Category Archives: TMI

My Funny Valentine(‘s Day)

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Today has been a very special Valentine’s Day for me. And by “special”, I mean unusual and not really in the good way. You see, I’m having a colonoscopy tomorrow. Which means today I’ve been on a liquid diet and am currently working on 64 ounces of Gatorade with a Miralax mixer.

I started the morning with my usual large cup of coffee at work. That was nice. Then I had a cup of strawberry Jell-O. That was okay. Then one of the teachers came upstairs with these beautiful chocolate dipped strawberries that she had made for her class party and offered them to anyone who wanted one. Why in the world would I want a big, luscious looking, chocolate dipped strawberry when I had blue raspberry Italian ice in the freezer? Probably because the blue raspberry Italian ice was disgustingly icky and sickly sweet.

No matter, though. I was busy and the paperwork I found myself entrenched in went a long way to keep my mind off food. Except for the image of a juicy cheeseburger that kept popping into my head. And just when I thought I had beaten that particular beast, Qdoba showed up with food for a department leader’s meeting in the next room. Oh, the smell. The mouthwatering smell. So I pulled out the big guns. A cup of orange Jell-O and a bottle of Lipton Green Tea with Citrus.

By 1:30 I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of there! So I came home with the thought that I could just curl myself up into a little ball in my bed and hopefully drift off into hunger-free unconsciousness. Instead I had a cup of beef broth and as I sipped it I kept thinking how much it tasted like a cheeseburger without the cheese or the bun or the condiments or the lettuce and tomato and it strangely made me happy.

So where does the romance on this special day of love come in? Let me tell you. Some women get flowers and some women get chocolates. Some women get both. Some women get candle-lit dinners and jewelry. How much imagination does that take? Not much when men are bombarded by commercials for these ordinary things for weeks ahead of time. Any ninny can come up with such common declarations of amour. But MY man is creative. He sent me a Redbox code so I could stop on my way home and get the free movie of my choice. Any movie I want!

I chose Eat, Pray, Love. Now that I think of it, however, that may not have been the wisest choice after a day of liquids. I understand there’s a lot of delicious-looking food in the movie. Oh well. I’m probably only going to watch 5 minutes at a time anyway. It’s going to be a really long movie!

As a special gift to me he’s going to hook up a DVD player in the room. He might even stay in the room and watch it with me. Then again, he probably won’t.

He offered to buy me Depends and a pine-scented car freshener to hang around my neck so he could take me to the movies. That was thoughtful. He also offered to put a seat belt on the commode and hook up the TV in the bathroom. He’s very considerate that way.

I am a lucky girl.

The best part in all this is that I stand a really good chance of moving ahead in the neighborhood Biggest Loser challenge.

I’ve just about finished my lemon lime Molotov cocktail which means the real fun is about to begin. Good thing I finished this post when I did!

Frankenboob: The Sequel

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This morning I was able to take the dressings off the three incision revisions. In my vast surgical experience I’ve decided removing tape is the worst “procedure” there is. Next time I’m throwing back a shot of whiskey and gnawing on a leather strap.

I found myself on the brink of dangerous territory as I looked at the doctor’s handiwork. It would have been so easy for me to go down that path. In fact I took a couple steps in that direction. I know I’ve said I don’t expect perfection and I really don’t. Why would I need perfection anyway? As I’ve stated time and again, I gave up my nude modeling career years ago.

However, knowing that in my head and believing it in my heart are two different things when I see the blatant evidence of the disease. And I suppose that’s the problem. Not so much the fact my left breast is still misshapen, though not as much as before, or the fact my chest is just a series of scars – they will fade with time. But what all those imperfections remind me of.

And once you start hanging the streamers and blowing up the balloons you’re only a cake and some punch away from an all-out pity party. Without any effort on a good day I can let myself become depressed about such superficial things: the scars all over my torso that nobody outside of the medical profession and Todd will ever see; the 30+ pounds brought on by different medications that seems nearly impossible to budge; two rounds of menopause, including hot flashes and night sweats. And those thoughts lead to wondering what the last two-and-a-half years would have been like if I’d never had cancer.

