't help.

I am very depressed about the reconstructed breast.  What was I thinking, that I would have a breast that looked and felt like my good breast?  Didn't happen.  On the last followup with the plastic surgeon, well actually the PA this time, I'm told that when I decide to do surgery on the good breast to help with the symmetry problem I have--one small firm breast, albeit distorted in shape, and one naturally droopy breast--that I can have the good breast reduced to better match the size.  Yup, just what I want to do is decrease my not-so-large-to-begin breast...dang.

Saw a podiatrist about the big toe destruction from the chemo.  I was prep'd to have her remove the remaining toenails so that they could grow back, but it looks like I will be having them removed permanently.  That pretty much takes away the fun of wearing flip-flops when you don't have a toe nail to paint...dang.

I had bronchitis for two weeks during January, so had to cancel my appt. to get my gray manly butch colored, so still living with the ugly gray...dang.

The joint soreness from the hormonal suppression, that stupid tiny white pill I take every morning, was horrible during January, the worst since initiation, perhaps because of the illness virus in my body?  My knees hurt, my hips hurt, my shoulders hurt, my fingers were stiff and hurt, my pelvic bones hurt, every joint hurt to the point where I thought I may have to consider stopping the pill if it got any worse...how can I tolerate this every day kind of hurt.  I felt like I was a 95-year-old woman.  I could hardly get up from a chair, especially if I sat for a while.  I was sooo stiff, needed a step or two to work out the stiffness.  Dang.

Getting over the cold seemed to ease up the joint pain quite a bit.  The soreness is now to a tolerable level.  Oncologist reminded last week that this, too, will go away, just give it a couple years. 

Oh yes, can't forget to mention that my Illinois Bone & Joint Institute account based out of Chicago, the account that I've had for the past couple years, the account that I really like, that account that allows me to work as I chose as long as I turn the reports in time, the account has good dictators, at least the docs in my queue (big account, lots of transcriptionists), that has worked really well for me, well it, too, is going overseas to India at the end of March...dang!!!!!!!

Good bye and good riddance January.