Stitches of Hope

Tomorrow marks three weeks since I had my surgery replacing my expanders with permanent implants. As one of my friends noted, this is a heck of a way to get a free boob-job - involuntarily, I might add. I never paid too much attention to that part of my body, let alone obessessed over it like some people do. Not like my toenails - which I have a history of being a bit compulsive about - I can't stand a chipping pedicure. This has served me well over the years in that my feet look snappy in sandals year round. Anyway, I'm doing well and feeling pretty darn good these days. I still don't have all of my energy back, but I have to remind myself that it takes a lot of energy for one's body to repair itself when it's been cut into and your insides messed with. I know, I'm impatient. This has been such a long and arduous journey, and I have learned a lot about patience, but I am also SO ready to be feeling like my vibrant and alive self again. I'm tempted to get back on the treadmill, but am pacing myself so that I am not tempted to over do it. I was so fortunate to have my mom and my dad and Beth come and help out during my recovery from my surgery. It always feels so good to have my parents around when I'm feeling crummy. I bounced back much faster from this surgery than the other two. Maybe because it was less invasive. I never needed any pain medication aside from Motrin in the mornings and evenings, and even then, only for a few days. It was a pretty big relief to start feeling better so soon after the surgery, and even so, feeling rotten brought back memories of how rotten I felt before going through chemo and recovering from surgery. That brought back a lot of emotional stuff - a lot of fear and anxiety that I fought throughout my cancer treatment. I had to keep reminding myself that I had a scan only a few weeks prior that showed ZERO active cancer. These conversations in my head were ever present in those early days after the surgery. It was odd because I knew it was the physical feelings that brought them on and that those physical feelings were related to healing and not cancer, but I still had a hard time shaking the emotional part. Because I had radiation to my entire chest area, the doctors are leaving the stitches in until the week of Thanksgiving. It's timely that I have these Frankenstein stitches through the Halloween season - even though no one will see them. Ha ha. I have to say that I'm pleased with how it all turned out. I guess I can thank the entertainment industry for perfecting plastic surgery because I've definitely benefitted from it. Really, no one would ever know that they are fake. Not that I'm going to go around showing them off - my chest has had enough attention paid to it to last a lifetime already. So, having navigated the big rapids on this river of treatment, I now get to float along, hopefully forever, with just the little ripples of my monthly infusions and shots that keep the cancer away. At my last visit with my oncologist, she suggested that I do a marathon with her in February 2013 - that kind of vote of confidence takes the weight of fear and uncertainty off my shoulders. I just keep reminding myself that my oncologist - the expert in planning for the worst case scenario - thinks that I'll be ready for a marathon over a year from now. That's a whole lot of confidence in my health. So, although I'll never again be able to ignore the fact that I'm not immortal, for the moment, I can feel that I am invincible - I kicked out Stage IV cancer and that's a pretty big accomplishment. The Relay for Life will be July 28 - 29, 2012 in Napa at Napa Valley College. I hope you will join me and walk a lap or two, or more, to help other cancer survivors kick cancer too. More on that to come....