Monday, February 28, 2011

And I say, it's all right

Quoting lyrics from Here Comes the Sun when you live in Victoria is just stupid. It's sunny here. A lot. No need to expound on its return. And yet today I walked Stella to school and made it back without falling on my arse or collapsing like Scarlett from the horror of it all. And so continues my road to recovery, y'all.

Last night was horrific with Frances - like having a newborn. Up every two hours to soothe her for something or other. Not sure if she's sick again or what but I sent her on her merry way this morning anyhow and am now settled on my beloved sectional, alone for the first time in forever, for a little snooze before a visit from my parents.

Despite the horrible, boring mess that was the Oscars eating up two hours of my life last night (thank you, PVR, for letting me fast forward through James Franco's face and Anne Hathaway's woots), life is good.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Back on the mommy train

If there's one thing needy little kids are good for, it's getting a girl up out of her lounging capacity sooner. And while we're at it, let's add a willing husband to the mix.

On Friday I went for a car ride with Pete to take Stella and Frances to school/daycare and although we had our juice, we ended up going for breakfast to Mole downtown. If there's one thing Pete can't resist it's huevos rancheros, so I tucked my drains under my shirt and tucked into an eggs benny with pesto potatoes. In the afternoon Pete wanted to get some new jeans to fit his slimmer bod so I tagged along, shuffling and hunched a bit, but I was out, dammit!

Frances had slept well the night before so I had a burst of something, but Friday night she woke up around 4 am and wouldn't take daddy for an answer, so I hoisted my arse out of bed (I swear I'll have abs of steel after this ordeal), soothed her a bit and then spent the rest of the morning on the couch. The chestal is still stiff and numb but the Tylenol takes the edge off.

Yesterday we all went to buy Stella skates for her upcoming lessons so I hung out in a sports store for an hour while we searched for the right pair. It was lunchtime by the time we were through, so off to White Spot for a still-making-it-up-to-my-kids meal. Drains tucked in, across from the hospital so lots of strange people, good to go with my club sandwich and tomato soup.

At home Stella is being a peach. Not demanding, very helpful, pretty much a sweet to the heart. Frances is about 50/50. She's frustrated I can't pick her up or help her on to the couch or toilet or into bed and she has at least one major meltdown a day over me, but the other half of the time she proclaims her undying love of being independent and doing everything to help me and herself out. So, typical three-year old.

It's driving me crazy not to be doing more around the house. I'm picking up and folding and putting away where I can, leaving the jar twisting, salad spinning and laundry carrying to Pete. My man is striking a lovely balance between taking care of my every need and not babying me, so I'm compelled to get up and move around as much as possible to show him and everyone else that I can get over this thing in good form.

Tomorrow Pete goes back to work and I'm going to see if today goes in a way that lets me even think about walking Stella to school. I would love to. And if not, we have neighbours who I'm sure would help out. And these effing drains. I'm hoping they'll be non-draining enough today to warrant removal tomorrow. One more step toward feeling free.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Dress me up (but don't take me out just yet)

Got a solid eight hours of sleep last night and actually put on real girl clothes today - tank top and all. Quite impressed with my bad self. Back on extra-strength Tylenol and when it starts to wear off, I swear I can feel every stitch hole and flesh scoop from the surgery. I'm a bit nervous about feeling myself up too much, but definitely notice numbness, stiffness and soreness as the overriding three feelings in the chestal area. But the strangest feeling of all is glancing down and seeing my own stomach. Oh hello there, where have you been the last 20 years?

I'm not as upset about the boobage being gone as I thought I might be. When I think of the agonizing months leading up to the final decision I feel a bit foolish. Right now none of that matters. If I had had the surgery first, it might have been different, but as it is, it just feels logical - like cancer gone = boobies gone. The end.

What feels different is my commitment to wellness. I have a new body now - cancer-free and ready to be filled with juicy goodness. I ain't gonna spoil it with stupid stuff. If not for this snow I'd be taking a walk and speeding up the recovery, but for now I'll relax and scheme my way into the next several months of feeling fantastic and gearing up for the pathology in a couple of weeks. My little brain won't let the result be any less than stellar.

Does this all sound like smoke up yer ass? Cuz I swear it's how I feel right now - likely a post-surgical idiocy, but I feel it nonetheless, so will ride it as long as possible.

Today, the girls come home!! One more step back to wholeness.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The invalid

Despite having the best sparkly vampire man in the world taking care of me, I'm not fond of being an invalid.

