the one where i finally have an appointment

February 24, 2012

after some back and forth i finally have an appointment with dr. runi, a surgical oncologist up in palo alto (march 22, same day as colleen's surgery). she requested all of my medical records from packard and stanford hospitals. i don't think she had any idea just what she was asking for, ha. i can't imagine what 15 years of my medical records look like but it appears she's only getting my mri mammograms and info about my radiation to start. i guess there'll be no real news on that until i meet with her in a few weeks.

rory hasn't brought up the boob issue with me again but has informed me that he'll probably be moving to fresno (where S and R are) in aprilish. that's about 2.5 to 3 hours from here. i'm not upset about this but it'll mean some juggling of schedules again. his initial offer was to have the kids from after school on friday until monday morning when school starts. i told him that i think it would be super stressful to the kids to do that drive/adjustment every weekend (leaving at 4:30AM monday morning sounds like hell to me!). he agreed that since there's at least a three day weekend or break every month of school maybe we could do an amended schedule with longer visits. i'm oddly excited for the kids, really hopeful that things will continue to go well between rory and S. the kids (and i) adore her and R (who is lorenzo's age, almost exactly). i envision allowing them to have some of the holidays in the future, a more tradition blended family schedule. i know, it sounds strange to me too. i don't know what happened.

6 years, 9 months, 14 days or 59,520 hours but not a song from RENT

February 18, 2012

on 18ish february 2006 i had just celebrated by ten year anniversary with rory and was 19 weeks pregnant with mr. baby!

on 18 february 2007 rory and i attended therapy and i found out he had no job. ugh, that sounds sucky.

on 18 february 2008 i was grading and i confessed a whole bunch of crap about me and rory. i redact most of what i said.

on 18 february 2009 i was pretty happy because my divorce was about to be final and putting out vibes into the universe for rory to have a partner that loved the kids. success.

on 18 february 2010 i posted about 13 books i love. hey, that sounds normalish!

on 18 february 2011 (and this is amazing since i only posted four times that month) i was talking about my boobies and hormones. weird.

on 18 february 2012 i am bored and reminiscent. it is 70 degrees, dylan is visiting, the kids are irritating me, and i'm cranky from lack of sex.

breast obsessed

February 17, 2012

teardrop or round? silicone or saline? big or ridiculously big? tattoo nipples or sticker nipples or no nipples? and if tattoo, nipple tattoos or peace signs? there are advantages to no nipples - i could go braless in the cold! would i be able to stand upright with boobs like sofia vergara's? how often will they have to be replaced? will i still need regular screening? my internet history must look like a fifteen year old boy's. will this decrease my health insurance cost? will mike try to motorboat me? oh! oh! oh! recovery is *another* awesome use for my adjustable tempurpedic bed! how much time will i realistically need in bed after the initial surgery? will danny barf emptying my drains? am i gonna have to have JIM do it? is the expander thing pretty much an assured part of this? will i mourn this? i didn't mourn my hair loss, but it came back... finally (not finally) what the crap is up with rory? i'm so confused.

