Surgery Rescheduled

It's Thursday, early afternoon. The sky shines bright blue from my perch at my computer, and the sun has illuminated the windows on the south side to draw the Asian ladybugs out of hiding. They are once again swarming the windows, from the inside out, wondering if its time to leave their nooks and crannies in search of spring mating grounds. Sorry, fellas. Not yet.

My breast surgeon has postponed my surgery--initially scheduled for the 17th--to the following Monday, the 24th of March. It'll be a tiny bit later in the morning (don't have to arrive until 7 am, vs. 6:30), but everything else will be the same--instead of being on St. Patrick's Day (when the docs and nurses might have been hungover from weekend celebrations), it falls now on the day after Easter (when the docs and nurses might be hungover from eating too many chocolate eggs the day before). Somehow, it just feels better. Dr. Specht's secretary, Katie, said that typically, it was difficult to rearrange surgeries when more than one doc was involved. But this time, she said, it was easy breezy. Must be meant to happen. Kismet. Charmed.

On a more down to earth level, I am hopeful that this will take some of the pressure off, give me more adequate time to get completely over this chest congestion and cough, and allow me the space to contemplate, arrange for, and prepare--physically, mentally, and emotionally--for the surgery itself, and the coming weeks of healing and recovery. This has all been a whirlwind, and I think my difficulty (that may be an understatement) sleeping--the breath-stealing panic that has been filling my head with dancing, darting worry gremlins all night--has definitely gotten worse the more pressure I have felt to engage in the destructively cyclical get-sleep-so-I-can-get-well-so-I-can-have-surgery-on-the-17th. And the more I've obsessed over it, and the more over-scrutinized I've felt, the worse it's become (duh, Liz). I think too my trouble with sleep has been symptomatic of the rush and urgency and speed with which I've had to process and digest so much information, fear, anger, sadness, and a host of other emotions. This has happened all so fast. Writing it all out--my way of chewing it down, and then recasting, putting my own spin on it, and understanding it on a deeper level--has been very helpful, and being able to share it with all of you on this blog has felt a bit like releasing the carefully bundled package of me and sending it down current to you. Without the release, I'd probably still be mulling and musing and lamenting and revising, over and over. And that's no good. At some point, you just need to be done with it. After all, there's something new they'll throw your way, something else to chomp on, figure out, assimilate.

For now, I feel lighter. The world has suddenly expanded with possibility. Just the fact that I was able to reschedule the surgery without any trouble reminds me that I do have choices, that I am in control, that I can chose my path. This is important. My friend Blair sent me a fight song today, "for today and eternity." The song? Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder they Come. It was a good reminder for me to "keep fighting for the things I want"--that I've got to do what feels right to me, lay my own tracks, find the grace, power and beauty of freedom in my own deliberate steps. Thank you, Blair.

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go." (that's Dr. Suess)

There were a couple of interesting articles in our local paper this morning. This headline caught my attention: MDs still can't tell if you're awake in OR. Maybe I shouldn't have read the whole article, but I had already seen the headline, which had already seeded me with the idea that this could happen to me. And actually, since I had the pleasure of waking up twice during my last breast surgery (which was different, since they used twilight meds then, which I've learned, particularly since my codeine and Ativan experiences, might not work in the expected way with me), I have thought about this possibility already, but had not imagined it quite like this before: "while you're laying there on the table, you are thinking, praying, cursing, plotting, pleading, trying to crawl off the gurney, trying to kick, scream, move any part of your body to let them know you're awake. In effect, you are entombed in a corpse." Hmmm...yeah, that makes me feel much better! Perhaps I will add this to my list of reasons for having the surgery at a top facility; in my mind, the anesthesiologists at Newton-Wellesley have perfected their art, and I'll be just fine. Or, perhaps, sometime, in the wee hours of darkness, I will add this to my reasons to simmer, unable to sleep, in bed, the buzz of being "entombed in a corpse" hungrily and greedily encircling me, its favorite prey. Oh, look! Buzzards! AAAARRRGGGHHHH!

The other article--"New potential treatment could cut risk of recurrence in breast cancer"--was equally as compelling (and a little less terrifying), reporting on the recent results of a MGH study in which the aromatase inhibitor letrozole was shown to cut the risk of recurrence by 63%. That's pretty damn huge. Brobdingnagian, even. (sorry, but that was the Wordsmith A.Word.A. Day; if I don't use it, I'll forget all about it.) Lots of promising research is going on, and I am grateful for that, especially since breast cancer is something that will be breathing down my neck for awhile. I am absolutely positive I will beat this to an unrecognizable pulp (though one the docs will say is gone, gone, gone, gone for good), but I am sure that the fear of recurrence will stay with me for a long time, and the more research that's being done on cutting that risk, the better, not just for me, but for all the other millions of women who face the same fear.

Hope the blue sky finds you wherever you are today. Sometimes, a little sunshine is enough to "rose tint my world, and keep me safe from my trouble and pain." (Frank N. Furter) I'm a quoting fool today.

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