Check your Ta-Tas

pink ribbons on pink surface

I know it’s the end of the October… almost. I know that it’s been awhile since I posted… but still, check your ta-tas. It’s that time of the year; it’s that time in this month. 2016 will live as a year in infamy for me. I hope that you check your ta-tas and that 2020 isn NOT a year that lives forever in your memory.

I had a scare this month. I normally get my boobs checked in August. Which is the month that I received my cancer diagnosis. But for various reasons–Covid–well that just didn’t happen. Instead, I got it this month, of all months.

And I noticed a small spot of skin change about six months ago. I decided to keep watch, in case it was just radiation damage. But about three weeks before my mammogram of my old boob was scheduled, I felt a hard lump under the spot with the skin change. Well, two things make alarm bells go off in my head. So, I asked them to check it out as well. Thank goodness my gynecologist had included additional ultrasounds and biopsies and stuff on her order. Because it allowed the radiologist to check that spot, mammogram my DIEP boob, and do an ultrasound guided biopsy. All this with just a few days. Which is AWESOME-SAUCE.

Don’t be afraid to point stuff out. Don’t be afraid to be the squeaky wheel. You might be a pain in the ass. But you will be a pain in the ass who is ALIVE.

My biopsy came back negative.

It is my wish that this is your outcome as well. But it can’t be if you don’t schedule and attend to your own ta-tas.

Breast Cancer and Other News Update

It’s been a while. I feel like it’s been an eternity. It’s been months at least. And that’s because cancer treatments kick your ass.

No, really.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but it the treatments that’ll kill ya. Seriously, the business of fighting for your life against a vicious disease is a hard battle. And I am fatigued. But I am coming out of the fog.

My hair is the shortest it’s been since I decided I wanted to be a buddhist monk at 3 or 4 and had my mom shave my head. I tried to keep it, y’all. And if my chemo had not been the worst, most dangerous and strongest chemo around- they call it the red devil, if that tells you anything- I would’ve kept most of it. As it was, I kept about 25%. It just simply looked too terrible not to shave off into a boy cut and go all Audrey Hepburn.

Cold capping works. It just doesn’t work very well if you do the chemo I did. And then if you have a semi-formal event- like a college graduation that you can’t miss because it’s your oldest child and you wouldn’t miss that shit even if you were bald on the head and hairy on the leg- that you must attend without a baseball cap. So you go and get a nice short do. And proudly wear that shit to your son’s graduation. Proud and loud, bitches. I beat cancer.

I did. For right now. Cancer always comes back. They don’t talk about that. But it comes back. What you want is for it to not come back for a really long time, like 15 years or more. But my body scans tell the docs I have no other cancer hot spots. And the chemo plus radiation treatment plan kills rogue cells which have broken off and might be roaming free.

It’s been 5 weeks post radiation. The black skin is all gone off my chest. And almost all gone off my back. Soon, I will be back to my old self. Well, without one boob. And with a wicked fucking abdomen scar. But with my life. And my brain in tact. Not that my noggin has been much help lately. Chemo brain is REAL, yo. But slowly, I am coming back.

I attended a Master Class with Alexandra Sokoloff this past weekend. It was awesome. Got my creative brain and juices flowing. And I wrote the most words I’ve written since I started this whole cancer saga.

Anyway, here’s my new do. Hopefully, my hair grows quickly. And I am so glad this whole no hair thing happened now. If this had happened back when I was younger, I think I would’ve been completely devastated. As it is now, short hair is just another thing. I’m alive. And that is all that matters.

And here’s hoping I have many more words this week. And I want to do an update on my erotic gothic thriller story. I’ve got some ideas.

Now. I need to go write. And take supplements to try and get these strands GROWING!

I Have Breast Cancer… and other tales of horror

I’ve been really remiss in taking care of my blog for the last year. Seriously, though. The last half of 2016 was mostly just trying to keep my head above water. I didn’t have the time or the energy to devote to my blog or even basic maintenance of the site in general.

That’s what a breast cancer diagnosis will do to you. Rearrange priorities. Right quick.

I’m losing my hair. I’ve lost a boob. And I’ll probably get radiation positioning at some point. The trifecta of shittiness. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Me getting the whole package. Originally, when they first told me, I was only getting the basic package- surgery and then drugs and monitoring. But once they opened me up and took a look, it was more serious than the diagnostics indicated.

Listen, go get your boobs checked out. If you catch this shit early, you too can get away with minimal treatment. But if it’s more serious, you need the deluxe package and STAT at that. But this isn’t a service announcement for awareness.

