Save the date!

SO! I FINALLY HAVE A SURGERY DATE!! After a little over a month of talking talking talking....we're finally going to take some action. I talked to my surgeons office today and I finally have a surgery date. I will be having my double mastectomy on Wednesday September 28th at 10:30am. The whole surgery will take between 3 and 5 hours.They are going to:

• Make an incision
• Remove the tumor and send it off for testing
• Remove breast tissue from my collar bone to my arm pits to my back
• Remove the nipples (but save as much other skin as they can)
• Do a lymph node biopsy and remove lymph nodes if they contain cancer
• Insert tissue expanders behind the muscle
• Fill those tissue expanders as much as my muscle and skin will allow
• Close everything back up

 The surgery will take place at Spring Valley Hospital. I think it's on the corner of Rainbow and Hacienda but I haven't been there before. Apparently, I'm getting a packet of information sent to me in the mail but sometime next week I have to go for a bunch of blood tests and a chest X-Ray. Then I have to go down to Spring Valley and pre-register as a patient for surgery. I don't know how long I will be in the actual hospital for. That depends on how smoothly the surgery goes and how much pain I'm in after. I've talked to a lot of people who have told me they stayed anywhere between just overnight to as much as 5 days in the hospital so....I guess we'll play this one by ear. As with any surgery, I won't know my room number and all of that until I come out and get assigned so I'll post that when I'm awake again lol

Mastectomy Scar Tattoo

Now the first question I got asked to was if I was excited? Now excited probably isn't the right word. I'm relieved to have a date and know action is on the way. I'm comforted knowing that soon this tumor that is reaking havoc in my body will be gone and I'm just plain ready to have the whole thing over with. The flipped side to that coin is it finally makes it real. It's happening. The inevitable is happening and I'm getting all those nerves and jitters that come with any operation. I trust my doctors, I know things are going to be fine but it's now a week and a half of anticipation to deal with. I am watching surgery videos to be informed and now finally connect what I'm seeing on the screen to what is going to happen to my body. I'm going to wake up and the breasts I've had for 28 years are going to be gone. They're not going to grow back. It's not like cutting my hair. A piece of me is being taken and looking in the mirror, no matter how much I complain about their size, how they hang, how I can't ever find any bras for them, they are still my breasts and I prefer to keep them. I'm devastated knowing that I will never ever ever feel the sensation of my nipples being touched or rubbing against fabric, that I'll never have my real nipples again. I can take pictures of my breasts to remember them, I can make a mold of my breasts to remind me of their size and shape but you can't bottle a feeling, a sensation. It's like a part of me is dying and I'm in mourning in a way.

The second question I got asked was if I want you there? Well of course. I could always use a visit from you. I'm speaking generally but seriously, I welcome anyone who wants to come down for the surgery, who wants to come down to visit me after the surgery, to come on down. The more the merrier! I'm going to be bored out of my mind at the hospital. I would love to see each and every one of your smiling faces. Now I probably can't go clubbing with you in the evenings and show you around the city but...if you want to play a bored game, or catch a movie on TV, I'm your girl :) Speaking of visiting, that means that I will probably have my Boob Voyage party the weekend before, the weekend of Sep 23 so if you're interested in going to that, let me know......the more the merrier to that also!! Would be nice to party it up before I start to feel like crap! :)

Now is as good as any time to mention that I'm going through a lot of anger this week. I'm mad at my breasts for rebelling against me. I'm mad at stupid people. I'm mad at people that do things to their bodies on a daily basis that cause cancer but yet they don't get cancer. Yeah. I'm talking to you, you people that smoke. Most of my family, some of my friends, and even my roommate smokes. I'm mad at you. I'm angry at you. I don't mean I personally have a vendetta against you...its not personal...but I'm severely upset with you people as a whole. You smokers. You people use a product that ON THE FUCKING LABEL says it causes cancer yet you continue to use it. Some of you have used it for more years than I'm alive. The product is a known cause of cancer and you know this is the consequence when you light up yet apparently to you guys it's more important to get that hit of nicotine than it is to stay alive. You do something all day every day that SHORTENS YOUR LIFE SPAN yet you guys aren't the ones that end up with cancer. I do. I get cancer. I don't smoke, I've never done a single drug in my life, I don't drink excessively. I stay out of the sun. I do everything to PREVENT cancer and this is my reward? Meanwhile you guys do the shit that causes it, YOU ASK FOR CANCER EVERYDAY and I'm the one that has to go through this. I'm the one that suffers. How is that right? How is that justified? How do you guys get to be selfish but yet my life hangs in the balance? I mean I had anger before this. I have asthma and some days breathing for me is so difficult it hurts. I cherish my lungs and wish every day to just wake up and have the disease gone and you guys take two perfectly good lungs and RUIN THEM selfishly in front of me while I watch hopeless, helpless. You should be ashamed of yourselves. YOU SHOULD HAVE THIS CANCER - NOT ME. I don't deserve this.