It's not a Sprint, it's a Marathon

We have been busy the last couple weekends. My mother flew home on Feb 10th. I am so grateful to her (and my father) for giving up 3 1/2 months to come and help me take care of the house and children as I go through Chemo and also my surgery. I thank my father for agreeing to hold down the fort in New Hampshire and be without his wife for that long. Both of them made sacrifices for me and my family and I could never repay it. I think in the end Mom was getting pooped out and I don't blame her. My family requires a lot of energy but all and all she got a unique experience to really get to know my kids and how our family runs. Since I was recovering from the surgery so quickly and my next step is radiation, we felt now was the best time for her to get back to her life. Thank you again.

We also just celebrated Erin's 2nd birthday. We had a small party on Sunday and then went away for the rest of the weekend to Sonoma and Napa. I need to make a correction about Erin though, as I mentioned in my last blog entry, she is not 45 lbs., I exaggerated, she only feels that heavy. We just went to her yearly check up and she is in the 90th percentile for height and 95th percentile in weight. A chunky 38lbs but certainly not 45....=). While taking the day trip to Napa and Sonoma with the kids, Brian and realized that Valentine's weekend marked the 12 year anniversary of our first trip to California, Oregon and Washington and wine country where we first fell in love with wine and the West Coast.

Paige was part of a small Children's theatre production that came to town. They put on the "Princess and the Pea".. Paige played a "Dust Bunny" that hid under all the mattresses. It was fun for her.

Now onto the medical stuff. I have to keep reminding myself of the mantra, "It is not a Sprint, it is a marathon", but it is so hard. I am really, really sick of this whole thing. I try to be patient but we are quickly arriving at the year mark when I found the lump in my breast.

I knew the radiation was going to take 6 weeks but what I learned this week is that I have to wait almost 4-6 MONTHS before I can have my final reconstruction surgery. Also, once I start Radiation, I can't change anything as far as the expansion until I am ready for surgery. Therefore, I am basically stuck with this expander for the next 4-6 months. All the planning and pushing on myself and the DR's to finish everything before June is out the window. We have had plans for Hawaii in June for over a year. It looks like although I will be finished with the radiation, we will to go on the trip without the final look. That means tank tops and bathing suits will not look quite right. I am steaming mad over this. I understand my body needs to heal after radiation but why so many months later? We were willing to push off the trip a little bit if I was able to have the surgery sooner but I don't want to wait around for this, I don't want to put my life on hold anymore like I have for the past year. I guess I will have to suck it up, I know this might not seem like a big deal, to "suck it up", but I am really, really sick of "Sucking things up", like having to wear the wig and now this. By the way, my hair is starting to grow back, again slower than I would like but I can see a dark hairline again. Paige likes to rub it because she says it is real soft, like a baby chick. HAHA

I will back up a bit about the radiation, I figured I would need radiation after the mastectomy because the cancer had spread outside the breast tissue and even though the PET scans did not reveal any residual cancer, there COULD still be microscopic cells that later could develop. Chance are, I am cancer free but radiation is the "overkill" stratgey. I understand the need for Overkill, they want to take away any possible chance of a recurrance and they might as well do it up front because I certainly don't want to look back and wonder if I did everything I possibly could.

My Tissue Expander was "filled" for a second time on Weds and I thought I was going to die it hurt so much. It was so tight I could hardly breath in. Let's just say, when I was driving home, if I had to brake quickly and the seat belt tightened, it would probably have killed. me. It still hurts but the skin is stretching and forming over the expander. (Sorry, this is kind of embarrassing.) Anyway, I get "filled" one more time and then that is it until my surgery in several months from now. According to my DR, after final surgery, I will basically be the same size I was before children, a B cup. Sounds good to me, a nice youthful looking B cup. If all goes according to plan I start Radiation on March 2nd and finish mid April.

That's all I know now but next week I will know more.

Britt