Rex Manning Day

I had to look up what Rex Manning Day was.  Even now I'm not sure I get it.

Anyway, today was Rex Manning Day, or as our doctors like to call it, Bilateral Mastectomy With A Side of Lymph Node Survey Day.

The lymph node survey came back clean.  This means that cancer had not worked its way into the lymphatic system.  That's good news.

Becky is in her room dozing on and off.  She's a little sore but that's to be expected.  The nurse is here now with some pain meds.  It's always good when somebody arrives bearing narcotics, isn't it?

If all goes according to plan we'll be back home tomorrow.

What's Happening to Me?

When I was a kid my friends and I used to read the classic coming of age books, “Where Did I Come From?” and “What’s Happening to Me?”.  Strangely,  I don’t remember the part about getting your breasts removed at 35. That’s probably because I was so focused on the hilarious pictures of naked people from the 70s.

Tomorrow is D-Day, or B-Day or M-Day, or Rex Manning Day.  Many of you have questions about what exactly will happen during the surgery.  If you do not want to know the details, then you should leave now.  Go find some videos that involve kittens and babies, preferably together. Then send the link to me. 

Tomorrow, I will have a bilateral (double) mastectomy. First, the plastic surgeon will make an incision. Next, the breast surgeon will remove all of the breast tissue. She will also take a sample from my lymph nodes.  If cancer is detected in the nodes, they will remove them.  Next, the plastic surgeon will insert temporary breast implants, also called expanders. Then it’s time to close up shop and send me to recovery.

If all goes well, the surgery should take less than 5 hours.  I will be in the hospital over night and home the next day.  Recovery should take between one and three weeks.

Over the next several months I will have a series of injections that will expand the temporary implants.  If my doctors determine I need chemotherapy, that will began after I have recovered from my surgery.  Chemo will last about 18-20 weeks, with a dose every three weeks.  When my treatments are concluded, I will receive permanent breast implants, not something I ever expected to say. 

I hope that clears everything up.  If you have any other questions, use google. That’s what the internet is for, Dummy.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words, love and support.  It has kept me well distracted, which has been invaluable.  I love you all.  Well, not all of you. Some of you I’ve never met.  But I’m sure if we did meet, we’d get along and maybe some day I would grow to love you.

Send your prayers, thoughts and ritual sacrifices starting around 10 AM tomorrow. 

 

Next time… J will post here and on facebook when I am out of surgery and in recovery.

The Bullshit of All Bullshits

Since my last post I've spent some time exploring the anger stage.  The other night, while slicing some vegetables, I felt so angry I stabbed the cutting board.  It was a cheap knife and a plastic cutting board, so the impact was minimal but it felt very dramatic and satisfying. 

Borrowed from the cinematic masterpiece, 40 Year Old Virgin "the bullshit of all bullshits” is a common expression in our home. Jason and I use it to express outrage at extreme injustice. For example, when you get your car back from a week at the dealership and the check engine light immediately comes back on. Or when you’re three feet from the finish line, and someone hits you with a blue shell, and Baby Peach goes tearing past for the win.  

I have decided that this breast cancer situation is the ultimate bullshit of all bullshits.  Not my case in particular, but breast cancer in general. 

The odds were against my family from the start. Approximately 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.It turns out that my mom, sister, both my aunts and I, are all women. However, it’s not just about my family. This issue affects us all. Every one of you is either yourself a woman or has, at some point, met one.  

This epidemic forces too many of us to face terrible options. No woman should have to choose between her life and her nipples. Take my case: I knew I was BRCA+, so my doctor recommended a preemptive double mastectomy. When we found out I had cancer he recommended...a double mastectomy.  That's right, our best option for preventing is the same thing as the treatment. What exactly were we preempting?  

To make it clearer to the menfolk, I will phrase it as a multiple choice question

Would you rather...

A) have your breasts removed 
     have at least some of your lymph nodes removed 

     lose your nipples (in most cases)

     never be able to breast feed

     lose all feeling in your breasts

     have permanent scars 
     be intentionally poisoned
     lose your hair
     have your skin turn grey
     live with weakened bones
     have hot flashes, just part of going through early menopause
     forget everything, sometimes half way through a sentence
     breakout like a teenager who uses Crisco as a facial mask
     experience pain...so much pain
     have everyone look at you with the sympathetic pity smile
     experience soul crushing exhaustion
     not have to worry about calories but everything tastes horrible
     spend the rest of your life hearing stories from people about the women they know who        died of breast cancer
     be marked up like a treasure map for radiation
     face a painful series of reconstructive surgeries, or worse, not even have that choice

OR

B) DIE?

These choices are total bullshit. The Breast Cancer Industry needs to get its head in the game.

Some charities and businesses are making a killing off breast cancer.  Literally. Women are dying. Please be responsible consumers.  Just because it's a certain color doesn't mean the money goes somewhere good. Check how much goes where. Or even better, stop buying products that put a pink ribbon on the package but are full of known carcinogens. 

Breast cancer gets more attention than other type of cancer and we still have so far to go. Women have been walking like crazy and buying pink everything for years and I’m still having a double mastectomy on Thursday. Fun fact, that's the same procedure George Washington's mother in law had when she had breast cancer.

What about the medical research community and pharmaceutical industry? Not to be the person who brings up viagra, but you can’t have sex with your wife if she died of breast cancer.  Well you can, but that’s a whole different blog.

I know that there is potential for ineptitude and misappropriation in any charitable organization.  The breast cancer industry is not unique.  But this is the thing I have. And it’s the thing my sister has and my mom and my aunts. And I’m angry.

We need more research. We need more direct services. We need to help the people who have and save others from having it down the line.  We don't need more education. We don't need more awareness. We need answers, we need help. 

So enough with the cute t-shirts and the pink bullshit. What can we do to make this stop? To have better options?

Let's make sure that my niece isn’t writing a blog like this in 30 years.

Next time… surgical update.  I will make sure that someone posts an announcement when I am out of surgery.  Thanks, as always, for the love and support.