Support Group

Yesterday afternoon I met with the breast cancer support group that Lynnae and Carrie (my two angels from the pre-surgery days) host once a month.  The topic was nutrition, and so fitting too because I've been doing some pretty hefty research on combating hot flashes.  I was, as expected, the youngest in the group of a dozen women, and we had a great conversation about soy, ground flax seed, and a plant-based diet.  I'm pumped to try a few things and see how they affect the side effects!

Tomorrow I have one more (I won't say last this time, I might change my mind again) expansion.  I know, I know, I thought I was going to be done too. I'm liking the size I'm at right now and Dr. Heinrich wants me to over-expand so she has room to work with.  My lovely sister Rachel is chauffeuring me to my appointment and I'm excited for her to meet the wonderful staff at the clinic I go to.

Total side note: I'm super sore from 1) dancing my booty off at the wedding over the weekend and 2) playing kickball last night.  Not as ready to jump into activity as I thought :(

More later this week - this gal is exhausted!

Hot Hot Hot!

Going to make this short and sweet since I'm in a bit of pain and my head is spinning!  I had my sixth and final expansion this morning!  Woo hoooo!  So very exciting :) No more weekly appointments and days of nausea from the pain meds.  All I have to do is wait wait wait (patiently, of course) for New Boobs Day to roll around (76 days) and I'll be on my way to my new old self.

I was right about the hot flashes last week; they've officially begun.  It's been quite a hot and humid week so it's not helping, and I've been waking up 3-4 times a night overheating and uncomfortable.  I'm exhausted!  I'll try to roll over on my stomach (no way, ouch!) or side, (again, ouch) to air out my back but that hasn't been seeming to work all that well. I'm keeping on with the flax seed though; I know it'll kick in one of these days and it won't be so bad anymore.  I'm meeting with my oncologist in two weeks to check in on how the Tamoxifen is going, and I have a list of vitamins that are supposed to help the flashes that I'm going to run by him.  Until then, it's a hot child in the city!

TGIF

I've survived my first week back in the office.  Of course, it wasn't a full week there, just 3 days, but it's a start!  I also have some pretty exciting news: New Boobs Day is officially happening on Wednesday, November 6th (only 82 days!).  I can't wait to get these rock-hard, uneven, armpit-bags outta here and some pretty new softies put in.  I don't even care that I'll have to go through more pain; it'll just bring me one step closer to feeling normal again! I've been told that this surgery is much easier than the one I had in June; I won't have any overnights in the hospital and I'll be back to work in the office within days of the operation.  Awesome!  I'll have (I do already!) so much to be grateful for at Thanksgiving!

My expansion yesterday went really well - getting a needle through a bruise didn't hurt as badly as I imagined it would, and I'm slightly less sore this week than I remember being last week. The ride to WI last night went fine too.  Something's up today though; I feel nauseous and have a slight headache.  I took the same dosage of pain meds I've been taking during the last couple expansions, but I have a feeling they have something to do with how I'm feeling.  I'm considering not keeping up with them today - I'd rather deal with the pain on it's own than this sick feeling I have right now. 
 

View from the passenger seat: a hot air balloon just as we got into Wisconsin.

I also think that the hot flashes have started (of course, it's a beautiful 75 and sunny right now, so that might have something to do with it).  They're nothing terrible, but I'll get super hot and take off the tshirt or sweatshirt I'm wearing, then I'll get super cold and have to put everything back on.  It's happening maybe once an hour, and I don't think they're intense as I imagined they'd be.  If this is it, I'll totally be able to handle it for the next 5 years.  I've been adding ground flax seed (thank you Joelle!) to my food and my mother-in-law Barbie just suggested incorporating more soy into my diet to minimize the flashes.  I'm totally up for trying any natural remedies, especially if they're healthy in other aspects too!

Talk About the Little Things...

It's funny that I wrote about appreciating the little things in life just last night because this morning, I found a coconut yogurt in my fridge and was absolutely thrilled (that's what happens when you mindlessly grocery shop - you forget what you buy)!  So yummy; made my day!

Today is expansion #4 (that's right, totally skipped talking about #3 last week when I wasn't writing) and although I feel like a seasoned pro at this point, I can't decide what I'm dreading the most:

1. Knowing the PAs will stick a needle through the bruise that formed after last week's expansion, or
2. Riding in the car for 4ish hours later tonight while on pain meds.

Neither sounds awesome to me. Wish me luck!

Third Time's a Charm

I had a successful expansion yesterday in which I had 35cc's injected into each side. It's like Goldilocks - 50 was way too much, 25 not enough, but 35 was just right :) I was a little sore last night and today but tolerable, and I think tomorrow I'm going to see how it goes without any pain meds. 

