Elizabeth Gardner is pleased to announce the completion of her new left girl. Hurrah, hurrah! Nearly a year in the making, and several reconstructive surgeries and procedures later, Liz’s rebuilt, freshly and lovingly embellished (ok, scratch-painted) left girl, is healing up well after her most recent adventure. This past Wednesday, she received her tattoo, a lovely mix of rosy colors to recreate the lost areola and burnish her fabricated, Sally-esque nipple with a worthy flame, a rebirth of balance and symmetry resulting in, hurrah, a matching pair. After several minutes of color mixing in an attempt to match wit and hue to the right girl, the desired bloom was achieved. Liz is grateful for the anesthesia that rendered her long-suffering skin numb for the procedure and for the pleasantries of chatting it up with the lovely tattoo artists that silenced the annoying dentist-drilling-buzz-saw sound of the six-needled tattoo tool. Labor and delivery of the reconstructed girl was deemed successful in large part due to the expert, gentle hands of the skilled Dr. Pitts and her assistant Christina, and the magical workings of fabulous drugs and powerfully healing Juju. This re-pigmentation of nipple and areola heralds the final phase and end to this long year of gestation. Liz is thankful that it is over. And soon, when the bandages are off for good, the full extent of her girl’s bloom will be revealed, mimicking the bold, bright gaze of a peony, perhaps, the softer blush of a rose, or the dappled pinks that spread like wildfire in the springtime.
Ok, that’s enough hoopla.
It is said that She who plants a garden, plants happiness, that “always in gardening there is a sense of eager anticipation, which gives a heightened zest to life. There is not only the fullness of the enjoyment of the present, but always the expectancy of the beauty that is to come. (Louise and James Bush-Brown, The Heritage of Gardening) This new girl has been a long time growing, changing, waiting, this garden of bruising colors giving way to smoother scars in pink and silver, purples fading to brown, then yellow, a pause before the next creative flowering, with new bright reds running this way and that amidst blue threads that vanish, leaving a shrinking violet, now finally endowed with a proper hue of her own, a flush of perennial vitality masking, belying, refreshing the loss and decay of the usual cyclical rhythms of life, death, growth, regeneration. To be honest, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it—triumphant, relieved, embarrassed, glad to be done with it all—maybe all of those things, and maybe none of them. The one clear feeling I’ve experienced all along has been a stippled, shadowy sense of shame, that somehow I’ve inconvenienced everyone with all this nonsense, this cancer that I must have brought on myself, and that now that it’s over, I’ll finally be able to get on with what I’m supposed to be doing, whatever that is.
The day after I got my tattoo, I ran into a woman whom I’ve recently gotten to know a little bit. She knew that I had been going in that week, and asked me how it went. “Congratulations,” she said, “it must feel great to have it all behind you.” And then she asked me where I’d like to go to celebrate. Huh? Celebrate? Congratulations? I hadn’t been expecting that, but it pleased me, to the end of my toes, to hear it, until I realized, in one of those rare instances of self-observation, that I was suddenly questioning whether or not this—this new girl—really merited such attention, and then I just felt annoyed with myself.
What was wrong with me? In some ways, heading in to get my tattoo had felt like some self-indulgent exercise, as if I were driving two hours each way to pick up some new drapes that had caught my fancy in the curtain shop, and had called in my mother to come take care of the boys, making her rearrange her schedule so I could go on this frivolous expedition. And yet, there have been other times when I’ve felt so amazed by the whole process, so blown away at what the doctors have been able to do, that I’ve felt like flashing my new girl to people, Look at this! Look at my new girl! Isn’t she great? But the reality is that many people are simply put off by the thought of it—my last primary care doctor, even (I have since switched to someone who does not get all squeamish at the idea of having to see my reconstructed breast)—and so, as those slivers of celebratory pride have risen, and threatened to set things a-sparkle, I’ve shoved them so far down deep that I fear I can no longer access them.
When I first met with Dr. Pitts in her Faulkner Hospital office nearly twelve months ago, I had no idea just how long it would take to grow this garden, reconstruct my breast, land back on my feet. At the time, I had been cradling my diagnosis for about a month, trying to soothe, snuff, silence the blasted fear and dread, and had just made the decision to forgo the possibility of endless clear-margin seeking lumpectomies and opt instead for a left sided mastectomy with reconstruction. I really had no idea what I was in for. Dr. Pitts introduced the different phases to reconstruction and showed me before and after photos. For my part, I wondered if all her patients—and all the reconstructed girls—made the scrapbook, or just the ones that came out really well, with near-perfect matches in size and color and droop and chutzpah. I remember joking about wanting a lizard tattooed around my nipple instead of just a plain old areola, not clear at the time as to why I would need the areola since my nursing days were over. A lizard might better represent this next phase of life, I thought, this new incarnation, signaling to everyone that yes, my left girl was different, and proudly so. But in the end, I tried to ask a few intelligent questions. In retrospect, I didn’t really have any experience on which to base my questions on, so whatever my inquiries I voiced no doubt rose right to the top of the lame-o scale, thereby preserving both my ignorance and wish to keep everything at a certain arm’s distance. It’s nice when doctors don’t laugh out loud at your questions. Did I really want to know everything there was to know? Nope. Did I really want to probe the deeper end of the reconstruction ocean, try to navigate the murky waters, and come across the multitudinous and unimaginable oddities that lurk and feed on the very, darkest, bleakest bottom? Absolutely not. So, bit by bit, piece by piece, layer by layer, I dove beneath the veneer of the “after photos” that made it all seem so very simple and triumphant, and began my search for a balance between knowing too much and knowing too little, between hiding out in the warm shallows and risking it all in the deep end. There are very good reasons why doctors don’t tell you everything at once.
This past Wednesday morning, driving out to Wellesley to visit Dr. Pitts in her tattoo studio, I was glad for the bright sun that warmed the inside of my car and ensured clear roadways for the two hour drive. It was cold outside, and I had to scrape the ice from the inside of my windshield, but I was warm even if my car, at first, was not. Quite strangely, after taking a hiatus this fall, my hot flashes have returned just in time to keep me toasty during this ridiculously cold spell.
There was some traffic on Route 2, just enough to unsmooth my edges, but I had my trusty iPod with me and so set about to suffuse my frustrations with a little iPod divination to see where the day might take me. As I drove out of Gill, leaving behind the suffocating blare of small town isolation, the beautiful, frosty winter hills white with snow, still clean from the recent storm, I hit shuffle, waited while the Pod sifted through the 6869 songs and audio book chapters and podcasts, and with an expectancy that I always seem to experience when I play this game, listened eagerly as the first song started to spill from the radio hook-up:
I had a nightmare
I lived in a little town
where little dreams were broken
and words were seldom spoken
I tried to reach you
but all the lines were down
Summer rain began to fall
on this little town
...on this little town
I’ve always liked the Brit-pop of Travis, their winding melodies and haunting lyrics, the deftly crafted beauty that often disarms and charms me. But this was a mildly depressing beginning. This particular song, 3 Times and you Lose, seemed to capture my particular conflicting appreciation and loathing of living where I live, the expansive natural beauty, the crushing remoteness, how easily the lines between our phantom dreamscapes and daily shadows can blur and blend and render the internal landscape shiftless, lifeless, barren. On my way, on my way, and yet, there’s a feeling of being stuck that lingers, pulls me in, and washes out all the color. Music seems to bring it all back into a more unified composition, replete with vivid imagery and overarching declarations that unseat my primal unhappiness, even if only temporarily, and send me deeper still into that unchartered territory, where joy rushes about unabated, and I can catch a ride on the wings of a whim and return rejuvenated.
I landed next on Video, by india.arie, and declared
I’m not the average girl from your video
and I ain't built like a supermodel
But, I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen…
I realize I just don’t get out in the car to air out my lungs often enough. I don’t care what people think of me as they drive on by. It seems a necessary impulse, this singing at the top of my lungs as I drive down route 2 towards my first ever, final phase tattoo. But the song, for all its feel good girl power vibes, trips me up at the end:
Don't need your silicone I prefer my own
What God gave me is just fine
What happens when what God (or your mother) gave you is taken away? I spend some time musing over the reconstruction process and the choices I have made, to refashion myself a breast, a nipple, an areola, out of silicone, skin, artificial pigment, guts, glory. Many women choose not to reconstruct their breasts, or choose not to get nipples, or choose to go another way entirely. I fully respect those women and the decisions they’ve made, because, after all, I could have been one of them, if things had unraveled a little differently. We all have our reasons for doing what we do. For me, I realize suddenly, I did need your silicone. And when I’m a 65-year old lady, still trying to stay in shape to the Gap Band, watching my left girl start to show her age, I just might need it again.
iPod divination is a tricky business. Typically, I’ll consider the first three songs that are chosen, but sometimes, a chapter from the Wind and the Willows, Moby Dick, or Eragon might jump in, and I have to skip ahead. I like to think that life, perhaps, is not as random as the shuffle application would like us to believe, that if you believe in the iPod goddess, as I do, then you have to welcome the possibility that there is a message behind the selection, a retooling of the apparent randomness by the spirit guides who like to insist on playful intervention. I’ve been playing these games my whole life. Silly, I know. But we have to take our cues from something. It’s that eternal quest for explanation, for purpose, for the deep hidden meaning, that ever-elusive DHM that teases and taunts us into submission.
I am surprised that I have not yet been presented with a chapter from A Short History of the World and Nearly Everything in it, or some Kanye, or B-52’s. The third song selected by those meddlesome guides is by the Indigo Girls, one of their early hits, Closer to Fine, and why should it not be? You know how it goes: I’m trying to tell you something about my life, maybe give me insight between black and white…and I think, I am trying to tell you something about my life, I’ve realized, and I don’t know if it’s because there is a certain urgency with how I live my life these days, or a need to scroll through the travelogue of life and try to figure out just how and where I might fit in now, now that I feel so different, and everything has changed, but things still drum along to the same beat around me, and I search desperately to find the rhythm, but it eludes me, and I wince at my own inability to saddle up and go. The only thing I can do is dust off and toss out the old to make room for all this new, and perhaps, as the song goes, “the best thing you’ve ever done for me is to help me take my life less seriously—it’s only life after all.”
From this divining three-pack, there were many things I could ascertain. But by the time I get to Wellesley, I’ve forgotten them all. I park, climb the stairs, and greet Dr. Pitts at the front desk. She’s always breezy and chatty and it’s always nice to see her. I feel greatly indebted to her. It’s been several months since I’ve seen her, and I’m glad for the chance to simply reconnect, get caught up, and, oh yeah, get my new girl tattooed. And there's the curiosity factor, too: what is it going to be like?
Her assistant Christina brings me to a treatment room in the back, where I change into a johnnie gown and watch as she begins to assemble the goods: little squeeze bottles of various hues, mostly browns, pinks, reds; a tiny mixing bowl, smaller than a thimble; some alcohol wipes; a minute sliver of a paint brush; gauze pads, tape, and space age bandages of a certain blue color; and finally, a strange looking device that reminds me that I might have landed in a torture chamber. She asks to see my right girl so we can start figuring out what color and shade the left girl should be. Reds, she says, lots of reds in there. Reds? I only see pinks of many shades, and notice that the nipple is darker than the areola but sports a lighter shine on its very tip, as if all that nursing polished it better than a rock tumbler. I suddenly realize that I haven’t seen many breasts at all, that compared to Christina and Dr. Pitts, who must have to eyeball dozens every day in all their glory—in full range of hue and pigment and shape and projection—I am green, pathetically green in my lack of experience with areola pigmentation, and that I will, as I have done throughout this process, defer to the experts.
Christina mixes up a few different colors, paints them along the edge of my right girl’s areola, and we wait for them to dry. It’ll take a few more attempts, but Christina nails the right colors amazingly fast and whips up her final concoctions, a rosy reddish pink for the areola, and a slightly darker shade for the nipple. Dr. Pitts returns to outline where the color will go. I have witnessed Dr. Pitts’ drawing skills firsthand a few times before, signing my left side before each surgery, using a black Sharpie to mark where the expander, then the implant, and finally the nipple would go, and now, echoing the slightly elliptical shape that surrounds my nipple, instant areola. I am instructed to stand in front of the mirror to check her work. It looks good to me! I realize, in that brief batch of seconds, that my left girl will always look different than my right girl, that it seems almost absurd to pretend that they might look the same, that maybe I should have gone with the lizard, after all, in a nod to what seems obvious now: that the left one is simply not the same, and that’s something to be celebrated, not kept under wraps, or coerced into hiding. The lizard will have to wait. She pokes my breast with the pesky anesthesia needle, and after several long seconds of slowly subsiding burning sensations, I’m good to go.
I feel nothing, of course, and can’t see anything, so have no idea what is happening. I’m comfortable, lying down on the table, my feet sticking off the end as if I were some giantess from the Enchanted Forest. We’re talking, about skiing, the kids, pretty much picking up where we left off the last time I saw her, in the OR for my new nipple back in October. The whirring of the tattoo device is a bit disconcerting, given its obvious associations, but it doesn’t really bother me, because I feel nothing, after all, and I’m grooving on the fact that I’m getting my first tattoo, and my new girl will be done, soon, to boot. It’s all good.
Dr. Pitts leaves Christina to finish filling in the color. She paints a little on, and then etches it into the skin with the six-pointed whirring tool that I am convinced does double duty as a torture device or sadistic sex toy somewhere. Paint, etch, chat, paint, etch, chat. I’m just glad for the chance to talk, and I realize that I have grown fond of Dr. Pitts and Christina, that I will miss them. After about twenty minutes, she is done. There is some blood, after all, getting a tattoo is like getting an intentional abrasion, a wicked bad scrape that, once it heals up, reveals something pretty spectacular, an etch a sketch of the permanent sort. Christina cleans me up, applies ointment, the blue space age bandage, and two layers of gauze, tape to hold it all in place. She explains what I can expect: to take off the bandages, carefully, so they don’t pull off the color, and shower, in another day; to put on fresh ointment and bandages, and then change them every day for a few days after that, until everything heals up; to stay out of pools, hot tubs for a couple of weeks. Just as the nipple shrunk in size over time, the color, too, will lighten a bit over time, with the final hue settling in about ten days. Dr. Pitts gives me a prescription for a 5-day run of antibiotics. And in a few months, I’m to return to the office for my after shots (I am reminded of the ever-mysterious-full-0f-spectacular-promise after party, and think the appeal is somehow similar) I tell them I’ll have to get ripped for the photo shoot. I want to be sure my girls are in the scrap book, after all.
