Today marks a transition. I’ve been off the narcotic pain meds for over 24 hours, and I’m not feeling any sense of apprehension about movement in my upper body. As far as the plastic surgeon is concerned, my breast flaps have healed (the skin/scars need work, but the flaps themselves are fine). With full motion…
Over the last couple of days I’ve been reflecting on how I now have breasts that aren’t breasts. It is an odd thing really. They look like breasts. To the external toucher, they feel like breasts (or so my husband tells me). The nipples don’t react to anything, because at the moment they don’t have…
At this stage every ache causes me to question, then dismiss cancer. My first thought is, is this cancer? Has it spread … and then my logical brain jumps in and says no, this is not cancer … so in some ways, everything feels like cancer, yet nothing feels like cancer. I did get some…
In the land of Breast Cancer social media there is some talk of Joan Lunden’s 7 tips for those facing breast cancer – cause well, everyone wants to know what a celebrity thinks right? I’m going to rant about her first tip, because I hear it time and again – whatever you do, don’t read the Internet.…
Today was my first ride on the trike since surgery. I had been looking forward to it with a sense of trepidation. I want to get back to riding, especially since it is much nicer on my sore joints than walking, but not so sure about how it will work out with my abdomen. Of…
While walking today I found myself reflecting on why I no longer take selfies when I walk. Early on, and throughout chemotherapy, I always took a selfie of me smiling while I walked along the trail. I don’t do that anymore. One reason, is that I’m in theory finished treatment. Although my body aches, I…
Spell checkers hate the word debride. It seems that ‘debridement of a wound’ is the correct spelling, but debride by itself is not. I also tried debreed – that too does not show up as a word. Too bad it is a real thing! After finding out that my plastic surgeon would have preferred the…
At a support group the other night, I mentioned that our bike trip prepared me for hair loss. After riding around Lake Ontario, I cut my hair really short. I lost all attachment to my hair – as it was under a bike helmet most days – and shorter hair meant it was really easy…
I think the hardest part of surgical recovery are the see-saw days. What I mean by that is the constant change between days where you are seeing significant improvements and days were you are feeling significantly worse … and day-after-day the ups-and-downs become more and more challenging. Now I’m have see-saw aspects to the days.…
As much as I hate war … I must admit that the war metaphor for cancer is working for me right now. There are many bloggers who talk about what is wrong with the war metaphor (fighting cancer, cancer as a battle, etc) – and in particular how that metaphor is problematic when someone doesn’t…
