2012 sisters

And that was funny 2 Fried... 2 hands to handle a whopper - ha ha!! (14 hours ago we posted at the same time and I just read it ?? )

The July surgery group is:

Anyone having surgery in July 2012 - want to wait together? (in forum Surgery - Before,
During, and After)

Ramols just joined too.

Jpmom... enjoy our much deserved 3 day weekend.

Ramols - great news about clear scans - doing the happy dance with you.

To everyone out there - sure I've missed lots, but the brain is tired today - I hope you have a
wonderful Friday and weekend with minmal SE's and trials or tribulations.  For any of you in the heatwave I hope you get some relief, and if you still have power off, hope they get that back on for you.

DH and I are off camping with friends - first time really since chemo we are doing something ‘normal'.  

Take care everyone and chat soon.

So....I did have one other thought, not to be crude but a little Friday humor.

My PS has told me at various times, "We'll get through this.  You're doing great.  You're going to stand in the shower six months from now and think damn I look good."

So...flip side....

I have bad news.  We have to cut your balls off.  But the good news is that we can stuff them with golf balls, stretch the new skin back around them and you'll stand in the shower six months from now and think damn I look good.  You will numb as a board, they will be tight and get tighter every two weeks, you'll feel like your'e going to explode, and your emotions will run away with you....but....you'll look good! 

Morning all. Hope you're feeling well today. Cmartin - you made me laugh hysterically this morning with your balls analogy. Can you imagine? Women are for sure the sturdier of the two sexes! Your comments and those of jpmom reminded me of a chapter in this super book my sister sent me: www.offtherackbook.com. I highly recommend it. It is a fast, touching and entertaining read written by a woman who has been in our shoes. 

Today is my last day of work before surgery. 4 days and counting. Game on, cancer - I'm coming to get you! 

Wishing everyone well and small SEs. I am actually finally feeling like I am getting better, 4weeks PFC. My counts came up, and I have more energy, but not ANY stamina. Oh well, guess you can't have everything! LOL. Made an appointment with my PS to get my TE replaced and get started on reconstruction again, its been 6 months with one TE. Have a great weekend.

PinkyWI - oh my.  I hurt for your dressing removal.  Sounds like your journey is going to be a busy one but you sound strong and determined.  Hang in there.  One day at a time. 

Teeballmom Sorry you're going thru this period crap. I hope the Dr straightens it out soon. As if you haven't been thru enough already. Rant on, you deserve it that's for sure.

Soyaandpepper I hope the results are what you want to hear. I know what you mean about waiting on results-having to wait on results so you can decide on treatment is just as stressful if not more so, than hearing that you have bc. I had no idea that a bc diagnosis meant that there was always something else being thrown at us regarding treatment and decisions, etc. I naively thought if it was "caught early" we got it out, prayed it never came back and we were done with it. Silly me.

McCook lol I see you are following TE stories. I hope I haven't been scaring you. Truthfully they have been no problem for me until these last two fills and I'm sure that this tightness is just because I am at the end of my fills. As far as emotions after the surgery, I thought I would be much worse than I am. We are all so different and all handle our emotions differently. But we all do have our emotional times and this great group of women are always here to listen and comfort you as much as they can. We have all come to the realization that love our family and friends as we do, sometimes they just don't quite get it the way our online bc org friends do. But  personally, all in all I am just grateful that surgery and recon wasn't nearly as bad as what I had anticipated. The waiting was and anticipating what it would be like was not near as bad as my actual recovery. Since I had a strong family history (altho i'm brac neg) I always felt this day was coming. My mom had it at 40 and back in the 60's they really pretty much mutilated women with the Halsted mastectomy and she had no reconstruction options available. They also took out every node as well as sampled muscle tissue and other organs and routinely did a complete hysterectomy/oophrectomy throwing her into instant menopause a week later. Having gone through that with her, I feel so blessed that I could have things like a NS/ss dmx plus these silly te's that I remind myself will be replaced with squishees in a short time. I was so prepared to have a complete weepy session when  seeing my breasts for the first time, but instead I kind of chuckled because I had these little breasts that looked like two fried eggs. They took me back to my preteen days. Like I said having seen my poor mom with a cavernous, scarred chest and a weak scarred arm that she could barely lift an iron with many years ago, I felt blessed and actually thought my new ones were kind of cute. Right now they are kind of weird, lol as they are all stretched and rock hard but the new ones are on the near horizon. The inconvenience of the drains was probably the worst of it for me; no pain or anything like that- they are just a nuisance until they come out.

