The Results are In!

Corey kept trying to reassure me that whatever the doctor says it will be fine. Since I was diagnosed Corey and I had the same conversation; Me: "Corey they are going to take my breast" Corey: "Yes that is a possibility, we knew this." Me: "I'm not ok with it." Him: "I am, baby it I don't care about that, you will still be beautiful to me." Me: "Corey, I know you will be ok with it, I AM NOT OK WITH IT. I don't want them taking a piece of me . . . I am not ok with it." Him: "But it could save your life. I rather have my wife." I can't really argue with that one, can I?

And now the day has come and I am climbing the walls. I tried meditating, that just made me think about loosing my breast more and crying over my burning sage on my yoga mat. I kept trying to picture myself without breasts and I just couldn't. Instead I continued with my weekly ritual of yanking all my lacy lingerie, (I never get to wear and spent all kinds of money on), and colourful bikinis (also most of which I never get to wear) from my drawers and hurling them across the room. I laid on the heap and cried while I pulled out my favourites and threw them towards the garbage can. When I was done my pity party I gathered them up again and shoved them back in the drawer. I never quite mustered up the courage to get rid of them.

I guess that was a sign because we went into that appointment and the surgeon said, (with the same somber face he always has, I keep telling him to perk it up and change his face!) That because the tumors have shrunk so significantly and are so close together they will not have to do a mastectomy. I just looked as Corey with shock. Me: "You mean I get to keep my breast?" Him: "Yes. Just a lumpectamy" Me: "Really? I can’t believe it.” Him: "You will have a scar and we still need to do an ultrasound and MRI to determine how many lymph nodes we will have to remove." Me: "I will take the scar! I can't believe it". Corey was smiling and I think was just as surprised as I was. I resisted the urge to jump up and down, because now I was thinking, wait, is this the best course of action? Me: "But doc I am triple positive, does taking the breast give me a higher chance that the cancer will not return?" Him: "No, taking the breast doesn't have anything to do with it. We need to remove the diseased area and that's it. Your 2 tumors are so close together that we don't need to remove the breast to get it."  At this point the was showing me the original picture he has showed me when we met. A line drawing of 2 boobs with black bops representing my tumors. Me: "Please print that for me doc."  Him: “Now we still need to do an ultra sound and MRI to determine how many lymph nodes I will need to take, I don’t think we will need to take the all, but wont know until the results come back.” Me: “If you do have to take them all then what?” Him: “Then we are we will discuss possible complications, but let’s wait for the results before we go down that road.”

10 minutes later they were setting the date for the lumpectomy just 2 weeks away and I walked out of there with Corey still wheeling from what I heard. I don't need a mastectomy, I get to keep my boobs. I had spent so much time worrying about this outcome that I didn't know how to react to this great news.

I am happy, elated that I really want to hop on a plane and find the first topless beach I can find. But alas surgery is pending and sitting on a germ-infested airplane and getting a sunburn while not drinking cocktails and non-organic buffet food, might not be my best interest 2 weeks before surgery and post chemo, what you think? I can wait because today was a win, so I will be grateful and focus on building my immune system for the next steps. Hooray!

Happy Anniversary to My Hubby

Corey and I just celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary and I never got him a card, because there wasn’t a card that could say everything that needed to be said to a man like this. This is a love letter to my husband, (so if you are not down for some mushy stuff, go away). Hehe!

Dear Corey,

I wrote this weeks ago, because I wanted to capture exactly how I felt in this moment in time.

I hesitate to even write this because just thinking about who you have been for me moves me to a waterfall of tears.

I know that when you get married you say all these vows like, "I promise to love, cherish . . . In sickness and in health, 'till death do us part’." You know the drill. We even wrote our own vows where I bawled my face off in front of 130 of our closest friends and family. I remember the only trouble I had writing it was my attempt to keep it short, I had so much I wanted to say to you. I mean we already did 9 years of you and me, so us getting married was just another way to show how much we loved each other. But when the big ‘C’ came into our lives, 6 short months later, I was scared that I had ruined the blissful path we had set our sights on. I wasn't sure how this would affect us, me, you . . . you and me. You have had a front row seat to it all and to say you have been my rock, would be an understatement. That does not encapsulate who you have been for me. SO, instead I will say THANK-YOU. Thank-you for your unwavering faith of, “We got this.” I never once looked at you and doubted that I was not going to be defeated by this. 

So, Thank-you for that first and foremost, but for so much more:

• Thank-you for taking me to appointment after appointment and holding my hand literally through each one. Thank-you for never judging me when my mood went from happy to uncontrollable tears within minutes.
• Thank-you for always making me laugh when I wanted to curl up in a ball and give up.
• Thank-you for bringing me my vitamins every morning and have it sitting the bed before I even open my eyes.
• Thank -you for coming home in the middle of the day, every day, to check on me, bring me food, or just keep my company.
• Thank-you for sitting with me until I fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon.
• Thank-you for your eyes that never showed pity or fear, just love.
• Thank-you for telling me I am beautiful day in and day out, (even in my daily uniform of robe, fuzzy socks and sunglasses).
• Thank-you for sleeping in the other room when you got a cold as to not affect me. 
• Thank-you for rubbing my head and kissing it goodnight.
• Thank-you for reading to me when my head and eyes hurt too much to read for myself.
• Thank you for bringing me snacks when you knew, that bag of Doritos might be the only thing that would bring me peace and I couldn’t leave the house to get them myself. AND for not getting me snacks that you knew would send my digestive track into chaos (like the pizza, burger and fries I always wanted).
• Thank-you for listening to all my complaining about the same things over and over and OVER, and not once sounding annoyed, you never made me feel like I exhausted you with the same old complaints, "My hair is falling out, my eyebrows, I cat eat, can't sleep, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm cold, I'm hot, I'm depressed etc.”
• Thank-you for letting me buy all those clothes online even though we both know I had no damn place to wear them.
• Thank-you for laying around with me and watching all my favorite “chick flick” favorites.
• Thank-you for, Me: “Honey do I look like an alien, am I ugly?” You: “Ugly?? You are beautiful and look like a sexy milk dud.” And then kissed my bald head.
• Thank-you for never letting me give up on who I know myself to be, who you know me to be.
• Thank-you for being stronger than me (you always have been, one of the many reasons I married you).
• Thank-you for loving me unconditionally.

So, I have some words, but they will never be enough to express what you have been for me, it's a feeling, like I grab my heart and start to cry every time I think of who you have been. I know you know all this so I didn't need to write this, I tell you everyday how much I appreciate everything you do, BC (before cancer) and now. That is the type of relationship we have. This is for the world to know who you are. The best man I know. My best friend in every sense of the word. You are being the love of my life is a given, you are also my light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

I LOVE YOU

Your Wife, a.k.a. Sexy milk Dud