A day later, my bravado is gone, gone, the first glance at my tattoo bringing back the harrowing fear of having to take off the bandages for the first time after my mastectomy back in March, accept the ugly mess of bleeding incisions and mangled, bruised flesh as me, and try to start imagining something better, a garden, perhaps, a bit tangled, but blooming with color and life. It seems easy now to sweep much of the fear aside, and I am relieved when the bandages come off easily, and I can check things out without first having to pick out any bits of bandage from my skin. But I don’t linger here, by the mirror; I know that the color is not yet set, that my girl will change once again, for “a garden is ever-changing, for it is a thing alive…” Instead, I take to the shower, to feel the rush and warmth, the prickly sensation of water cascading over my scraped up girl, to dawdle instead in the slow expanse of quiet, wrap myself in the hushed calm of the steam.
And now what? I ask myself. Now that the new girl has been successfully installed, just where do we go from here?
When Dominick was two and a half, he said to me
I’m strong!
Maybe I’ll grow up and be a man
Or
Maybe I’ll grow up and be Mommy
And you be Dominick and I’ll give you nah-nees!
Or
Maybe I’ll grow up a be a man
A Daddy, and have nipples
And hair on my tummy
And Daddy will be in my tummy
He’ll be my baby
Or
I’ll grow up and be a man
…Like Zephyr!
(Zephyr was our dog, a noble male, but a dog, nonetheless)
I love that even at that age, Dominick saw that life is ripe with possibility, that anything, perhaps, can happen, even becoming a dog-man, switching places with your mother, or giving birth to your father, and nursing him, even with hair on your tummy. To revisit his two year old sensibility is quite amazing, especially since now, one month before he turns ten, he takes care of me in so many ways, offering me the comfort, nourishment and reassurance—the very manna of nah-nees—that he prophesized nearly eight years ago in his imagined Freaky Friday-swap for the nursing-toddler set.
As much as I’d like to think that the gods and goddesses (iPod and otherwise), spirit guides, ancestral energies, toddler insight and the collective consciousness might divine my path, I know too that there is much we engineer, in our ability and willingness to open ourselves up to change, to the winds that blow in unexpectedly, to the river that carries us, to the idea that we don’t know everything and don’t have to, that there is joy to be found in the not knowing, in the wonderment, in following our feet, our hearts, down paths we have not yet explored.
Thankfully, we are in training, we have plans. My new girl needs to be properly christened. I have decided that a celebration is in order. And I’m gradually getting my feet well-weathered to walk 60 miles in three days, my hips and knees well-oiled, legs strong. There are lots of things on the calendar to look forward to. Most importantly, I strive to stay in the here and now, to lose myself in the portal of possibility, go down the rabbit hole, and tend the tangled garden that grows untamed, wilderness of mind, soul-sanctuary, to await the beauty, grab the giddyup and go, and let the winds carry me.
Showing posts with label Fables of the Reconstruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fables of the Reconstruction. Show all posts
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, October 31, 2008
Sneaking Sally Through the Alley
We spend the late afternoon getting ready. Luke, our make up artist, transforms Dominick into a zombie just pulled from his earthly grave. We get fake blood all over the bathroom sink. It's fun, this mad scramble of creation and magic, a touch of the theatrical. We've been reading Hamlet, learning about Shakespeare, researching Elizabethan England, drooling over the beautiful British countryside and stately manor homes, and imagining ourselves in the Globe Theatre. Our recent foray into PBS's wonderful series In Search of Shakespeare has only whetted our appetite to refashion ourselves...even if just for one night. The last line of stitches drawn, the last bit of blood oozed into place, and we're ready. Ready to brave the spirits, greet the evening's mischief, lose ourselves in the pitch black of the night. But first, some photos. It's hard to see the bloody tire tracks running up the front of Dominick's Road-Kill Zombie Child costume, but they're there, and I should know, since I ran over the red paint-glue-gravel splattered outfit several times in the driveway with my car. A lone tire, still smeared with red, still bears witness to the horrible accident, which soaked blood into the driveway, coloring stones and sand a scarlet reminder of the fun we had.
Where does one go trick or treating when you live in the rural countryside? Not in our neighborhood, where the houses seem spaced miles apart, and the absence of sidewalks or any kind of safe shoulder on the road make the thought of going trick or treating in our neighborhood completely laughable, ludicrous, dangerous, even. We head to the Mount Hermon campus of NMH, where a festive gathering at the Head's House starts things off right. Through the luminarias and into the dusk we stroll along the upper edges of this recently restructured, re-routed campus made more beautiful by the evening skies settling in, casting shades of pinks and oranges atop trees and across the swaths of playing fields that ripple throughout the levels of life here. We walk in hordes, clusters, twos and threes, all happily running in packs from house to house, through short cuts in the woods, crunching through leaves, brushing shoulders, clinking candy buckets. I run with the kids, and have to remind myself on several occasions that I am not one of them. A haunted house at the dining hall brings the spooks out, and the food captures the playful creativity of the night: meatloaf disguised as rats, watermelon brains, bloody fingers. Yum.
We head over to our old neighborhood in Northfield, where area ruralites go for safer, sidewalk Trick or Treating. It's packed. Costumed throngs of all ages sweep through the leaf litter in a ceaseless tide of feet, swoosh, swoosh, crunch, crunch, swoosh. Houses have been decorated full tilt, with headstones, jack-o-lanterns, spooks and skeletons coming to life, timely shrieks and fully-formed screams, scary music, and orange glow lights. The musky stench of a fog machine fills the air; up ahead, a breath of fog covers the ground and a cluster of tiny costumed toddlers holler and proclaim their fear, "That house is scary. We're not going in there! No way!" After rushing onto one porch to dance in a strobe light (and being rewarded with candy, I might add), I have to keep reminding myself that I am not there to trick or treat; several times I forget myself and roar up the walkways to the houses with the kids, before stopping and hanging back like a good, respectable parent. It must be the Sally costume; she's filled me with her playful, restless spirit, not a bad thing, really. I quite like it. All too soon, we reach the end of the street, where a solitary house sits surrounded by neighbors who have furtively cloaked their non-participation in utter darkness. The sky lights up for a brief second, a shooting star, my second this week, appearing overhead. Perhaps the tides are changing. Dominick and his friend Oliver race to the door, and are greeted by a three-year old girl in her pajamas, holding out a bowl of candy, telling them "Happy Hawoween." Dom and Oli look around and listen for any signs of an adult, but only see two stockinged feet on the end of a couch, the unmistakable sounds of snoring drifting in from the next room.
We return home after walking what must have been ten miles. We've seen friends and neighbors and felt the warmth of familiar faces, but the cold has settled into our bones; a hot bath and a bowl of soup will feel good. After scrubbing the fake blood and face paint off Dominick's face, and washing the head injury out of his hair, a touch of black remains under his eyes, the look of eyeliner that makes him writhe in agony, "I look like a girl!! Aaahhh!!" A few deft strokes with the q-tip and it's gone: it's just stage make-up, I tell him, boys wear it too. I'm feeling awfully comfortable in my Sally costume. I just might wear it to bed... 
...but first, I have to light my Samhain fire outside in the fire pit, offer my post-surgical binder compression bra to the gods, say my wishes, and bring in some protective fire to relight our own hearth fire. In lieu of animal skins and heads, I keep Sally on a little longer as I head outside to commune with the spirits. As soon as the fire reaches a good pitch, I toss the bra on top, and it catches quickly, spewing a noxious, thick smoke into the air. What do they make those things out of?! I watch, mesmerized as layer by flammable layer, all the little annoying frilly edges that made me turn red and scratch and burn, the pink flowery fabric that was somehow designed to make us feel more feminine, more pretty, the velcro that bound so tightly it was hard to breathe, burn down to an unrecognizable lump within minutes. Good night Bra. Farewell Cancer; I'm moving on. I look to the starry skies. May the Spirit of Misfortune grace us with better luck this year. I grab a fire stick and bring it inside to light the small pile of kindling I've assembled in the wood stove. After some breathy blowing, it roars, slowly illuminating the dark house with its warming, central light, sending sparkling embers and evil spirits to push past the cold and ride the airflow up and out of the long black pipe. I hang up my Sally dress, and scrub her off my face, but she'll be a part of me forever, living on in my new Sally-styled girl, in my heart, in my restless spirit. Tonight, I sleep well.
Happy Halloween!
As seems to have become the usual pattern in recent years, the week brought gusty winds and just enough rain to strip and let fly any remaining leaves off the trees, rendered bare and spindly and macabre just in time for Halloween. The bitter cold that blasted through this week lingers in the frost of the morning, and yet later today, this last day before November arrives to sink its gritty teeth into what's left of the Indian Summer harvest, the sun will sufficiently rise to warm the skies, keep the frost at bay, and cast a much welcome glow about things tonight, leaving the trick or treaters to canvas the neighborhoods without having to bury their costumes under layers of ridiculous jackets and scarves.There's much about the over-commercialization of Halloween and other holidays that I loathe, and frankly, after doing it up for fourteen years, I must admit that I've been struggling in recent years to find the energy to bring up the Halloween (or Easter, or...) box, get the decorations out, carve the pumpkins (color the eggs, trim the tree...), and piece together the costumes (hide the eggs, fill the stockings...). I suppose that amidst the blitz of candy greed and cheap plastic costumes that have sucked all opportunities for creative joy out of the process, Halloween has quite very nearly and clearly lost its meaning, though what meaning it ever held for me I would be hard pressed to remember: getting as much candy as possible? winning the costume contest? egging the house of that boy you have a crush on?
And yet, there's still something about Halloween that I love--losing myself in the creation of a costume, filling the house with the smell of roasting pumpkin seeds, heading out on a balmy October night, stars overhead, the excitment and promise of the haunt of the evening before us. The glory years of Halloween are behind us, those years when the kids were little and we had oodles of time to spend thinking up and working on costumes; now, it seems, the busy-ness of our colliding schedules leaves little room for such frivolity, and yet, I miss it. It's another indication that we outgrow the phases of our lives, spiral back into the swirling energy of memories, and try to recapture some of the magic that used to be.
I have happy memories of Halloweens past, when I'd spend hours working with the boys on their costumes--clowns, Oompa Loompas, Harry Potter, and then the usual crop of scary monsters and super freaks, but it's been a long time since I've whipped up a costume for myself. But this year was to be different. I woke up this morning and felt this crazy desire to put one together. And not just any costume. No, it had to be Sally. I started identifying with Sally, the Tim Burton character from his wonderful flick A Nightmare Before Christmas, after my first surgery, when I gingerly removed the bandages after my surgical biopsy/lumpectomy to find that my left girl had been pummeled, the stuffing plucked out, the skin stitched up. It was to be only the first of several such life-saving, loving mutilations and reconstructions. My reconstructed girl is covered with stitches and scars and a sculptural nipple to boot, and in Sally, with her Dr. Finkelstein-created, stitch and scar-covered body, her restlessness, and longing to leave the confines of her tower room in the search for something better in her life, I found a kindred spirit. To be certain, underneath her patchwork dress is a girl or two like mine. But Sally, of course, is an expert at needlework, unlike me (this is something I happily rely on Dr. Pitts for.) When she decides to flee her overprotective creator, she must fling herself out of the high tower window, fall to the ground below, and retrieve her limbs that have, of course, torn off and tumbled away. She carries her needle and thread with her at all times, and restitches herself together with admirable speed and skill. Ah, if escape were only that easy.
With Dominick's help, I've made myself a Sally costume. We literally whipped it up in about a half an hour, slicing apart an old dress that had been banished to the local Survival Center pile, taking scissors and hot glue gun (I don't generally sew) to fabric scraps, using fabric markers to "stitch" it all together, and fashioning a Sally-esque, Dr. Finkelstein creation that would certainly not earn me a spot on Project Runway. Soon, Sally will fling herself out of this tower window, stitch and stuff herself back together, and join her Zombie-child in Halloween town.After the sugar harvest is in, we'll head to our fire pit to celebrate Samhain (sow-in), the ancient Celtic festival that marked the end of summer and the harvest and celebrated their new year on November 1st. Amidst the dread of the coming darkness and cold of winter, which was a time often associated--for good reason--with human death, Samhain invited the ghosts of the dead to return to earth through the blurred boundary that was thought to exist between the worlds of the living and the dead on this night. The ghosts wreaked havoc, as you can imagine, but it was a welcome sort of mischief for the Celts all those 2000 years ago, since the Druids, or Celtic priests, were able to more easily prophesize about the future in the presence of these otherworldly, roguish spirits, an undertaking that often brought about much needed comfort and direction amidst the chaos and volatility of the natural world on which they so depended.
We all strive to button down the chaos of the world in our own little ways, masking the fear with a bold face, perhaps, or shunting the unpredictable into neat little boxes of tidy order. 2,000 years ago or not, there's something about finding reassurance and protection before the onset of the harshness of winter's extremes that makes sense.
Back then, there was no trick or treating, no elaborate costume parties, no trick-or-drink revelry at the local colleges; but as part of the Samhain celebration, people did in fact don costumes, though not ones attainable at your local big box/buy crap store, and not ones easily made by the faint of heart. Instead, they dressed in animal skins and heads, gathered around huge bonfires built by the Druids, and made offerings to the Celtic gods by burning crops and animals in the fires. After trying to stave off winter's dread by telling each other's (good, one would imagine) fortunes, they used the sacred fire to re-light their own hearth fires at home, bringing in the protective powers and spirits of the Celtic dieties for additional comfort and reassurance.Personally, I need all the comfort and reassurance I can get. So tonight, I'll be revisiting the old pagan traditions of Samhain, offering my old post-surgical binder bras to the dieties, and bringing in the protective fire to embolden my spirit and fortify my soul. And somewhere along the way, I'll be following the wanderlust that lurks deep in my heart, sending me spiraling over the edge, willing to sacrifice life and limb, but knowing that I'll be able to put myself back together, however many pieces there may be.
Happy Halloween! XX, L.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Ubuntu!
Wednesday into Friday ~
"A warrior must only take care that (her) spirit is not broken."
We saw a polar bear today. And you know, that's not something that I can say everyday. There were other unexpected delights to the day, too: watching a way cool spiny soft shell turtle move its head in and out of its shell as it followed us along the side of its glass enclosure; singing "What is love? Baby, don't hurt me..." to a hilarious barn owl, who swiveled and pumped his moon-faced head to the beat in a spot-on Jim Carey/Will Ferrell impression; and chatting it up with the adorable little river otter that popped his head up to the sound of our voices and waited for hand outs of fish that never came.
Most of the animals we took in at the Eco-tarium in Worcester today are frequent visitors to our slice of the fertile valley, and as interesting as they are to see up close, observing them in their natural habitat, and not in some sad (though necessary, given that most are injured and not able to return to the wild) enclosure, is much more gratifying and exciting--hawks and bald eagles circle and sweep our skies, sometimes land in the towering dead pines in our back wetlands, and nest at nearby Barton Cove; at least once every spring, female snapping and wood turtles make their way across the road into our streams and wetlands to slow traffic and lay their eggs; and red fox have become an almost daily sighting around here. Recently, we've been conversing with a small kit that always seems to emerge from one particular thicket along the road just as we pass by on our bicycles or car. We usually stop to say hello in sweet motherese, and as his eyes grow wide and his ears perk, Dominick remarks that maybe this is the day we should take the little guy home. And river otters frolic in the waters of the Connecticut, just a stone's throw away, and every now and then we'll come up on one or two in our kayaks. But polar bears?
