Surgery around the corner. Farewell fertility.

I'm excited and a little sad too. Excited to get this over with - the hysterectomy - and feel good knowing I'm preventing cancer of the ovaries/uterus/cervix by having said body parts removed and getting on with life. Sad that I'm saying a very final goodbye to my fertility and the possibility of ever giving Cooper a blood related sibling. Even if I wasn't having the surgery I would do everything in my power to avoid becoming pregnant again because of the fear that pregnancy hormones would ignite a deadly firestorm in my body. But it's still a really big deal to be saying goodbye to having the option of creating beautiful life. Don't get me wrong about this - I want this surgery. But one thing I've learned over the years, and especially through this cancer journey, is that a person can want and need something and still have grief about it too. Feelings must be felt and processed for healthy resolution. So, tonight, I'm looking at Cooper and experiencing a flood of emotions as I prepare to say goodbye to my reproductive organs next Tuesday. I'm so thankful to God for the timing of my pregnancy with Cooper. Had we not gotten pregnant and had Cooper when we did we would not have ever had him because of the cancer. Cooper is such an amazing and precious gift from God. I'm thankful that my body withstood the challenge that the pregnancy posed and that we were blessed with a healthy beautiful son in spite of the difficulty we had (incompetent cervix resulting from procedures years earlier to remove precancerous cells). God got us through it and gave us this amazing child. I sometimes worry that we've done Cooper a disservice by not giving him a brother or sister but I know in my heart that we're protecting him with this decision by taking steps that we believe will help keep his mom here on earth for the many important years to come. Tuesday morning I'll head down to UCLA for the surgery. I'm having a complete hysterectomy and also having one of my breast implants replaced (it's too large in light of the lymphedema swelling I have which is not likely to go away). The hysterectomy will be performed using the Davinci robot which is pretty cool since that makes it minimally invasive and greatly reduces the recovery time. In fact, the plan is for me to be back to work next month! I'll be spending the night in the hospital since it's still considered a major surgery. My mom is flying in to help out again. I am so blessed to have such an amazing mom. We can't wait for her to arrive tonight. Cooper will have so much fun with her during her visit. Thank you, mom! I love you! I appreciate your prayers and positive thoughts as we proceed with this next important step in this journey. We're praying for a successful surgery with no complications and with a quick and smooth recovery ahead. We're praying that Cooper won't struggle or be hurt when I'm unable to lift him in the couple of weeks after surgery. We're praying for clear/negative pathology results following the surgery. And we're praising God for the miracles He has performed for us already - every single day.