It doesn’t take much to trigger the melancholy. A hot flash, the feeling of my still-swollen tongue as it pushes against my teeth, waking up in the middle of the night because I don’t feel quite right… Even something as ridiculous as looking at a woman on TV or in a magazine in a low cut dress or bikini that I would never wear anyway, but knowing no matter how good of shape I’m in I’ll never be able to wear anything like that even if I was inclined to because of my scars.

However, this morning as I looked at the raw, bruised revisions and began wishing for a normal looking body, I decided to pop the balloons and tear down the streamers. I must have missed a couple because I’ve been in a bit of a funk today, but it could have been so much worse.

I gave everything to God two-and-a-half years ago and He was ever faithful to bring me through the most difficult period I’ve ever known. Why don’t I give him this small thing in comparison? It’s not like I’m new to the peace and comfort and joy He gives so freely. I’d already experienced all that long before my diagnosis and was overwhelmed with it when I needed it most. So what’s my deal?

My deal is that I’ve taken my focus off Jesus and put it on my physical issues. The things I’m struggling with are so minor compared to what I’ve been through so I decide to just manage them myself. Stupid, stupid girl. I know better. I really do. But it’s time to start walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

I’m going to try to give everything to God again. That’s not to say I won’t still whine now and then. Heck, that’s part of my charm! I also know I’ll still get the blahs. God may be bigger than anything, but I am still human.

We’ll see how I’m doing on Saturday when I remove the rest of the dressings!

Frankenboob

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You know, when I had my breast reconstruction I had no idea I’d still be having procedures nearly a year later. And I’m still not finished, though hopefully the only thing left will be the tattooing.

I’m sitting here again trying to think of a delicate way to put what I had done yesterday, but nothing comes to mind. There’s just no way to phrase “I had a reconstructed nipple gone bad fixed”, in a way that won’t make some people squirm. Sorry. And the only other words the thesaurus has to replace “nipple” is “teat” and “udder”. I refuse to use those terms as it relates to me. *WHEW* Since I’ve now gotten past that I can go on.

Remember when I had my nipple reconstruction in August? It all seemed to have gone well, even though I did end up with an infection on the right side. Once that cleared up, however, all appeared fine. Except for the left “protrusion” decided it didn’t want to be anymore. So I had it built up again yesterday and hopefully it will choose to stay around this time.

I also had the incision on my left breast smoothed out. This is probably getting to be redundant for many of you, but I’m going to explain my reconstruction yet again.

May of 2005 I had a left radical modified mastectomy. What that means is they took everything that even slightly resembled breast tissue. I was left with an 8-inch horizontal scar from the center of my now extremely flat chest to just before my back.

Last December I had a breast surgeon remove the right breast, but she left most of the skin and sort of scooped out the tissue. Then the plastic surgeon took over. First he basically performed a tummy tuck, then he kind of stuffed the right breast, replacing what skin was removed with a patch from my stomach. After that he re-opened my left mastectomy site and because skin is only so elastic, used more skin from my stomach to fashion the skin of my left breast and then stuffed it with tummy fat. This patch was approximately 6″ X 3″. He also did a bit of microvascular surgery so that these “transplants” would have their own blood supply.

For any of you who sew you can see how difficult it is to insert a rectangular patch into a straight cut and make it nice and round. Instead of a round breast the left side looked more like a trapezoid. So I had three areas along the incision smoothed out yesterday as well.

Imagine yourself standing in front of a surgeon who is holding a purple felt tip pen. Now imagine you’re half nekkid and pointing out areas on your boob for him to draw on. Yeah. Funny thing is I didn’t feel any embarrassment or discomfort. It was a very “whatever” moment.

Just like last time I hop up on the table and he shoots my desensitized breast with Lidocaine. This time, however, I felt the needle when he was on the outside of the incision. He left me alone for a few minutes and when he returned started to work. First was the patch where my cleavage is. He begins cutting with the scalpel and guess what. I FELT IT! Not the pressure like I described the last time. No. I felt THE KNIFE CUTTING MY SKIN!

You all are yelling things like, “Oh, No!” and “You poor thing!” right now, aren’t you? Well don’t cry for me, Argentina, because it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. It felt more like a scratch. I told him I could feel it so he shot me up with more Lidocaine. It didn’t do a lot and I felt every stitch he gave me.