Seeing poor Kenda, the huge female who has lived out (nearly) all her 25 years in the Eco-tarium, sprawled out on her fake plastic ice overlooking her pool of Arctic seas in her dingy outdoor space, left me thinking that this is just one more way that we've gotten it all wrong. (And I thought of the polar bears roaming the jungles of Lost, too, and imagined Kenda breaking out of her enclosure and roaming the urban jungle, where idiots like me tried to talk to her as if she were merely a lost dog on the lam).
Earlier, driving out on the road from the Pike to the Eco-tarium, it's easy to feel walloped by Route 9's dizzying mess of strip malls, office parks, big box stores, car dealerships, and the ribbons of BUY CRAP! sentiment that seems to go on forever. Light after light after light, the glare of the plastic artificiality, cumbersome, oversized construction, and asphalt desert blinds, sears, and grows entangled with regret. We stop at a Borders to buy the latest books in two series that the boys have been anxiously awaiting; all those books laid out in neat, colorful stacks, and all I can see are trees. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The roads are laid out for the long commute, the parking lots are filled with luxury SUVs, their owners out doing their over-consuming and gas-guzzling, and all I can think of is the way the fog was rising and rolling over the tree tops along Route 2 this morning as we headed out of Gill, the grayish white wisps of clouds appearing phantasmic and lovely and ethereal.
We've come from Wellesley, where I've met with my plastic surgeon, Dr. Pitts, to discuss my next surgery. Her assistant takes several "before" pictures. I try to imagine the "after" pictures, and file a mental note to start working on my six-pack. I try to stand up straight and tell my girls to smile. Dr. Pitts arrives to take measurements of my right girl so she can chose an implant for the left that will match perfectly in congruence, symmetry, and droop. She has me stand in front of the mirror, points out that the expander is sitting just where it should be, that it no longer seems too high, but that a small lift in my right breast--something she could perform during the exchange surgery--would bring it all together in a near-perfect balance and radiance. As I expected, my new breast is being created to look like my 16-year old breast, and not, it seems, like my worn-torn, well-seasoned, 42-year old breast. She lifts my right breast with her finger to show how a mastopexy, the official name for a breast lift, would bring it up and more to the middle, to where, I suppose, it used to be when I was a virginal sixteen, restoring that well-centered perkiness and charm of my yesteryear, and better matching it to the sprightly joviality of my new girl. I see her point, I really do, but I cannot give her an answer just yet. The downside is that I will have a small scar around the areola if I decide to go ahead with the lift, and some residual soreness that I most likely won't notice much, given how sore my left side will be (even though it was awfully nice to not have any pain on the right side after the mastectomy).
But just how important is this to me? I decided to go ahead with reconstruction on the merits of symmetry, after all, but just how far will I take it? I opted out of going "bigger," choosing instead to preserve some sense of self and humility, I suppose--based on the idea that my breast size has worked just fine for all these years, thank you, so why would I change it now? Now, when given the choice, do I opt for an attempt at near-perfection? Reconstruction and restoration? Will it matter if my left is still a bit droopy (and trust me, droop is all relative--I've seen some serious droopage, and mine are still pretty darn perky in comparison) while my right shines like the sun? Will I care?
This whole process feels to me a bit like when you've re-painted one room in the house and it looks fabulous and suddenly you start to notice how faded and worn out the rest of the house looks when it looked just fine before you painted that one room in the house and screwed everything up.
That happened about two years ago when I painted Dominick's bedroom over--and suddenly, all I could see were the smudges and dirt and cracks and faded, sun bleached paint on the rest of the house's walls--and it made me wish I had the time and energy to repaint the whole house, but also set me on an annoying course of noticing all the other ways our house, which we built ten years ago, has weathered two children and dogs and cats and well, life. The scratches on the hardwood floor, the battered, warped, perma-stained look of the wooden kitchen cabinets, the clawed remains of the furniture. I suppose my body isn't so different. Once you start bettering one thing, you're going to want to improve the whole she-bang. Is that such a bad thing?
I used to watch snippets of Extreme Makeover with a detached revulsion--the women who went in for a life-changing nose job were suddenly wanting a boob job and a butt lift and a tummy tuck and a tooth whitening and it seemed as if there was no end in sight to the improvements they wanted to make. Hey, you've got great teeth, but boy, your butt is dragging on the floor! Why don't we skim the fat and make you some lovely new big breasts so you can feel really great about yourself? Sometimes I wonder how they would have fared with a really great haircut. Maybe that's all it would have taken--but they were never given the chance. It had to be extreme, after all. Our culture feeds on it.
And now, here I am, having to make a choice I never imagined I would have to make. The mindless, shallow, plastic superficiality of the over-consuming, unconscious culture of our big box world repulses me, and yet, my choices might not be so ample and well, safe, if it were not for some elements of that world that pushed the techniques through trial and error to the level of sophistication that breast reconstruction surgery now employs. If it were not for the women who came before me, to not only be reconstructed after a breast-cancer-induced mastectomy but quite possibly, to be outfitted with larger breasts just-for-the-helluva-it as well, I wouldn't have had the reconstruction, symmetry would not have been an option, and I would not know so much about re-growing girls. It's all part of the same world, after all. And it's impossible to say that one kind of need or surgery begot the other, or whether co-evolution was at work, with each market pushing the shared, symbiotic nature of the technology along, but logic would tell me that I would not have these wonderful choices to make if not for the culture, however malevolent, that advanced cosmetic surgery to the point where it is now.
"I am what I am because of who we all are." That's the creed behind UBUNTU, the African philosophy of humanity to others that Doc Rivers, Celtics coach and apparent mage, brought to his team at the start of the season, to learn and play and live, not always easy in a world of cut-throat competition and superstar play. I watch the whole of the Celtics play--the experience, substance and tireless play of the big three, Pierce, Garnett, and Allen, the dependable, under appreciated Perkins, the promising upstart, Rondo, with his flashes of brilliance, and the bench--the 38-year olds, Cassell and Brown, who have brought new vigor and pluck to the mid-life game, and the spunk of House, Posey, Powe and Big Baby--and am struck by the many parts working together to create a lovely, imperfect whole.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts. ~ Aristotle. Yep.
Sometimes, everything comes together in a perfect juxtaposition of parts that makes you only see the perfect whole. We all have our imbalances, our imperfections. We would not be without them. What would the gundy gut be without his paunchy belly, hanging over his waistband? What would the jackanapes be without his impertinent, overflowing boasts? What would the flibbertigibbet be without her scatterbrained spout of ceaseless chatter? What would I be without my scars that tell the stories of my youth, my laugh lines and wrinkles that run railroad tracks across my face, the crooked, slightly squashed bend to my nose, the...oh, I could go on and on! Suffice it to say, I wouldn't be me, and you wouldn't be you, without all your wonderful idiosyncrasies.
"Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality" ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But my breasts will never look the same, despite Dr. Pitts' best efforts. Even if my right girl decides to "have some work done," she'll never be 16 again. And why would she want to be? She worked hard nursing my two boys for nearly six years between them, and well, if wrinkles are the seasoning of the stew that is Life, than a bit of droop can only add more flavor to the pot.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. ~ Mark Twain
I tell Dr. Pitts I will have to think about whether or not I want to have the lift done. She explains that I can always have it done later, but that it is always easier to have it done at the time of the exchange surgery, when I'm already out for the count. She reminds me of my four weeks of restrictions after the surgery: no bras, (but no drains or strange strap to wear, either), no lifting, no rigorous activity, no sleeping on the left side. I am already starting to lament going four weeks without biking, playing badminton, catch, Frisbee. I have enjoyed my few precious weeks of all-out activity with Luke and Dominick--after spending the first few weeks of my recovery walking all over town, I switched to bicycling a few weeks ago, and it has been great fun to wheel about the hills of Gill with the boys by my side and the beautiful landscape--sonorous and animated and ardently green--all around. It'll be hard to give it up for a month, especially smack dab in the middle of summer, when climbing on your bike and scaling the heights of the hills only to coast down in a spiraling joy that brings back banana seat bike days and fills your whole body with breeze, can be the best antidote to the hot muggies that seem to grip our July afternoons.
There will be other ways to stay cool, to get out my ya-ya's, to commune with the resounding blush of early summer: sitting in front of the trusty window fan, standing underneath the sprinkler, or sipping sun tea in the shade; walking in the early morning to avoid the wilt of the midday sun; fighting mosquitoes and weeds in the garden; floating in a kayak and letting others paddle for a while. Oy. I'm trying to get over the disappointment of having to swing out of my current state of rigorous and vigorous activity and return to the keeping-my-inner-puppy-quiet stage, but as you can see, it's not working all that well. Maybe I'm just being a baby. Maybe I don't want to have to go through another surgery. Maybe I'm afraid, of being knocked out again, of having to expel the gunk clogging up my blood and lungs and liver, of the scalpel and the needles and the IVs, of feeling as if I've lost my footing, again, my forward motion suspended, my mettle misplaced. Maybe I'm afraid of having to depend on others again for things I'd like to be able to do myself, of being disappointed, of falling back into the blues that keep knocking on my door. Maybe I'm afraid of meeting my new girl. What if she doesn't measure up? What if she weeps? What if my body rejects her? Maybe I'm just afraid of the commitment; after all, we'll be together for at least thte next twenty years, when perhaps, she'll wear out, and look as sad and sorry as my other 62-year old girl will feel (even if I opt for the lift, and she still looks, ah, 30).
Whatever the reasons, I'm looking forward to resuming my recovery after the surgery. I've been able to start physical therapy for my knee and hips, after having nerve-conduction studies and MRIs and consultations with neurologists to rule out MS and other diabolical diseases and conditions, and since there are many more repairs to be made, I hope to be able to continue with PT and bicycling and all-out yoga and peeling back and rebuilding the layers of good health. There's always mending to be done, holes to be darned, strings without tethers, buttons to be replaced, gardens to be tended, a new nipple to be constructed...it's the way of growing older, the dignified way we have of reinventing ourselves while making our constant repairs, an endless recycling and rebirth that kindles the spirit of each day and each breath. I am here. I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful...Ubuntu!
Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. ~Author Unknown
"A warrior must only take care that (her) spirit is not broken."
We saw a polar bear today. And you know, that's not something that I can say everyday. There were other unexpected delights to the day, too: watching a way cool spiny soft shell turtle move its head in and out of its shell as it followed us along the side of its glass enclosure; singing "What is love? Baby, don't hurt me..." to a hilarious barn owl, who swiveled and pumped his moon-faced head to the beat in a spot-on Jim Carey/Will Ferrell impression; and chatting it up with the adorable little river otter that popped his head up to the sound of our voices and waited for hand outs of fish that never came.
Most of the animals we took in at the Eco-tarium in Worcester today are frequent visitors to our slice of the fertile valley, and as interesting as they are to see up close, observing them in their natural habitat, and not in some sad (though necessary, given that most are injured and not able to return to the wild) enclosure, is much more gratifying and exciting--hawks and bald eagles circle and sweep our skies, sometimes land in the towering dead pines in our back wetlands, and nest at nearby Barton Cove; at least once every spring, female snapping and wood turtles make their way across the road into our streams and wetlands to slow traffic and lay their eggs; and red fox have become an almost daily sighting around here. Recently, we've been conversing with a small kit that always seems to emerge from one particular thicket along the road just as we pass by on our bicycles or car. We usually stop to say hello in sweet motherese, and as his eyes grow wide and his ears perk, Dominick remarks that maybe this is the day we should take the little guy home. And river otters frolic in the waters of the Connecticut, just a stone's throw away, and every now and then we'll come up on one or two in our kayaks. But polar bears?
Seeing poor Kenda, the huge female who has lived out (nearly) all her 25 years in the Eco-tarium, sprawled out on her fake plastic ice overlooking her pool of Arctic seas in her dingy outdoor space, left me thinking that this is just one more way that we've gotten it all wrong. (And I thought of the polar bears roaming the jungles of Lost, too, and imagined Kenda breaking out of her enclosure and roaming the urban jungle, where idiots like me tried to talk to her as if she were merely a lost dog on the lam).
Earlier, driving out on the road from the Pike to the Eco-tarium, it's easy to feel walloped by Route 9's dizzying mess of strip malls, office parks, big box stores, car dealerships, and the ribbons of BUY CRAP! sentiment that seems to go on forever. Light after light after light, the glare of the plastic artificiality, cumbersome, oversized construction, and asphalt desert blinds, sears, and grows entangled with regret. We stop at a Borders to buy the latest books in two series that the boys have been anxiously awaiting; all those books laid out in neat, colorful stacks, and all I can see are trees. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The roads are laid out for the long commute, the parking lots are filled with luxury SUVs, their owners out doing their over-consuming and gas-guzzling, and all I can think of is the way the fog was rising and rolling over the tree tops along Route 2 this morning as we headed out of Gill, the grayish white wisps of clouds appearing phantasmic and lovely and ethereal.
We've come from Wellesley, where I've met with my plastic surgeon, Dr. Pitts, to discuss my next surgery. Her assistant takes several "before" pictures. I try to imagine the "after" pictures, and file a mental note to start working on my six-pack. I try to stand up straight and tell my girls to smile. Dr. Pitts arrives to take measurements of my right girl so she can chose an implant for the left that will match perfectly in congruence, symmetry, and droop. She has me stand in front of the mirror, points out that the expander is sitting just where it should be, that it no longer seems too high, but that a small lift in my right breast--something she could perform during the exchange surgery--would bring it all together in a near-perfect balance and radiance. As I expected, my new breast is being created to look like my 16-year old breast, and not, it seems, like my worn-torn, well-seasoned, 42-year old breast. She lifts my right breast with her finger to show how a mastopexy, the official name for a breast lift, would bring it up and more to the middle, to where, I suppose, it used to be when I was a virginal sixteen, restoring that well-centered perkiness and charm of my yesteryear, and better matching it to the sprightly joviality of my new girl. I see her point, I really do, but I cannot give her an answer just yet. The downside is that I will have a small scar around the areola if I decide to go ahead with the lift, and some residual soreness that I most likely won't notice much, given how sore my left side will be (even though it was awfully nice to not have any pain on the right side after the mastectomy).
