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well, i've started to have anxiety dreams about it so i thought maybe it'd be time to put it out there on the blog.
i am officially set for the first stage of my reconstruction on wednesday february 11th. eeeeeeeek.
i have three appointments with a nurse, an anesthesiologist, and the surgeon on february 5th. to be sure that i'm prepped. then tuesday the 10th my mom will fly in from colorado. she's offered to come help me during the recovery...walking kitty, feeding me, putting puzzles together with me, driving me places...i'm sure there will be some scrabble, too...all in between house-sitting for my aunt and uncle and taking care of their dog, their cat, and my cousin's two cats. *phew* seems like a lot of work for someone who's retired!
anyway, my recovery period should be about a week to ten days. so my mom and i will stay down in los gatos for about that much time. relaxing in a beautiful house with beautiful views. trying not to move.
i still have a few questions lurking around.
last wednesday i met with my friend vaidya's cousin - who, turns out, is a breat reconstruction specialist in the east bay. i emailed with him and then he suggested i come meet with him for a consultation. he was SO sweet and spent over an hour explaining all my options.
i came away feeling, honestly, a little overwhelmed. mostly because he told me that actually he COULD probably make my new right boob as "small" as my current left. EVERYONE else has said they couldn't. so it really threw me...i had it so set in my head that the sweet boob job i was going to get was mandatory. which made it okay. but now that it doesn't seem completely mandatory...it makes the entire procedure feel more elective. i've spent a lot of time talking to friends and family about this new dilemma...but i just can't get the feeling out of my head. i KNOW i want this surgery. it just seems to bring up so many more thoughts and feelings now that i might have the option to only have surgery on one side.
*sigh*
now to try to get these thoughts out of my head so that i'll be able to sleep tonight.
this is a totally gross sounding milestone but bear with me.
my hair started growing back about 51 weeks ago. that's not the milestone but...what has finally started happening is that i finally have long enough hair to get caught in the hair-trap in the shower. so weird but seeing that hair at the end of my shower has made me smile everyday for the last week.
it's totally the little things.
i am sitting in the sun with kitty at my feet after a morning crossfit workout and breakfast with gretchen. and i am so satisfied. so satisfied with my life right now.
i've been talking a lot about the changes since last year. and i remember the one thing i was feeling last year on december 31st, 2007 was this desperation. a desperate desperation to have the year change from 2007 to 2008. i needed a new year. and this year, december 31st, 2008...i felt calm and satisfied and happy. gretchen and i broke into 2009 on the #38 bus, the driver saying something about new years with no one else really reacting. but it didn't matter to me because i just felt happy.
work is great. great kids, great families.
i love my apartment and my neighborhood and my roommates.
i love going to crossfit in the mornings - except this morning i had to use my ice scraper on the windshield.
i love being so close to some great people in my family.
and seeing great friends all the time.
it's all so.much.better.
let me repeat.
so.much.better.
:)
and i have a new boob to look forward to. it looks like february 11th might be the day.
this is a testimonial by a participant on a first descents kayaking trip. please watch it. it's 9 minutes. and is so powerful. he really puts into words how important my own first descents trip was for me.
http://www.firstdescents.org/cms/Programs/Testimonials/tabid/71/Default.aspx
so, friday morning i met with dr. r.j. simonds in south san francisco. he was recommended to me by my own oncologist and the head oncologist of kaiser ssf. in anticipation of my appointment (remembering the two other not so great recon appointments), i was hoping to be able to say something like..."3 times a charm." but instead i would like to say, "i love dr. roderick j. simonds."
in contrast to the other recon surgeons i met, dr. simonds seemed easy-going, relaxed, concerned about me, interested in making me feel comfortable, and caring. i have thought a lot about the importance of this because, really, someone could be a great surgeon without having the best bed-side manner. but it felt so important to me yesterday because i got the sense that he would really try his hardest to get me the best possible outcome...and he would do that because he was a good surgeon AND because he was thinking about me as an individual, not just a patient.
so, we talked about my options. he's 50/50 on saline vs. silicone implants. he said the first surgery could be about a 2 week recovery time. the second recovery probably shorter - 7-10 days. i asked him about driving stick, he recommended not driving stick post-surgery...unless i was driving a lamborghini.
he was very honest about the possibilities. in his practice in south san francisco, he deals with a lot of people coming in to deal with their problematic implants. he sees a lot of horror stories. and so to be sure he presents all the possibilities to his new patients, he paints a "bleak picture" of reconstruction. he said that breast recon is hard for a few reasons...it's hard to match the other breast perfectly. in order to do the recon, he has to take into consideration the size and shape of the person's pectoral muscles, the shape of the rib cage, etc. the goal is to get me to feel comfortable in a bra - not, as he put it, in my "birthday suit."
so...i just felt really good about talking with him. he seemed honest. legit. smart. and caring. so. if i decide to go with him...i could start this process february 11, 2009. wow. still a lot to think about...but nice to think that i could get this final process started.
i still want to talk to my friend vaidya's cousin who is a breast recon specialist in the east bay. it'd be good to talk to someone who's xtremely smart and could tell m everything i need to know. but...we'll see...roderick simonds may be the man.
but there's an article in the nytimes about the environmental effects of all the meat we eat.
"Producing a pound of beef creates 11 times as much greenhouse gas emission as a pound of chicken and 100 times more than a pound of carrots, according to Lantmannen, the Swedish group."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science/earth/04meat.html?_r=1&hp
kelly posted a video of me doing my pullup. :)
http://www.sanfranciscocrossfit.blogspot.com/
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