That's right - I'm home! I spent one night in the joint and forced myself to get up and around and eat some narsty hospital food so I could get the golden key the next morning from my plastic surgeon. I feel a bit worse today now that the hardcore meds have worn off, but things are progressing. I even got back on the green juice wagon this morning and feel pretty grand about that.

Here's how it all went down...

When I went in on Monday morning, the goodbye with Pete was rather quick before I was ushered into a changeroom to become surgery girl. After a brief weigh-in and many, many final pees, I waited in a big room with a handful of other cattle. We all looked nervously at each other as our vitals were taken and we were wheeled to our individual ORs one by one.

My surgeons stopped by briefly to mark up my chest and make some last minute plans about how much skin they'd take - all rather casual compared to the nervous gut I was sporting by that point. There was a student nurse starting IVs all around, but I managed to escape her wrath when my surgical assistant decided I needed to come now, damnit! So I got my IV started directly from the anesthesiologist. In that big room, with all those decked out assistants around me (albeit fuzzy without my glasses on), I was shaking like a little girl and fairly jumped when "my breakfast" was finally pumped into me. After a few breaths on the oxygen mask, I felt the telltale full-body numb starting to creep in and I was out.

When I woke up in the same room I had started in, I was telling the nurse someone had mistaken me for a gentleman in Palm Springs and she was laughing and tsking about it. I started saying my pain was a three out of 10 but then moved to a seven when I felt a twinge.

"Let's see how the morphine feels," I said.

"No problem, Ms. McCart."

Good, baby, good.

After that I was wheeled down the hall to an overnight post-surgical area - not the burn unit as I'd been promised - but I was too tired and well-taken care of to protest. I was uncomfortable, but not in any acute pain, so over the next several hours, I received some decent pill painkillers, but no further morphine.

Pete came by at 3 pm and took care of me until visiting hours were over at 8 pm, getting me the most glorious cup of green tea, adjusting pillows and such and just generally being sparkly and wonderful. When I realized I had to pee like the dickens I knew getting up was the promised land, so after my parents had come and gone, I decided to try it out. Sitting up the first time was brutal. Huge wave of nausea, hot, cold, sweaty shivers, almost blacking out, but a few well-placed facecloths and a fish and chip tray under my chin helped it all pass. My nurse was fabulous and I finally calmed down enough to get up.

Sitting and standing up without using my arms was bizarre, and man, I wished I had done more crunches the past several months. But I made it to the bathroom, pushing my IV like an old woman and shuffling along the hallway. After that first trip, I got up again before Pete left for the night so I could change my gown, brush my teeth and wash off some of the iodine from my neck. The gown buttoning up process while trying to arrange the two fluid drains hanging off my body was a supreme lesson in patience, but Pete figured it out and I got a glimpse of my chest. Not completely flat, but a tad mangled looking. Smaller bandages than I thought, and more skin puckering. Not really concerned about all that, though. Just wanted to sleep more.

That night I slept on and off while craving red meat. The nurses woke me up occasionally to take my vitals, empty my drains and feel my chest to make sure it wasn't hard or angry red. All was fine and when the nurses weren't shocked at my low blood pressure (which is normal for me) they were pleased with my progress.

The next morning Dr. T stopped by to check out his work and declare all looked good and I could go home if I wanted. I want, I want! After another disgusting breakfast of cream of wheat matter, I dressed myself and Pete came to pick me up. My parents came by with the girls later in the afternoon and Frances had a little meltdown but it was lovely to see them and sad to see them go again.

Pete cooked me up a big steak, caesar salad, baked potato and sauteed arugula. Fucking yum. Think that replaced some of the lost red blood cells & iron. I got to bed around 9 pm and slept pretty solidly until around 3 am when I woke up with an aching back from being in one position all night and a chest that was devoid of all painkillers. Um, ouch. I hobbled to the living room, turned on the fire and popped a codeine before slipping into another sleep for a few hours, completely unaware that it was snowing like a demon outside.

We've been socked in all day, the girls stuck at my parents, and although I feel tired and uncomfortable, I'm doing my bleedin' exercises and trying to keep my mind off the pathology that awaits me in the next two weeks.

It's done. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm cancer-free. Finally. Let's start a new chapter with this thing, shall we?