last night when i got home from work (danny was at school, rory was at my house with the kids) rory was kind of pouty and arms crossed across chest. 'so, you're going to have this mastectomy huh?' yes. is this something you want to talk about? 'well, are you SURE you're going to do it? it's not a decision that you're making? i mean, you've DECIDED?' well, unless my doctor has a compelling reason NOT to, then yes, i've decided. 'then i guess there's nothing to talk about.' all huffy! wait, WHAT? if i wasn't so confused i might have been irritated. but WHAT? you, my ex-husband, who always shrugs and says 'i trust you' when it comes to parenting decisions, object to me choosing a relatively simple (not painless, but fairly uncomplicated) surgery that will lower my risk of breast cancer by at LEAST 90%, if not significantly more? huh? for some reason i didn't say hey, i appreciate your concern but this is really none of your business and instead said would you like to talk about this so that maybe you can feel more comfortable with my decision? and i'll spare you the exact back and forth but his relentless opposition went something like this: 'there is no good reason to have an unnecessary surgery. ever. what is the exact statistical probability of you getting breast cancer? what about other cancers? so are you just going to have your lungs and thyroid and ovaries removed too? you can STILL get breast cancer, you know, even after. can't implants make you more likely to get cancer? why don't you just wait until you DO get breast cancer and THEN have them removed? what if you change your mind? what if your feelings change? you don't know how you'll feel. i don't understand. this is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than a brca gene diagnosis. if I was in your position- 'ah but you see, therein lies the rub; he isn't in my position. and i kindly reminded him that his father (in all seriousness) told us when we were 15 that at some point he would go into the woods and shoot himself if his degenerative (hereditary) nerve disorder progressed beyond a certain point, all the while drinking and smoking and generally hurrying up the process. and rory, by his own admission (who is likely to have similar problems) is living a lifestyle that will hasten the process of his own degeneration. this is so polar to what i've grown up with you can't imagine. but, that is none of my business any more. so while i'd hope that he'd choose to live healthfully, in order that he may spend as much time with our kids as possible, i have NO RIGHT to tell him a goddamn thing. and likewise. so what's the punch line? has his family's cultural ideal of 'live fast, die young' seeped so deeply into him by now that he cannot imagine anything else? is he simply afraid that i'll die in surgery and leave him to parent littles alone (which SO wouldn't be the case anyway)? does he *gasp* care about me? didn't see this one coming.

well that went...odd.

February 16, 2012

broached this subject jokily with danny, who is squeamish and doesn't like to face the scary, fully expecting to be tackled while he screamed 'noooooooo!' not so. 'so they'll chop your boobs off?' yup. 'and give you new ones?' yup. 'cool.' wha-wha-what? cool indeed. we'll see who thinks it's cool when he's changing my drains. and he thought the colposcopy was bad!

then today (after calling the doc to schedule an initial appointment) all casual like, i texted rory.

me: do you have any major trips planned this calendar year?

him: maybe take the kids to disneyland in 5-6 months. why?

me: (wow, things have changed in the last six months.) i'm planning on having a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy with reconstruction which is going to mean some down time with no lifting. i'm having a preliminary appt. and wanted to take as many calenders into account as possible.

him: can we talk about this later?

me: sure, didn't intend this to be a convo! sorry, i forget people have desk jobs!

him: honestly, it's a little upsetting, we can talk later.

now granted i just laid it out for him but *he* is upset? didn't see that coming.

the one where we survived the apocalypse, i turned thirty, and decided to get new tits

February 11, 2012

yeah, so months later. we went to amsterdam. we turned thirty. i'm anticipating a messy 'breakup' with ben. parker home schooled for a while and went back to school. brett lived with us. the business is ridiculously busy. and the reason i suppose i'm back here with something of note to blog about - i decided last week that i'm going to have a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy.

this is something i started researching several months ago and then forgot about, only to be reminded last monday (my birfday). i got a letter in the mail informing me that my insurance is going up to $720 a month (from $520) starting on march 1st because of a "change in age/are on which our rates are based." read: you're thirty now; you're a liability to us. pshaw.

i'm done with babies. like, d.o.n.e. DONE. i'm finished using these saggy, irradiated boobs for anything other than entertainment purposes. they nourished my babies for 5ish years, and well. and now they feel like lopsided time bombs. i read the studies (ALL the studies). i know i'm at 8x higher risk for having had hodgkins/radiation/anthracycline etcetera than the average woman (who has roughly a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer over her lifetime). i'm also more likely to get bilateral cancer and die of it than the average breast cancer patient. so yeah, take them. please. i'm not under the false pretense that this will be some walk in the park; it is at least one major surgery, maybe a few, including reconstruction. that said, cancer isn't a walk in the park and honestly, neither is an annual breast mri.

most stressful october EVER

October 23, 2011

seriously. i'll post tomorrow all the ins and outs and whys. my next comment has nothing to do with this.

i am so sick of seeing updates about weddings and babies. there, i said it. unless i know you very well or hardly at all, i don't care. i don't want to be invited to your shower. i don't care that you just got engaged. i am sick of buying you presents. i did all this shit YEARS ago. you aren't special because you were in labor for 20 hours. this happens every day. some days i fucking hate facebook.

ps. amanda, emily, mike et al hurry up and have babies so i start caring again! :D