JPmomof3 thanks, I missed all of you! You know you are really wonder woman-between treatments, the children, working 12 hour shifts, walking, etc etc dang ! I hope you have a great 3 day weekend. As far as my MO and what he meant you are probably right. But why blood tests now and why do I have to go back a couple more times the first year (I didn't have chemo or any positive nodes or anything).I'm hoping its just to follow up on how I am doing on the arimidex. Does every MO see their patients a couple times a year ? 

Cindy LOL so true, wouldn't you love to comeback to a male doc with that! My PS is a woman so she is pretty empathetic almost to a fault.When I met with her the first time she was more concerned with my comfort and what I wanted. She was telling me my options and I was going back and forth with her on questions and she said " We should have a nice result once the implants are in and they should be much more comfortable than the tissue expanders." We went on to talk about the future with implants , like being an 80 year old that needs replacements etc. and she said "you know you could  have the implants removed if they aren't important to you at a later date and we could do a little fixing up of the skin. There is no law that says women have to have breasts after all this if you decide you don't want them for any reason." I kind of laughed because I had previously visited with a male ps that was the complete opposite; he gave me the opinion that women were breasts lol. I could never imagine him suggesting that if a woman doesn't want breasts she doesn't have to have them. Unlike the male dr, my female ps won't use pre/post surgical pictures because she said how everyones bc surgery is different to begin with, our frames are different and our healing is so different. To her, pictures can create false hopes. The male ps however was showing my hubby and I some before/after photos which were encouraging alright but there was no way I could relate to his pics. While my hubby admired his work and artistry, I couldn't help wondering while looking at his pics  if his work came with  a free membership to Jenny Craig, a fountain of youth and a tanning booth. While he does have a great reputation, he was way too much of a salesman and a "man's man" for me, plus I felt real comfortable with the one I decided on. I do have to start looking into these implants. lol I had looked at a few when I first went in and she told me I had time to decide but I guess that time is here. While I know the silicone gel is the most popular I am leaning towards the saline because I don't ever want to have to see the inside of an MRI again if I can help it. I do want to check my insurance as well because on one of the boards, someone mentioned that her ps wants the MRI on her silicone every two to three years and her insurance won't cover it  unless they "suspect" leakage.  As far as the type I know I don't want moderate either but I need to ask the difference in moderate plus and high profile. The real tofurky is right around the corner.Nothing like waiting until the last minute. lol I know what you mean about the volume size translation. I just told my ps I wanted to be close to the same size I was before bc (minus the sag-lol)but that I didn't know how to compute that. She told me just to tell her when I was happy with the size, and she would do one overfill. I told her I was putting on my old bra a couple days after each fill and kind of judging from there. She said that was a good gauge for me but she reminded me about the cleavage (or lack of it). Guess she didn't want me to keep stuffing that old bra expecting it to finally overflow and have cleavage like before, lol. She also said that the amount of cc's can be huge for a very small framed girl but small for a large framed girl so thats why she has the patient just tell her when they are approaching their "happy" size. In the meantime don't run into any sharp corners or anything-we've come so far don't want to burst now! LOL