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Bye bye boobies, I'm gonna miss you so

Tomorrow's T-day but I haven't scheduled the rollout of the long goodbye to my F-cups in quite the militaristic way I'm used to doing with a good comms plan. It's been a bumpy process, but I can't say I'm ultra-sad about leaving them behind in the OR tomorrow. As my chemo nurse joked with me on Friday about a pin she had given her survivor sister, "yes, they're fake, the real ones were trying to kill me!" Take my wife, please. I'll be here all week, folks.

I'm scheduled for an 8 am hack and will likely be in the joint for a couple of nights. Not ultra-stressed. I'll get through it. And with the lovely support net I have dangling under me from across this big ol' country, I feel extra-buoyed. But I miss my girls (the child-kind) already. It was stab in the heart hard to say goodbye tonight and hand them over to my ever-loving parents. These cancer separations always feel like extra-punishment, no matter how informal and breezy they seem.

I haven't burned my arsenal of bras or posed for any final nudie pics to commemorate the girls as they are. They were bloody late to arrive way back in my teens but they've fed two babies and delighted a certain sub-segment of men over the past 20 years, so go forth, dear boobies, and give yourself to science. The whole situation may be a bit of a bloody shame, but I wallow not and have never dwelled on the "why me?". Why the fuck not me?

I'll miss you, peeps, but I'll be back as soon as my hands can type!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Circle of amazeballz

Okay, I know this is the second post in a row with the word "ballz" in it, but sometimes a little testicular word play is just what a girl needs to feel a bit better. I promise to be 100% scrotum-free in future posts (or maybe 97%).

Last night the lovely ladies of a certain employment centre where I had my very first job as a writer-slash-totally unqualified job search assistant held something called a prayer circle for me. The fact that even one person thought of doing this, let along a whole circle of womenfolk, some of whom I haven't seen in eons, blows me far and away. Honestly, from my mom's telling of the event, which involved a feather, a scarf, a pair of my coral-coloured high heels and a shitload of lovely talk about me, I felt like I was talking to someone about my funeral without being dead yet. Out of body to be sure.

And the thing is, after hearing that these gals came together with so much love and support, some of whom have never met me, well... it makes me feel like this cancer would be mother fucking stupid to hang around another second. It would be totally undignified and embarrassing. Like farting when someone hugs you. I feel a bit of zen today that I haven't felt in awhile. I can do this. I can asteroid-blast my way through all this when there's so much good out there that I didn't ask for, let alone ultimately deserve.

Thank you, ladies. You've given me a gigantic virtual bear hug and I promise not to break wind and ruin the moment.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Meditating away the stress ballz

It's now T-5 days until my surgery and feeling a bit overwhelmed at the present, thank you very much.

I got a phone call today from a nurse who runs the breast health centre for the local health authority and tho she's all well-meaning and shit, her quiet little "ooh" and "aaw" responses to my recounting of chemo/radiation/the lead up to surgery made me want to kill a kitten. Pair that with a little crying moment from Stella last night "because of your cancer, mommy!" and I'm a bit on edge with the whole slicing me open, sticking four bulb grenade drains in me, sewing me up and sending me on my way dealio.

Honestly, I know the surgery is gonna hurt, gonna suck, gonna be wicked nasty. But I'm kind of okay with most of that - or at least as okay as I could be. I've got the same vision in my head carrying me through these days that I had before birthing Stella and Frances. I'm strong. I'm a fast healer. I know I'll be out of that stinky joint before you know it. I mean, yes, this is in a different league, but still. Let me have my vision.

What is giving me a major case of the stress ballz is imagining what that tissue looks like in my breast and what the pathology will reveal. These are big fucking tumours in there and I can't bloody well tell what's going on since chemo and radiation. It feels different, but I don't trust my feelings where breast changes are concerned. These are the two things I'm thinking as I get my bod all acidic with worry:

Dr. R., my surgeon (bless her blunt heart), telling me, "When I do the surgery, I don't want to see any cancer. I just want to see healthy pink flesh - otherwise it'll mean I'm cutting into the cancer cells, and I don't wanna do that."

My mom telling me that when she had her surgery (a lumpectomy), she had to go back a second time because in the pathology, Dr. R saw they had sliced through a single cancer cell and she wanted to remove a bit more tissue in my Ma's breast to ensure they removed that half-cell.

Do we need any further indication that we're dealing with a brutal disease here?

I feel good that I don't have tumour suburbs attached to any other parts of my body - I mean wicked good. Like, fuck you that that could ever happen. What I don't feel good about is that the two I have are perfectly neat and far enough away from my chest wall that the surgery will be as easy as tying off the end of a sausage. I will try to meditate on that image, but sometimes I think I'm asking too much to have such a scenario handed to me in a gift-wrapped box.