Nope. It’s just a little heads up. And to tell what I’m doing. So. I originally had a surgery set and decided to cancel at the last moment. Believe me when I tell you that the people around you get REAL concerned REAL fast when you cancel a surgery to cut cancer out of your body. But I had a good reason. I wanted less surgeries. And the way my local surgery team wanted to do things didn’t align with the way I wanted them done. Plus, I’d found a team and surgical center willing to do it the way I wanted and who did the types of reconstructive surgery I wanted. The only downside was that I had to travel to obtain access to what I think of as THE preeminent DIEP team in the country… maybe in the world.

I wanted a DIEP flap for my new boob. I didn’t want plastic or silicon or anything foreign put into my body. Cutting cancer rout of my body was and is all about getting what doesn’t belong inside me out. Why would I put something else that doesn’t belong inside me in? The DIEP flaps allowed me to use my own fat- who knew all that baby fat was going to come in handy… and no, baby fat doesn’t mean MY baby fat, but rather, my babies’ fat acquired during gestation lol- to make a new boob. Some call it a foob. Fat boob. Fake boob. Whatever you call it… it’s mine. My new boob will gain weight when I gain weight and lose weight when I lose weight. It’s warm and jiggly and soft to the touch. Not that it can feel anything, but my hands can. And my eyes can see. One day, doctors will be able to grow us a new boob just like a new heart or lung or whatever, until then? Getting the fat cut from my belly and then shaped into a boob is about the next best thing. And the docs I flew to do these routinely. In fact, this is their specialty. They do these all the time. Which is important since DIEPs are microsurgery. Sometimes, lasting seven to eight hours for one boob and eleven to twelve hours for two boobs. And you want someone who does these all day everyday. Not someone who does things occasionally. I couldn’t be happier with my new foob.

So, I had my cancer cut out with immediate reconstruction. My local team wanted me to delay reconstruction, which would’ve added another major surgery to the two I was already slated to have just because I have breast cancer and I wanted reconstruction. My away team told me they would do it at one time and add in some extra fat to guard against the damage that radiation might do to the tissue. This was the crux of the issue with my local team. They wanted me to do radiation with a place holder in my chest- basically a temporary air filled boob. Wait a while and then do reconstruction. My away team told me they would pack my boob with extra fat and tissue so if there was any damage to the skin or tissue, the extra would take the brunt of it leaving healthy tissue underneath. And one less surgery.

I took the one less surgery.

The only thing my away team couldn’t do was save my nipple. They saved all of my breast skin, however. It was just that my tumor was too close to the nipple to get clear margins when they cut it out. This makes me sad. But I’m okay with it. Now. I realize I wouldn’t be able to feel anything anyway with my old nipple. So having a new 3-D one made later isn’t going to change things too much. But my skin was spared. So I am able to have some sensation where I wouldn’t if I hadn’t spared my skin. And maybe, over time I will get more sensation. That possibility is open to me because of the type of surgery I opted to do and the fact I invited on immediate reconstruction.

Because I opted for immediate reconstruction, I was spared the psychological smackdown of not having a boob or looking at a mangled boob. Because that’s what I kept finding. Women who needed radiation who had it with the temporary expanders who looked like burn victims. I never once looked at my foob and turned away in disgust or sadness. I look at it now and see the scar running vertical- just like a normal boob job patient, not a just a cancer patient. My scar is similar to women who’ve had plastic surgery to improve their boobs. And once the nipple is placed, it will look just like them.

Not everyone will focus on mental state or status. But I think when you are fighting a disease like breast cancer having the best state of mind is necessary. Mental status being good is KEY to kicking cancer’s ass.

Which is why I’m cold-capping to try and save my hair. It’s not working so great. In that I’ve lost a LOT of my hair to chemo. But I have hair after 4 dense dose AC treatments. And from far away, it looks like I have a full head of hair. So there’s that.

If you feel my head, it’s quite apparent that I have very thin hair right now. With patches of balding. But from a few steps away, it just looks like I have thinning hair. And from some angles, it doesn’t look funny at all.

Cold- capping is a commitment. It’s unpleasant. It’s not guaranteed. It’s a pain in the ass.

But I don’t look like a cancer patient. I don’t look like I’m going through chemo. And if I can get through my 4 dense dose T treatments, I will have walked through my cancer treatments mostly on my terms. With minimal impact by cancer.

Yes, I know I will be forever a cancer patient. Always needing to be monitored. But if I can move through my treatments- surgery, chemo, radiation- on my terms, my mind and body will do well. I’ve always believed that the body supports the mind and the mind supports the body. By making the choices I’ve made, I feel integrated thus far. And I know cancer is getting it’s ass kicked!

A good mental state is the reason why I didn’t cancel my reading in Baltimore. I’m pretty sure it’ll be a good time. I might or might not have hair at my Baltimore reading… come see me if you can, but I will have all my snark. I also didn’t cancel my erotic gothic horror over at Romance on the Rocks. I did decide to do it quarterly instead of monthly, however.  And I will have met cancer on my own terms. With a foob, thinning hair, and reading ALL the smut!