But just how important is this to me? I decided to go ahead with reconstruction on the merits of symmetry, after all, but just how far will I take it? I opted out of going "bigger," choosing instead to preserve some sense of self and humility, I suppose--based on the idea that my breast size has worked just fine for all these years, thank you, so why would I change it now? Now, when given the choice, do I opt for an attempt at near-perfection? Reconstruction and restoration? Will it matter if my left is still a bit droopy (and trust me, droop is all relative--I've seen some serious droopage, and mine are still pretty darn perky in comparison) while my right shines like the sun? Will I care?
This whole process feels to me a bit like when you've re-painted one room in the house and it looks fabulous and suddenly you start to notice how faded and worn out the rest of the house looks when it looked just fine before you painted that one room in the house and screwed everything up.
That happened about two years ago when I painted Dominick's bedroom over--and suddenly, all I could see were the smudges and dirt and cracks and faded, sun bleached paint on the rest of the house's walls--and it made me wish I had the time and energy to repaint the whole house, but also set me on an annoying course of noticing all the other ways our house, which we built ten years ago, has weathered two children and dogs and cats and well, life. The scratches on the hardwood floor, the battered, warped, perma-stained look of the wooden kitchen cabinets, the clawed remains of the furniture. I suppose my body isn't so different. Once you start bettering one thing, you're going to want to improve the whole she-bang. Is that such a bad thing?
I used to watch snippets of Extreme Makeover with a detached revulsion--the women who went in for a life-changing nose job were suddenly wanting a boob job and a butt lift and a tummy tuck and a tooth whitening and it seemed as if there was no end in sight to the improvements they wanted to make. Hey, you've got great teeth, but boy, your butt is dragging on the floor! Why don't we skim the fat and make you some lovely new big breasts so you can feel really great about yourself? Sometimes I wonder how they would have fared with a really great haircut. Maybe that's all it would have taken--but they were never given the chance. It had to be extreme, after all. Our culture feeds on it.
And now, here I am, having to make a choice I never imagined I would have to make. The mindless, shallow, plastic superficiality of the over-consuming, unconscious culture of our big box world repulses me, and yet, my choices might not be so ample and well, safe, if it were not for some elements of that world that pushed the techniques through trial and error to the level of sophistication that breast reconstruction surgery now employs. If it were not for the women who came before me, to not only be reconstructed after a breast-cancer-induced mastectomy but quite possibly, to be outfitted with larger breasts just-for-the-helluva-it as well, I wouldn't have had the reconstruction, symmetry would not have been an option, and I would not know so much about re-growing girls. It's all part of the same world, after all. And it's impossible to say that one kind of need or surgery begot the other, or whether co-evolution was at work, with each market pushing the shared, symbiotic nature of the technology along, but logic would tell me that I would not have these wonderful choices to make if not for the culture, however malevolent, that advanced cosmetic surgery to the point where it is now.
"I am what I am because of who we all are." That's the creed behind UBUNTU, the African philosophy of humanity to others that Doc Rivers, Celtics coach and apparent mage, brought to his team at the start of the season, to learn and play and live, not always easy in a world of cut-throat competition and superstar play. I watch the whole of the Celtics play--the experience, substance and tireless play of the big three, Pierce, Garnett, and Allen, the dependable, under appreciated Perkins, the promising upstart, Rondo, with his flashes of brilliance, and the bench--the 38-year olds, Cassell and Brown, who have brought new vigor and pluck to the mid-life game, and the spunk of House, Posey, Powe and Big Baby--and am struck by the many parts working together to create a lovely, imperfect whole.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts. ~ Aristotle. Yep.
Sometimes, everything comes together in a perfect juxtaposition of parts that makes you only see the perfect whole. We all have our imbalances, our imperfections. We would not be without them. What would the gundy gut be without his paunchy belly, hanging over his waistband? What would the jackanapes be without his impertinent, overflowing boasts? What would the flibbertigibbet be without her scatterbrained spout of ceaseless chatter? What would I be without my scars that tell the stories of my youth, my laugh lines and wrinkles that run railroad tracks across my face, the crooked, slightly squashed bend to my nose, the...oh, I could go on and on! Suffice it to say, I wouldn't be me, and you wouldn't be you, without all your wonderful idiosyncrasies.
"Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality" ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But my breasts will never look the same, despite Dr. Pitts' best efforts. Even if my right girl decides to "have some work done," she'll never be 16 again. And why would she want to be? She worked hard nursing my two boys for nearly six years between them, and well, if wrinkles are the seasoning of the stew that is Life, than a bit of droop can only add more flavor to the pot.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. ~ Mark Twain
I tell Dr. Pitts I will have to think about whether or not I want to have the lift done. She explains that I can always have it done later, but that it is always easier to have it done at the time of the exchange surgery, when I'm already out for the count. She reminds me of my four weeks of restrictions after the surgery: no bras, (but no drains or strange strap to wear, either), no lifting, no rigorous activity, no sleeping on the left side. I am already starting to lament going four weeks without biking, playing badminton, catch, Frisbee. I have enjoyed my few precious weeks of all-out activity with Luke and Dominick--after spending the first few weeks of my recovery walking all over town, I switched to bicycling a few weeks ago, and it has been great fun to wheel about the hills of Gill with the boys by my side and the beautiful landscape--sonorous and animated and ardently green--all around. It'll be hard to give it up for a month, especially smack dab in the middle of summer, when climbing on your bike and scaling the heights of the hills only to coast down in a spiraling joy that brings back banana seat bike days and fills your whole body with breeze, can be the best antidote to the hot muggies that seem to grip our July afternoons.
There will be other ways to stay cool, to get out my ya-ya's, to commune with the resounding blush of early summer: sitting in front of the trusty window fan, standing underneath the sprinkler, or sipping sun tea in the shade; walking in the early morning to avoid the wilt of the midday sun; fighting mosquitoes and weeds in the garden; floating in a kayak and letting others paddle for a while. Oy. I'm trying to get over the disappointment of having to swing out of my current state of rigorous and vigorous activity and return to the keeping-my-inner-puppy-quiet stage, but as you can see, it's not working all that well. Maybe I'm just being a baby. Maybe I don't want to have to go through another surgery. Maybe I'm afraid, of being knocked out again, of having to expel the gunk clogging up my blood and lungs and liver, of the scalpel and the needles and the IVs, of feeling as if I've lost my footing, again, my forward motion suspended, my mettle misplaced. Maybe I'm afraid of having to depend on others again for things I'd like to be able to do myself, of being disappointed, of falling back into the blues that keep knocking on my door. Maybe I'm afraid of meeting my new girl. What if she doesn't measure up? What if she weeps? What if my body rejects her? Maybe I'm just afraid of the commitment; after all, we'll be together for at least thte next twenty years, when perhaps, she'll wear out, and look as sad and sorry as my other 62-year old girl will feel (even if I opt for the lift, and she still looks, ah, 30).
Whatever the reasons, I'm looking forward to resuming my recovery after the surgery. I've been able to start physical therapy for my knee and hips, after having nerve-conduction studies and MRIs and consultations with neurologists to rule out MS and other diabolical diseases and conditions, and since there are many more repairs to be made, I hope to be able to continue with PT and bicycling and all-out yoga and peeling back and rebuilding the layers of good health. There's always mending to be done, holes to be darned, strings without tethers, buttons to be replaced, gardens to be tended, a new nipple to be constructed...it's the way of growing older, the dignified way we have of reinventing ourselves while making our constant repairs, an endless recycling and rebirth that kindles the spirit of each day and each breath. I am here. I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful...Ubuntu!
Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. ~Author Unknown
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. ~ Albert Schweitzer
The moment of change is the only poem. ~ Adrienne Rich
Dear family and friends,
I write to you today with apologies for not being in direct touch for awhile (the blog doesn’t quite count, I know, and I am sorry), and with hopes that you’ve all been well, taking the time to enjoy some of the finer offerings of the season: the slow, unraveling reveal of the fiddleheads, the rising sun set against the sparkle of dew, the wetland symphonic serenades at dusk, the bursts of buds and blossoms that have set the tops of the trees ablaze in color…
It’s been many weeks now since my last surgery, and I am ever grateful for the good Juju that has come spiraling my way, coursing through my veins and carrying me through the tougher days with light and love from many corners of this earth. Despite a difficult first couple of weeks, I have healed well physically. I regained full motion fairly easily and quickly, found having to be careful and quiet with my activity for the six weeks following surgery maddening, but manageable, and have enjoyed a gradual return to doing whatever feels right: push ups are not on this list. I have returned to Boston for follow-ups with my breast surgeon and oncologist, and several times to Wellesley for nearly weekly expansions with my plastic surgeon. I have been so grateful for their good care, and particularly, for their good news: no post-surgical complications, no need for chemotherapy, and a new left girl, sprouting with the same kind of fury and flamboyance that this springtime revelry has inspired. And a few weeks ago, I returned to Exeter for my 25th reunion, which brought me fully into the light for a few days, a light that has been pulling me through the darkest days of this experience with the promise of dear, old friends gathered from all ends of the earth, for endless talking, dancing, and other deeply sublime weekend adventures.
With the exception of some residual and chronic difficulties with my left knee (still numb, still working it out with the neurologist and spine guy) and sciatica, which has flared up in a way that I have not felt since I was at Exeter, and had to often go flat on my back in the middle of class, my body is regaining its strength and stamina, but it will take some time. I feel so tired at the end of my days, but know, too, that this spring season is rife with overdoing it, in the gardens, the youth sports arena, the over-scheduled everything, and that I am not alone in my fatigue. And given that I’ve been out of commission for a long while, since my knee surgery in January, it’ll be a long time before I feel thoroughly strong again.
The reconstruction process has been comical and fascinating—and very uncomfortable. I never knew skin could be stretched so far! That the body is so resilient and fluid and adapting is amazing to me. And yet, there are trade-offs, always. Along with my skin, my left pectoral muscle, which now sits atop the now over-expanded saline expander, is being stretched, stretched, stretched some more to accommodate an ever-expanding expander. Just yesterday, I received an injection of another 60 ml of saline, to constitute my official second over-expansion. Room must be made, after all, for the expander to come out and for the implant to come in. And from its new perch, this poor messed-with muscle yields considerable influence on some of the other muscles to which it is attached—the psoas, and the lat, for instance, both of which are being pulled in concert with the pec, throwing my whole body into an uncomfortable state of disequilibrium. Hence the sciatica, the worsening knee issues, the overall feeling of soreness. Reconstruction will do that.
Happily, I won’t have to deal with this for much longer. My next surgery will be at Newton Wellesley on June 17—when this bulky, tight, alien expander will be exchanged for a more permanent, comfortable, and realistic looking and feeling silicone implant. The exchange surgery will be a day surgery, so I should be going home that night to sleep off the narcotics and try to get used to yet another new girl. There will be another four weeks of restricted activity and physical healing. I am hoping that I will be better off having gone through something similar before—as it was with my second child, that the body will surrender a little more easily, and recognize that the best way to get through the tougher stuff is sometimes the path of least resistance.
Emotionally, the healing has been more difficult. What’s been most disheartening has been the rush around me to return to some kind of “normal”, which, of course, just isn’t there any more for me. There are some days that come and go as if the breast cancer never happened. And yet it did. Each and every day there are millions of reminders that I am still in the thick of it, with deep work to be done, and that my girl is, that I am, still a work in progress. I am still trying to listen to it all, and to spend some time on the big what’s next. The diagnosis has made me question how I have lived, what I did to bring this on, what I can do differently now to make sure it doesn’t rear its ugly head again. I know, too, that there are unknowns, that shit just happens, is all, but I like answers. It’s the only way I can feel somewhat in control of something that is so entirely out of control and seemingly unpredictable. Finding the time and space to move forward with it all has been more of a challenge—I still need to take care of myself, to listen to all of this—and yet, as is the case for so many of us, the usual flurry of obligatory springtime activity has overshadowed my best efforts, and I feel thwarted and frustrated and spent, searching for snapshots of time when I can reflect, write, do some yoga, try a little meditation, get together with a friend, go for a long walk with Daisy, disengage from the constant clatter and clamor of family life and just be.
The boys are doing okay—better, I think, now that there is soft green grass under their feet for running about, that the temperatures have warmed the chill out of their bones, that they are once again more fully engaged with homeschooling, favorite spring sports, and time with friends, and that they have their mom back. I worry about them, but every mother worries about their kids. I worry about the lasting impact this winter will have on their lives—the disruptions and lost chunks of time, the fears and anxieties they will carry with them, the way their world has been turned upside down. But I know, too, that they have been fortified by this experience in many ways, and that they are stronger because of all the life lessons they’ve received, in living life no matter what you are dealt, in facing things head on, in staying open to the love that shines all about, and in finding the good and the light when there seems to be nothing but deep wells of darkness around you--lessons that I am trying hard to learn myself.
I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am. ~ Sylvia Plath
Part of my recovery must include imagining, discovering and creating a new road map for myself. I have been at the mercy of a cancer patient’s schedule—filled in with doctors’ appointments, surgeries, recovery time, and treatments—for so long (though for so many others out there it is so much longer, so I know, I know I am blessed), that now I need to recreate my own what’s next. For the immediate future, this will include trying to figure out how to tune out the chirping birds at dawn and sleep in properly after staying up way too late cheering the Celtics on; surviving Dominick’s baseball season, which offers up a delectable slice of American life during the seemingly endless three hour plus games that stretch from the sparkling sunshine of the late afternoon to the blinding black fly haze of twilight; finding time to write each and every day (and if I don’t, as my writing prof used to say, forgiving myself); finishing up the homeschool year with a bang, so I don’t feel forever guilty for being such a pox on this homeschooling project and the cause of so much blown time this winter; putting things on the calendar, aside from doctor appointments, so we have plenty to look forward to—family picnics, reunions, summer camps, retreats, and trips; and continuing to research how best to eat, exercise, and live in order to protect myself against recurrence. This is simply not something I ever want to have to go through again.
I have also been considering walking to raise money for breast cancer research, and there are several options. The boys and I were all excited to walk in the Breast Cancer 3-day, which benefits the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and takes place in Boston in August 15-17), but we recently discovered that kids must be 16 in order to participate, and now, well, we just feel deflated. Our team was to be the Blue-Footed Boobies, and I still might walk on my own if I find some walking buddies to join up and complete the walk with me. If there is anyone out there who might consider joining me, I’d love to hear from you. I know there are many of you who have been touched by breast cancer in some way—this is supposed to be an incredibly moving experience, a real personal challenge, and a great way to channel all that good energy into something productive and meaningful. The walk covers 60 miles in three days. Ooofta! The web site covers the details: http://08.the3day.org/site/PageServer. Just in case I might motivate some of you, I am continuing with my training (and am looking for local walking buddies, too)…
You can still find me at my blog: http://flipsideofforty.blogpsot.com/, and of course in Gill. If you should ever happen to find yourself traveling down Rte 2, 91, or Main Road, please do say hello. It’s been a lonely ride, and I’d love to see you.