I have complete faith in my medical team and complete faith that I can make the environment inhospitable for any stray cancer cells roaming through my bloodstream, but until I get the bigger picture, I'll continue to be stressed.

Thank the fucking goddesses I have my unicorn man to rub my feet and turn on Gossip Girl or Glee when I need it.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

PS I miss you

It's more the desert heat and San Jacinto mountains shoved up against the side of the city that I miss. The low-profile, modernist buildings, the ever-ready pool and lounge chair, the baked seaweed snacks at Trader Joe's, the endless stream of interesting characters and nary a nose to wipe or a meltdown to soothe to distract me from the bliss of relaxation. Yep, miss those things, too.

Other than make the trek to L.A. to see Craig Ferguson, we did barely anything we talked about maybe doing while we were there. But it was good. The CBS Studio experience was one of those "I have no frame of reference for this experience" experience. Which in itself was awesome. Lots of jolly fake and real laughing and just feeling like an excited toddler.

We stayed at two hotels - the first, the Colony Palms, was this old-school PS haunt that was hacienda-like, downtown, ultra-loungy, posh feeling and pretty heavenly. The pool was bloody freezing, but the people-watching was superb. The second joint, the Ace, was further south on the grounds of an old Howard Johnson. It was billed as hipster and it delivered that quality in spades, but the bed was brutally futon-like and the concrete floor lost its charm after the first few minutes. The pool was fabulous and warm and the hot tub was gigantor, with another awesome backdrop of Angelinos and PS locals to observe.

These things almost made up for the fact that the people above us took two hours to depart on our last morning there, waking up at 4 am and stomping around dragging their suitcases. And that they cranked the pool stereo at 6 am the first morning. There were some good points in between these two bookends but ultimately I wouldn't recommend the place unless you're 20, need a place to stay that takes dogs and bikers and don't give a shit if your bed is uncomfortable. I'm getting to be a cranky bitch in my travelling ways.

We managed to get some fresh-pressed juice on three of the mornings we were there, but mostly I wavered between eating like a superhero (greens from the local farmer's market, etc.) and eating like I'm on vacation. There was pasta, crab cakes, coconut french toast, cinnamon buns (albeit of the gluten- and dairy-free sort but fucking fantastic), wine, a bloody mary or two, and even a full egg and bacon breakfast at the airport before coming home on Sunday, but I gained nary an lb and my radiation scorch healed like a hot damn. Just in time to get all that fresh skin hacked off on Monday. Sweet!

I also had time to talk to the man I live with. A rarity. We got out some fears about the surgery, and just generally connected in a good way so he can prepare to see me once again at my worst next week and ride it like the unicorn he is. Seriously, the man is a titan and I couldn't imagine going through the next few weeks without his ever-present loveliness. And if y'all ever need to go into the hospital, you want a man like Pete around to get you shit. You think Shirley Maclaine was a beyotch in Terms of Endearment? Nothin' on my man.

I have another moppet home today with sickness and I love her like a daughter but am hand-washing like a demon so I don't get ill in these final days before getting a tube shoved down my throat. I'm building up my empire of super-foods and other goodies and am determined to never get sick again. Yes, that is the point of all this. Fuck colds, flu, cancer and the like. I'm done with all of you.

Monday, February 14, 2011

¡hola amigos!

I'm back from the land of geriatrics, fish tacos, cacti and mid-century architectural bliss! It was hot and relaxing and I basked in the wonderfulness of my last sunny holiday with the orbus gloriolus, as they are.

I have a mountain of laundry, a to-do list for this pre-surgery week to rival my working days of yore and babies to catch up with (especially the sick one who has her finger hovering over the power button on my laptop as I type). I missed, missed, missed blogging and will pour my wretched heart out soon enough to feel good and ready for the next phase of the cancer project.

It took the desert to change me, but I am officially hatless 24/7 now - my fuzzball is there for the world to see and I couldn't be happier to rid my forehead of the woolly itch. Never mind the occasional "excuse me, gentleman" comment I get from the service industry.

'til tomorrow, chiquitas...

Friday, February 4, 2011

Bon voyage and all that shizz

I'm finally getting my arse organized today and packing like an SOB. I've been a bit of a beast the last few days (sorry children, parents, husband, letter carrier, woman in PT Cruiser wearing knitted tam going 30 km in a 50 zone). The whole "here's your surgery date" on a silver platter thing threw me for a bit of a loop. Add into that a too-long pre-op chat with my GP, who in her usual Eastern European way managed to depress me. Sprinkle a little burned flesh into the mix and voila! Carissa at her fucking worst.