New surgical plan: a smaller boob and nips delayed

This afternoon I met with Dr.C (aka Dr.McHotty) to take a look at my post-radiation construction site (aka my boobs) and figure out what we are doing on May 18th, my next surgery date (besides the hysterectomy by Dr.H, of course). The original plan was that I'd be getting a couple little minor fixes to achieve better symmetry and have nipples created. My left breast has been larger than the right since the original surgery last June. This is due to natural post-surgical swelling, but also lymphedema swelling that comes and goes. Now that I'm 3+ weeks post-radiation, we see that the implant on the radiated side did well. In fact, the excess skin/tissue at the bottom pre-radiation tightened up and lifted which is great as that would have been a "fix" for the next surgery but now wouldn't be necessary. However, at the top and side of the breast I am noticeably larger than the other side and it doesn't appear to be settling down. Since lymphedema is something I'll deal with for life, this swelling will always be an issue to some extent. He gave me three options. I can only remember two of them hahaha (thank you, lingering chemo brain!). One was to accept the lack of symmetry and proceed with the original plan to just clean up and get nipples. The other was to replace the left implant with a smaller one to achieve symmetry and do the nipples a couple months later. I could hear Bob's voice in my mind asking things like "can she still get it all done in the current plan year (which ends June 30th)?" and "will the smaller implant look smaller than the other side when the swelling is calm?" and "can we still do the hysterectomy and breast surgery the same day even though we're now exposing the implant?". I forgot to ask the first question, but I can call tomorrow to find out how much time must pass between the implant swap and the nipple surgery. I didn't bother asking the second question because I feel that he wouldn't suggest it as an option for correcting symmetry issues if he thought it would just create a new case of asymmetry. The third question was my main concern as the hysterectomy is my first priority right now - I want it done before my cycle returns, and I read something in my chart last week that made this more important than everything else (more on that later). Dr.C explained that normally they won't do hysterectomy or other OB/Gyn surgery at the same time as implant surgery because the OB/Gyn surgery is generally considered "dirty" in terms of infection risk. However, since they're doing it with the DaVinci robot and that part of my surgery will be performed last, after the breast surgery is done and closed up, he is comfortable proceeding. So the new plan for May 18th is to replace the left implant and proceed with the hysterectomy. Nipples will be done after I'm healed and the port will come out when the nipples are done so that I can use it for the next Zometa treatment if I get it before the nipples are done. I'm happy with this plan even though that means I won't have the nipples as soon as I had hoped. But I know that the smaller implant will feel better and less alien and uncomfortable when I have swelling since it won't feel like it's under my chin and in my armpit and I'll be less self conscious about being lopsided (since I won't be anymore) and will not have to hide it with layers of under garments like I do now - this is a big deal as summer approaches since most of our summer involves triple digit heat around here. So that's the plan! Dear Lord, thank you for blessing me with such brilliant and compassionate physicians! Malachi 4:2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.

Tissue expander - implant exchange surgery: Update

Surgery went great today. We arrived at 7:30 am at UCLA to get checked in. On our way down the hall to the surgical center we ran into Dr.C and chatted with him briefly. I asked him about his recent trip (conference at a resort I spent a couple weeks at for work a couple years ago) and he gave me the quick low-down and we had a good laugh about a warning I gave him before he went (bed bugs at the resort). Although it's not the kind of thing he nor I probably needed to cause him to think about me while he was on his trip, I was able to give him valuable advice on how not to bring those buggers home to his family and it gave us something to laugh about the last couple times I've seen him. And, I'm thinking it's always a good thing if you make your doctors smile and laugh when you see them - especially if you'll be under the knife with said doctors so I'm always looking for ways to keep him and my other doctors smiling and laughing. LOL

I got called back for surgery prep so off we went (right on schedule, too). Got into that fashionable gown, paper hat and booties, etc. Saw Dr.C again and he marked me up with that lovely purple surgical marker and I got him laughing again - so much that he had to stop marking me for a second to avoid making squiggly lines heehee. Then the anaesthesiologist arrived and I got him to use my port for the first series of iv meds which was GREAT because that meant I was asleep when they put the next iv in my arm (right arm, of course). He gave me a tube of numbing cream and some cool cream holding bandages to take home with me (bonus! esp since I've been using press n seal wrap to hold my cream in place all this time haha) since I'll have my port another year for ongoing blood draws and a iv-delivered drug I'll be getting monthly for a year (more about that later).

We reminded every team member about my left arm - NO BP, NO NEEDLES - and we put a big long piece of surgical tape on my left arm with big lettering of that message to ensure nobody tried to mess with it - mission accomplished. Just after the doc put the first series of drugs into the port iv, I closed my eyes briefly and said a simple prayer: "Dear God, I give it to you. You have my complete trust and faith. Thank you for blessing me in countless ways on this day and every day." I opened my eyes and resumed talking to Bob and quickly things started appearing fuzzy. I woke up, looked at the clock in front of me, which said 11:30am (PT) and turned to Bob and said something like "gosh, when are we getting this party started?" and he laughed and informed me it was all done. =) Sweet! No nausea from the aneasthesia - yay! (my chart showed that has never been an issue for me at any of my previous surgeries and prior to this surgery the the doc mentioned it and was impressed - I told him I'm totally an overachiever and that got him laughing haha) The surgery went well and they wrapped me up in a lovely gauze halter contraption - the same style I had after the bilateral mastectomy. I get to sport this lovely fashion statement until Sunday afternoon and that is when I'm allowed to take it off, look at my new tatas, and take a shower. As I sat there in recovery I thought about how my breast cancer sister warrior powwow (aka support group) is on Thursdays from 11-12:30 at UCLA just one floor beneath the surgical center. I was thinking I should ask them to just wheel me down there to say hello but I know that Bob would think I was cookoo so I didn't say anything. Besides, by the time they finally got us out of the surgical center it would have been too late - but I was hoping I'd run into the gals on the elevator as they wheeled me down to the parking garage. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of them.