I send you all much love, and thank you, as ever, for hanging in there with me,
XOXO
Liz
Dear family and friends,
I write to you today with apologies for not being in direct touch for awhile (the blog doesn’t quite count, I know, and I am sorry), and with hopes that you’ve all been well, taking the time to enjoy some of the finer offerings of the season: the slow, unraveling reveal of the fiddleheads, the rising sun set against the sparkle of dew, the wetland symphonic serenades at dusk, the bursts of buds and blossoms that have set the tops of the trees ablaze in color…
It’s been many weeks now since my last surgery, and I am ever grateful for the good Juju that has come spiraling my way, coursing through my veins and carrying me through the tougher days with light and love from many corners of this earth. Despite a difficult first couple of weeks, I have healed well physically. I regained full motion fairly easily and quickly, found having to be careful and quiet with my activity for the six weeks following surgery maddening, but manageable, and have enjoyed a gradual return to doing whatever feels right: push ups are not on this list. I have returned to Boston for follow-ups with my breast surgeon and oncologist, and several times to Wellesley for nearly weekly expansions with my plastic surgeon. I have been so grateful for their good care, and particularly, for their good news: no post-surgical complications, no need for chemotherapy, and a new left girl, sprouting with the same kind of fury and flamboyance that this springtime revelry has inspired. And a few weeks ago, I returned to Exeter for my 25th reunion, which brought me fully into the light for a few days, a light that has been pulling me through the darkest days of this experience with the promise of dear, old friends gathered from all ends of the earth, for endless talking, dancing, and other deeply sublime weekend adventures.
With the exception of some residual and chronic difficulties with my left knee (still numb, still working it out with the neurologist and spine guy) and sciatica, which has flared up in a way that I have not felt since I was at Exeter, and had to often go flat on my back in the middle of class, my body is regaining its strength and stamina, but it will take some time. I feel so tired at the end of my days, but know, too, that this spring season is rife with overdoing it, in the gardens, the youth sports arena, the over-scheduled everything, and that I am not alone in my fatigue. And given that I’ve been out of commission for a long while, since my knee surgery in January, it’ll be a long time before I feel thoroughly strong again.
The reconstruction process has been comical and fascinating—and very uncomfortable. I never knew skin could be stretched so far! That the body is so resilient and fluid and adapting is amazing to me. And yet, there are trade-offs, always. Along with my skin, my left pectoral muscle, which now sits atop the now over-expanded saline expander, is being stretched, stretched, stretched some more to accommodate an ever-expanding expander. Just yesterday, I received an injection of another 60 ml of saline, to constitute my official second over-expansion. Room must be made, after all, for the expander to come out and for the implant to come in. And from its new perch, this poor messed-with muscle yields considerable influence on some of the other muscles to which it is attached—the psoas, and the lat, for instance, both of which are being pulled in concert with the pec, throwing my whole body into an uncomfortable state of disequilibrium. Hence the sciatica, the worsening knee issues, the overall feeling of soreness. Reconstruction will do that.
Happily, I won’t have to deal with this for much longer. My next surgery will be at Newton Wellesley on June 17—when this bulky, tight, alien expander will be exchanged for a more permanent, comfortable, and realistic looking and feeling silicone implant. The exchange surgery will be a day surgery, so I should be going home that night to sleep off the narcotics and try to get used to yet another new girl. There will be another four weeks of restricted activity and physical healing. I am hoping that I will be better off having gone through something similar before—as it was with my second child, that the body will surrender a little more easily, and recognize that the best way to get through the tougher stuff is sometimes the path of least resistance.
Emotionally, the healing has been more difficult. What’s been most disheartening has been the rush around me to return to some kind of “normal”, which, of course, just isn’t there any more for me. There are some days that come and go as if the breast cancer never happened. And yet it did. Each and every day there are millions of reminders that I am still in the thick of it, with deep work to be done, and that my girl is, that I am, still a work in progress. I am still trying to listen to it all, and to spend some time on the big what’s next. The diagnosis has made me question how I have lived, what I did to bring this on, what I can do differently now to make sure it doesn’t rear its ugly head again. I know, too, that there are unknowns, that shit just happens, is all, but I like answers. It’s the only way I can feel somewhat in control of something that is so entirely out of control and seemingly unpredictable. Finding the time and space to move forward with it all has been more of a challenge—I still need to take care of myself, to listen to all of this—and yet, as is the case for so many of us, the usual flurry of obligatory springtime activity has overshadowed my best efforts, and I feel thwarted and frustrated and spent, searching for snapshots of time when I can reflect, write, do some yoga, try a little meditation, get together with a friend, go for a long walk with Daisy, disengage from the constant clatter and clamor of family life and just be.
The boys are doing okay—better, I think, now that there is soft green grass under their feet for running about, that the temperatures have warmed the chill out of their bones, that they are once again more fully engaged with homeschooling, favorite spring sports, and time with friends, and that they have their mom back. I worry about them, but every mother worries about their kids. I worry about the lasting impact this winter will have on their lives—the disruptions and lost chunks of time, the fears and anxieties they will carry with them, the way their world has been turned upside down. But I know, too, that they have been fortified by this experience in many ways, and that they are stronger because of all the life lessons they’ve received, in living life no matter what you are dealt, in facing things head on, in staying open to the love that shines all about, and in finding the good and the light when there seems to be nothing but deep wells of darkness around you--lessons that I am trying hard to learn myself.
I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am. ~ Sylvia Plath
Part of my recovery must include imagining, discovering and creating a new road map for myself. I have been at the mercy of a cancer patient’s schedule—filled in with doctors’ appointments, surgeries, recovery time, and treatments—for so long (though for so many others out there it is so much longer, so I know, I know I am blessed), that now I need to recreate my own what’s next. For the immediate future, this will include trying to figure out how to tune out the chirping birds at dawn and sleep in properly after staying up way too late cheering the Celtics on; surviving Dominick’s baseball season, which offers up a delectable slice of American life during the seemingly endless three hour plus games that stretch from the sparkling sunshine of the late afternoon to the blinding black fly haze of twilight; finding time to write each and every day (and if I don’t, as my writing prof used to say, forgiving myself); finishing up the homeschool year with a bang, so I don’t feel forever guilty for being such a pox on this homeschooling project and the cause of so much blown time this winter; putting things on the calendar, aside from doctor appointments, so we have plenty to look forward to—family picnics, reunions, summer camps, retreats, and trips; and continuing to research how best to eat, exercise, and live in order to protect myself against recurrence. This is simply not something I ever want to have to go through again.
I have also been considering walking to raise money for breast cancer research, and there are several options. The boys and I were all excited to walk in the Breast Cancer 3-day, which benefits the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and takes place in Boston in August 15-17), but we recently discovered that kids must be 16 in order to participate, and now, well, we just feel deflated. Our team was to be the Blue-Footed Boobies, and I still might walk on my own if I find some walking buddies to join up and complete the walk with me. If there is anyone out there who might consider joining me, I’d love to hear from you. I know there are many of you who have been touched by breast cancer in some way—this is supposed to be an incredibly moving experience, a real personal challenge, and a great way to channel all that good energy into something productive and meaningful. The walk covers 60 miles in three days. Ooofta! The web site covers the details: http://08.the3day.org/site/PageServer. Just in case I might motivate some of you, I am continuing with my training (and am looking for local walking buddies, too)…
You can still find me at my blog: http://flipsideofforty.blogpsot.com/, and of course in Gill. If you should ever happen to find yourself traveling down Rte 2, 91, or Main Road, please do say hello. It’s been a lonely ride, and I’d love to see you.
I send you all much love, and thank you, as ever, for hanging in there with me,
XOXO
Liz
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Scoop ~ Reconstruction, Surgery, Oncotype
Luke, Dom and I made the trip to Dr. Pitts' office in Wellesley on Wednesday for expansion #3 of 4. I seem to have guessed correctly all those weeks ago, when Dr. Pitts said that "normally, it takes a course of 8 expansions" to prepare (stretch) the skin and muscle properly for the exchange surgery, during which time the temporary saline expander is removed and the more permanent silicone implant is inserted in its place, and I asserted that it would take only HALF of the normal 8 to fill me up. We've already established that there is nothing normal about me. 8 expansions? I would surely burst, and spew spalls of expander throughout the universe.
I made a big deal out of being lopsided after my last expansion, as Luke has pointed out, but as is the case with this process (and so many others), my sense of being over-inflated is, perhaps, over-inflated, and the feeling of imbalance eased with each passing day--chalk it up to the expander doing its job (stretch, relax, calm down), and my own ability to assimilate, adapt.
But now, well, I am feeling lopsided again, as my last expansion was the first of two OVER-expansions that will make sure there is plenty of elbow room in and around the left "breast" for taking that rather unwieldy expander out and putting the softer implant in. I feel as if I have a water balloon behind my chest wall, and each time I am expanded, the pressure and tightness increase, the skin grows more taut, and, well, it just may burst one of these days. One little poke...No more running with scissors.
My left girl fills out my new B cup bra with panache; my right girl--my true girl--enjoys ample breathing room, and is feeling a bit unremarkable. Perhaps she'll feel better after a lift.
Speaking of...my exchange surgery has been scheduled for morning of June 17th at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. I'll be having my final over-expansion in another ten days, and then, somehow, I'll make my way around summertime tank tops and bathing suits with one C cup and one A cup. It'll be hilarious.
I heard from my oncologist today. Dr. Ryan reported that the Oncotype DX test yielded only results consistent with the pathologists' findings: I will not need chemo. This is great news. I cried a bit in relief. Somehow, I need to really feel this one, let it sink in. There is a victory here. And sometimes, those little triumphs go unnoticed or unheralded, and walk on by only to be trounced by the more vociferous, cantankerous set backs.
As of Tuesday, I'll start up on Tamoxifen, but I can dance as vigorously as I want to. I can lift my fat cat and carry her on my shoulder. I can chase my Daisy dog and try to wrench the stick from her grip. I can play badminton with the boys. I can ride my bike along the hills of Gill. I can lose myself in a weights-yoga workout, do a Downward Dog and start restoring the fire power to my guns (those would be my arms, and if you have ever seen my skinny pipes, you'll understand how ridiculous I am being). I can get to all that work in the yard and garden that's been waiting for my golden (yeah, right) touch all these weeks. I can look forward to completing this reconstruction process without having to break for the destructively wide swath that chemo would have cut. And for now, I can drop the quiet puppy act, and get on with doing more than just wagging my tail.
And finally, on this rainy Friday evening, I bid you happy weekends all. With gratitude for reading, listening, and checking in, I wish you the eyes to see even the tiniest of triumphs, the hands to catch them, and the spirit to weave them into your heart.
I made a big deal out of being lopsided after my last expansion, as Luke has pointed out, but as is the case with this process (and so many others), my sense of being over-inflated is, perhaps, over-inflated, and the feeling of imbalance eased with each passing day--chalk it up to the expander doing its job (stretch, relax, calm down), and my own ability to assimilate, adapt.
But now, well, I am feeling lopsided again, as my last expansion was the first of two OVER-expansions that will make sure there is plenty of elbow room in and around the left "breast" for taking that rather unwieldy expander out and putting the softer implant in. I feel as if I have a water balloon behind my chest wall, and each time I am expanded, the pressure and tightness increase, the skin grows more taut, and, well, it just may burst one of these days. One little poke...No more running with scissors.
My left girl fills out my new B cup bra with panache; my right girl--my true girl--enjoys ample breathing room, and is feeling a bit unremarkable. Perhaps she'll feel better after a lift.
Speaking of...my exchange surgery has been scheduled for morning of June 17th at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. I'll be having my final over-expansion in another ten days, and then, somehow, I'll make my way around summertime tank tops and bathing suits with one C cup and one A cup. It'll be hilarious.
I heard from my oncologist today. Dr. Ryan reported that the Oncotype DX test yielded only results consistent with the pathologists' findings: I will not need chemo. This is great news. I cried a bit in relief. Somehow, I need to really feel this one, let it sink in. There is a victory here. And sometimes, those little triumphs go unnoticed or unheralded, and walk on by only to be trounced by the more vociferous, cantankerous set backs.
As of Tuesday, I'll start up on Tamoxifen, but I can dance as vigorously as I want to. I can lift my fat cat and carry her on my shoulder. I can chase my Daisy dog and try to wrench the stick from her grip. I can play badminton with the boys. I can ride my bike along the hills of Gill. I can lose myself in a weights-yoga workout, do a Downward Dog and start restoring the fire power to my guns (those would be my arms, and if you have ever seen my skinny pipes, you'll understand how ridiculous I am being). I can get to all that work in the yard and garden that's been waiting for my golden (yeah, right) touch all these weeks. I can look forward to completing this reconstruction process without having to break for the destructively wide swath that chemo would have cut. And for now, I can drop the quiet puppy act, and get on with doing more than just wagging my tail.
And finally, on this rainy Friday evening, I bid you happy weekends all. With gratitude for reading, listening, and checking in, I wish you the eyes to see even the tiniest of triumphs, the hands to catch them, and the spirit to weave them into your heart.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Waiting, waiting, waiting...
Wednesday ~
I was hoping to get my Oncoytpe DX test results back by now, but I have not yet heard back from Dr. Ryan's office. I called Tuesday morning to check in, and they said they would try to track down the results. Mass General is a big place. I am assuming everything is JUST FINE. But boy, it would be nice to hear once and for all, especially before I leave for the weekend, that the pathologists and the oncologist were right: that I do NOT have to have chemo, that Tamoxifen will do the job, that I can move forward into the next phase of reconstruction, and begin unearthing and sorting out the creative self that would like to live its life...
I don't like waiting. It's such a big part of life, that the key is to keep living while waiting so the waiting doesn't feel like anything at all. It's the same as worrying. Why worry? Where is it going to get you? I am hoping to have my next surgery done in early June, about three weeks after my final expansion on the second Wednesday in May, and am waiting to hear from Dr. Pitts' office as to when it might be. As much as I'm looking forward to having the time in between to do whatever the heck I want to, activity wise, I am looking forward to having the surgery done, completing my next four weeks of quiet puppy restricted activities, and then moving forward into a more permanent state of regular vigorous activity: jumping out of airplanes, dancing with the stars, and spinning into space with Richard Branson. Summertime is a tough time of year not to be able to play. I'm already missing playing catch with the boys, riding bikes, and running amok, and soon, it'll be time to swim, play tennis, badminton, frisbee, hike. You name it, the boys play it. And while Scrabble is fun to play with them, it's just not the same as getting out there and giving ourselves to the moment--the cascading laughter, the competitive fire, the sense of connection, family, and fun (not to mention the yelling and screaming, the hurt feelings, the wounded egos, the trounced on toes...)
