Perspective

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I had nothing but dread for chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation.  I was filled with fear, but I have since learned that this fear was misplaced.  Where I feared pain, I should have feared the cancer itself.  Where I feared my own suffering, I should have feared the suffering of my children were I not to survive.  What caused this change in perspective?  Time.  Wisdom from fellow cancer patients imparted in the waiting room.  The possibility of a metastasis in T9.

I spent weeks dreading the mastectomy.  Now it is upon me and I am excited.  I no longer fear my own suffering, nor do I fear a life without a breast.  I am terribly ready to be separated from this ticking timebomb.  My imminent suffering will be brief relative to the life ahead that it will afford me.  Also, my amazing college friends got me a sweet hotel room for the night before (see right) that includes a linen upgrade.  Ooooh!       

I have also spent a lot of time disparaging my port, or "port" as I often referred to it.  I will no longer talk smack about the port.  This past week I really started to appreciate the significance of my port (see? now it's MY port and not THE port) and what it does for me.  I don't even want to know how many sticks I would have had for those platelet transfusions if I didn't have a port.  A dozen is certainly a conservative estimate.  Instead, they put a needle in my port at 4:30 pm, and that same needle stayed in comfortably and painlessly until after the spine biopsy the following day.  One needle, one stick, allowed my blood to be drawn at least 4 times, steroids and morphine to be administered at least 3 times, platelets to go in 4 times, and probably other things that I'm forgetting.  Sometimes I elect to use an arm if the port has been poked twice in a week already, but for the most part I have become an exclusive port fan.  Three cheers for ports!  

Finally, my hair is starting to grow back and I thought I'd reflect on being bald.  This is not something I particularly dreaded, and I don't think that my perspective has changed.  I would say that being bald is inconvenient sometimes because it complicates my body's temperature regulation.  I would also say that I miss my hair because it was kind of pretty and my girls liked to play with it.  The fun things about being bald are rubbing my hands on the stubble, putting on backpacks without catching my hair in the straps, not having the wispy static-electrified hairs in my face in the winter, and cooling off quickly after a hot flash.  But I am looking forward to the return of my hair, however it decides to grow in.   Please go here or use the photo link at the right to see more pics of my baldness in action.        

Poke tally:

port  23

right arm 9

tummy  6

left arm  6

left breast  1

superior vena cava 1

T9 vertebral body 1