Ramols Thats great news on your scans! That was driving me crazy trying to find out who made the bathing suit comment. I found it immediately though after you said it was you because I could just flip thru the comments with the pics of those two adorable children of yours. OMG they are precious! Anyway it is weird because i never thought about pictures telling the tale. I had guests this week and we took more pics so I am hoping they don't compare the old to the new. I didn't share my bc story with anyone but dh since we have some other serious illnesses in the group and I didnt want to divert any of the attention from them. So if they do have any of the old pics and put them beside the new pics they will think either I got a new magical wonderbra or a breast lift! They will be thinking I'm a little devil and would never expect me to be the one to get a lift. Oh to be a fly on their wall. lol It's weird though that I never realized how saggy the old were until I saw the pics. Another thing I now notice is how darts in blouses actually hit me in the right spot now.

Lisa 2012 I'm not so concerned about cleavage per say either as much as I am worried about having an unusually wide space between my breasts. I don't really wear lowcut clothes per say butat the same time I don't want to have to worry about looking strange in a tank top either because of an unnatural space between my breasts either. I was reading thru one of the other posts where the girls were discussing how much space was between their breasts and it got me thinking about it.  http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/44/topic/789026?page=1#post_3063868  I too am glad to get the cancer out of my body but having gone through all this crap I do want to try my best to be happy with the final results. You're funny, having breasts that stick out further than the stomach is definitely a bonus and a goal to shoot for!

Hey Super Tazzy its ok for you to join that July surgery group but you better not forget about us over here or we'll be jealous!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend

jpmom - glad to hear you were able to sleep and that you're getting some quality time with your little ones. Enjoy!

pinky - sorry to hear you've had some issues with your skin healing - hope it clears up. And good luck with all your appts!

2friedeggs - thanks for gushing over my boys; biased mommy that I am, I think they are the cutest ever. Thank goodness for them through all of this. They help me keep my head on straight and give me cuddles whenever I need them. Good luck wrapping up your TEs and moving onto the real deal!

jazlaumir - sorry to hear you're having some problems today. Hopefully the doc gets you all sorted out.

tazzy - hope your camping trip is a blast!

And thanks to all of you for doing a happy dance with me. It's quite a relief to know that my bc is contained and removable. Phew! 

Everyone have a great weekend. Pinky, I also have trouble with some adhesives. When I had my iv in for antibiotics, when the removed it, a layer of skin came off, I still have a scar in the shape of the tagaderm patch, well about half of it actually. Ramos, the kids are cute, you have a good reason to be proud. jazz, glad you checked in, and I hate drains too. 2 fried eggs, I hope your squishies are all you expect. I called my PS and have an appointment for a checkup to set a date for my TE replacement. jpmom, Tazzy, everyone else. Much love.

Lisa2012, I use coconut milk. I get the canned stuff or in a carton (shelf stable package) but not "So Delicious" brand because it's all watered down and added sugar, etc... I do sometimes thin the thick canned stuff with water depending what I want it for. The shelf stable one I've found is Aroy-D brand and it tends to be thinner, it's really perfect but I have to order it and have it shipped to me. MimiCreme is pretty good for some stuff, it's an almond/cashew based cream replacement for soups, coffee, etc... I can't get it locally though so I have limited experience with it.

soya, my port placement was an out-patient procedure. I went in fasting in the morning, got the IV hooked up, waited a while (they were doing a lot of tubes in ears that day) then was in and out and home by early afternoon. You are told not to lift anything over 15lbs with the arm on the side of the port. I was a little sore in my pectoral muscle for a while but nothing serious. I had a serious reaction to the iodine they scrubbed me but that is an extension of my celiac disease so is irrelevant to most people.

CMartin - LOVE your analogy. I think you should tell him but maybe after you're all done... cause jp's right, that was some dumb ass stuff that came out of his mouth.