If not for the waiting, I'd most likely forget most of the time that I have breast cancer. I wonder, too, at what point can I say I HAD breast cancer? At what point can I say I am a breast cancer survivor? What's next, anyway?
Yesterday, on my way to taking Luke down to West Springfield for his soccer game, I stopped in Northampton at Gazebo, a lovely little lingerie boutique on a side street right next to the famed Iron Horse. The boutique was filled with beautiful bras and panties and other underthings--though I saw none of the thread bare tank tops that I wear--and art that made me walk right up close and really look. The sales woman asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. I lost one of my girls, I said. I'm growing a new one, but so far, she's pretty lopsided, so I'm looking for something to help me feel, and look, a little more symmetrical. Can you help? I'm hoping for red and white polkadots. 36C.
Uh-huh.
Actually, I did tell her my story--briefly, and with humor. Luke (and his friends Kanye, Lupe and Jay-Z) were waiting for me in the car, and I wanted this to be as painless and quick as possible. I had a mastectomy about four weeks ago. I'm undergoing reconstruction, have an expander in, but am a little lopsided. See? (and here, I put my hands on my breasts, smooth out my shirt, and show her where each sits) This one is higher, bigger, wider. I need a bra that can help even things up. But no underwire. It has to be soft. Any ideas?
She's great, doesn't miss a beat. Shows me four bras, all soft, lovely, with a comfortable shape. She takes me to the dressing room so that I can try them on. I close the curtain, slip off my shirt, my tank, and put the first bra on. It's pink. And it fits. But when I put my shirt on over it, I am struck by the perkiness of my bra-breasts. Boing! Hmmm, this is unexpected. And not entirely welcome. I try another one on. Straps don't fit around me, too tight, strange fit. I am reminded of the only other two times that I have actually gone bra-shopping, both failed excursions that left me feeling pretty dismal about my girls. Much like with my initial mammogram experiences, when I was too tall, too skinny, and too small-chested for the machine, my bra-fitting adventures have run a similar route: my rib cage is too big, my breasts too small, my shoulders too tall. They just don't make bras to fit women your size, sorry, honey. Ah, the indignity.
And then, I try on the last bra. It is lilac in color, with a beautiful v-curve that frames each breast in a silken smooth shape that is really quite lovely. And I am not the bras are really quite lovely kind of person, but this one is. It is so soft, comfortable, and it fits perfectly. Hurrah. I try my shirt on over it, and to my relief, there's much less of a Boing! factor with this one. It feels, and looks, a little bit more like me. Like me in a bra, of course, which isn't very often, but me, nonetheless.
I buy two in the same size and style, lilac and a minty green. They are out of nude. I'll just have to not care if anyone can see the color of my bra under my white shirt. Yes, that is my bra you see under my shirt. Isn't it lovely?
I thank the sales woman for all her help. I am happy to have had such a positive experience with something that could have been difficult. I'll be back after my exchange surgery, I tell her. Who knows what I'll look like then...
Today, I did not wear my new bra. I have decided it is for special occasions. But tomorrow, I will wear it. Tomorrow, we head out to visit a school where Jim is eyeing a job, and where it is probably better that they not eye my lopsidedness. We'll take two cars. After our visit, Jim and the boys will return home. I'll continue to Exeter, where my 25th reunion awaits. I am so excited that it has arrived...that soon I will see dear old friends and classmates who have known me for more than 25 years, since I was a mere 14-yearling, and my girls had just begun to bud, old friends who have pulled me up by the bootstraps, guided me through this most recent tunnel, shone the light on those parts of myself that I thought had long gone withered up and died, and reminded me to find myself, be myself, laugh at myself, love myself. All good lessons.
I am looking forward to getting away for awhile, being on my own some, reacquainting myself with a school and a community that have meant so much to me over the years, and especially, spending time with friends in that ongoing, continuous loop of instantaneous hilarity, connection, and understanding. And then there's the dancing...the real test will be how much can I dance without crossing over into vigorous territory. I'll never know until I try...
I was hoping to get my Oncoytpe DX test results back by now, but I have not yet heard back from Dr. Ryan's office. I called Tuesday morning to check in, and they said they would try to track down the results. Mass General is a big place. I am assuming everything is JUST FINE. But boy, it would be nice to hear once and for all, especially before I leave for the weekend, that the pathologists and the oncologist were right: that I do NOT have to have chemo, that Tamoxifen will do the job, that I can move forward into the next phase of reconstruction, and begin unearthing and sorting out the creative self that would like to live its life...
I don't like waiting. It's such a big part of life, that the key is to keep living while waiting so the waiting doesn't feel like anything at all. It's the same as worrying. Why worry? Where is it going to get you? I am hoping to have my next surgery done in early June, about three weeks after my final expansion on the second Wednesday in May, and am waiting to hear from Dr. Pitts' office as to when it might be. As much as I'm looking forward to having the time in between to do whatever the heck I want to, activity wise, I am looking forward to having the surgery done, completing my next four weeks of quiet puppy restricted activities, and then moving forward into a more permanent state of regular vigorous activity: jumping out of airplanes, dancing with the stars, and spinning into space with Richard Branson. Summertime is a tough time of year not to be able to play. I'm already missing playing catch with the boys, riding bikes, and running amok, and soon, it'll be time to swim, play tennis, badminton, frisbee, hike. You name it, the boys play it. And while Scrabble is fun to play with them, it's just not the same as getting out there and giving ourselves to the moment--the cascading laughter, the competitive fire, the sense of connection, family, and fun (not to mention the yelling and screaming, the hurt feelings, the wounded egos, the trounced on toes...)
If not for the waiting, I'd most likely forget most of the time that I have breast cancer. I wonder, too, at what point can I say I HAD breast cancer? At what point can I say I am a breast cancer survivor? What's next, anyway?
Yesterday, on my way to taking Luke down to West Springfield for his soccer game, I stopped in Northampton at Gazebo, a lovely little lingerie boutique on a side street right next to the famed Iron Horse. The boutique was filled with beautiful bras and panties and other underthings--though I saw none of the thread bare tank tops that I wear--and art that made me walk right up close and really look. The sales woman asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. I lost one of my girls, I said. I'm growing a new one, but so far, she's pretty lopsided, so I'm looking for something to help me feel, and look, a little more symmetrical. Can you help? I'm hoping for red and white polkadots. 36C.
Uh-huh.
Actually, I did tell her my story--briefly, and with humor. Luke (and his friends Kanye, Lupe and Jay-Z) were waiting for me in the car, and I wanted this to be as painless and quick as possible. I had a mastectomy about four weeks ago. I'm undergoing reconstruction, have an expander in, but am a little lopsided. See? (and here, I put my hands on my breasts, smooth out my shirt, and show her where each sits) This one is higher, bigger, wider. I need a bra that can help even things up. But no underwire. It has to be soft. Any ideas?
She's great, doesn't miss a beat. Shows me four bras, all soft, lovely, with a comfortable shape. She takes me to the dressing room so that I can try them on. I close the curtain, slip off my shirt, my tank, and put the first bra on. It's pink. And it fits. But when I put my shirt on over it, I am struck by the perkiness of my bra-breasts. Boing! Hmmm, this is unexpected. And not entirely welcome. I try another one on. Straps don't fit around me, too tight, strange fit. I am reminded of the only other two times that I have actually gone bra-shopping, both failed excursions that left me feeling pretty dismal about my girls. Much like with my initial mammogram experiences, when I was too tall, too skinny, and too small-chested for the machine, my bra-fitting adventures have run a similar route: my rib cage is too big, my breasts too small, my shoulders too tall. They just don't make bras to fit women your size, sorry, honey. Ah, the indignity.
And then, I try on the last bra. It is lilac in color, with a beautiful v-curve that frames each breast in a silken smooth shape that is really quite lovely. And I am not the bras are really quite lovely kind of person, but this one is. It is so soft, comfortable, and it fits perfectly. Hurrah. I try my shirt on over it, and to my relief, there's much less of a Boing! factor with this one. It feels, and looks, a little bit more like me. Like me in a bra, of course, which isn't very often, but me, nonetheless.
I buy two in the same size and style, lilac and a minty green. They are out of nude. I'll just have to not care if anyone can see the color of my bra under my white shirt. Yes, that is my bra you see under my shirt. Isn't it lovely?
I thank the sales woman for all her help. I am happy to have had such a positive experience with something that could have been difficult. I'll be back after my exchange surgery, I tell her. Who knows what I'll look like then...
Today, I did not wear my new bra. I have decided it is for special occasions. But tomorrow, I will wear it. Tomorrow, we head out to visit a school where Jim is eyeing a job, and where it is probably better that they not eye my lopsidedness. We'll take two cars. After our visit, Jim and the boys will return home. I'll continue to Exeter, where my 25th reunion awaits. I am so excited that it has arrived...that soon I will see dear old friends and classmates who have known me for more than 25 years, since I was a mere 14-yearling, and my girls had just begun to bud, old friends who have pulled me up by the bootstraps, guided me through this most recent tunnel, shone the light on those parts of myself that I thought had long gone withered up and died, and reminded me to find myself, be myself, laugh at myself, love myself. All good lessons.
I am looking forward to getting away for awhile, being on my own some, reacquainting myself with a school and a community that have meant so much to me over the years, and especially, spending time with friends in that ongoing, continuous loop of instantaneous hilarity, connection, and understanding. And then there's the dancing...the real test will be how much can I dance without crossing over into vigorous territory. I'll never know until I try...
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Countdown
Saturday ~
Today, I wear an old shirt of my grandfather’s. It is pink, with white stripes, crisp, a bit oversized. I am perfectly disguised. In my head, days are spinning about in an endless game show countdown:
2 more days until the Boston Marathon. I love the marathon. I love the fact that I don’t have to run the marathon. The boys and I are hoping to drive in to watch this year, unless cold rain is forecast, and then we will wimp out and stay home and watch it on the tube.
3 more days, perhaps, until I hear from the oncologist about the Oncotype test results, which will confirm what the pathologists have said all along—that I had the GOOD kind of cancer, that I am NOT a candidate for chemotherapy, that the Tamoxifen will BLAST the remaining cancer cells out of my body without ANY gnarly side effects, that my prognosis for living a full, healthy, LONG life is excellent, that I will truly be OKAY, and maybe even BETTER than that.
4 more days until I can put on some kind of a bra and look like I have two somewhat symmetrical girls again. Not that I’m self-conscious, but…it might make other people uncomfortable, after all. AND I'll be able to do laundry again. This is one thing that could possibly make me say Hallelujah.
5 more days until I head down Route 2, up 495, 95 and into Exeter for my 25th reunion, where I will meet up with beloved old friends and classmates from all over, try to cry, laugh, and dance as unvigorously (and yet as fully) as possible, so my expander does not end up in the middle of my chest, and wrap myself around all the living, breathing Juju that’ll be dancing, laughing, and crying with me.
11 more days until my next expansion. And I thought I was lopsided now!
18 more days until my final expansion. These last two are over-expansions. I already feel over expanded. By then, I’ll be toppling over for sure. But I’ll also be able to do whatever the heck I want to do, because—here’s the irony—this day will also mark six weeks out for me, the day at which I can dispense with the quiet puppy routine and get to it! Of course, by then, I’ll probably have lost most of my muscle mass and will be so pitifully out of shape that I won’t be able to do a damn thing, and simply walking up the length of our driveway, trying to cross Main Road without getting steamrolled by a speeding car, and lifting the morning newspaper out of the mailbox will feel vigorous.
39 more days until I can have my next surgery, the exchange surgery, when I can say good bye to the expander and hello to my new girl. Dr. Pitts’ office is working on scheduling it for early June. This day will also usher in a new era of no lifting/no vigorous activity for another four weeks. Curses.
67 more days until I can return to being my usual self. Of course, that usual self is something different entirely. So, no more usual, since a new normal has begun, and this reconstruction, after all, is only a piece of a larger work in progress.
to be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting ~ e.e. cummings
Today, I wear an old shirt of my grandfather’s. It is pink, with white stripes, crisp, a bit oversized. I am perfectly disguised. In my head, days are spinning about in an endless game show countdown:
2 more days until the Boston Marathon. I love the marathon. I love the fact that I don’t have to run the marathon. The boys and I are hoping to drive in to watch this year, unless cold rain is forecast, and then we will wimp out and stay home and watch it on the tube.
3 more days, perhaps, until I hear from the oncologist about the Oncotype test results, which will confirm what the pathologists have said all along—that I had the GOOD kind of cancer, that I am NOT a candidate for chemotherapy, that the Tamoxifen will BLAST the remaining cancer cells out of my body without ANY gnarly side effects, that my prognosis for living a full, healthy, LONG life is excellent, that I will truly be OKAY, and maybe even BETTER than that.
4 more days until I can put on some kind of a bra and look like I have two somewhat symmetrical girls again. Not that I’m self-conscious, but…it might make other people uncomfortable, after all. AND I'll be able to do laundry again. This is one thing that could possibly make me say Hallelujah.
5 more days until I head down Route 2, up 495, 95 and into Exeter for my 25th reunion, where I will meet up with beloved old friends and classmates from all over, try to cry, laugh, and dance as unvigorously (and yet as fully) as possible, so my expander does not end up in the middle of my chest, and wrap myself around all the living, breathing Juju that’ll be dancing, laughing, and crying with me.
11 more days until my next expansion. And I thought I was lopsided now!
18 more days until my final expansion. These last two are over-expansions. I already feel over expanded. By then, I’ll be toppling over for sure. But I’ll also be able to do whatever the heck I want to do, because—here’s the irony—this day will also mark six weeks out for me, the day at which I can dispense with the quiet puppy routine and get to it! Of course, by then, I’ll probably have lost most of my muscle mass and will be so pitifully out of shape that I won’t be able to do a damn thing, and simply walking up the length of our driveway, trying to cross Main Road without getting steamrolled by a speeding car, and lifting the morning newspaper out of the mailbox will feel vigorous.
39 more days until I can have my next surgery, the exchange surgery, when I can say good bye to the expander and hello to my new girl. Dr. Pitts’ office is working on scheduling it for early June. This day will also usher in a new era of no lifting/no vigorous activity for another four weeks. Curses.
67 more days until I can return to being my usual self. Of course, that usual self is something different entirely. So, no more usual, since a new normal has begun, and this reconstruction, after all, is only a piece of a larger work in progress.
to be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting ~ e.e. cummings
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Under (Re)-Construction (o) (O)
Wednesday evening ~
After today's expansion, I am truly and undeniably lopsided. It's okay--and it's actually kind of funny--but until I can wear some kind of padded bra to somehow even things out, I'll have to go about my business feeling and looking a bit ridiculous. When my left was still smaller than my right, the lopsidedness didn't feel so strange. But now that my left is larger than my right, and oddly-shaped at that, from the higher-perch, vertical shape, and super-tight fit of the expander, it feels just plain weird and whacked. And lopsided.