I can ALREADY tell the difference with the pesky expanders gone. I just felt under my armpits and can't feel them (could before), and felt the top of my chest area just below where my port is and can't feel them bulging out (could before) - this is SO AWESOME! Those things (expanders) took up so much chest real estate before and were so uncomfortable, I'm so happy they're out! Woot!

I was home by 2pm PT and felt pretty good - tired and hungry, but not in any pain (due to drugs, I'm sure). I had some soup and crackers and green tea and went up to bed. Bob woke me at 4pm to give me my next pain pill and I went back to sleep and woke up around 7pm to find Bob downstairs hooking up my new wii system! Bob and mom got it for me for my birthday and it arrived today while we were at UCLA. How exciting!

I still feel good, pain meds on schedule to ensure that continues. Cooper seems to be doing OK with me not able to pick him up. I sit down and someone else picks him up and puts him in my lap (with a pillow against my chest to prevent him from pressing on or knocking my incision areas). At bed time we did that in his room on the rocking chair and then when it was time Bob picked him up and placed him in the crib and I tucked him in and he was OK with that, thankfully.

Day 2 following surgery is usually the toughest, in my experience, so tonight I'm getting all the things I'll need arranged next to my bed so I can stay in bed and rest. Hopefully it won't be too bad since they gave me a full pill bottle of pain meds. Dr.H recommended a supplement (Bromelaine) for me to start taking tomorrow to help reduce swelling so that will go down quickly and allow me to keep my radiation simulation appointment in 2 weeks.

Thank you, God, for holding me and keeping me safe and comfortable - for instilling brilliance, talent and compassion in every member of my surgical team - for blessing me with a wonderful mom and husband to help me through this here at home - for precious Cooper - and for all the many friends and family members who continue to support me through this journey. For this, and many many countless other blessings, I thank and praise Thee.

To my friends, family members, colleagues, and blog followers - thank you all for your prayers and positive thoughts. I KNOW it helped because I had an excellent surgery experience today. Thank you to the UCLA team that took such awesome care of me today, as usual. I love Dr.C and the surgical center nurses - they're truly the best in their field as far as I'm concerned and I'm so blessed to have them as my care team.

Love,

Julie

PS - Here I am, ready for surgery - no make up, no brow pencil (though they're coming back quickly haha) - I'm au naturale! :)

Prayer request: surgery tomorrow

It's hard to believe but it's already time to get these pesky tissue expanders out and exchange them for some sleek, soft silicone implants! Tomorrow morning I'll have outpatient surgery at UCLA. I'm excited because these expanders are very uncomfortable and have been bugging me since June haha. Besides getting them out and getting the implants instead, Dr.C will be "cleaning up" the area - nipping and tucking, so to speak - so that the result will be nicer to look at than what I've got now. The expansion process has been to basically stretch/grow skin and that produces funny shapes and excess skin that is just kind of icky and I'm psyched that at this time tomorrow that won't be there anymore :). I would appreciate your prayers for a successful, complication-free, surgery and recovery so that I can stay on schedule and proceed with the next important step in my treatment process - radiation - which begins next month. Thank you! Love, Julie