my new normal

well here i am again. i have been busy on ebay today. when i was a little girl my mom made quilts. i remember one that was a most beautiful star. i haven't seen it in years but i know a family member has what is left of it. so anyway i decided i wanted one to remind me of her. so i hit ebay. now i have 3. though they will never replace the one she made i love them just the same. i would like to make my own star quilt one day. well back to my situation. the reason i title this my new normal is because every step of the way with cancer i looked at it as my new normal. just like when 9-11-01 happened and the world had to learn a new normal. every step with cancer is a period of adjustment i called my new normal.
You see starting in 2005 i had 2 different doctors tell me that my tumor was dense breast tissue, even though it was quite large and getting bigger all the time. you can imagine my surprise when i had it biopsied, at the insistence of my family doctor, to be told that it was indeed cancer. i went for the results to the surgeons office alone fully expecting to hear a positive report. as soon as the doctor walked in to the room i could see by the look on her face what i had. and i said to her "i do not like that look on your face" and she said to me are you here by your self and i said yes.
she said i am sorry to tell you that you have cancer. Well like the big baby i am i busted out bawling. and of course we both knew and she told me that as large as it was the whole breast would have to come off . I understood i had no other option . it was either loose my breast or loose my life. it was just that simple. Thus my new normal #1. learning to except that I had cancer and at the same time a week later i was going to loose my left breast. that was my normal #2. well then of course there is the problem of telling family. not to mention that i actually thought i was going to die. i had a sister inlaw that had died of the very same thing only a few years before. though she refused to have it treated till it was to late. And being a survivor unlike her i feel guilty knowing she didnt make it. anyway it had to be done. everyone knew i was getting the results and were waiting to hear. i have 5 sisters i brother my husband of course my daughter. well it was going to be very difficult. so the first person i told was my sister bonnie. she was at work i went there told her then i had to walk across the street to tell my daughter, Angie, who was at work also. You know i actually thought about just walking out in front of a car and getting it over with because i knew how bad chemo would be. and i didn't think i could beat it anyway. well i didn't though. so i told Angie and she stayed very calm and said "we`ll deal with it" . at the time i thought how? Later i learned, with prayer. so on it went telling every one and getting company from neighbors and friends and family. and that was wonderful. i had a lot of support. so any way i had the mastectomy it went well. not much pain went home the next day. however when the Dr came to take off the bandages i was again by myself so i told the dr i wasn't ready to look at it. she said that's fine don't until you are ready.
as soon as she went out the door i snuck a peek. and again like the baby i am busted out bawling. i never ever thought i would see such a terrible deformity on my own body . not that i was better than that. just that it was hard. to look at my own chest and see one breast size c though hanging it was at least there. and beside it nothing. how in the world i wondered was i ever going to live like this. what was my husband going to think. would he leave? Ben and i have been married 24 years at this point. and we had our ups and downs but all in all we were solid. but this was something neither one of us anticipated. so anyway my daughter was going to come and take me home if Ben didn't but i called Angie balling and said "i looked at it and it is so ugly can you come. of course she did right away. she was so wonderful i don't know what i would have done with out her. and she looked at it and said "well it`s not pretty but it`s healthy" well i hadn't thought of it that way and that really did help but i just kept on bawling. so then Ben came and we went home. I never let Ben look at it until it came chemo time. i really didn't expect him to go with me. when he said he was i kinda panicked. i said well if you are going you will probably going to see this and i don't want the first time to be there so if you want to see lets do it now. that was one of the hardest things i have ever done in my life because i didn't know what his reaction would be. and i am crying now remembering this. he looked at it, he touched it ever so gently, gave me a hug and told me he loved me and he wasn't going any where. i was really bawling then and i said how did i get so lucky he said he was the lucky one. so away we went. i had my own entourage every time i had chemo. Ben went all but the last one i think. Angie was there for most and at least 2 sisters sometimes there were 4 or 5 people and of course i don't think i got through a one with out crying. well you see i didn't have a port and the chemo was very hard on my veins and most times i had to have the iv moved and all that sticking and burning of the veins it was very hard. the only good thing was i never got throwing up sick. but as soon as that poison entered my veins i felt an immediate effect from it. usually just weird sometimes a hot flushing of my body. it just was strange. it was weird to walk into the hospital for chemo feeling reasonably good and walk out feeling crappy. every time. my new normal #3 was learning to except these poisons into my body and how they affected me. and after each and every chemo treatment i threatened to quit but with so many supporters there was no way. thank god. My new normal #4 was learning to be bald. of all these new normals i don't honestly know which one was hardest but this one has to be close. about a week after my first chemo, well i would go to the mirror every day and grab a hand full of hair to check to see is it was time. well one time it was time. i grabbed a handful and the inevitable happened. i pulled out a hand full. so again i started bawling. i would like to have been one of the ones that just left it alone and maybe covered it with a scarf and let it happen at will but no i didn't want it all over the place so i stood there and i pulled and pulled and bawled. i didn't pull hard i would just run my fingers through it and it would just come right out. oh i had some here and there for a few more weeks but eventually it was all gone. so we knew it would happen sooner or later so my wonderful daughter bought me a wig for mothers day that year. and it looked very nice. but it bugged me to wear it. but i did wear it. i don't know what i would have done without it. thank you Angie so much. so anyway my summer of 05 was spent suffering through chemo. i was glad it was summer i spent a lot of time on my back porch in my swing. i don't enjoy cold weather at all so i am glad it was summer. 24 hours after chemo i would return to the hospital for my neulasta shot which kept my immune system up so i didn't get sick. at least until my last chemo i thought at long last finally the last chemo unless of course i still had cancer, because i still worried that it wouldn't work given how large my tumor was and the fact that it had metastasized to 2 of the 16 lymph nodes they took out. and the tumor was 13x7.5x5 cm. so anyway after the last chemo the doctor didn't order my neulasta shot he wanted to see if my immune system would rebound on its own. well wouldn't you know i ended up in the hospital with neutropenia because my immune system bottomed out on me. and again i had to have iv antibiotics in an arm that had already bad veins. they had to change the iv every few hours sometimes my veins would just collapse and they would move higher up my arm. well anyway i finally got better after about 4 days and went home under house arrest for about another week to make sure my system built itself back up. so i finally started feeling better. then i had the radiation 25 treatments 5 days a week. Piece of cake. i took the last treatment the week before thanksgiving. so that was it. go to the doctor every 3 months for blood work to make sure every thing is good and a cat scan of my lungs about every 6 months. the first ct showed something that appears to not be cancer. and they are keeping an eye on it . so i am in remission. THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!!!!!! well it is late once again and i have to go . i will pick up with the reconstruction story next time.

padiddle