March 22, 2004

Saw the surgeon today.  I forgot to ask for a prescription for a compression sleeve - for my long plane ride to India.  I can't seem to remember things, like my list of questions for the doctor when I go to the doctor.  He pointed to the portacath and said, "You don't need this, would you like to get it out?"  "Friday?"

: D

Highlight of my day.

March 23, 2004

I felt really bad Sunday and yesterday.  I was easily irritated, very little patience, just wanted to be left alone.  I woke up this morning thinking how early it was and how I was in for another unacceptable day.  I was wrong.  After about an hour I couldn't help but notice how really good I felt.  It's not pain that gets me.  I've been referring to it as pain, but it's more like a malaise.  It's feeling undone, but feeling undone by what are, to me, normal events and levels of activity.  I am still not physiologically over the treatments.  It's so hard to remember that.  And now I have another surgery.  While it's not a biggy, it's still anesthesia.  Still, it's like removing my last memento.

March 25, 2004

I saw my naturopath today who made suggestions for my bone density loss.  She suspects that next year the exam will be much better. 

March 27, 2004

Had the portacath removed yesterday without incident.  I was talking to a friend the other day who commented that everyone she knew (I don't know how many people that is) who had portacath placed had trouble.  She said , "They always mess it up."  I replied that my surgeon did not seem surprised.  It's a messy business, placing a subclavian - is it even worse with the portacath?  Anyway, I saw several people I knew at the surgery clinic.  A good thing.  My pre-op nurse also has had breast cancer.  She was very empathetic, not just with me but with the person on the other side of my curtain. 

I had the choice.  I could have just had a local and been more or less awake through the surgery.  Apparently that is what my surgeon thought I wanted when I told him I had hoped it could be done in his office.  HaHaHaHaHa.  I don't want to watch it.  I was "put to sleep" so that when I woke up I would have no concept of time passing and no idea of what went on in the operating room.  I was given a couple of meds by mouth, one to relax me and one to help with post-op nausea.  As I lay on my cart with the heated blanket over me and felt the relaxing med take effect I began to truly soften and review the past year.  It has been close to the bone.  My mother had illnesses and health problems her entire life.  She was not a hypochondriac, but she almost seemed to enjoy the experiences she had with the healthcare industry.  So different from me who keeps contact with physicians and medical treatment to a minimum.  The only reason I buy into wellness checkups is because I know that treatment for anything is less dramatic if caught early.  But, lying there and reviewing, not so much the events of the past year but the energy and fortitude it took, I could somewhat understand why some people find illness and its treatment interesting.  You certainly feel alive when you are fighting for your life.  And, even if the treatment is not going as you would like, you are doing and experiencing something.  Even for those people who say they felt like they were not in control and things were being done to them, it does not diminish the experience. There are so many parts of our lives that we must just tolerate and worry over, there are things we can't really do anything about, but must be concerned with nonetheless.  There are terrorist threats, there are grown children who make poor decisions, there are parents who make poor decisions, there are politicals who make poor decisions.  There are many things in our lives that all we can do is step back and pray.  We cannot feel effective in any other way.  Medical treatment, even if unsuccessful, is invasive and strikes you deep.  You have no alternative but to feel deeply.  You cannot put it aside. 

It has been a year since my diagnosis.  Thinking about this past year in that guerney, remembering, thinking about the challenges that face me now, challenges that are really much more difficult than my own health, I began to cry.  It was just a few tears, no sobbing.  But it wasn't the deepest cry I have had in a long time.  My pre-op nurse told me that she had been diagnosed before Christmas.  For years she could not stand the decorations and Christmas holidays.  She said they told her it was seasonal affective disorders.  That made me laugh out loud.  See how it's close to the bone?  You just have to make it through each day.  You have to listen to people who should know better show you they don't.  But, you must live it.  She says it took her about 5 years to enjoy those holidays again.

Color me happy.  My portacath is removed.  I have hair on my head which is quite cute.  My strength is returning (too slowly for me).  I am of the mind I am cancer free.

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