The Hamiltons, day to day

Grieving

I knew today was a "fake it until you make it" day.  (a quote from my wise friend Kelly Lautenbach)  I was faking it pretty well until I got to my doctor's office for my pre-op.  This is my family physician, my friend, who is different from my ob/gyn, and who didn't know about my diagnosis until the minute before he stepped in the room.  He couldn't even look at me.  He was having the emotions I was three weeks ago, and I tend to forget that this could be a surprise to people who care about me.  He said that breast cancer is the nastiest, meanest, most aggressive cancer in young women.  When I asked him if he thought I would make it through, he did not answer.  I tried so hard to fake it at that point, and I'm still trying, but it is taking every bit of my resolve to get past the fact that a physician thinks my prognosis is bad.  I was supposed to go to the Attorney General's office after that, but I couldn't.  All I wanted to do was call Melissa and have her tell me that the doctor is full of crap.  But what if he isn't?  What if he's being honest and everyone else has been full of crap?  He said that this would kill me, if not now, then in the future.  How do I process that?  I'm not one to wallow, but this is going to take some serious positive self-talk on my part to get past.

I am grieving for my former life.  The life of complaining about work, of making cards, of going places with the kids, of paying bills, of thinking about the future, all without knowing anything about cancer and all of its collateral issues.  My biggest thing was looking forward to the Dec/Jan issue of Paper Crafts, because I have a project in there about me and Steph.  I still have all of those things in my life, but not in the same way. The cloud of cancer hangs above everything.  It's so hard and I don't want it.  There, I said it.  I am having a moment of feeling sorry for myself.  So sue me.  I will get over it, I just needed a moment.

Now I'm going to put on my big girl panties and do what needs to be done.  I have always been deathly afraid of IV's and general anesthesia, to the point where I throw up a lot as soon as I get to the hospital, but guess what?  I have to do it tomorrow.  There's no going back now.  I'm getting myself a "fake it 'til you make it" tee shirt.  This is the best way I know how to make myself feel better, and that's to talk myself out of it.  And I have.  Sorry if I depressed anyone along the way.:-p

I have angels

This is what I know.

1. I have no more tumor.  Remember, they took it out.  However, there's a bunch of cancer running around in there that also needs to come out. 

2. The tumor is grade 3 - the most aggressive.  Therefore, chemo is inevitable, because no way five years from now do I want to go through this again.

3. No one knows how far it's spread.  We will know next Monday.

4. I will be cured.  Maybe only for a year, maybe for 50 years.  No one knows yet.  But on Wednesday, I'm having a partial mastectomy, so the surgeon can scrape and scrape as far as he needs to go in order to get those bad cells out.  And if he doesn't get them all, he's going back.  I'm also having a sentinel node biopsy at the same time.  If it's negative, no nodes come out.  If it's positive, more nodes come out until they are clear.  So, no more cancer.

5. I will start chemo in a couple of weeks.  My oncologist needs to know what type of tumor it is - does it need estrogen to grow? Does it need progesterone to grow?  Does it need a whole bunch of other things.  That will determine the course of chemo.  It could last 8 weeks, it could last 16 weeks.  By taking chemo, I will be poisoning myself, but it's the lesser of two evils.  I will lose my hair.  So what?  I never liked my hair anyway.  I may have radiation too, but we just don't know right now.  My oncologist will not tell me how long I'm going to live, because I will be cured at that point.  She will tell me what the chance of a recurrence is.  Most women die of recurrences, so that's what we need to be concerned with. 

6. After chemo, I will have genetic counseling.  I thought I had no family history of breast cancer.  I WAS WRONG.  The older generation apparently doesn't like to talk about this type of thing, but my paternal grandmother died of it and my paternal aunt has it.  So, to my sister Barbara, get your butt to the doctor's office NOW for a mammogram.  If I have the mutant gene, I can opt for a bilateral mastectomy and the removal of my ovaries in order to reduce recurrence. 

7. My point is that cancer is not controlling me.  Cancer doesn't tell me what to do.  It only limits some options and gives me power in different areas.  Cancer is not a death sentence.  It certainly is the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and all my life I will be looking over my shoulder for a recurrence.  But I will not let it kill me.  Anyone who knows me know that I don't do what I'm told.  Yes, I'm 38 years old and I have breast cancer.  I will not lay down and die.