It was the same thing for the other two areas on the incision. I laid there thinking, “This would be so much better if I were unconscious.” The nipple, however, was gloriously pain-free.

Tomorrow I get to take the dressings off the three incision sites and then Saturday off the nipple. I don’t expect this time to be as traumatic as the last since I know now what it will look like.

This is kind of funny and I wish I would have thought to take a picture with my phone. But yesterday morning I show up to work and there’s a picture on the bulletin board. It’s two circles with two slightly larger circles around them and then two big circles around those. Think of the “O”s on the Hooters signs. I asked Beth if I was supposed to take it to the surgeon as a reference for him. She laughed and said one of the little girls in the Monday class drew that for her. It was her eyes wearing glasses.

Fungal Petri Dish

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If it’s truly darkest before the dawn, then I think things are about to brighten up. That sentiment may be a bit misleading since my current ailments aren’t devastating or life threatening, but this is my blog and I’ll be as dramatic as I want.

Last Thursday I called the dermatologist’s office to tell them I’d suffered another flare up of the vasculitis and they prescribed another 14-day course of prednisone. We had planned to walk in the Philly Race for the Cure Sunday, but blisters on the inside of my thighs changed that. When I woke up that morning I was vaguely aware my tongue was a little swollen, thinking maybe it was a reaction to the steroids. Later that afternoon, however, I looked in the mirror and it was fuzzy.

Generally a fuzzy tongue and itchy teeth come from drinking too much. But I hadn’t been drinking and my teeth didn’t itch, leading me to the conclusion I had thrush. I became well acquainted with that lovely little malady every time my white count would crash after chemo. Using my stellar powers of deductive reasoning, I deduced a low white count. A call into my oncologist’s office got me a prescription for a delicious — or not –Nystatin swish and swallow and an appointment later in the week.

Tuesday morning was a call into the dermatologist’s office explaining that the steroids were doing very little, I was insanely miserable and I knew I had a low white count because I had thrush. GET ME INTO THE SPECIALIST BEFORE I’M NO LONGER RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS!! My ravings got me another appointment with the dermatologist, thankfully that very day.

** WARNING ** This next bit may include more information than you ever wanted to know and may be particularly unsettling if you are not of the femalian persuasion.

The blisters on my abdomen aren’t bothering me. There may be one or two that sort of flare up, but they’re not bothersome. They seemed to have cleared up fairly well. It’s the other blisters that are driving me crazy. The blisters that are covering my hoo-hoo; the blisters that are in the crease where the leg of my underwear rubs; the blisters all over the fleshy, inside of my upper thighs.

As a rule I don’t expose my personal parts to male dermatologists. They’re supposed to treat acne, for crying out loud. But I was so miserable that when he said he would have to take a look and he’d like another doctor in the office to look I told him to bring the entire staff and the occupants of the waiting room were welcome as well. I just figured we could tell the pizza-faced teenagers out there it’s an STD and scare them away from sex for a long time. In hindsight I’m glad he declined bringing in everyone. My embarrassment is better limited to as few people as possible.

He found the new blisters very interesting and determined they were different from the vasculitis blisters. The other doctor came in and she, too, found the blisters interesting and did not think they were the same as what I have on my abdomen. They both believe my vasculitis is under control and I’ve now developed a horrendous case of folliculitis. While the thought of yet one more thing is a little depressing, the good thing is folliculitis is fairly easily treatable.

He decided he needed to biopsy one of the blisters to make sure it is folliculitis and to determine whether it’s bacterial, viral or fungal. As he was cutting out a portion of my flesh he asked, “So is this the third or fourth biopsy we’ve done?” I told him that he had done two biopsies on three separate occasions so technically this was seven. He said he only counts each event as one biopsy, but when I told him I count each cut and I get more sympathy when I say “seven” as opposed to “four” he said, “Seven it is, then.”

After that I was prescribed oral antibiotics and an antibiotic lotion. The doctor is now working on getting me into a specialist within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it will all be gone, though, and I won’t have need of the new doctor. But I’ll probably go anyway just because of all this hassle!

