Welp

My six-month mammogram didn't go well at all.  Both Lefty and Righty showed something suspicious, so naturally, I freaked out.  I hadn't had a freak out like that since first being diagnosed.  Once again, Righty is being the jerk among my breasts by having the calcification pop up.  Today, I had to have an ultra-guided biopsy on Lefty and a stereotactic core biopsy on Righty.

My surgeon said the presence of calcification deposits means I have a 1 in 4 chance of having cancer again.  I know some of you are thinking, "That also means that you have a 75 percent chance of not having a new breast cancer?"  Well, the odds have already screwed me over.  I don't have the faith in the odds anymore.  I had a less than 15 percent chance of getting breast cancer, but around a 5 percent chance of getting it at my age.  I had a less than 3 or 2 percent chance of going into anaphylaxis, but yet that happened, too.

So I don't take comfort in odds.  I take comfort in facts, and the signs that my body gives me.  

I will make this declaration: if the biopsy results come back malignant, NO MORE LARA'S BOOBS.  WE ARE DONE.   I will not tolerate another attempt on my life.  I love my life a hell of a lot more than my boobs. There will be no saving the tatas for me.  Fuck the tatas.  Save me - that's all that matters.

Morning Blahness

Before I began work today, I had to stop at my PCP's office this morning for blood work.  I have an appointment next week for the doctor to see if my thyroid levels are okay.  I'm going to make this prediction now: I think I'm hypothyroid right now.  My fingernails are ucky, I've gained a couple of pounds (damn you, tight pants) and feel depressed.  

Anyway, the very nice nurse didn't know that she was going to begin her day torturing a cancer survivor.  But she did.  Holy schnikes, tortured me she sure did.  I presented my left arm for the dreaded sticking and it started out great.  It ended badly.  My vein rolled because no blood was coming out.  SHE LEFT THE NEEDLE IN AND DUG AROUND A BIT.  

Why the would you do that to a cancer survivor who immediately lets you know her veins are shot to hell and back?   This body is no longer equipped to handle exploratory digging.  My body was unsurprisingly tense the whole digging episode, which probably lasted 10 or 15 seconds but felt like forever.   She took the needle out and I thought I had relaxed before she stuck me for the second time.  

Nope.

During the successful second stick, I could feel myself feeling really lightheaded and slightly nauseous.  Since feeling lightheaded was the first sign I felt when I went into anaphylaxis, I immediately see that as DANGER DANGER, GIRL YOU IN DANGER.

I told the nurse, "I'm probably going to faint."

She took my warning seriously and had me lay down in time.  The lightheaded feeling became worse and I had to lay there for 10 minutes before feeling okay to drive.  

The moral of the story: never let a nurse dig around for a vein, especially if you know your veins can roll away and hide.  I almost passed out because I was too nice to tell the nurse, "Cut that shit out!"  

No mas.

Coping

Around a month after my active treatment ended, I really struggled with something I had never encountered before: depression.  When I first started chemo, my oncologist tried having me take this certain anti-depressant because it was shown to help hot flashes associated with chemotherapy.  I was on it for 10 days and it was absolute hell.  My brain felt like mush, and I felt more depressed than I had before.  I couldn't function at work while on this Hell Drug.  Thanks to information my friend Jo provided me, I stopped taking the drug and felt good about my decision, like I was being proactive about my health.

Cue post-treatment life, and everything feels so different.  For weeks, I was just a wreck, barely hanging on.  I cried over pretty much everything.  While I don't think cancer changes someone, I truly believe it completely obliterates someone's life.   When I was done with radiation, it was awesome.  I got my life back, and it didn't revolve around constant hospital visits and getting blood drawn every three weeks.  (Every time I get my blood drawn - even up until last week - I have to fight really hard not to cry.)  Once that elation wore off, then it felt like nothing was right.

The world became scary to me.  The scariest part of this world: my post-cancer body.  Every new pain that I felt - IT'S CANCER.  A sharp pain in my sinuses - ZOMG, the cancer metastasized into my brain.  No, it's just a sinus headache.  It would take me a long time to get to that logical and reasonable explanation for whatever pain I was feeling.  The panic and anxiety associated with those irrational leaps to conclusion take a lot out of me.  I have to tell myself, "Stop it.  You're not dying."  The dreaded Tamoxifen that I take causes leg cramping and bone pain at times (because it screws with my estrogen).  When I feel those pains in my leg, of course my harried brain goes: "Is it the cancer?"  I feel like I'm being chased, like any day now my life is going to be taken away from me like it happened in September 2010.  I don't want to go through what I did ever again, but I know the stats aren't in my favor.

