30somethingandsearching

I started this month blogging about Breast Cancer Awareness Month and my personal experience with a breast cancer scare.  I thought the best way to close Breast Cancer Awareness Month would be in the same way.

Many of you have followed my scare and the process up until my surgery Tuesday.  Again, I thank you so much for your support and prayers.

A few people said I was brave.  If you have read my posts, you will know I was very afraid of the biopsy.

The day of the surgery, I was pretty calm until after the ductogram.  I do think that had a lot to do with being tired, hungry, thirsty, nauseous and in pain from that procedure.

I started to get emotional and then I thought about all the women that have had to go through the same thing.  I thought about all the women that had to have mastectomies.  All the women that had to go through chemotherapy and radiation.  All the women that are not so lucky as to find a problem very early.

Then I thought about the babies that were there that day.  I saw at least 4 children under the age of 1 going into surgery.  I thought about how terrified they were because they did not know or understand what was happening.

I relaxed and trusted that I would be fine.  And I was.  I am.  I still have had very little discomfort from the surgery and things seem to be healing well.

As promised, my surgeon called today with the results of the biopsy.

As she suspected, everything is fine.  It is not cancer.  It is a benign papilloma.  News that was much to the relief of my family and friends.  

Someone said she was sorry I had to go through that with it being nothing.  I am glad I had it done.  I would have continued to wonder what it was and the problem would not have ended.  It could have even grown larger. 

I won’t pretend I wasn’t afraid of the procedure or the possible results.  I won’t pretend that it was not painful and unpleasant. 

If I had known how painful it was going to be, I still would have gone through the procedure.  It could have saved my life.  If it had been cancer, it would have been so much easier to cure. 

Do not let fear stop you from saving your life.

When I was young, I hated Halloween. 

I hated it because I hate being scared.  I don’t know why people enjoy being frightened, especially intentionally. 

I never liked it.  It was made worse by my dad and sister.  They loved horror movies and haunted houses.  Since I was the youngest, I had no choice.  They dragged me to the movies and haunted houses against my will.

I was 6 when the movie “Poltergeist” came out.  They dragged me to that movie and I buried my head in my dad’s lap most of the time.  For years, I ran and leaped into bed because I was certain a clown was hiding under there ready to grab my ankles.

They dragged me to haunted houses even though I cried that I did not want to go.

It seemed the harder I cried during these things, the funnier they thought it was and the better time they had.

When I got a little older, I’d sit in the car while they went in the haunted houses.

My mom would get so angry when he dropped us off, but he would just laugh.  My mom says now that if she had known the things he took us too or the people he had around us when he took us for visits, she would have stopped it. 

When I got into High School, I didn’t hate Halloween as much.  I didn’t fear that clown under the bed so much.  I hated walking home from school on Halloween because people would egg or throw shaving cream at people, but I was lucky to avoid it.

Now, I like it but not for the fear-factor.

I love the fun aspect: the decorations, the costumes, the creative side of it.  I love fall as it is, but Halloween is just more fun to me as an adult. 

If you ever get down to New Orleans for Halloween, that is a blast!  I wish I could be there tonight!

After my post yesterday, I showered.  I was so happy to get a shower.  Not that it had been a long time, just a day, but I felt gross from the biopsy and all the probing.

I had my mom help me remove the bandage (especially being that it was wrapped around my chest) and help me wash my hair and back.  I did not want to strain my right side.

It’s kind of amazing how much I take for granted.  I am right handed and don’t even think about the strain of small tasks, like pulling the blinds.  It’s a small strain, but when you have stitches, it’s still a strain.

After I got out of the shower, I got sick.  My mom was helping to wrap me back in my bandage and I got lightheaded.  When I said it to her, I suddenly became even more lightheaded.  I had to sit down and nearly passed out. 

I was literally dripping in sweat.  I had my head between my legs to try to help with that lightheaded feeling and I was dripping down my back, chest, legs…it was dripping from my chin.  I was so clammy. 

I nearly threw up a few times.  Then it passed and I was fine again.

I had thought it was just from the heat of the shower and the mild pain in applying the bandage.  Now I realize it was also from the painkillers.  All of those things are some of the side effects.  I stopped taking the prescribed painkiller.