But it's one day 'til I say PS I love you and the travel bug is infecting me once again. Plane rides! Pools! Reading trashy novels! Having actual conversations with my man! All too good. And I'll enjoy the dirty pillows, too, in all their lopsided and discoloured glory before I have to go all flat-chested on y'all for a time.

I'm racing to finish Crazy Sexy Diet before I leave so I can hand it over to my Ma while I'm away. It's good. Very very good. It's like this wicked aggregation of every wellness/nutrition book I've been reading over the past seven months (hell, over the past 37 years if we're going to throw yoga and the like into the mix). It's a must buy and I'm learning tons more and making little decisions about what the 2011 me will be doing as I turn each page.

As I read it and still marvel at the loveliness of the green juice, I'm reminded every moment of my peeps who have joined the juicy revolution with me, either recently or like my splendid Ma, for several months, and are stoked at how fantastic it is to drink the plant blood for breakfast every day. Seriously - much better than Cats. You'll wanna do it again and again.

I'm so proud of all of you for trying something new, giving the veg throttle a whirl and well, just being so fucking supportive it makes my little head spin. A special shout out to my parents, who aren't 20 anymore, or even 30 and have made such a dramatic change in their lives and their health over the past five years that their bloodwork would make a teenager blush. Gah... you inspire me all to shit. Love you tons and thank you for taking my troubled youth for a week while I galavant in the sun without them.

Until I return!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Control: got to have a lot

I feel a bit Kramer-like these days - all fucking over the place. And what do I do when that happens? Control. It's probably the biggest vice in my life and really, cocaine and pool boys are so much more fun.

I don't think I've always needed to be in control. I must have let my Ma change my diaper once in awhile, and yet likely all the while telling her what she was doing wrong. It might come from growing up a shy kid around adults. Maybe I thought I needed to control my emotions and everything else to avoid standing out too much as just another idiot kid. Stupid thing is, I then turned into this chick who wanted to stand out and control the gaze on me, which is pretty impossible, but when you're 18 with body parts you don't quite know what to do with yet and yet want to thoroughly flaunt, reasoning gets pretty hazy.

And now that I'm on the eve of something I have no frame of reference for - soon to be boobless for many months and worse still, waiting for the pathology report that will finally give me the biggest details I've ever had about my cancer and I can't do a bloody thing about it.

So what I don't want to do is control my kids (oops, tried to do that already this morning with Stella and her clothes), grind my teeth at night trying to work out controlling schemes (again, too late, judging by the jaw ache this morning) or overplan my PS trip. It's not that I'm an uber-cruise director when it comes to vacations. I do my research, I don't create an itinerary. But I do have that tendency - to map out all the restaurants, tours, shopping, day trips, juice bars. Putting everything in its place to compensate for the stuff that's not. So I won't do that this time.

T minus two days 'til departure and I'm not at all sure wtf we're going to do down in the hot, hot desert. I like it that way.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Just be still

My surgery date is February 21 and I feel a bit panicked.

See, I had another Herceptin injection yesterday and while I was waiting for the nurse to arrive, I was being tended to by one of the volunteers, who happened to be a monk. He was marvelling over my iPhone and said he had never felt the need for a handheld device of any sort. That even though he writes two blogs about being zen, he doesn't feel the need to check comments or email his monk friends or do anything he can't wait to do until he gets home.

"It's great for situations like this," I said. "When you're waiting around."

"When I'm waiting around, I take the opportunity to just be still," he said.

So there's me, pushing, pushing, pushing for an early surgery date. I don't want these tumours growing while I wait for a date! I want to get this shit out of me! Gimme a date, damn it!! And now I have one, less than four weeks after the end of radiation, which is a bit unheard of. So be careful what you wish for and all that stuff, because now I'm stressed.

So one week after Pete and I return from the gloriousness of the desert, mid-century stars still in our eyes, I'll be having a final tea party with my boobies to say goodbye to stretched out shirts and gaping buttons forever.

Can't we just go back to talking about juicing again? I'm comfortable with that. My Crazy Sexy Diet book just arrived and I'm super-excited to dig in, but all I want to do is play Angry Birds on my iPhone and try like stink to be still. Don't think that's what the monk had in mind.