Wigs and Things

When I first got diagnosed with breast cancer, I read a piece entitled, ''The Perks of Having Cancer.'' The perks of having WHAT? Seriously? There are no perks... Not now. Not ever. One of the ''perks'' which stuck out in my mind was how you learn who your true family and friends are. Three months in to this nightmare, I have found this resonating with me significantly. I have not heard from certain family members. It took eight days after my diagnosis for me to speak to my own mother, and that was only because I called her to inform her I was starting chemotherapy the following day. ''Oh, I didn't know you were starting so soon.'' Really? Initially I received a card from my mother and another from my brother. My brother also sent me a text message about two months later. I responded, he did not. That was it. In three months of being diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, I received one card and a text messa...

Great news! I had my last dance with the Red Devil (adriamycin/cyoxan) four weeks ago. After four intense rounds, I really didn't think I was going to make it through. That's the reality, it was rough. But, I did. I survived it. And do you know what the best part is? It worked! The Red Devil worked. My 3 cm. tumor is no longer palpable and the ultrasound showed it has withered away to nothing except a bit of tissue around the biopsy marker. So if you are reading this and thinking there is no way you will survive it, trust me, you will. Here are some things which helped me-tremendously: - Ginger ale and crackers. This was all I could consume for the first few days afterward. - Sancuso patch. Sancuso patch. Sancuso patch. Did I mention the Sancuso patch? It is a miracle! This helped with my nausea more than anything and allowed me to function for the sake of my family; I could drive my children to school and care for my baby without feeling sick. - By three days post-chem...

Today is Wednesday, the day of my CT and bone scans and surgical port placement to receive chemo tomorrow. I weaned Sawyer on Monday morning before my MRI, since I wouldn't be able to nurse for 24 hours due to the contrast dye. Monday night was brutal for us both. Tuesday night was better. Sawyer even drank a bottle for me and fell asleep doing so holding on to my finger! The early morning hours of Wednesday soon snuck up on us, and Sawyer ended up sleeping between  us in our bed. I was going to wake up before we had to leave for the hospital to pump the last batch of  'good' milk for my sweet baby. After today, every bit I pump until my supply fades away will be useless to him. Around the same time Sawyer woke up, when I normally I would have just nursed him, I had woken up with sore, full breasts. They were still on their schedule to feed. Sawyer was still on his schedule to nurse. Hmm...what to do? I was about to make him a bottle and then pump. We went ...

I always thought that when I would experience Portland, it would be of the Oregon variety. Maine, even. Certainly not a chemo port. But, here I am, in the most precarious of situations, having a port surgically placed in my chest to start receiving chemotherapy tomorrow. As my wise friend M.K. once said, ''Sometimes when life hands you a shit sandwich, you just have to eat it.'' I guess this is, essentially, me taking the first bite of the shit sandwich that is breast cancer. A port is a small plastic entry point surgically placed under the skin to the opposite side of where the cancer is. It is where the chemo is administered. For me, this will happen every other Thursday, for 8 rounds, over 16 weeks. The procedure was performed by a vascular surgeon, and it only took 30 minutes. I slept the whole time. They gave me hydrocodone, which I later took at home and made a quick, eh...reappearance. Thankfully, I haven't needed any more pain meds and it ha...

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...