I spend about five minutes in front of our in bathroom mirror, contracting my left pec muscle and watching it ripple and roll in irregular, choppy waves across the taut mound of skin that currently defines my left temporary breast. Since the skin is now pulled even tighter across the muscle, I can make out the visible outline of the muscle, and it's just too cool to not mess with it. I've gone from having a nightmare emblazoned on my chest to having my own sideshow. I am now a true circus geek. Just don't expect me to bite the heads off any live chickens anytime soon.
I know, I know. How silly of me. Responding to my ballyhoo, Dominick actually laughs out loud with me, telling me that my left "breast" looks like a "big ball." Don't think this moment is lost on me--it isn't. I am acutely aware that I am able to stand topless in front of the mirror--and my youngest son, who has grown up without the usual cultural discomfort around nudity and body parts--and laugh about my chest, which suddenly strikes me as a real work in progress. It's just how I have to think of it. Long gone are the kaleidoscope of colors. And each week, the shape changes. And it does, in a way, right now, resemble a ball--but with a moving fish-flopping muscle just under its skin. Comically, it sits up so high that after the next expansion, it might just sit directly under my clavicle. And then--who knows where it'll travel. To my throat? I wonder, did my breasts used to look more like this? Before breast cancer, before turning 40, before nursing, before having babies? Were they bigger, more ball-like, higher-up? Gawd, I hope not. I much prefer my 42-year old incarnation, if that's the case.
At my morning appointment, Dr. Pitts' assistant Christine fills me up with another 90 ml of saline--but as soon as the last 20 or so ml are syringed in, I feel an immediate pull in my chest that tugs on my psoas and reverberates throughout my stomach, making me feel slightly sick to my stomach and light headed. Happily, Dr. Pitts comes in to inquire--and they agree to remove 30 ml to relieve some of the pressure.
I have two expansions to go--I'll take next week off (and enjoy not having to go to my 25th Exeter reunion feeling and looking even MORE lopsided than I am now), and finish the following two weeks. 3 weeks out, 3 weeks to go, I've learned more about this process--how the expander not only stretches skin but muscle as well, that since the muscle is attached to other muscles--psoas, lat, etc--those muscles get pulled and stretched as well, and so on, and so on. All this is beginning to make more sense. Sort of. I think it takes a lifetime to figure out how your body works, what makes it special, what it needs, when it likes to sleep and in what position, what it likes to eat, and all the other idiosyncrasies that makes it unique and yours and yours alone.
After my final expansion, I'll need to wait a minimum of three weeks before I have the exchange surgery, at which time Dr. Pitts will re-excision my scar (this will be the third time), remove the expander, and replace it with a much softer, much more realistic looking and feeling silicone implant. No hard edges. No awkward shape. And she is confident she can correct the 2 mm disparity between the lower edge of my right breast with that of the left expander. As for the lopsidedness, that will help, as will the minor lift she'll perform on the right breast. Symmetry is hard work. Surgery might take place in June.
Since the three weeks in between will be puppy-run-free days for me, I am trying to figure out whether some kind of a family trip would make sense. I am hoping that I'll have some strength left after giving up all vigorous activity and 5 pound plus lifting all these weeks. All that fair weather fun requires more oomph than I've been allowed to give. And I am eager to give it, believe me!!
The boys and I spend the afternoon at the wonderful DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. We are mesmerized by three floors of photographs, a wonderful exhibit entitled "Presumed Innocence." We head outside to explore the acres of gardens and sculptures, and take our time. The boys, clearly inspired by some of the eerie photographs in the exhibit, do their best "weird child" imitations for each and every photograph I take of them. Eyes staring vacantly into another world, heads drooped at an odd bent, mouths slightly open, they find awkward little spaces in and around the different sculptures to pose and create their own "Presumed Innocence" works. It seems as if we laugh throughout the whole day. At one point, we all proclaim that our stomachs hurt from laughing so hard, and itt feels so good to laugh with my boys again. If belly-busting laughter counts as vigorous activity, it was well worth it.
Thursday ~
5 days left until I can wear a bra and try to even things out. In the meantime, I peruse the shirts hanging in my closet to no avail--gone are the over-sized, boxy tops I used to wear, and in their place are form-fitting shirts that would deliver news of my lopsidedness in howler fashion.
I might as well have some t-shirts made up:
Check back next week,
maybe by then they'll be the same size
and you can stop staring (loser)
Symmetry is overrated
Has anyone seen my left breast?
My left breast went by way of the surgeon
and all I got was this lousy expander
Who says my breasts have to look the same?
or, simply:
Under (Re-)Construction.
I find a print button down, with pockets on the breasts, perfect, that disguise everything nicely. I am able to go to my doctor's appointment (this time, non-breast related; a trip to see the orthopedic doc who hopefully will figure out why the outside of my left knee is still numb after minor surgery back in January to remove a small lipoma from the inside of the same knee), and then meet two friends for lunch at Tofu-a-go-go, a colorful little spot in downtown Greenfield that serves up tasty sesame peanut noodles with spicy tofu triangles and "dinky" soft tacos (their word choice, not mine; Kim said the tacos weren't dinky at all, but quite hearty). It feels fairly glorious to be out with friends, a return to some normalcy, though it's a new normal. Thank you, Kim and Bettie!! And it is hot! In true New England fashion, we've sidestepped the gentle loveliness of an awakening spring all together and slid right into summer heat. Eek.
I head home, aware that driving is feeling more comfortable, though the sharp turns still offer acute reminders of the soreness that resides on my left side--and my diminished strength and coordination. This is what feels strange to me: feeling clumsy, and not as strong as I usually do, and compromised. It's a new feeling. And I know I'm lucky that I've gone through 42 years without feeling it to this extent.
My friend Nancy arrives to chat, join me in a walk, and give me a massage--so relaxing!! My neck, which has been talking to me since yesterday's fill-up, and threatening to explode in an all-out pre-menstrual migraine, feels softer, lighter, easier. Thank you, Nancy! It feels so great to be able to spend time with friends, get out and about, and receive the many blessings of the day.
I hope that wherever you are, the light and warmth has made its way into your heart and home and brightened your day. This time of year, the sun seems so high in the sky that one wonders if it will ever sleep, and instead grow noctilucent, spreading its shine over the moon's territory, and keeping us all up way past our bedtimes.
I'll end by sharing something I just learned--some cyber-language for breast-speak. It makes me feel so special to have a sign just for me: (o) (O). I've gone from having o o (*) (*) to {O} {O}, then (@) (@) and finally, (+) (o). Still (o) (o), however imperfect. (But what the heck are hanging tassles breasts??!! ) What's your sign?
Finally, something other than smiley faces….
Perfect breasts(o)(o)
Fake silicone breasts( + )( + )
Perky breasts(*)(*)
Big nipple breasts(@)(@)
A cups o o
D cups{ O }{ O }
Wonder bra breasts(oYo)
Cold breasts( ^ )( ^ )
Lopsided breasts(o)(O)
Pierced Breasts(Q)(O)
Hanging Tassels Breasts(p)(p)
Against The Shower Door Breasts( )( )
Android Breasts o o
After today's expansion, I am truly and undeniably lopsided. It's okay--and it's actually kind of funny--but until I can wear some kind of padded bra to somehow even things out, I'll have to go about my business feeling and looking a bit ridiculous. When my left was still smaller than my right, the lopsidedness didn't feel so strange. But now that my left is larger than my right, and oddly-shaped at that, from the higher-perch, vertical shape, and super-tight fit of the expander, it feels just plain weird and whacked. And lopsided.
I spend about five minutes in front of our in bathroom mirror, contracting my left pec muscle and watching it ripple and roll in irregular, choppy waves across the taut mound of skin that currently defines my left temporary breast. Since the skin is now pulled even tighter across the muscle, I can make out the visible outline of the muscle, and it's just too cool to not mess with it. I've gone from having a nightmare emblazoned on my chest to having my own sideshow. I am now a true circus geek. Just don't expect me to bite the heads off any live chickens anytime soon.
I know, I know. How silly of me. Responding to my ballyhoo, Dominick actually laughs out loud with me, telling me that my left "breast" looks like a "big ball." Don't think this moment is lost on me--it isn't. I am acutely aware that I am able to stand topless in front of the mirror--and my youngest son, who has grown up without the usual cultural discomfort around nudity and body parts--and laugh about my chest, which suddenly strikes me as a real work in progress. It's just how I have to think of it. Long gone are the kaleidoscope of colors. And each week, the shape changes. And it does, in a way, right now, resemble a ball--but with a moving fish-flopping muscle just under its skin. Comically, it sits up so high that after the next expansion, it might just sit directly under my clavicle. And then--who knows where it'll travel. To my throat? I wonder, did my breasts used to look more like this? Before breast cancer, before turning 40, before nursing, before having babies? Were they bigger, more ball-like, higher-up? Gawd, I hope not. I much prefer my 42-year old incarnation, if that's the case.
At my morning appointment, Dr. Pitts' assistant Christine fills me up with another 90 ml of saline--but as soon as the last 20 or so ml are syringed in, I feel an immediate pull in my chest that tugs on my psoas and reverberates throughout my stomach, making me feel slightly sick to my stomach and light headed. Happily, Dr. Pitts comes in to inquire--and they agree to remove 30 ml to relieve some of the pressure.
I have two expansions to go--I'll take next week off (and enjoy not having to go to my 25th Exeter reunion feeling and looking even MORE lopsided than I am now), and finish the following two weeks. 3 weeks out, 3 weeks to go, I've learned more about this process--how the expander not only stretches skin but muscle as well, that since the muscle is attached to other muscles--psoas, lat, etc--those muscles get pulled and stretched as well, and so on, and so on. All this is beginning to make more sense. Sort of. I think it takes a lifetime to figure out how your body works, what makes it special, what it needs, when it likes to sleep and in what position, what it likes to eat, and all the other idiosyncrasies that makes it unique and yours and yours alone.
After my final expansion, I'll need to wait a minimum of three weeks before I have the exchange surgery, at which time Dr. Pitts will re-excision my scar (this will be the third time), remove the expander, and replace it with a much softer, much more realistic looking and feeling silicone implant. No hard edges. No awkward shape. And she is confident she can correct the 2 mm disparity between the lower edge of my right breast with that of the left expander. As for the lopsidedness, that will help, as will the minor lift she'll perform on the right breast. Symmetry is hard work. Surgery might take place in June.
Since the three weeks in between will be puppy-run-free days for me, I am trying to figure out whether some kind of a family trip would make sense. I am hoping that I'll have some strength left after giving up all vigorous activity and 5 pound plus lifting all these weeks. All that fair weather fun requires more oomph than I've been allowed to give. And I am eager to give it, believe me!!
The boys and I spend the afternoon at the wonderful DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. We are mesmerized by three floors of photographs, a wonderful exhibit entitled "Presumed Innocence." We head outside to explore the acres of gardens and sculptures, and take our time. The boys, clearly inspired by some of the eerie photographs in the exhibit, do their best "weird child" imitations for each and every photograph I take of them. Eyes staring vacantly into another world, heads drooped at an odd bent, mouths slightly open, they find awkward little spaces in and around the different sculptures to pose and create their own "Presumed Innocence" works. It seems as if we laugh throughout the whole day. At one point, we all proclaim that our stomachs hurt from laughing so hard, and itt feels so good to laugh with my boys again. If belly-busting laughter counts as vigorous activity, it was well worth it.
Thursday ~
5 days left until I can wear a bra and try to even things out. In the meantime, I peruse the shirts hanging in my closet to no avail--gone are the over-sized, boxy tops I used to wear, and in their place are form-fitting shirts that would deliver news of my lopsidedness in howler fashion.
I might as well have some t-shirts made up:
Check back next week,
maybe by then they'll be the same size
and you can stop staring (loser)
Symmetry is overrated
Has anyone seen my left breast?
My left breast went by way of the surgeon
and all I got was this lousy expander
Who says my breasts have to look the same?
or, simply:
Under (Re-)Construction.
I find a print button down, with pockets on the breasts, perfect, that disguise everything nicely. I am able to go to my doctor's appointment (this time, non-breast related; a trip to see the orthopedic doc who hopefully will figure out why the outside of my left knee is still numb after minor surgery back in January to remove a small lipoma from the inside of the same knee), and then meet two friends for lunch at Tofu-a-go-go, a colorful little spot in downtown Greenfield that serves up tasty sesame peanut noodles with spicy tofu triangles and "dinky" soft tacos (their word choice, not mine; Kim said the tacos weren't dinky at all, but quite hearty). It feels fairly glorious to be out with friends, a return to some normalcy, though it's a new normal. Thank you, Kim and Bettie!! And it is hot! In true New England fashion, we've sidestepped the gentle loveliness of an awakening spring all together and slid right into summer heat. Eek.
I head home, aware that driving is feeling more comfortable, though the sharp turns still offer acute reminders of the soreness that resides on my left side--and my diminished strength and coordination. This is what feels strange to me: feeling clumsy, and not as strong as I usually do, and compromised. It's a new feeling. And I know I'm lucky that I've gone through 42 years without feeling it to this extent.
My friend Nancy arrives to chat, join me in a walk, and give me a massage--so relaxing!! My neck, which has been talking to me since yesterday's fill-up, and threatening to explode in an all-out pre-menstrual migraine, feels softer, lighter, easier. Thank you, Nancy! It feels so great to be able to spend time with friends, get out and about, and receive the many blessings of the day.
I hope that wherever you are, the light and warmth has made its way into your heart and home and brightened your day. This time of year, the sun seems so high in the sky that one wonders if it will ever sleep, and instead grow noctilucent, spreading its shine over the moon's territory, and keeping us all up way past our bedtimes.
I'll end by sharing something I just learned--some cyber-language for breast-speak. It makes me feel so special to have a sign just for me: (o) (O). I've gone from having o o (*) (*) to {O} {O}, then (@) (@) and finally, (+) (o). Still (o) (o), however imperfect. (But what the heck are hanging tassles breasts??!! ) What's your sign?
Finally, something other than smiley faces….
Perfect breasts(o)(o)
Fake silicone breasts( + )( + )
Perky breasts(*)(*)
Big nipple breasts(@)(@)
A cups o o
D cups{ O }{ O }
Wonder bra breasts(oYo)
Cold breasts( ^ )( ^ )
Lopsided breasts(o)(O)
Pierced Breasts(Q)(O)
Hanging Tassels Breasts(p)(p)
Against The Shower Door Breasts( )( )
Android Breasts o o
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe. ~ Robert W. Service
She says days go by I'm hypnotized
I'm walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire
~ Shawn Colvin
Sometimes, the mind is too unsettled to write. Thoughts have been jumping about in my head for days, and forming words and sentences that disappear as quickly as they appear. If I only had Dumbledore’s pensieve, I could unload some of these memories that seem to be clogging my pate, and lighten my load.
