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.

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!

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!

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!


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

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.

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!

Three Words I Never Thought I'd Say

I have cancer.

Saying it out loud the first time is the hardest, but it gets easier after that. Six months ago, at my post-partum pap, my obgyn did a breast exam and thought he felt cysts. Since I was nursing at the time, I couldn't have a mammogram so he sent me in for an ultrasound. They did find cysts, but said they were too small for him to have felt. He most likely felt milk ducts. Because they did find regular nothing-to-worry-about cysts, he wanted me to go back in 6 months for a mammogram (or another ultrasound if I was still nursing) to make sure they weren't growing.

I had my first ever mammogram on the 10th.

The mammogram itself wasn't that bad. They did, however, find something. The radiologist said it didn't appear to have any "alarming characteristics," so they thought it was probably another cyst. An ultrasound was scheduled for the following Tuesday to be sure it was just a cyst. After doing the ultrasound, the tech went to show the radiologist (totally normal, they did the same thing the first time). When she came back with the radiologist, I started to worry. He told me they still thought it was a cyst, but it appeared to be a "complex" cyst because it had a thick wall around it. Still nothing to worry about, but the chance of it being malignant went up a bit. He ordered a biopsy just to be on the safe side.

I went back, for a third time in as many weeks, last week for the biopsy. They were still talking cyst, and weren't too concerned about it. I was to come back again Monday for the results, something routine in this office no matter the results. On Monday, they called and told me to come back yesterday instead because they didn't have my results yet.

The constant waiting is the worst! And now they wanted me to wait a couple more days! All of us went back yesterday to hopefully get good news and be done with all of this. It didn't turn out that way.

I have cancer.

This is probably the scariest news I've ever been given about myself. No one ever wants to hear the "C" word. Once we got over the initial shock and fear, however, we discovered it's not a death sentence. I don't have breast cancer; it just happens to be in my breast. I have a very rare form of cancer, and it was caught extremely early.

I met with the surgeon today to discuss my lumpectomy. My type of cancer, dermatofibrosarcoma, is a slow-growing type and will not spread to other parts of my body. It does tend to be difficult to get it all, though, because she said it has little "tendrils" that make it necessary to take out a very wide margin around the lump. If they don't get all of the "tendrils," I'll need radiation because it will come back. Since mine is so small, she's very optimistic she'll get it all and I won't need to go there. She's planning on taking a chunk a good couple inches in diameter out of my boob. Thankfully, I have big boobs, so she was confident it wouldn't affect me too much, cosmetically. Besides the big scar I'll have right in my cleavage.

Dermatofibrosarcoma is so rare it often goes undetected for years before any action is taken. The surgeon said she was very worried for me when she heard what it was because at best, she's had to take a good quarter of boob. At worst, she's had to do a full mastectomy, including removing a good portion of chest muscle. She said my sarcoma was the smallest she's ever seen in her 25 years of being a surgeon! I'm so fortunate my obgyn mistook my milk ducts for cysts! It would've been at least 5 years before my first mammogram otherwise.

Someone from the surgeon's office will be calling me in the morning to schedule my lumpectomy. In the meantime, I have a mole on my boob that will be coming off Tuesday. Yes, same boob (I can't catch a break!). She wants me to go ahead with that, and we'll schedule the surgery for a couple weeks later, after I've healed.

Once the surgery is over, we'll get the pathology results in about a week. She did warn us that because it's so rare, pathology will most likely get a second opinion and it may take longer than a week for the results. That's exactly what happened with my biopsy. If I get the all-clear, I'll be going in for mammograms and ultrasounds every 6 months for 2-3 years. If not, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I have cancer. But I'll be fine.