Anyway, I worked for half a day (if I haven't mentioned it lately, I work with some cool people) and headed to the plastic surgeon's office. The plan was to get my first fill in the tissue expander. Because of how tight things were feeling, I was sure I'd have to go from there to get fluid removed because of the buildup. He checked me out and said it wasn't enough to concern ourselves with. YeeHaw!
That fact made me happier than I thought it would, because of a detail his nurse filled me in on. If I had needed that done, they wouldn't have been able to do the fill. So that all made me VERY grateful. They did the fill and sent me on my way. (By the way, the fill is a GIANT syringe full of saline and the whole process took less than 2 minutes. Easy peasy.)
If you remember, chemo had been scheduled, but they had to cancel when they found out I still had that pesky drain. Now that it's gone, I had to reschedule, which means a visit with the oncologist's office. That was a confusing mess that took over an hour, but it finally got scheduled. From that point on, I became a girl.
I HATE when I am girly and whiny, and I had a FULL evening of it. Everything that was said or done set me off. Poor Kevin. I think the problem is that, until this point, all appointments for procedures have been made, and then I'm informed about them. "Go to this hospital on this date and we're going to do a mastectomy." Oh. OK. "Go to this office and get your tissue expander fill on this date." Oh, OK.
Yesterday, I had to play phone tag and wrestle for a date to see the oncologist, and if she pronounces that all is healed well, I go immediately downstairs for my first chemo treatment. This will be June 12, for those keeping score. I was told to plan on it taking most of the day due to the doctor's appointment first, and the fact that they do your first infusion slowly to watch for any problems.
So, I had make the appointment, chemo is back on the calendar again, and this all made things more real again for some reason. I think getting back to work made me start to feel a little bit more normal. Once the drain was gone, I could get really busy on a project and my brain wasn't constantly thinking CANCER in every train of thought. In fact, I felt the best, physically, yesterday that I've felt since surgery! I was cutting up with friends and having a GREAT morning. Suddenly, last night, the big "C" was back.
So I bawled a lot. Made my husband miserable, too (because he can't fix it.) I woke up this morning to a beautiful day, made some coffee, and read something online that made me tear up. At this point I'd had it with me. Kevin is on the way to Carthage to pick Monica up and Natalie is still in bed, so I'm upstairs alone. This afforded me the opportunity to talk to myself out loud and not be sent to the loony bin.
I lectured myself for a good 5 minutes. "Listen, you big baby! Everyone deserves to go on a pity party sometimes, and everyone deserves to cry. You had that chance. You cried all evening yesterday. You cried about big stuff like cancer and you cried about little stuff like a favorite show being a rerun. You cried and cried and today, you're DONE. Put on your big girl panties, go enjoy this perfect weather, and quit your sniveling.
Call Tammy and take her out to lunch. Take Natalie shopping for a new swimsuit like you promised a week ago. Quit playing victim. Quit acting like cancer has you down, when right this moment, you aren't even undergoing TREATMENT! If you LET yourself, you can feel AWESOME today. Now have some coffee, get dressed, get out of the house and quit feeling sorry for yourself, you big baby."
I suggest that, if you ever act like I was acting, you don't do so around me. I can give some harsh lectures. Right this moment, I'm going to go get dressed and follow my advice. I'm afraid that, if I don't listen to me, I might get mad at me and do something more drastic. :)
Here's to a happy day!
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