Surgery is imminent

Well, first off I feel like I should acknowledge the fact that it's been a ridiculously long time since my last post, so let me catch you up...

Almost three months ago, I had just had my first Taxol treatment and thought it was going to be cake!  Well, that was wrong.  Very wrong.  Taxol was very different than AC (Adriamycin and Cytoxan), but really just as bad.  Instead of feeling exhausted and generally awful, I was a little tired and had horrible muscle pain, mostly in my legs.  It was painful.  Really, really painful.  But at least I didn't have any nausea, so there is that.  And the few hairs I had left all fell out, including my eyebrows and eyelashes.  So for about the last two months, I've officially looked like a cancer patient.  Which I guess makes sense since that's what I am.

I had my last chemo treatment on May 27, and finally started feeling better in mid- to late-June.  The bottom line is that chemo is awful.  That's probably not a surprise to anyone, but actually living through it is very different from just intellectually knowing that it will be awful.  It was four months of my life basically feeling completely horrible about 90% of the time.  But it's over now, and according to my oncologist, I should feel back to the way I did before chemo by the end of September.  That's right, it takes about four months to completely recover.  Of course, he also said that my hair would be about a half inch long by now, and it's only about half a millimeter long, so I'm not sure if I should believe him or not.

So enough about chemo.  Aris, Calla, and I have managed to have some good times and make some good memories despite all the crap during the past three months.  We had a nice picnic on Skyline Drive on Memorial Day, went to Virginia Beach for a long weekend a few weeks ago, and met my mom, stepfather, aunt, and uncle for a Fourth of July picnic.  Calla seems to be doing well despite all of this, thank goodness.  

So, the real reason I decided I should break my radio silence and finally write a new blog post is because tomorrow is the big surgery day.  I have decided to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction.  Technically, it's a modified radical mastectomy on the left side and a total mastectomy on the right side.  One surgeon does that part, and then the plastic surgeon puts in implants.  Oh, and they will be removing my nipples.  So that will take some getting used to.  Each part of the surgery is supposed to take 2.5 hours, so it will be about 5 hours for the whole surgery.  My surgery was originally scheduled for 7:30AM tomorrow, but I got a call tonight that it was pushed back to 11:30AM.  I'm supposed to be in the hospital for two nights.  Then when I come home, I will have drains coming out of my boobs.  Fun stuff!  My wonderful husband gets to empty the drains for me.  

I will probably be out of work for about four weeks, which means that I should get back just in time for RA training.  So I've been trying to get a summer's worth of work done in a month and a half.  I think I accomplished this, but we will see.  Once again, I am so, so appreciative for my amazing staff.  We've been short-staffed since February, and they have been so amazing this entire time!

Also, thank you to my husband, mom, sister, in-laws, co-workers, family, friends, and everyone else who has wished me well and helped me so much during this whole thing.  If I'm being honest, I am really dreading this surgery.  Part of me just wants to have it over with, but I know it's going to SUCK.  Oh well, just the surgery and then probably six weeks of radiation to go, and then hopefully I will be cancer-free!