I'm very excited for tomorrow: Jason and I are going to have a little adventure in Duluth! I'm scheduled to be there for a work event but that's only for a bit tomorrow night and then during the day Mon/Tues. Jason's never been so I'm pretty pumped to show him all the places I've learned to love while visiting my friend Rachel while she was in Duluth for pharmacy school. It'll be like a mini vacation, which I think we're both in desperate need of. The weather should be nice and I can't wait to see the gorgeous city. It's been too long Duluth!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Did I mention that I started work again last week?  I was (and will continue for a bit longer) working from home.  It felt great to have my brain back in use after my three weeks "off" but I found myself getting frustrated because of the workload.  It's not a heavy one to say the least - work has been great about easing me back into my duties - but I do feel overwhelmed at times, which I think, is the most frustrating part.  Before all of this, I'd be able to take on what I've got on my plate and then some without blinking an eye; now, I'm distracted and feel really slow.  I'm getting the work done, don't get me wrong, but not at the speed or quality I typically like to produce.  Crossing my fingers that this next week goes a little better!

My "home office" at the dining room table and a
big perk of working from home: catching kitty cuddle sessions :)

 

 

My second tissue expansion on Thursday was a much better experience than the first!  I still had the tight, sore feeling from the first round, but the pain I felt in my ribs was completely absent!  I sneezed once late Thursday night and felt a quick stab, but other than that, my meds did their job and it was tolerable.  Thinking about getting a little crazy this week and bumping it up from 25 to 30 cc's in each side.

We met with a reproductive endocrinologist Friday morning and since, I've been struggling to summarize our experience.  Although the man is a genius who in the past made national headlines for his work with surrogacy (in a good way), his social skills were a little off (i.e. talking to me, as in mentioning something about the age of my ovaries [28 like they're supposed to be, if you're wondering] but looking at Jason while saying it.  Odd. 

Anyway, the reason we met with him was to determine what our options are for starting a family.  Here they are, as clear-cut as I can make them:

1. We harvest, create and freeze embryos now, before I start taking the tamoxifen, and use them either when I'm off the medicine in 5.5 years (it's been suggested that we wait 3-6 months after taking it so the drug is out of my system) or implant the embryos in a surrogate at some point before then.  As you can imagine, this process is extremely expensive (like, needing to with the Powerball before doing it, expensive).
2. We look into adoption.  I wish I could write a paragraph about it, but I've honestly not started doing research on it yet so I can't!
3. We wait 5.5 years (until I'm 34.5) to try for our first child. 

I feel like an 18-year-old again, starting college and trying to foresee where I'll end up in 4-5 years. Most 18-year-olds shouldn't be able to make such major decisions about their future (I put myself in that category); they haven't "lived" enough to know what they want to do when they grow up, and this feels like a similar situation.  How are we supposed to know what's best for us in the next 5 years?  I hate hate hate that there's a time frame pushing us too; if we decide to freeze embryos, we'll need to start the process in the next couple weeks, and I feel like that kind of a decision (and finding a pot of gold) requires more time.

Needless to say, I've had some very emotional moments over the past couple days, and I think that's why I've been delaying a post.  I didn't know what to write.  The thought of waiting for so many years to have a baby is breaking my heart, especially since we were ready for that part of our lives right now.  I'm trying to have patience and generate positives about waiting but are you kidding me?  I'm the most impatient person on this Earth and waiting that long sounds like cruel and unusual punishment (for a crime that I've never committed).

Time to break out the good ole note pad and make a pros/cons list (after researching more about adoption, of course).

Reproductive Endocrinologist

Support, and Not in the Form of a Bra

I celebrated my four-week anniversary post-surgery by sharing my "close friends and family only" blog to Facebook in hopes that I could be a voice of encouragement to others who may be experiencing a similar situation.  The response has been overwhelmingly positive, encouraging, and loving, and I'm so very grateful to everyone taking the time out of their lives to read and share my story.  You are the people who add the fuel to my fire!  I've heard from a few ladies that it has motivated them to schedule an appointment they have been putting off, and hearing that makes me confident that I did the right thing by sharing my experience.  If even one person is able to catch something before it's a scary something, I'm doing my job!  It's never too early to get tested, and I'm not just talking about breast cancer either.  There's no room in life for hesitation when it comes to your health!

On a completely separate note, I just got home from having my second expansion.  Like I mentioned after last week's painful experience with 50cc's, I only did 25cc's on each side this time. I have to say, they're coming along quite nicely!  My preliminary assessment says that the right one is finally catching up to the left in terms of shape (it's been a little flatter) and my guess is that to any random, unknowing person, they wouldn't give me a second glance!  They're feeling a little tight but we'll have to wait a few hours until the pain (if it's coming) will really kick in.  That should be perfect since I have dinner plans with a few girlfriends at 7 (sarcasm font). I'll let you know how it turns out a little later!