After 10 of the longest days of my life, I scheduled for a double mastectomy and lymph node dissection. I scheduled an appointment with my friend Michelle, and had her chop my beautiful (not so much) blonde hair off.. I entered warrior mode at that point! The surgery went perfectly and they were able to remove all of the tumor. They like to have 3mm of clear margin and had less than 1mm with mine. It was close, but I was clear. My Dr. removed 13 lymph nodes with only 6 of them testing positive. The surgery ended at around 5pm and I woke up around mid night.. I was tired! I remember waking up and taking a deep breath.. I had never felt so whole in my life. I felt healed. I closed my eyes again and began to thank God. I thanked him for protecting me in my current situation and for giving me a chance. I always felt that God never gave me cancer. Cancer is a very worldly thing, and it's like a piece of fuzz that just happens to fall on your sweater. It won't make sense but here you are. God will guide you through this battle and I knew he wasn't ready for me yet. As a side note: my faith was not strong. I was wandering a bit and questioning everything. I personally feel that this is okay as long as you keep your head on your shoulders. A few days before I was diagnosed, I was meditiating and had an image of a tornado in my head. The tornado was made of human sillhouettes just circling. The eye of the tornado was a light. I actually could feel the magnetic effect the eye of the tornado had. God finally made sense to me. He is what holds us together. He is the spirit that flows through our body that embraces our souls and gives us emotion and strength. God is the unexplainable. I felt Him for the first time in my life. Little did I know I would be tapping in to that so much!
I do have to say that the absolute worst part of a mastectomy are the tubes. They put in draining tubes on each side to have the fluids drain and eliminate some of the swelling. Those sucked.. it was really hard to sleep with tubes coming out of my body! Those only lasted a few days and I was back to be being human. I was still at my mother and father-in-law's house at this point and was very blessed to be able to recover there. Where was my husband you ask? Well it just so happened I was diagnosed with this 2 days before we were due to report to our first Air Force base! My husband had just graduated basic training and tech school and we were set to be at our new home! As you military wives can relate, our husbands are their property, so as hard as it was for him, he still had to report to base. Watching him leave after being apart for 11 months before this was almost harder than finding out I had cancer. Thankfully, my family is amazing and included in my family is my husband's family. His step-mother and dad graciously took me in and set me up like a queen for 3 weeks! What amazed me the most, was that my daughter was downstairs for a week and never even knew I was here! I was able to relax and heal while Alec's step-mother, father and mother took care of my daughter. Those are God's little blessings in a not so fun time!
I had a nurse come every day and change my dressings, drain my tubes and see how I was doing. Nurse Suzy.. she was awesome. She could talk for days and was always so positive. Guess what? She is a breast cancer survivor! All of a sudden, I was surrounded by women who had survived this. Sign? I think yes. I was never able to get myself to look down and see my new body. I closed my eyes and cried every time. I really wasn't even sad, I was just now forever different. It was starting to sink in that this was going to be a fight and it was far from over.
After a few days, Nurse Suzy informed me that I was becoming borderline offensive and needed a shower now! I asked to be alone. I took my clothes off slowly and stood in front of the mirror with my eyes closed. I put my head down, and opened my eyes. I slowly moved my eyes up my body looking in the mirror, and took deep breaths. As I started to inch past my belly button and closer to my new form, I started getting butterflies in my stomach and light-headed. Eventually I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. There I was. I just stared. I couldn't even move. The first thought that popped in my head was "God, is this because I always made fun of the fact that I never left the training bra section?" I have a hard time taking anything seriously.. I think it's a defense mechanism, but I like it :) I slowly turned my eyes from the mirror to my body. It was much harder to actually look at my body, than it was in the mirror. I started to cry. I felt it in my stomach and my chest started to tighten. This was real. This was me. My husband left a woman with a normal body and long hair, and he is going to get a hybrid of Marilyn Manson and a 12 year old boy in return. I was so scared he wasn't going to accept me or be afraid of me. I reached up and touched my scars. They were much smaller than I imagined so I actually started to feel better one I felt the wounds. I picked my head up and jumped in the shower. I will admit, my nurse was right and that shower felt amazing. When I got out, I felt refreshed. Okay here it is, I looked you right in the face and now that's over.. on to the next!
3 weeks later, I was cleared by my wonderful surgeon and set off to Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina to be with my hubby! My daughter, my husband's mother and I drove down. I was set up with an oncologist and ready to go! Step 2!
It took me a long time to show my husband. He kind of smirked when I told him my fears, and my oh-so-nice description of myself. He told me that he didn't care what I looked like on the outside, that he married ME. Cancer did one thing that I never thought I was capable of doing. Falling even more inlove with the man I married. I started to not be so insecure and shoot, we all know my clothes fit the same!
So to you women facing mastectomies, it is scary. You have every right to be worried, but I will tell you, you WILL get over it. It will not overcome you, and you know what? When we are 60 and everyone else's boobs are to their knees, ours will still be standing tall :) SO THERE!