Now, about angels.  Tia Bennett, freaking superstar, is going to save my life singlehandedly if she can.  Melissa Ackermann. How could I get so lucky to have someone my age who's a recent survivor and a physician to boot?  Now these two girls are complete opposites.  I vent to Tia when I want to go on and on in a vague nebulous kind of fashion about what the world means for us.  I vent to Melissa when I want medical answers and cancer jokes.  In between those two are so many others - Heather, who emails me every days with jokes; the Bagels, who showed up announced on Saturday with bagels and then took me out to lunch; Kelly Lautenbach, who called me and told me her plan for my life; Becca Sutton, who talked for an hour in my driveway; Lisa Truesdell, who accidentally told my husband the news before I did; Miley Johnson, who's just the damn funniest snarkiest person I know and who's apparently very handy with a bedazzler; my sister, who gives me straight up medical information because she's a nurse; all the people who want to nurture me and then get confused when I don't need nurturing at that moment; Christine, Kelly E. and Carla, who are very generous and you know what I mean; all the people who have shared survival stories with me; my husband's employer, who just let him off work for as long as he needs; Steph and Wendy, who I think are taking this harder than I am; and everyone else who I'm forgetting to name but who has stepped in with a word of support and encouragement.

I would not wish this upon anyone, but if I have to do it so someone else doesn't, then so be it.  Right now, I'm strong.  I'll stumble many times along the way, but I know I have my angels to pick me up.

I have breast cancer

So now I'm a statistic.  And it's not early either.  It's the invasive, fast-growing kind.  I guess everyone but me was wrong.  I was extraordinarily composed when the nurse called, because I have been preparing for this for three weeks.  Next week is the surgery consult, then the mastectomy, then the chemotherapy.  Maybe I'll get to try out a wig with straight hair.  We won't know survival rates until maybe the end of next week.  No one knows how far this cancer has spread or what kind of lymph node involvement there is, just that it's in my breast tissue, not just the lump.  It would be really nice just to chop off the breast, have some chemo and call it a day, but not so much if it's spread.  For everyone asking what they can do, the answer right now is not to leave me alone.  I'm very positive and upbeat when I'm with other people.  Not so much when I'm alone.

The nurse asked me if I had questions.  These are my questions:  How do I go on like this? Why can't the world stop until I'm better? How will this affect my kids? How do I tell Zachary? If I make jokes about it, does that mean I'm a bad person? How do I sleep at night? (Well, actually, they gave me a prescription, so that's taken care of) Will I be there for Bailey's first day of school? How will I afford the medical bills? How will I afford to take time off work? How do I stop thinking about this? Will I ever be happy again? Why can't my children have a healthy mom?

My friend Shannon said that it's a minute by minute challenge to survive emotionally right now.  So that's what I'm doing.  I'm taking it minute by minute.  Some minutes are good, and some minutes are bad.  But at least I'm here.

I have two choices: Let it beat me down, or step up and fight for my survival.  So there really is no choice, is there?

Biopsies and lawyer jokes

Can I just say that my biopsy hurt less than my flu shot?  Big plug for my doctor's office - they have the best, newest equipment - so new that I had to call Blue Cross to make sure they covered it, because they are only two such machines in Nebraska.  Why would I have this done at one of the hospitals when my doctor's office has an entire building dedicated to breast care?  I got there at 8:00, it was over by 9:00, and I was at work doing a hearing at 10:00.  The surgeon, who was the same guy who took my gallbladder out four years ago, told me that he was going to "go for it" and try to take the lump out.  And so he did.  I watched the whole thing on the ultrasound screen.  It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.  Then he said that it would be unusual for this presentation to be cancer.  Hope has now invaded my thought process, for the first time in almost three weeks.  Tomorrow afternoon, this whole thing should be over.

I've been stomping up and down the halls at work, complaining about our new civilian code of conduct, which requires us to tell the whole truth all the time.  I'm a lawyer, I shout - how can I do my job if I'm expected to tell the truth?!  See, I make up my own lawyer jokes. 

Steph's visit

So my friend Stephanie and her family traveled to Nebraska from Indiana this weekend.  Tom and Andrew went to the Nebraska - Texas game, which might I say was verrry close and Tom is just that lucky that Texas won.  But I digress.  Steph's family couldn't find a reasonably priced hotel room in all of Lincoln due to the aforementioned game, so they stayed at the Lied Lodge in Nebraska City.  The kids and I went to spend Saturday with them, and it was freeeeeezing cold!  But we were pioneers and braved the weather to hang out at Arbor Day Farm for a while.  Then all six of us piled into the Taurus and drove through Burger King.  Can I just say that six people don't necessary fit into a Taurus, and that six people in a Taurus scare the heck out of the BK workers?  We went back to the hotel and let the kids swim in the hot tub, the pool, and the baby pool.  Bailey pretty much toddled around in her swim diaper and picked leaves off of trees, but the other kids swam like there was no tomorrow.  Then the kids and I headed home, and Steph came to visit with us later that evening.  You'd think we talked about scrapping, but oh no - we had a very lengthy discussion about law.  I'm telling you, it's a true friend with which you can talk about whether the period after the "id" is italicized and whether the Blue Book citation style trumps Strunk & White.  Which is does, by the way. 