We then get to Thursday and my appointment with the oncologist. I prefer the dermatologist’s office because you don’t get weighed there. But whatever. Vitals were taken, blood was drawn and then I saw the White Russian. My WBC was actually in a pretty good range and the doctor felt that was due to the steroids because it was obvious it had been low. He examined my mouth and thankfully I didn’t gag.

He then asked me if I had a yeast infection. Dang it all, but I’d been ignoring that niggling thought. Between the blisters and creams and ointments I just wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to go there. But then it all made sense. Thrush is caused by a fungus. Yeast infections are caused by a fungus. Folliculitis can be caused by a fungus and I’m betting mine is.

I’m just a giant, festering fungal petri dish!

***

Go ahead and make your jokes about fungus growing best under a pile of manure. Ha. Ha. Are you finished? Can I continue, please? Thank you!

***

Other than my regular medications I am now taking a steroid, an antibiotic and an antifungal. Pretty much all my bases are covered, unless the biopsy comes back and says it’s viral. And really, with the way things have been going for the last five months it’s a distinct possibility.

The anti-itch creams and ointments help a little bit, but when things get really intense an ice pack seems to help the most. I sat the other day with a bottle of frozen water between my legs and that gave quite a bit of relief. The only problem is that you can’t exactly walk around with a frozen water bottle between your legs. Or I guess you could, but it would be very awkward. My mother-in-law suggested Depends with an ice pack. But I think the ice pack would still be a bit bulky. So now I’m thinking Depends with a bag of frozen peas! But I wonder – do I tell my family where those peas have been or keep it my little secret?

The last several months have been so frustrating that I’m afraid to get my hopes up. I should know the biopsy results by Tuesday and will be glad if it really is folliculitis. That’s so much easier to treat than vasculitis. And I know I should be getting relief from all my fungal ailments in the next few days. It’s been so long since I felt normal that I wonder if I’ll recognize it.

Lots and Lots of Random Thoughts

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When I was trying to decide what to call my blog I came up with “Jenster’s Mundane Musings.” An apt description for sure, but one that would probably cause people to just keep going. Who wants to read mundane? Except, of course, for the people who feel some responsibility for reading my blog. Like family.

And while most of my posts ARE mundane, this one really takes the cake. So be forewarned. You may be asleep before you ever get to the end.

Another thing. This post will contain still more whining from me. I promise I wasn’t always so gripey. But I have found in the short time I’ve been blogging that it truly is therapeutic. So when I feel whiney, I’m gonna whine. I’m going to break this post up into different catagories. That way you can just skip the parts you don’t want to read. I’ll try it in this post and you all can let me know what you think.

Whiney/TMI

1. I think I very much like my new gynecologist that I met on Tuesday. She’s nice, she seems to be very thorough and appears competent. Except for the fact she never told me I would experience bleeding after my uterine biopsy. Now I was smart enough to expect a little, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of it. I got on line and read that it’s very common to do that for a week so I feel okay about it. I just would have liked to get that information from the nurse or doctor.

2. I saw the dermatologist yesterday about those strange blisters. He suspects it’s a staph infection I got from being in the hospital for 5 days in December. I suspect he’s right. So he gave me a strong antibiotic cream and a strong steroid cream to put on them twice a day and a strong antihistamine to take at night for itching. Then he biopsied two of the blisters and it HURT! Well, not the actual biopsy, but the shot they gave me in each blister to numb me before the biopsy. I was kind of wondering what the point was. But since each biopsy required a stitch I suppose the burning, stinging agony of the needle and acid-like serum was the lesser of two evils.

3. When the dermatologist biopsied those blisters yesterday the nurse asked me if I was allergic to medical tape. I usually have a slight reaction, but nothing bad so I told her not really. After taping gauze over the stitches she told me to leave them on for 24 hours. So I removed them in the shower this morning. Oh. My. Gosh. I nearly screamed! The first one came off without a problem. There was some irritation, but it wasn’t too bad. The second one, however, literally tore a chunk of skin off my stomach. I had what looked like 2nd degree, blistered burns where the tape had been and I pulled one completely off. Between incisions, blisters and now this I’ll NEVER be able to resume my nude modeling career!!

