Wigs and Things

I started off day 7 post-diagnosis feeling more like a miserable cow than a breast cancer warrior. And really...can you blame me? Between weaning Sawyer, him gnawing ravenously at my chest and refusing to drink from a bottle, me having to stay up all night feeding him milk drop by drop like a motherless kitten, pumping out 12 ounces of milk no longer fit for human consumption (thanks, MRI dye!) and the endless barrage of tests and procedures this week as I prep for chemo (oh, yeah...CHEMO...the elephant in the room), I was just feeling totally defeated. And, well...miserable. Then somewhere between getting my car serviced and going for my echocardiogram, a generous friend provided Reiki for me. Game changer! I felt waves of warmth over me, literally washing away the negativity and covering me in positive energy. I liken it to being covered in sand at the beach and the ocean waves washing it away. I felt sooooo much better. Later that day, I was making small talk with the

Today I nursed my baby for the last time. This day has come for me before. Twice. But on those occasions, it was on mine and my baby's terms. Not cancer's. I think that is what makes it all the more harder; it is the first thing cancer is taking from me. Soon it will be my hair. My energy. Possibly my breasts. And, ever looming, the ominous threat of my life. Even 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, I will always wonder if it has come back for me. And I cannot handle it. Breastfeeding means a lot to me. I love tummy to tummy, putting my baby in milk comas, him holding my finger in his little hand. I love all of *our* quirky, nursy things that we do. I love wearing him in a carrier close to me where he can just nurse and fall asleep to the sound of my heart. I love when he wakes up in the middle of night and just nurses back to sleep in my arms. No bottles. No formula. No water. No pacifier. Just us. We are enough for each other. Until I became a breast cancer warrio

"Well, these days they are doing all kinds of neat stuff with wigs and things."-my breast surgeon, on the day she told us that I have breast cancer; Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, Stage II b, grade 3. If it were up to me, I would open a cool little shop called "Wigs and Things", where other "cool" cancer patients like myself could shop for wigs in fun colors and styles, as well as other "things", like rockabilly hair turbans and beanie hats. We would have take a break from wig shopping to rest our achy bodies at lace-covered tables adorned with daisies in little jars and help ourselves to lemon tea in pretty tea cups and warm, fresh from the oven ginger cookies on flowery china plates as Johnny Cash hummed in the background, forgetting all about the nausea and fatigue plauging us. Yes, Wigs and Things is a magical place! Too bad it isn't real. My experience thus far; not so magical. The wigs I like are more like Halloween costume acce