Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Welcome 2009!

As the holidays wind down and the New Year approaches I said I would stop using Pink Tulip as just my cancer blog and would start blogging about other things as well. It won’t all be personal stuff like where I went for dinner last night, my life is too boring. I’ll comment on things that tickle my fancy, issues that I think are interesting, breast cancer, my work and yes, I promise to share stories of all the adventures I have ahead of me!

I did want to say one last thing about breast cancer for those of you who will probably stop reading. Early detection is still the key to survival—this is true for all cancers but we can take charge of finding breast cancer. There are debates everywhere about the value of monthly exams, MRIs, and mammograms. First off, if you only do a breast exam every 6 months when you hear about another woman with breast cancer your chances of finding cancer are low, your chances of finding a lump are actually high. Ladies, get to know your girls! We all have lumps in our breasts, I have several cysts and benign growths in mine, once you know where they all are you can rule them out and just focus on anything new. But, if you find a lump for the first time or even after 2 years of breast exams go see a doctor. Remember, the lump that started this journey wasn’t cancer but because I went in to have it checked they found my cancer. If you chose not to do exams make sure you have regular mammograms! Again, know your girls and make sure your doctor does too. My prognosis is what it is because I took charge from the beginning. In the past 10 years the statistics for breast cancer are both saddening and fantastic. Ten years ago they predicted 1 out of 9 women would get breast cancer, today it’s 1 out 8 (that’s an increase of millions). But, the survival rate, the treatments and what they know has improved dramatically! I don’t know the new numbers since the proceedings from the most recent meetings still aren’t published but early detection is the key and the programs are helping.

If any of you ever even begin this journey after you call your significant other, parents and/or kids call me! I will talk you through the entire process, hold your hand during the biopsy if you need a hand (trust me, they can’t numb your aureole you’ll need someone to help you relax between punches), sit in the “bad waiting room” with you, ask the surgeon all the questions I forgot to ask and take you to and from the doctor. I had friends, family, strangers, and Ted to do this for me but it sometimes helps just to have someone who will sit there and can really and truly say “I know what you’re going through”.

I can’t begin to tell you all the emotions that I have associated with this journey. From the night we discovered the lump in my breast until the day of my biopsy when the radiologist said “I’m not so concerned about the first lump but I am very concerned about the second one” I really felt like this was just another false alarm and I was worrying for nothing. I kept saying it’s going to be okay, I know I’m just being a ninny and nothing is wrong. When the radiologist said what she said all I could think was not me, not now given everything that is going on in my personal life and who is going to take care of Tiger Lily. When she called me to let me know that I really did have cancer I felt like my world had finished crashing around me. One of the hardest things I had to do was to call my mother and tell her I had cancer. I can only imagine the emotions she felt. The roller coaster that was my life after the diagnosis until that day in August when my oncologist called to say no chemo was an eye opening experience into how to survive day to day. Most of you traveled that journey with me. By the time they removed the original lump in September I pretty much could have taken on anything. I am stronger than I thought possible.

I survived one hell of a summer and am ready to start living again; I have a lot of living to do too. We can only go forward, I don’t want my old life back (or the man I shared it with) and I want to experience all the things I put on hold over the years while I waited for Ted to want to share them with me. You could say I’m sort of like a butterfly that is breaking free of the bonds of her chrysalis and ready to spread her wings and fly. I will start with baby steps though……

Happy New Year

Friday, December 26, 2008

Planes, planes and more planes

So we made it home for Christmas but what an adventure getting here! We went to the airport on Monday and the first thing to greet us was a nice notice that our flight had been cancelled. After standing in line and dealing with the ticketing agents for 3 hours we finally got a flight out Tuesday morning but we were told we would have an 8 hour lay over in Pittsburgh! Needless to say, Tiger Lily wasn't happy. So, off we went, back to the house where we surprised the heck out of the house sitter.

Tuesday morning we took our short hop to Pittsburgh on a little commuter plane. Since I knew we had a long wait in Pittsburgh I let Tiger Lily wear her pjs on our flight and we didn't eat breakfast in DC. When we got to Pittsburgh and hopped on one of the moving sidewalks to find a bathroom, breakfast and look around we passed right by the "special" desk and there wasn't a line so we decided to go and ask if anyone could help us get where we wanted faster. There we met Santa Claus. He laughed and said if we didn't mind going through Las Vegas we could leave in 5 minutes and we would arrive in Phx at 1:30 that afternoon. Needless to say, we didn't get breakfast at the airport, Tiger Lily stayed in her pjs and I missed finding a bathroom until we got in the air on our way to Vegas. Tiger Lily just about yelled out "Vegas Baby" but refrained since she didn't want to scare the people sitting next to us.