It made me feel weird.  One of the side effects is an altered state of mind and moving between those states of mind.  I am not really in pain, so I am taking plain Tylenol, which is the only drug I can take other than the prescribed painkillers.

While on the painkillers, I was taking them every 5 hours.  By the 4^th hour after taking the pill, I would start to feel the pain again.  It wasn’t bad, but it was like a pinching.  After I stopped taking the painkiller and took just Tylenol yesterday afternoon, I went 8 hours between and really didn’t feel pain.  I took the Tylenol at bedtime just to keep any pain away while sleeping. 

I slept really well last night.  I took Tylenol at 10:30 last night and have not taken anymore since.

I felt nauseated this morning, but I still have the painkiller in my system from 24 hours of it and all the drugs from the surgery. 

I feel pretty good so far today.

Again, I thank you all for the prayers and kind words.

I did not sleep that well last night.  I was so uncomfortable lying on my back. 

I normally sleep on my stomach or curled up on my side.  I could not curl up last night.  I had to be straight.  I did prop a pillow along my right side so that I could sleep somewhat on my left side.

My back was hurting from being straight and flat like that for that long, it was waking me up.

I fell asleep around 1:00 woke up at 3:00, was awake until 5:00 and woke up at 8:00. 

I have had very little pain in my breast, however, which is really good.  When the painkiller starts to wear off, I feel some twinges of discomfort, like a pinching, but it’s not bad at all.

I noticed last night that my right breast is swollen a bit.  I would imagine that is normal after having so much trauma to it yesterday.  In about an hour or so, I will remove the bandage and see how everything looks.  I get to take a shower later too.  Woohoo!

Today, my biggest complaints would be some stomach upset, which is from the painkiller and a bit of a sore throat, which I would guess is from sleeping on my back.  I think if I sleep on my back, my mouth ends up open.

Otherwise, I am OK.  Just tired.

I made my appointment with the doctor for my follow up for next Wednesday.  Hopefully everything heals well. 

As I said yesterday, the results of the biopsy won’t be available until Friday or Monday.  I will let you know what I find out about the results.

Thanks again for all your kind words and prayers!

Last Friday I had some pre-surgical testing, which was no big deal.  Basically, they asked a bunch of questions, I filled out the paperwork that I would have had to fill out today, had some blood drawn to check blood counts and pregnancy (no babies here any time soon), etc.

That made this morning much easier.  I did not have to fill out any paperwork and I had a map with directions of where to go in the hospital.

I got there at 7:00 am, which as I am NOT a morning person, this was a challenge for me.

We checked in at the front, they strapped my hospital bracelet on my wrist and sent me with my paperwork to Ambulatory Surgery. 

I got there and handed my paperwork to the nurse behind the counter.  She told me to have a seat and as I turned to do so, my mom and I spotted my neighbor!

He was there with his eldest son for his colonoscopy.  I laughed and said we could have carpooled.  We did not tell them the real reason I was there, we just called it a procedure.  I didn’t want to deal with that so early, especially when other than the blogosphere, only my mom, step-dad and 3 closest friends knew about it before the surgery.

They called me back to a little cubicle after a while and got me started with all the questions, an IV and changed into a gown.  I was grateful to keep my pants on because it was so cold in there.  They weighed me and then shortly after I was wheeled down to the Ductogram.

If you recall, the Ductogram was the procedure I was not nervous about.  I knew that they were going to insert a needle and inject me with a dye.  I did not, however, expect it to be torture.

I have had a tattoo and laser hair removal.  To me neither hurt.  The mammogram I had a month ago did not hurt either. 

This hurt.  On a scale of 1 – 10, the total pain for the entire process, I would say was a 6, but I have a high tolerance for pain.  The rest of the world might say it was an 8.

It did not hurt through the entire process, which was about an hour, it just hurt at times.  Let me tell you what they did. 

They sprayed a pain reducer and then sanitized the area.  The doctor squeezed the nipple to extract the discharge in order to find the duct that was affected.  She continuously tried to insert a small, blunt edge needle into the duct.  It took her about 15 tries before it went in and that smarted.