FAMILY

School was closed on Wednesday. While we had snow all day Tuesday, we had sleet after midnight and continuously until about 12:00 on Wednesday. After the sleet we had more snow. Todd worked from home and every time he’d hear a motor start he’d get up and look out the windows to see which neighbor had a snow plow. They all did. Our snow plow is nearly 15-years-old and continually grouses instead of purring like a well-oiled engine. After the sleet stopped the boys got outside and shoveled the driveway, the walkway and the area in front of the mailbox. After plowing his driveway with a snowplow, our next door neighbor came around the corner and plowed our sidewalk. I’m pretty sure he would have done the driveway if Todd and Taylor hadn’t already done it. The neighbor across the street was plowing his driveway when the city plow came through the neighborhood. Apparently he was next to the street and facing the house when the truck plowed a ton of snow onto his back. Todd and Taylor watched the whole thing. Supposedly, Todd was about to yell to him to watch out, but I’m not so sure I believe it.

LOVE

We don’t usually do much for Valentine’s Day. The kids and I used to make a heart-shaped chocolate cake and decorate just for the fun of it. And I’d buy them candy and a card, but we never really went all out. This year the young adults at church were going to come get the kids and Todd and I were going to go to a movie. “Music and Lyrics” was the movie I’d chosen. But because of the snow we had to cancel those plans. Todd and I didn’t have anything for each other, which is fine. He doesn’t have to give me flowers or a card for me to know how he feels about me. But he did do this after he and Taylor finished shoveling the snow while I was in the shower. It’s on our side yard and I have a great view of it from our bedroom window. And it’s still there. :o )

RANDOM (OR RIDICULOUS)

1. Have you seen the Fabreze air freshener spray commercial where the lady sprays a circle and then immediately inhales, smiling as the fresh scent permeates her nostrils? Am I the only one who thinks it’s stupid to sniff air freshener? Is she really smiling because of the clean scent or is she getting high? And is this something we want our children seeing? And what about the effects inhaling chemicals has on the lungs and air passages? I think she should receive hazard pay for that commercial.

2. This is an embarrassing admission, but Todd and I used to watch “In Living Color” a very long time ago. Last night he and Taylor had gone to the airport to pick up some friends, Katie was asleep and I was flipping channels. I came across reruns of the show on BET so I watched it.
First of all – it was obviously filmed before J Lo started paying thousands of dollars to have that famous eyebrow waxer flown cross country to do her brows. Still, the girl could (and still can, I’m sure) bust a move and made a great Fly Girl.

Second – one of our favorite skits was “Men on Film”. Lucky for me, this particular episode had that skit in it. I had to laugh because when Taylor was a baby he ended up in the hospital for observation. He had been throwing up and the doctor thought it was an allergic reaction to an antibiotic he’d been taking. So they had to put an IV in the poor baby. They tried his arms and his heels and had no luck – all the while that child was screaming and his mama was crying, but that’s another story – so they finally put the IV in a fairly large vein in his little bald head. He was about 9 months old and kept trying to get the tape covering the IV off his head. (I promise there’s a point to this story) So the nurse took a Dixie cup, cut it in half and taped it over the IV so he wouldn’t be able to get to the tape. It sat at a rather jaunty angle and once the ordeal was over and we were resting in his hospital room I started laughing. He looked like Blaine! Or was it Antoine? Which ever one Damon Wayans played. Todd failed to see the humor of it, but I ignored his sour looks. He was a little offended that I was laughing at my baby’s plight. But you know, he hadn’t been in the IV room with me and the boy. And besides, he finally came around. Now it’s a huge joke in the family. Except to Taylor. I sometimes call him Blaine and he doesn’t appreciate it at all. Which, of course, is why I do it. So anyway, now you see where I was going with that.

3. I made the kids listen to Earth, Wind and Fire this morning while we were cleaning the house. How can anyone not get jiggy to the three elements? I nearly fell off the treadmill last week getting all funketated to it. No matter how hard I tried just to walk, I couldn’t. I had to get that 70’s dip and snap (you know, dip the knee and snap the head back at the same time) and I determined one cannot do that AND stay in an upright position on the treadmill for long.
4. Blogger made me switch to Beta. I had no choice. So far I don’t like it. How in the world do you post a YouTube video? I was going to load “Got To Get You Into My Life” by EW&F (from the ever amazing movie – “Seargeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), but nothing but a red X shows up.