We are safe and sound and happy as clams at my sister's house where we had a terrific Christmas. It's a blast to watch everyone open presents!

love, Tiger Lily and Pink Tulip

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Merry Christmas

Christmas is almost here and as usual I’m not even close to being ready. My Christmas cards will be late by the way. I did post a picture of the three of us here along with heartfelt Christmas wishes to all of you.

We will be spending Christmas with my family and enjoying the craziness that is my sister’s family (all 7 kids will be with her this year!). Tiger Lily is excited to see cousins that she hasn’t seen in almost three years!

As for news about me, well…I seem to be tolerating the tamoxifen okay so I guess it won’t be 5 years of “Is it hot in here?”. I’m now at the wait and see phase and I can hardly wait until my first mammogram so I can cross another milestone off!

Merry Christmas to everyone, may Santa bring you what you want and may you find peace.

Love to all.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Nearing the end

Well, I have reached the point where I think my journey is near the end. I am officially cancer free and 5 years from now I can be officially a survivor (personally, I consider myself a survivor already). I am now on tamoxifen long term. My surgical scars have healed nicely and I am pretty much back to normal. I guess you could say I am now just coasting to the finish line. I will have my first mammogram 5 months from now, see my oncologist once a year and the surgeon every three months for the next couple of years. The standard of care for women with my diagnosis is mammograms every 6 months for 5 years but that should change at the Breast Cancer Meeting in San Antonio this week—the new standard will be once a year with more frequent follow up after the 5 year mark. Another change that may be on the horizon is longer estrogen receptor blocking therapy especially for pre menopausal women. After 5 years I will probably switch to another blocker until I hit menopause—there is some evidence that women become refractory to the original drug over time. Of course since tamoxifen causes forced menopause I just get to go through it for a decade longer…. Not a bad trade off in the end though.

I have so many people to thank along this journey especially those who sent me their support in so many ways. Most of you know that I am not one who prays, I made a covenant with God the day Tiger Lily was born, I only pray for her and you can guess what those prayers are. In return I promised God I would never ask for anything for myself, even on my worst days I couldn’t break it and I appreciate all of you who offered their prayers for me. For all of you, I appreciate just as much the letters, emails, comments, phone calls, hugs, thoughts and the “boy this just stinks” that came my way. There is no way I could have made this trip without you. There are so many of you that I would love to name here and say thank you but I also know that this is the blogsphere and well… I have a present for each and every one of you and hopefully after the Christmas rush it’ll be finished and on it’s way to you.

The one person who I will talk about is my Tiger Lily. I could never have survived this journey without her. She is my light, my reason to keep going on the days when I wanted to give up, the first person I think of in the morning (most days because she’s crawled into bed with me during the night and I have to move her arm to turn off the alarm clock), the person who cheered the loudest with me when my radiation was done, the person who said that it’s okay mom whenever we had McDonald’s again for dinner and the last person to kiss me at the end of the day. For those of you who know her, you understand when I say that I see so much in her eyes. For those of you who haven’t met her yet—well, you never know when the wild child and I will show up.

I read through this entire blog including all the comments the other day and I’m amazed at how far I came in such a short time. I smiled, laughed at some of the silly things and remembered how scared I was that day in June when the lump that started this whole journey was found. The serendipitous part of all of this was that that lump wasn’t even cancer, but if it hadn’t been found I would have never known about the cancer until much later. Thank you.

So, where to from here? Although this is a blog about my journey to survive breast cancer I have found that blogging isn’t such a bad thing after all. I’m going to continue to blog here but when the New Year starts this will become a blog to chronicle my journey to live after surviving one hell of a summer. I will occasionally still post about my breast cancer but I’ll also blog about life in general and how I’m using my second chance. Basically, if you want to read about my boring life, well here’s your chance. If you want to stop I understand perfectly. It will be uncensored and will contain some things that not everyone will like—if I ever decide to start dating I do promise to share the funny stories and I will continue to talk about all the fun things Tiger Lily and I do. In addition, I’m going to stop moderating the comments—if they get snarky though I will remove them so be warned. This way there can be more of chance for my family to talk freely with me and each other (if they read it anyways) without me having to answer an email every time.

Finally, thank you again. Those who sent me their sincere and heartfelt wishes, I love each and every one of you. As Tiger Lily says, dream of pink tulips tonight…..

Ciao with big hugs and kisses!