Then they taped everything to me, including the syringe so that they could continue to inject more dye.  They took about 20 images via mammogram at various angles.  At that point, it was just the typical discomfort of the paddles.  When they had to move the needle to get it out of the image toward the end that really hurt.  I don’t normally make any noise when in pain, I just cringe.  I yelped.

They took the last few images and then went to read them.  The needle had already fallen out.  I was starting to get nauseous, though.  From the pain, lack of food and water and from being tired.

They came back and declared they found an area of concern, so they put me back in the paddles, however, this one had an opening on top.  They sterilized the area and injected a local anesthetic.  They inserted 2 wires to mark the areas and then 2 other thin wires I think looked like antenna.  They then took a few more images (I think I had my breast smashed about 40 times).  They removed the antenna ones before doing these images, though. 

Finally, that was done.  They cleaned me up (there was some blood) and bandaged me.  They got me back in the wheel chair and we headed up to the little cubicle again.  My mom was with and she said I looked red in the face.  I am a pasty girl, so red is unusual.  I said I felt nauseous. 

I started to get emotional at this point.  I was hungry, extremely thirsty, tired, nauseated, my IV line was uncomfortable and I was nervous.  I knew I had to have surgery.  I did not want surgery.

I sat with my mom for a few minutes before anyone came so I was able to wipe the few tears away and calm down.  The doctor came and went over the images, signed my shoulder (apparently the wires sticking out of me were not enough to indicate which side was to be operated on) and brought in the anesthesiologist.  He was super nice.  I told him I was nauseous and he went over what he was going to do. 

The nurses came in and put my lovely green cap on and we headed down to surgery.  I wasn’t nervous at this point.  I was just tired.  I trusted it would be fine and I was ok.  I was talking to the anesthesiologist about the Kindle when I started to fade.

Next thing I knew I was being wheeled into the cubicle for recovery.  The surgery was scheduled for 10, but it was closer to 11:00, which my surgeon was not happy about.  She was obviously annoyed when they took me for the Ductogram because she kept asking them about timing.

Since it was late, I was not out of recovery until after 1:00.  I was home by 2:30. 

I’m okay right now.  I have a bandage around my breasts.  If you’ve seen someone after a boob job, that’s what I look like.  Just without the large breasts.  They gave me a prescription for painkillers.  I took 1 around 4:00 and it knocked me out for an hour.  I don’t have pain, just some discomfort.  I’m not allowed to lift anything over 15 lbs for a few days, no vacuuming (I get a cleaning reprieve - YAY) and no shower for a day (I’ll just have to stink). 

I have to sleep on my back, which is going to be difficult.  I’m a stomach or right side sleeper.  I can’t do that with my stitches.  Hopefully, the pain meds will knock me out.

I will find out Friday or Monday what the results are.  They removed a small green grape sized piece from my duct.  My surgeon said she hoped to know by Friday, but the pathology department can get overwhelmed.  She will call me then and I have to go see her in a week.

I will let you all know what I find out.  Thank you all so much for all your support, prayers and well wishes.  It really means a lot to me.

Tomorrow is the big day.  (follow up from previous posts )

I have to be at the hospital at 7:00 am to check in.  My ductogram is scheduled for 8:00 am. 

If they find anything after the ductogram, which consists of having a dye injected into my nipple and a mammogram to get a clearer image of the ducts in my breast, then I will have to have the biopsy. 

The biopsy is scheduled for 10:00 am, so I should be done and home by 1:00.

I keep praying that they don’t find anything with the ductogram so that I don’t have to have the biopsy.  I would prefer to not have surgery, of course. 

I’m getting a little nervous about it. 

I’ve been grazing all day because I can’t eat after midnight.

I just received a call from the hospital to confirm the time and give further instructions.  I am happy to know I can drink water up until 6:00 am.  They had been telling me that I can’t have any after midnight, so knowing I can have water makes me feel better.

I will blog about it tomorrow assuming I don’t have the biopsy.  If I do, it will all depend on how drugged up I am and how much pain I am in after. 

I am so happy to find that CFL light bulbs can now be recycled at any Home Depot .

I started replacing the incandescent light bulbs with CFL’s over a year ago.  Other than the strange light bulbs that are teeny tiny, all with of mine have been replaced with CFL’s.