In any event, Zach is in love with Steph and her girls.  They are apparently his new best friends.  He and Elizabeth got on perfectly, and Emily was a mother hen to Bailey.  Kids being kids, there was a lot of talk about butts and pigs and the like, but all in all, they got along famously.  Steph and I had about nine hours of chat time, and that still wasn't enough!  Now I've got Wendy wanting me to come to Chicago.  My dear Biscuit, you know I will find a free weekend. :-)  I'll just end by saying that friends are valuable commodities and that all of my pictures of this weekend are crap but that's okay, because we weren't thinking about our cameras. 

I'll let you can see the picture of me in my antlers on Steph's blog.

(Biopsy tomorrow and results on Friday.  I'm not sure when I will be able to post.  Thanks for checking in and for thinking of me.)

I can't contain myself

I am absolutely hysterical over the Cropadile:

I have not been this psyched over a new product since the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  It punches through everything!

I know, you were hoping for a Steph visit update.  However, Zach's got my camera, so as soon as I wrestle it away from him, I'll post something.  Suffice it to say, Zach wants Steph to live here.  Don't we all.

Steph's coming!

Holy moly, Steph's coming from Indiana!  I credit this entire trip to her husband, Tom, who wants to go to the Nebraska - Texas game on Saturday.  The need for a good college football game can be a very powerful thing indeed.

Still Waiting

The good news is that the microcalcifications look benign, so I only need one biopsy.  I have to have a mammogram every six months for the foreseeable future so they can count the calcifications.  The bad news is that the biopsy's not until the 25th.  The lump is officially "suspicious".  And, if it's benign, it's too large to remove.  Of course, I want it to be benign, but I have the feeling I'm going to be poking at it constantly.  Like I'm not already. :-p  Anyway, I appreciate all of the comments and emails.  It certainly does help.  Going to work did wonders for my perspective, as did talking to the nurses at the doctor's office and being referred to the Mayo Clinic website.  That thing is so darn reassuring, I can't even tell you.  So we wait. 

And while we wait, I want to encourage everyone to buy one of these adorable little Kits for a Cause.  October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the Enthusiast Media publications (Creating Keepsakes, Simple Scrapbooks, and Paper Crafts) are banding together to raise $100,000 for breast cancer research.  Here is Ali's album made from the kit, and here is Jessica Sprague's. 

While I'm on my public service announcement, I want to encourage every woman aged 35 - 39 to get a baseline mammogram.  Obviously, at age 40, you should be getting regular mammograms, but if you don't have a baseline, the radiologists have nothing to compare.  That's one of the reasons my care is so aggressive - I didn't have a baseline mammogram.  I kept putting it off.  If I had one, maybe it would have shown the beginnings of the microcalcifications, so that when they saw them again, they would have know that they were benign.  Maybe the lump would have appeared in its smallest stage, before I could feel it.  See what I'm getting at?  Admittedly, the mammogram machine is a torturous device obviously invented by a man; however, I would rather go through that a hundred times then what I'm going through now.  Give it some thought.

In other news, we had Zach's parent-teacher conference on Tuesday, and he's progressing just as he should.  Kindergarten is amazing.  I can't believe they're learning to read, add, and subtract already.  All we did in kindergarten was learn the alphabet.  We made donuts for the letter "d".  That's honestly the only part I remember, probably because the donuts were super good.  I love being part of the school community.  I drive Zach to school every morning, so I always get to chat with the principal and program specialist.  They stand out there until the last kid is in.  Always good to make friends with the people in charge. ;-)

Went to dinner last night with Miley and Kelly for Kelly's birthday, and then Lisa was able to join us a little later.  It did so much good for me to be laughing hysterically at Miley in the bathroom because her stall door was missing.  I love those girls.  I love it that if I have a malignancy, we're getting pink satin jackets.

Waiting for a diagnosis

Do I have breast cancer or not?  That's all I want to know.

How to slowly go insane:

1.  Find lump on Saturday.

2.  Wait two days before appointment because of the whole Saturday thing.

3.  Get on internet and research breast lumps.  Freak out.

4.  Cry a lot and wonder how your children will be happy without a mother.

5.  Have exam.

6.  Have mammogram.

7.  Have ultrasound.  Results promised in 24 hours.

8.  Wait for results.  Research some more.  Feel better.  Feel worse.

9.  No results, except that lump is not harmless cyst.  Instead, must go back for second mammogram because radiologist saw not just lump, but microcalcifications as well.  Biopsy ordered for lump, but can't schedule until after second mammogram. 

10.  Tomorrow - second mammogram.

11.  Thursday - results regarding microcalcifications.  Maybe nothing, maybe need biopsy on them as well.

12.  Next Wednesday - biopsy for lump.  Maybe biopsy for microcalcifications.

13.  Next Friday - final results?

14.  Try to go about life as if everything is normal.

I AM GOING MAD.

It's not just for boys

Bailey likes to play baseball too.

And this one I'm throwing in just because she's cute. ;-)