I was in the BGC this AM with my 2nd AC. I will confess, I fasted for about 38 hours beforehand. My first AC gave me a lot of stomach pain - not nausea or heartburn, etc, just pain - and anything I ate the day of chemo or the day before is just ruined for me now so I was motivated to stay away from food. I told my MO and he was ok and seems to understand since I have celiac and have dealt with a lot of stomach and gut issues. He said if the stomach pain is bad again this time he would try an anti-spasmodic for me so e shall see. So far so good though, I have less of that though all the anti-nauseas I'm pumped with have me a little more "stoned" feeling than last time. it's about time for a nap!

I'm glad to hear of good results and not as bad as possible results. I hope we keep it up! Cheers everyone!

DH asked me earlier how I got into this thread since it seems IDC related.  I do feel sometimes that I can't share as deeply but thank you for letting me participate. 

allurbadday - "stoned" is better than pain.  Hope you are resting now and ready to eat when you wake up.

teeballmom - wish I was close enough to clean your house for you!

2fried - have you e-mailed whippetmom?  I sent her three pre surgery pics and told her what size I thought I want to me (small c) and she told me brand names and number of cc's.  I know it isn't a science but I have agreed with her after reading other posts.  I didn't know about the MRI!!  At least it's solid silicone and not what they dealt with years ago, which is now being debated as to the adverse side affects....depends who you ask!  Oh this cleavage thing...or vast space!!    I think the softness of the implant will allow them to move around more normally. 

All I know is I'm tired of boobs....or at least expanded ones today!  Where are my saggy 45's?

jaz, hope you feel better with the drain infection real soon. I worry about that a lot. I am going on day 29 wityh the drains and they're still draining a lot. My hubby saw white stuff around one of the drains but saw the doc today and he says it's all good so I don't know. I am oozing blood from the surgery scar from 29 days ago. He says the blood is just coming out any way it can since I had that craziness with the hematoma..... I HATE the drains so much. 

Have a great weekend all..... Sending healing vibrations. 

Allurbaddays, Congrats on getting another round in the BGC done.  Hope your stomach didnt bother you as much this time.  

Moonflwr, sounds like you are doing better.  One step at a time!  

I got some girly earrings at Kohls today, great sale.  My girly daughters were so happy.  I have just been wearing the little balls stud earring that they used to pierce my ears last year.  I never even wanted my ears pierce but my daughter convinced me to do it when she got her first ear piercing done.  

 I took the girls to get their hair cut today.  Jealous.  But i let my hairdresser see me topless today.  its actually the first time i have seen her since i got diagnosed.  She was actually a little miffed when I hadnt shown up in over 2 months aparently.  but my husband explained the situation when he took the kids in a few months ago.   

Gonna watch a movie with my hubby and forget about BC for a while 

 Bev49: I can't even imagine 29 days, you poor thing, the white stuff and bleeding is definitely concerning, sending you prayers for a quick healing and removal of those drains! 

Lisa: a Big Happy Birthday to you!! Enjoy your pizza with your husband, hoping that you feel better with no sadness or tears..have a great evening

Jpmomof3: Enjoy some time with your hubby as well, great memories picking out earrings with your girls, nice to have those days

Hi everyone, missed my old buddies, glad to meet the new ones. How's that for the laziest salutation ever?



I've been having trouble with post-surgical pain and drains from lumpectomy - the axillary dissection was/has been the only problem, but the meds have made me goofier than usual.



Just wanted to poke my head in and say hello, and I find these strong women running marathons and telling hysterical Friday raunchies, etc. I missed you guys, even the ones I hadn't met yet.



(OK Maddy, put the vicodin down and back away slowly. . .) Hey Jaz, did we have the same surery date? 6-22?



I have until 7-16 to meet with my ONC and instead of being nervous I've decided to simply try to watch every streamable movie on Netflix.



Hugs and peace to all of you!

Bev I had four drains and two were in for more than three weeks. Not fun! Lisa, happy birthday. Maddy enjoy your movies. jpmom, I've been going without a cap or scarf for about a week,even outside, its been freakin hot. Much love.