I was most concerned with a couple of spots to start. 

The hood over my stove has 2 lights.  The button to turn them off stopped working about 2 years ago.  Therefore, the lights are always on.  We were going through a light bulb a week.  I replaced those last April (2007) and they have yet to burn out.

The second place was my step-dad’s home office.  He goes in there at 6:00 am and sometimes doesn’t come out until after midnight.  The lights are on 8 – 12 hours a day.  He did not want me to replace the regular bulbs, so while he was out one day, I snuck in and replaced them.

It was weeks before he noticed.  Now, all the bulbs in the house are replaced.  I was also happy to put them in the bathroom fixtures because those are really difficult to access.  The covers are a challenge to remove, so the less they need to be changed, the better.

Some have burned out in my step-dad’s office.  They were the larger wattage bulbs.  After I had several, I took them to Ace Hardware near my house to recycle, but they closed and I have been concerned where to take any that burn out in the future.

CFL’s MUST be recycled.  They contain trace amounts of mercury, which is harmful to the environment if put in landfills.  (If one breaks, you should follow certain steps to clean it up.)  

All you have to do is take the “expired” unbroken CFL to Home Depot, put in a plastic bag and place it in a marked orange receptacle.   

I understand IKEA is recycling them as well.

There is no excuse to not use them.  They are a bit more expensive, but you can find good deals at many home improvement stores.  You can even find coupons online.  I have also found them in Dollar Stores.

They last longer and use much less energy, which cuts your electric bill down greatly.  If it saves you money AND helps the environment, why not?

I have often heard people speak of their biggest regret or talk of things they’d do differently if they could go back.

For a long time, I felt this way too.  I would have not said that to her, or I would have put up a bigger fight with him or I would have made a different decision on that.

Then I started to feel consumed by regret.  I was being swallowed by my past.

The thing with regrets is that they are pointless.

You CAN’T change the things you have done, so let it go.  We’ve all done things we are not proud of.  Being sorry for the mistakes and possible hurt you caused is sufficient. 

Holding onto it, feeling regret for something a decade or more later does no one any good.

What I have learned is that every action in our past makes us who we are.  If you had the opportunity to go back and change something in your past, you would alter who you are now and who is in your life.  Not to mention the person you will become.

Mistakes and adversity are not bad.  Your choices and experience might have made your life or others’ lives more difficult, but they are part of life.  They teach us lessons and develop us as human beings.

This goes for all people. 

Someone might have supported a bad organization 40 years ago and believed it was good then, but realized with age, time and life lessons that it was a horrible decision.  They are sorry, but it is in the past.

Someone might have supported a policy that they thought would improve several people’s lives and protect certain freedoms, only to later realize they were wrong.  They learned and moved on.

Someone might have thought that telling a loved one they were fat and making them feel badly about themselves would help them get motivated to lose weight and be healthy.  They later realized it not only did the opposite, but hurt that person deeply and caused a rift in their relationship.

Someone might think being negative or hitting their child was an effective parenting technique, but learned later, when the damage was already done, that they were wrong. 

Someone might feel horrible about the things they did in the past and the pain they caused.

You cannot change what you have done in the past, you can only learn from it and do better.

The bathroom in the basement is finished!

Four months after the start of it all, it is finally completed.

  (Toilet, toilet paper holder)

In June, the plumbers came out to dig up the floor, lay the pipes under the floor and behind the walls, cement the floor, replace old pipes and put a gas line outside for a new grill. 

My step-dad did the rest.  He said 3 weeks.  He’s like a contractor; we have learned to interpret his time frame as 3 or 4 times as much as the quote.  Granted, it’s weekend warrior time, not daily.

(Light over sink and mirror)

What took the longest was mudding and sanding the drywall.  The framing and hanging the drywall didn’t take that long.  As his assistant, I thought that all went rather quickly, but the mudding and sanding he did on his own and he is a perfectionist.  It took weeks of doing it a little at a time.

(This is, obviously, the tile floor)

Once that was done, I did all the painting. 

(This is the shower)

Yesterday, the plumbers came to connect all the fixtures.  We now have a functioning bathroom. 

