Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Success!

I feel awful. I've been sitting on this news for days, but haven't gotten around to posting it here. I did update on Twitter and Facebook, so if you follow me there, you'll already know. I'm sorry!

Anyway, my surgery was a success! My surgeon called when she received the pathology report to let me know she removed all of the cancer! There's still a possibility I'll need radiation as a preventive measure, but I'll know more Tuesday. Apparently, there's some review board consisting of oncologists, breast specialists, and surgeons that meets every Tuesday. They'll look over my file and decide whether or not I need radiation. They didn't meet yesterday because of the holiday, so I have to wait until next Tuesday. Oh well. The worst is definitely over! I'll be monitored closely for at least a couple years to make sure it doesn't come back, but that's a small price to pay for a clean bill of health.

P.S. If you're in the Colorado Springs area, and are ever in need of a breast care surgeon (I hope not!), I highly recommend Dr. Ingrid Sharon. She was fantastic! On our first consult with her, we brought all the kids because Damon had questions too. Well, they didn't make it through the appointment, so he took them to the lobby while I went over everything with her. When we were done, she went to the lobby and spoke with Damon herself, despite it already being after-hours by then, and took her time answering his questions and re-hashing everything she'd already told me. After my surgery, she called to tell me everything we'd already gone over in the recovery room (a conversation I have absolutely no recollection of!), and put a nice hand-written card in with my release paperwork. Finally, she called me herself on Saturday (a holiday weekend no less!) with my results because she didn't want me to have to wait until Tuesday! I don't think I've ever been better taken care of by a doctor before!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Surgery's Over!

My lumpectomy was yesterday. I'm so glad it's finally over! I'm feeling better than I thought I would, but I'm still pretty sore. Especially my throat. The surgeon apparently spoke with me afterward, but I have no recollection of it at all. She called shortly after I got home, and repeated what she'd initially told me. She took a good-sized chunk out, did a chest x-ray, then took some more just to be on safe side. My whole boobage area is wrapped in an Ace bandage. I'm not allowed to remove it until Saturday. This means no showers until then! If you come near me, be sure not to get downwind of me! I have a follow-up appointment next Thursday, the 28th, so hopefully she'll have the pathology results then. She said she'd call if the results came in sooner, but not to hold our breath because they'll likely need a second opinion since my cancer's so rare.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Emma sat up!

Emma just sat up from a crawl position all by herself for the first time! Both girls have been able to get up to where they're resting on one arm, but this was the first time either of them has been able to get to a full sit position. Cora's also pulling herself up to standing on any raised surface every chance she gets.

Both girls have the sniffles this weekend. Their little noses are so congested and runny they're having trouble sleeping. Poor things!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Mother's Day, Twin-style

Mother's Day started off wonderfully. When the babies woke at 6-ish, I woke up Damon and told him I was going back to sleep since it was my day. He was great about it and took care of all the kids while I slept in. Bliss! Then he made breakfast (eggs) after naptime!

Later, things got interesting.

We decided to go to Red Robin for a late lunch since it's become somewhat of a Mother's Day tradition for us. Cora was absolutely perfect while we were there. She never made so much as a peep, and was perfectly content eating Veggie Puffs and french fries. Emma was a whole different child altogether! She wasn't grouchy, just really, really loud. No matter what we did, she'd let out a "pay attention" squak every few minutes. She constantly dropped her puffs on the floor, and tried to grab at anything and everything. She definitely kept Damon on his toes! When our food arrived, we tried to bribe her with french fries.

They worked great until the inevitable happened.

She put too much in her mouth, gagged, and threw up all over! It happens often enough we have to watch her closely every time she eats. It's never just a little spit-up either. We're talking projectile vomit all over if we're not quick enough. Thankfully, we saw it happening an instant before it did, so Damon managed to get his napkin under her mouth and caught the worst of it. Her top still managed to get covered in puke, though. I'm glad the family next to us was already done eating! Of course the ONE thing I keep forgetting to put back in my diaper bag is a couple changes of clothes for them! Once she was cleaned up as best as could be, she got really upset because she wanted another fry. No way that was going to happen, so we got our check and left before she went into a full-blown meltdown. At least we managed to eat half our meal before it was time to go!