I wake in the middle of the night, aware that my body hurts, that my breathing is light and shallow, that my mind has not fully relaxed into restful sleep mode, and is still hypercharged with mutinous thoughts and a stubborn flow of words and sentences that won’t let me sleep. I am writing instead of sleeping. I am not actually writing, with pen and paper, pencil and composition notebook, or laptop, but rather composing thoughts in my head that I need to write down, but cannot, like nixies, stranded in a remote outpost. April is, indeed, the cruelest month, but soon the ferns will unfold their fiddleheads in a unraveling spiral of joy, and all grudges will be by-gones. I do this when I haven’t been able to spend enough time writing during the day, when opportunities for self-directed creative play have been few and far between, and the ensuing, blocked flow has suddenly bolted the gates, flooding my synapses.
It is during nights like these, when it seems that I am not meant to sleep, but instead face all the unresolved wounds of life, winding through the suffocating anxiety, the leering regrets, and stifling wanderlust, and caught in a snare of wakeful exhaustion. Mental disrepair aside, my body, too, talks to me. And after all these weeks of abuse and neglect, it’s not wonder, that at this wee hour, when the wetland critters sleep in the murky deep, my body goes on strike, telling me in no uncertain terms am I to continue to mistreat it. So, I listen. I hear you hips. I hear you piriformis. I hear you rotator cuffs. I hear you poor, sore, partially numb, forever post-op left knee. And then there’s my iliopsoas muscle, screaming at me, from all that cowering, the shortened, tightened psoas pulling my left side into itself in a desperate act of self-protection. I have no choice but to grab for my foot, pull it behind my back, and try to stretch it out. My pec muscle flips, flops, flaps. (I have figured out that when you are right handed, your left pec muscle does a ton of work, holding things in place, steadying, applying pressure, allowing the right hand to perform the intricate surgeries of domestic life.)
There are ample reasons for my disrepair. I was, after all, a fairly rough and tumble kid, a tom-boy, more often than not sporting a black eye and skinned knees. I was happy to muck it up with the neighborhood boys, fighting for the football before tackling them into leafy piles in our common yard, the same boys with whom I would later practice kissing, riding our bikes behind the dumpster down the street, where we’d stop against the grainy grime of our suburban downtown, lean forward, and press our lips together. I’d always be sure to stay on my bike, a blue banana seat Schwinn, with the very high handle bars, easy rider, and ready, always, for a fast get away. It was pure innocence, my first taste of rugby life. The same bike would land me on my accident-prone arse many times. It wasn’t a huge surprise, then, that I started having sciatica pain in my left but-tock (I love saying that word, and for best results, pronounce the way Forrest Gump does) at the age of fifteen, after trying to heave a chest of records down a set of stairs by myself. A leg length discrepancy most likely contributed to continuing problems with my piriformis, my pelvis, my but-tocks. This disparity renders my right leg shorter than my left by a large enough margin for it to be visible at my knee caps and my hips and all the way up to my shoulders, where it intermingles with an old whiplash injury from my rugby playing days in college, and wreaks havoc on everything: posture, pecs, and rotator cuffs, shot to hell from years of playing squash, lifting and carrying heavy babies and toddlers, and nursing said tantrum-throwing babies in awkward positions.
At this point in my life, I survey the scene and think battleground. Getting old sucks. And you know, I’m not even that old.
Since I had the first surgery on my bazooka, (R.I.P.), back in February, I have not been able to get my usual regular chiropractic (and attitude) adjustments to keep my pelvis balanced, to release the tension in my shoulders, and alleviate some of the neck pain. I have not been able to do my usual yoga, weights and everyday activities that keep me limber and strong. I have spent far too much time on my right side, on my buttocks, and in awkward positions for hours at a time on operating tables. And there’s the stress. Everyone's got that. And now, everything has gone to shit. My body is revolting. At 3 am, it’s an all-out mutiny. My hips cry out for mercy: “No more sleeping on just one side!”, my neck aches, completely undone by the constant onslaught of O.P.I.s (Outside Pernicious Influences), my piriformis muscle spasms in its chronic tension, sending shooting pains down my backside into the leg, and my shoulders scream at me, demanding equal treatment, "What about us??!!"
What’s a girl to do? I have three more weeks of this torture, and I am hoping that I have not over-done the vigorous activity that has been forbidden, though I worried a bit this past weekend, when I asked my mother to come help me with the piles that have been building up around me, garroting my sense of harmony and balance, and I ended up rifling through closets and drawers and under-sinks for the bulk of the day, which ended with me in a pile of exhaustion in my purple chair. Exhaustion is just one risk of over-doing at this point; lopsidedness is the other. Dr. Pitts has explained to me quite patiently (because she can tell, I know, that this keep-the-puppy quiet thing is hard for me, a rebellious over-doer) that over-doing, lifting, or vigorously exercising can trigger a host of problems and difficulties that may result in a whacked out, unhappy expander that just might move too far to the left, to the right, up, or down, and cause Trouble, capital T. And we don’t want that. I already look a bit lopsided, and Dr. Pitts said last week that she “could fix that” but I do worry that tomorrow, when I see her again for a second expansion, she may just tell me that Now I’ve done it and I’m a bad dog and have really screwed things up and will look like a lopsided whack job.
My grandmother, who had a mastectomy at the age of 51, did not have reconstruction, and so wore a “blow-up bra.” She used to joke that she’d ask my grandfather every morning what size he wanted her to be that day. And there were times when she was lopsided, and would laugh about it, because, well, that’s what we do.
Lopsided or not, the difference in how my left chest looks these days is quite remarkable. Long gone are the purple-ish hues of post-operative bruising, the berry stains that splattered across, underneath and above my newly shaped fakie, and alongside the incision, which now looks much less catastrophic. The expander is doing its job, stretching the skin to make way for the silicone implant that will be surgically exchanged for the saline expander in a summer surgery. The skin feels taut all around it, and when I lift my arms above my head, the skin under my left fakie puckers, as if it can’t be stretched too much more, and might just pop after the next expansion. One of the things that often wakes me up in the middle of the night is the feeling that I’ve forgotten to take my bra off, and it’s an underwire bra, and it’s on too tight, the wire digging into my ribs. But it’s not a bra, of course, it’s the edge of the expander, jabbing my flesh and bones and creating a deep hollowed perimeter of ache in my chest where my breast used to be. But it’s better, just tight, and now that I am allowed to stretch my arms above my head, and have graduated to being able to do so with most of my mobility back and with a modicum of pain, it feels okay. I need a few more fill-ups, after which I’ll have a few weeks of a return to full activity (I’m trying to imagine what that would be like: not worrying about feeling the flop of the fish when chopping parsley, sweeping the porch, or smashing the skin off garlic) before heading back to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for the exchange operation, when I’ll say sayonara to the saline expander and hola to the softer, friendlier silicone implant, and to four more weeks of being a puppy on restricted activity. And let’s not forget the nipple! Two months after the exchange surgery, I will greet my new nipple, Hello nipple!, and two months after that, enjoy my first tattoo (I’m still thinking about having a lizard tattooed around my new nipple, ya!).
Just this morning, Dominick told me, “Don’t worry, Mom, it’ll look like a real boob soon.”
Who’s worrying?
I'm walking on a wire
I close my eyes and fly out of my mind
Into the fire
~ Shawn Colvin
Sometimes, the mind is too unsettled to write. Thoughts have been jumping about in my head for days, and forming words and sentences that disappear as quickly as they appear. If I only had Dumbledore’s pensieve, I could unload some of these memories that seem to be clogging my pate, and lighten my load.
I wake in the middle of the night, aware that my body hurts, that my breathing is light and shallow, that my mind has not fully relaxed into restful sleep mode, and is still hypercharged with mutinous thoughts and a stubborn flow of words and sentences that won’t let me sleep. I am writing instead of sleeping. I am not actually writing, with pen and paper, pencil and composition notebook, or laptop, but rather composing thoughts in my head that I need to write down, but cannot, like nixies, stranded in a remote outpost. April is, indeed, the cruelest month, but soon the ferns will unfold their fiddleheads in a unraveling spiral of joy, and all grudges will be by-gones. I do this when I haven’t been able to spend enough time writing during the day, when opportunities for self-directed creative play have been few and far between, and the ensuing, blocked flow has suddenly bolted the gates, flooding my synapses.
It is during nights like these, when it seems that I am not meant to sleep, but instead face all the unresolved wounds of life, winding through the suffocating anxiety, the leering regrets, and stifling wanderlust, and caught in a snare of wakeful exhaustion. Mental disrepair aside, my body, too, talks to me. And after all these weeks of abuse and neglect, it’s not wonder, that at this wee hour, when the wetland critters sleep in the murky deep, my body goes on strike, telling me in no uncertain terms am I to continue to mistreat it. So, I listen. I hear you hips. I hear you piriformis. I hear you rotator cuffs. I hear you poor, sore, partially numb, forever post-op left knee. And then there’s my iliopsoas muscle, screaming at me, from all that cowering, the shortened, tightened psoas pulling my left side into itself in a desperate act of self-protection. I have no choice but to grab for my foot, pull it behind my back, and try to stretch it out. My pec muscle flips, flops, flaps. (I have figured out that when you are right handed, your left pec muscle does a ton of work, holding things in place, steadying, applying pressure, allowing the right hand to perform the intricate surgeries of domestic life.)
There are ample reasons for my disrepair. I was, after all, a fairly rough and tumble kid, a tom-boy, more often than not sporting a black eye and skinned knees. I was happy to muck it up with the neighborhood boys, fighting for the football before tackling them into leafy piles in our common yard, the same boys with whom I would later practice kissing, riding our bikes behind the dumpster down the street, where we’d stop against the grainy grime of our suburban downtown, lean forward, and press our lips together. I’d always be sure to stay on my bike, a blue banana seat Schwinn, with the very high handle bars, easy rider, and ready, always, for a fast get away. It was pure innocence, my first taste of rugby life. The same bike would land me on my accident-prone arse many times. It wasn’t a huge surprise, then, that I started having sciatica pain in my left but-tock (I love saying that word, and for best results, pronounce the way Forrest Gump does) at the age of fifteen, after trying to heave a chest of records down a set of stairs by myself. A leg length discrepancy most likely contributed to continuing problems with my piriformis, my pelvis, my but-tocks. This disparity renders my right leg shorter than my left by a large enough margin for it to be visible at my knee caps and my hips and all the way up to my shoulders, where it intermingles with an old whiplash injury from my rugby playing days in college, and wreaks havoc on everything: posture, pecs, and rotator cuffs, shot to hell from years of playing squash, lifting and carrying heavy babies and toddlers, and nursing said tantrum-throwing babies in awkward positions.
At this point in my life, I survey the scene and think battleground. Getting old sucks. And you know, I’m not even that old.
Since I had the first surgery on my bazooka, (R.I.P.), back in February, I have not been able to get my usual regular chiropractic (and attitude) adjustments to keep my pelvis balanced, to release the tension in my shoulders, and alleviate some of the neck pain. I have not been able to do my usual yoga, weights and everyday activities that keep me limber and strong. I have spent far too much time on my right side, on my buttocks, and in awkward positions for hours at a time on operating tables. And there’s the stress. Everyone's got that. And now, everything has gone to shit. My body is revolting. At 3 am, it’s an all-out mutiny. My hips cry out for mercy: “No more sleeping on just one side!”, my neck aches, completely undone by the constant onslaught of O.P.I.s (Outside Pernicious Influences), my piriformis muscle spasms in its chronic tension, sending shooting pains down my backside into the leg, and my shoulders scream at me, demanding equal treatment, "What about us??!!"
What’s a girl to do? I have three more weeks of this torture, and I am hoping that I have not over-done the vigorous activity that has been forbidden, though I worried a bit this past weekend, when I asked my mother to come help me with the piles that have been building up around me, garroting my sense of harmony and balance, and I ended up rifling through closets and drawers and under-sinks for the bulk of the day, which ended with me in a pile of exhaustion in my purple chair. Exhaustion is just one risk of over-doing at this point; lopsidedness is the other. Dr. Pitts has explained to me quite patiently (because she can tell, I know, that this keep-the-puppy quiet thing is hard for me, a rebellious over-doer) that over-doing, lifting, or vigorously exercising can trigger a host of problems and difficulties that may result in a whacked out, unhappy expander that just might move too far to the left, to the right, up, or down, and cause Trouble, capital T. And we don’t want that. I already look a bit lopsided, and Dr. Pitts said last week that she “could fix that” but I do worry that tomorrow, when I see her again for a second expansion, she may just tell me that Now I’ve done it and I’m a bad dog and have really screwed things up and will look like a lopsided whack job.
My grandmother, who had a mastectomy at the age of 51, did not have reconstruction, and so wore a “blow-up bra.” She used to joke that she’d ask my grandfather every morning what size he wanted her to be that day. And there were times when she was lopsided, and would laugh about it, because, well, that’s what we do.
Lopsided or not, the difference in how my left chest looks these days is quite remarkable. Long gone are the purple-ish hues of post-operative bruising, the berry stains that splattered across, underneath and above my newly shaped fakie, and alongside the incision, which now looks much less catastrophic. The expander is doing its job, stretching the skin to make way for the silicone implant that will be surgically exchanged for the saline expander in a summer surgery. The skin feels taut all around it, and when I lift my arms above my head, the skin under my left fakie puckers, as if it can’t be stretched too much more, and might just pop after the next expansion. One of the things that often wakes me up in the middle of the night is the feeling that I’ve forgotten to take my bra off, and it’s an underwire bra, and it’s on too tight, the wire digging into my ribs. But it’s not a bra, of course, it’s the edge of the expander, jabbing my flesh and bones and creating a deep hollowed perimeter of ache in my chest where my breast used to be. But it’s better, just tight, and now that I am allowed to stretch my arms above my head, and have graduated to being able to do so with most of my mobility back and with a modicum of pain, it feels okay. I need a few more fill-ups, after which I’ll have a few weeks of a return to full activity (I’m trying to imagine what that would be like: not worrying about feeling the flop of the fish when chopping parsley, sweeping the porch, or smashing the skin off garlic) before heading back to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for the exchange operation, when I’ll say sayonara to the saline expander and hola to the softer, friendlier silicone implant, and to four more weeks of being a puppy on restricted activity. And let’s not forget the nipple! Two months after the exchange surgery, I will greet my new nipple, Hello nipple!, and two months after that, enjoy my first tattoo (I’m still thinking about having a lizard tattooed around my new nipple, ya!).
Just this morning, Dominick told me, “Don’t worry, Mom, it’ll look like a real boob soon.”
Who’s worrying?
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