  (Sink and mirror)

We have to get towel racks and little things like that, but for the most part, it is all set.  Shower curtain and all.  I know you can’t tell from the photo, but the shower curtain liner is blue, like the walls, and comes through the square cutouts in the brown curtain. 

  (Shower curtain)

It all looks so nice! 

Now, I can get everything else cleaned and organized.  YAY!

Have you ever met someone that just breaks your heart?  Repeatedly?

I know a little girl who has broken my heart since the day she was born.  I’ve never known anyone else that can do that.

She is 12 now.

This child was born into a turbulent relationship.  Her father was a druggie at the time.  I don’t know if he was considered an addict, but I do know he chose drugs.  He was mentally abusive to my friend and after she got pregnant, he became physically abusive.

This little girl, we will call her “C,” was born into that chaos.

“C” is fortunate to have been born to a mother who realized early that it was not a situation for a child.  She took steps to get away from him and protect her daughter. 

Before she could get away, my friend was building a case to obtain an order of protection.  “C” had to witness a lot of screaming and fighting.  She was used by her father as a tool to manipulate her mother.  He held her over his head, out of her mother’s reach, while threatening to kill her and her mother.  He repeatedly threatened both of their lives.  (He is so lucky he never did any of this in front of me, I would have unleashed my wrath)

From the beginning, I knew “C” was going to have a lot of emotional issues as she got older.  How could she not?

When my friend was working to get away from him, she went back to school.  She knew she had to be able to support herself without his help.  I went with her to help her decide what she should go for.  I went with her and fought with the financial aid department when she did not know what else to say or do.  I took care of “C” while she was in classes, which were conveniently on days I was home. 

I fell head over heels for that child.  She was the first baby among all my friends and family.  Because of that alone, she was special to me.

Add all the other issues to that and she has always been in my heart.

As the years have passed, my friend got away from the father and has fought him in court repeatedly.  The laws have changed to protect the rights of the father, which in most cases I agree with, but in this case is a shame.

She has never been able to stop the courts from forcing “C” to see her father.  Even though my friend has documented cases of him drinking and driving, getting high with her present and all kinds of other causes for suspending visitation.

“C” is one of the most intelligent children I have ever known.  She is funny and beautiful and sweet.  She is a good kid and has a really impressive relationship with her mother.

My friend remarried and “C” calls her step-dad “daddy.”  She was about 4 or 5 when my friend met her husband.  “C” fell in love with him as much as her mother did.  She wanted her to marry him so he could always be her daddy.  

I don’t see “C” as much as I had thought I would back when her mom was in school.  Regardless, I love that girl so much. 

My friend tells me stories about her (and her siblings), as all moms do. 

I asked her how “C” is dealing with having to see her father, because for a long time, she hated it.  She cried because she did not want to go.

She still does not like it, but she understands that he is her dad.  She says she feels like she is the parent and he is the child.  At 12, her reading level passed his 4 years ago.  He is 39.  They don’t know what to talk about and they don’t know each other.  “C” says this. 

She likes to go sometimes because he lives with his girlfriend and her 2 kids, and they do fun things on occasion, like going to festivals.  At the same time, his girlfriend and her kids can be mean to her and expose her to things that I would not be able to handle if I were her mother.  My friend cannot get the courts to see how unhealthy and unsafe this environment is for “C.”

My friend has since had 2 more kids.  When she became pregnant with #3, “C” was upset.  My friend got the reason out of her.  “C” told her that when she married her husband, her mother stopped loving her a little.  When she had her second child, she stopped loving her even more and if there were to be a 3^rd, she was afraid she’d stop loving her more.

My friend was shocked and talked to her.  Of course she didn’t stop loving her.  She never could.

When she tells me these stories, I can just feel this child.  She is so insecure and needing more reassurance and approval than is healthy.

She breaks my heart.  I don’t think my words can convey this to you.  One of my friends reads my blog; she knows what I mean when I say I am extremely empathetic.  I mean that I feel this child’s pain.  My heart breaks because I know her pain.  No child should ever have to feel what she feels. 

She is 12.  I hope that as she gets older she can learn to deal with all of this in a healthy way.  She has a good start having a mother who talks to her about everything and whom she can talk to about anything.  I just know that she will always break my heart.