Once we'd gone a couple blocks from Red Robin, I happened to remember our leftovers. I remember Damon bringing them to the car, but I didn't see them anywhere and couldn't smell them.

He'd left them on top of the van!

We happened to remember about a minute before we saw the box go flying out the back! So much for finishing our lunch when we got home. I felt so bad for the car behind us swerving to miss the take-out box. Then I spilled some of my free Cold Stone ice cream all over my jeans and the seat on the way home. On the bright side, what I did get to eat was really, really good!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

My Friends Let Me Play Photographer

I had the best day yesterday! Three friends had mentioned they'd love to have some "boudoir" type photos of themselves to give to their husbands for Father's Day, but they were uncomfortable going to a stranger to have them taken. One thing led to another and I ended up having my first paid photo shoots yesterday! I'm still flabbergasted that anyone would want to pay me to shoot them!

My friend, Kim, is an amazing professionalmakeup artist, so she came over and made everyone flawless first. I'm sorry I didn't get more pics of you, Kim! We each had a margarita for a little liquid courage before we got down to business. The shoot itself was so much fun! I must've been running on adrenaline the entire time because I crashed so hard once everyone left! I could've easily taken a nice, long nap, but Cora was up playing with me while my other girls slept.

Most of the pictures are too risque to post online, but I did edit a few G-rated shots last night to give me friends a little teaser. I'm so proud of these shots! They are both incredibly gorgeous women, so it was easy to get some amazing shots of them.

This is Heather. She's still trying to tell me she's not at all photogenic! Whatever Heather!
Heather

Melanie was a blast to shoot! She had some terrific ideas and was not the least bit shy.
Melanie

Melanie

Monday, May 4, 2009

Surgery

They finally called to schedule my surgery. The big day will be the 20th. I'm to go to the office tomorrow to go over paperwork and talk about when I'll need to be there. When I met with the surgeon, she said to plan on everything taking a good 2/3 of my day. I go to the breast care center first where they'll stick a needle in my boob to mark the spot since it's too small to feel. They'll then wheel me down the hall to the surgical center, knock me out, and take out the tumor. The surgery itself should only take about an hour. Once I wake up, they'll do x-rays to make sure they got all the tumor and a wide margin. Then we wait. Again. We should get the results in about a week. She warned us it might take a little longer because my cancer's so rare. They'll most likely get a second opinion at the lab to make sure everything is right. That's why I had to wait a couple extra days to get the biopsy results.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

The Only One

I am completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support we've received from all of you! I can't begin to tell you how much it means to my family and me. Thank you so much for being here during this completely unexpected, and unwanted, journey.

In real life, I'm a numbers girl. I'm much more comfortable with numbers than with words. In high school, I used to create algebra problems to help me sleep. In my defense, I was also a cheerleader, so I wasn't the kid eating glue in the back of class. I just like numbers. It helps me to be able to break something down to the lowest common denominator. When dealing with cancer, it's impossible not to come across many statistics. I found them fascinating, particularly since my cancer's so rare, that I had to share them here.

1. There are 2 different groups of sarcomas: soft-tissue sarcomas, and bone cancer.
2. Within these 2 groups, there are about a dozen different types of sarcomas.
3. All sarcomas combined only make up about 1% of all cancers.
4. Only about 11,000 people will be diagnosed with sarcoma this year.
5. Of those 11,000, about 7,800 will have a type of soft-tissue sarcoma (what mine falls under).
6. Of those 7,800, a whopping ONE percent will be my sarcoma: dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP)
7. That means approximately 78 people will develop DFSP this year!
8. Of the approx. 78 new cases of DFSP this year, 43% will be women (34).
9. Of the 78, it will develop somewhere on the trunk in 50% of them.
10. That means of the 34 women who will get DFSP this year, it will arise in the trunks of 17 of us.
11. Of this 50%, it will mostly appear on the back or adomen. Sadly, I couldn't find a percentage for this one.

Basically, that means I may be the only person in this country to get dermatofibrosarcoma on my boob this year. Ok, there may be a handful of us, but I'm sure my odds of winning the lottery would've been greater. I think it's time to go buy a ticket!