Of course one of the contributing factors to my depression is my strained relationship with my parents.  I won't get into that here because frankly, I've raked them over the coals enough.  They know I'm pissed.  They know why I'm pissed.  There's not really much more to add about why I feel like they done me wrong.  The state of how things are does make me sad.  I don't want to be mad and have these feelings, but that's just how I feel.  I'm not going to put these feelings in a box, put it away, and pretend that everything is hunky dory with my folks.  La la la.  I just can't do that anymore.  I want to make my dad happy, but I'm not going to put his happiness before my self worth and happiness.

Lastly, in this depressing tale of woe, sometimes I get really bummed out after I hang out with friends.  Whenever I hear of an engagement or a pregnancy or a promotion, I feel like my life is just stuck.  I'm Cancer Girl stuck in Limbo Land.   I want to be like those girls whose lives are changing!  I want to have babies and start a family with my beloved boyfriend, but I can't for at least two years.  I'm supposed to be on Tamoxifen for five years, but I'm not going to wait until I'm 36 to try and have a baby.  Hell no.  Also, for the last year and a half, my life has just been about the boob cancer.  I struggle to think of other things to talk about.  Cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer.  Every time I drop the C word in conversation, I know I just made everyone feel uncomfortable.  I don't mean to do it and wish I could stop.  I think I just have to really focus on small talk until I can train myself to stop talking about cancer so blase.

I never really understood depression before.  However, I knew enough to know the difference between feeling depressed and going through a depression (I always hated when people thought they were the same thing).  I feel like I'm starting to just understand it.  I struggle with how I cope with this current period of my life, but I want to get better.  I want to move forward with my life, which means learning to cope with stress a lot better than I have been.  I need to get back into shape and have a better diet, because that's really the only way I can control my body.  If I want to, then I can make myself into a lean, mean ass-kicking pirate (I know it's supposed to be "machine" but I like pirates).

I also have to accept the fact that I'm not immortal, and I can't control the universe.  (Lots of sci-fi watching lately - my apologies.)  I can't live my life scared that breast cancer is going to come back and kill me like it did my mom.  I can accept the fact that it is a possibility, but if there are factors that I can control to prevent that, then that's what I'm going to do.

Life After Cancer

Originally I thought I would shut GuS after I was done with active treatment.  It's been almost five months since I had my last radiation appointment, and I'm very much struggling with life post-cancer.  I feel the need to blog again because it helped me a lot during treatment, and I'm hoping it will do the same post-cancerpalooza.

One of the main things I'm struggling with is self image.  It's been almost a year since my clown-red hair fell out.  Come Christmas, that will mark the one-year anniversary of the big bad bald.  My hair is probably two or three inches now.  While it looks great, I still don't like it and have this sense of disconnect when it comes to my appearance.  I have a hairdo that in a million years (pre-cancer), I never would have said to a stylist, "Make my hair look like this."  I still stare at the bright pink scar across my neck, and I swear, my skin just has a hint of greyish to it.

I've been coping with my self-image issues by a copious amounts of shopping.  Oh lord, I have gone absolute nuts with my shopping as of late.  I keep thinking to myself as I shop, "If I can't look the way I used to, then I'll create a new version of me."  My closet is full of shoes, boots and accessories.  I've donated all the Old Lara clothes that I could to Salvation Army.  Right now, I would call my style Hipster Business Casual, if that makes any sense.

Another reason my self-image is so messed up goes back to how I looked during chemo.  I spent six months bald, paler than I thought I ever could be in my life, all while wearing T-shirts and sweatpants.  It took at least six to eight months for my surgery to heal and my cancer boob to heal properly and align itself forward.  I wore baggy shirts and sweaters to hide my boobs when they were askew.  I have caught way too many people looking at my neck and giving me unnecessary looks and stares.  On the days I would even take a good look at myself in the mirror, I could just feel my self esteem go down the proverbial crapper.  I looked as shitty as I felt physically.

Whenever I go out now, I just put so much thought and focus into what I'm wearing.   In some situations, it can take me a good hour to get dressed, ready and out the door.  Old Lara and New Lara are two very different people.  Old Lara, who was a borderline What Not to Wear nominee, wouldn't give a second thought to wearing baggy jeans and a t-shirt.   Not New Lara, no siree.  I can't leave without making sure my outfit looks put-together and hopefully chic.  I've read so many People Style and In-Style magazines.

Despite all this effort and insane amount of thought, I still struggle with how I feel about how I look.  Even though Old Lara was a plain Jane with not that much style, it was still how I looked for most of my entire adult life.  It was comforting and familiar, and now it's gone.  I had no choice.  I appreciate the compliments I've gotten on my hair in the last six months.  That hasn't taken away how much I miss the way I used to look.  I wish I could look in the mirror and not be reminded of seven rounds of chemotherapy (hair) and a painful surgery which hospitalized me for two days (neck).

I have other post-cancer topics to talk about.  This is just the first one on my mind due to my shopping gone wild.