Halloween - Postponed

Well, thanks to the unseasonably early snowstorm, Halloween Trick or Treating is postponed. Much of our town (luckily not us for a change) is without electricity so I think it's the right decision by the town to postpone. I hope my friends start getting their power back soon. We've gone through it, once for 4 days and we sympathize.

Last Thursday, Bill's work had a big Halloween party known as, Athenaween :-)  Bill worked from home that day and brought her to the kiddie portion in the afternoon. I had told Cassidy earlier that daddy was taking her to a party and she was so excited. Carrying her costume around the house, trying to put her tights on over her corduroys.   So... while I don't have official Halloween photos, I have a little sneak peak of Cass in her duck costume.  Which she loves.  But she won't say Quack.

I think it's winter already

I'm glad Cassidy and I played outside and got a long walk in on Friday because I'm pretty sure it's winter now :-(  It's way too early.

Bill and I had a babysitter for Cassidy last night so we could go out. It's so nice to get out without Cass.  We went to the movies and saw 50/50 which we both highly recommend. Not sure if we liked it so much because of our own fight with cancer but we really thought it was a great movie.
http://www.50-50themovie.com/

And then we went to dinner and the bushes outside the restaurant looked like:

UGH :-(  It's not even Halloween! It's too early for snow!  Cassidy's reaction upon looking out the window this morning was "OH NO!"   Yup! You called it baby!

My First Fill and all good news

Today we visited the plastic surgeon. We're going to be regulars there for awhile. We saw Abbie the physicians assistant today and she said I look amazing. A few days ago I had noticed that gravity had started to work and my boobs had moved slightly downward. Now, I'm not saying I could hold a pencil with my boob but I didn't feel like they were at my collarbones anymore. 

So I had my first fill, 80 cc's of saline in each. She chose to stop at 80 because she didn't want to push my incisions. And they are back up to my collarbones again ha ha. She said they'll settle down in a couple weeks - just in time for my second fill!  It felt fine - just everything getting much tighter again. And they are obviously bigger.  I'd say close to my normal size.  My homework is to start trying on my clothes and see if I'm happy where I'm at or how much bigger I need to go to be happy.

I think we got lots of good news. I talked to her about how I'm less than thrilled with how I look. She reassured me that implants won't be as round and they have a style of implant called high profile that might be best for me (more projection). So I'm relieved. She was going to look at my before photos to see if she thought that would give me the "old" me look. She thought it will be no problem to have my expander to implant swap surgery this calendar year so I'm all booked for surgery on December 13th!  Yippee! and OMG I've got to do my Xmas shopping before then ha ha!

Lastly, I've had something sticking out of the incision in my right armpit that has been driving me nuts. I was going to ask Lisa to cut it off Friday night but that won't be necessary because that's already been done. I told Abbie and she took a look and it was a knot of sutures sticking out so she cut it and pulled it out! Thank goodness!

I'm feeling pretty hopeful that I can be happy with the new me.

Good Pathology News

Late Monday the doctor called with the final pathology report. Lymph nodes still clear (phew!). They found a teeny tiny amount of invasive cancer; 2 millimeters or for us Americans who still don't know the metric system,  .07 inches.  TINY! They are setting me up an appointment with an oncologist as standard practice.I asked what she thought the recommendation might be and she said maybe nothing, maybe hormone therapy.  I'm happy to see the oncologist because there is still the question of my (hormonal) birth control implant which is still in my arm.  I suspect I'm going to hear a firm - remove it! but I'll wait until I hear it in person.

If you've done any on-line research on  my diagnosis there are questions on whether DCIS would ever turn invasive. Sometimes it doesn't. It was hard for me to have my entire breast removed for something that may or may not have become invasive. That teeny tiny amount of invasive cancer they found confirms that I did the right thing because my DCIS would have turned invasive.  Not that I'm the type of person to ever regret anything but... I don't ever have to second guess any of my decisions now.

I need to talk to work about when I'm going back but now I have two or three more doctors appointments (oncologist, follow-up with breast surgeon, and then maybe BC Implant removed) so I'm hoping to be able to provide work with a date by the end of this week. It just doesn't make sense to me to go back to work and then have to use my vacation time on doctors appointments.

This past weekend we went to the Franklin Park Zoo. Which we felt was a bit of a rip off since half the animals were gone. It was still a nice day to be outside and enjoying the fall day.

zebras are cool

Bill looks so happy!

None of the pictures have me in them because I still cannot hold my child.  Ten more days!

No News is probably good news

Still haven't heard from the doctor on the final pathology. I'd really like to know for sure that the darn cancer hasn't spread!  I'll be crossing my fingers that they call Monday.  On the other hand, I'm using this as an excuse not to set up a follow-up appointment with the breast surgeon, which just delays when I go back to work so that's okay :-)

I drove for the first time in two weeks this morning.  It was okay and worth it since I bought Cassidy a cute hoodie at TJ Maxx for ten bucks!

We're off to the zoo today. I wish the darn sun would come out. I'm starting to think the weather people were wrong for today.

Resting and Recuperating

Ahh the lazy days of recuperating.  yeah, I'm bored. I'm digital scrapbooking like crazy and having visitors and lots of lunches out. Which is all good and better than working but I'm just not a homebody. Especially since I'm feeling pretty good. I'm off the pain medicine and just taking Advil.

My lingering problem is sleeping. It's not comfortable to sleep on my side which is my preferred sleep position. So I'm stuck on my back every night. I have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. Right now I'm just tired but I'm gearing up for tired and cranky by the end of the week. 

So lots of friends and family have been asking me if I've gotten the final word on my lymph nodes, IE. the full pathology report.  They tell me to call the doctor. I remind them I had surgery the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. They keep telling  me to call. So I called today. I told the nurse that my family & friends are pestering me so I'm pestering her. Funnily she said that is often the case. That the patient is calm & collected and not in a rush but family and friends pester them to call and find out. Well, for all you pesterer's out there - they don't have the results yet. They will call me when they get them. They are behind due to the holiday!  As soon as I hear I will pass along the good news

Cassidy is starting to get sick and tired of Daddy and wants Mama to pick her up but... I can't for 16 more days. Bill is doing all the baths so I took some photos at bath time the other night.

She is fascinated by soap and bubbles. I hug this kid constantly and tell her I love her about a thousand times a day.  She's just the cutest, sweetest kid.

Drains out!

I had a happy day Friday! I got the drains taken out! It didn't hurt a bit and it's so nice to be able to reach over my head. I also don't have to wear the super fashionable velcro bra anymore. Thank goodness!  Though there was some issue with finding something to fit the new me.  You'd assume that the new me is smaller but that is not the case. Probably the same size but shaped differently. I have lots of questions for my next plastic surgery visit.  and I'm hoping to god that what's in  my armpits is just swelling.

We haven't done much with all the driving back and forth to the doctors.  I'm running out of pain meds so I'm starting to wean myself off them today. It's going okay and I'll be totally done Sunday night.