humor | Letters From Narnia

Not a Fairy Tale

01 May 2019 Leave a comment

by Suelinhess in adventures, Breast Cancer, Communication, Family, Friendship, Healing, homemaking, hope, humor, illness, Love, Marriage, parenting, relationships, support, Uncategorized Tags: anniversary, counseling, family, happiness, health, humor, humour, husband, Life, Love, Marriage, relationships, sickness, survival

Marriage is not a fairy tale. You start out full of hope – he makes you laugh. You think your love will conquer all, that love is all you need, and you’ll live happily ever after. You are wrong.

Within your first year he still makes you laugh, but you realize those little things you found annoying but bearable, like dirty underwear on the floor or the toilet seat up when you sit down to pee, are not so bearable while your bum is falling into the ice-cold toilet bowl in the middle of the night. By the seventh year, your young children are pulling you both in all directions and demanding your time; and while you have joy and laughter, you’re both sleep-deprived and short-tempered at times. By the 10th year, most of the time you two spend in bed involves less sex, less laughter, and more arguing and snoring. One of you might begin thinking it would be much easier to start a new life, away from the sight of dirty dishes and piles of laundry, the sound of nagging, and the feeling that the love has weakened and perhaps this is how it will be for the rest of your life…maybe you should leave. If you’re lucky, you’ll hesitate for a day. If you’re luckier, you’ll remember the laughter and hold off for a few weeks. If you’re luckiest, you’ll decide to work through the hard times and seek out professional help to repair and rebuild. There will be tears. There will be arguments. The children will hear you raise your voices and will see you cry. You might wonder if things will ever go back to the way they were. They won’t.

But accepting that things will never be the same may become the beginning of something new. One night, out on a date assigned by the marriage counselor, instead of realizing that you’re looking across the table at a stranger and getting a sinking feeling in your heart, you might realize you’re sitting across the table from a stranger and feel a quickening in your heart – who is this person and what are they thinking? What are their interests and what do they dream about? Do your interests and dreams align? You’ll find new things to make you smile and eventually laugh. Since this person is new to you, you’ll search for novel ways to entertain him. He will do the same. Because you’re both strangers, you’ll be polite. You’ll speak carefully and try to be considerate of his feelings. Sometimes you’ll remember sad times or past anger and it will boil over into confrontation, but you’ll both want to hold on to the new pleasure in your new lives, so you will start over. A year will pass and the new you will feel more secure. Your children will see you holding hands and having conversations. They will see you supporting each other and working to keep the family healthy.

By the 15th year, just when things are going great, your marital issues might take a back burner to the emerging teenager issues in your children. After butting heads with teenaged fury, you might turn to each other and find strength and solidarity. More importantly, he still finds ways to make you laugh and you hope that this stage will eventually pass. You both realize that you must take great care to nurture your relationship so you can both see this through and come out on the other side still holding hands.

Three months before your 18th wedding anniversary, you might find a lump in your breast. Suddenly you’re faced with losing everything. You look back and recognize that every moment you spent with him, even the painful ones, were precious. You feel desperate to live so you can have more of those moments. So, you fight. You fight crippling fear. And he is there next to you, holding your hand, making you laugh, helping you fight through the pain. He is with you as you both fight for your life. And when you have no more strength or hope, he gives you his. Each surgery becomes less fearful. Each time you wake up in a hospital, he is there with a cool cloth for your forehead and kisses for the rest of you. He reassures you that you’re beautiful inside and out, no matter what happens to your body. And he can’t help himself – he makes you laugh. You laugh until your stitches hurt, you laugh through your tears, and you laugh until you are healed.

In the second decade of your marriage, you could find yourself embarking on a new journey. You’ve given half of your life to your children and it’s time to take care of yourself. Your dream is big, and you know there will be sacrifices. You go back to school. You begin to feel a sense of déjà vu as dinners fall by the wayside and laundry starts piling up. The arguing begins and you wonder if maybe this time around things may not end well. You remember his unhappiness earlier in the marriage, when times were tough and he wanted to escape, and you’re filled with dread. What you don’t remember is that he’s not the same man you married. Time has changed him into a man who wants what’s best for you and the decades have forged in him a strength of character that would make sure your dreams come true. To your delight, he rolls up his sleeves and folds the laundry. Every time you turn around there are fresh flowers in a vase on your desk and handwritten loving post-its stuck on your computer. To your amazement, he’s a fantastic chef and he brings you your dinner while you are studying at your desk, many times accompanied by glasses of champagne. And to your astonishment, he considers it reasonable to contemplate a time in the near future when you will attend graduate school in a different town when you might have to drive several hours just to steal a weekend with each other. His exciting plans to sneak away from the house and race through the night have you giggling like you’ve just started dating.

Marriage is not a fairy tale. You start out full of hope – he makes you laugh. You think your love will conquer all, that love is all you need, and you’ll live happily ever after. You’re wrong. The prince doesn’t wake the princess with a simple kiss, he shakes her awake and she’s grumpy and she might have bad breath and she doesn’t know his name and they have to take time to get to know each other and maybe just maybe they have a chance to truly fall into genuine love. Even then, they don’t immediately go riding off into the sunset without a care in the world. First, they must fight through a wall of thorns, side-by-side, bleeding and crying. Love doesn’t fight thorns. Willpower, grit, and patience get you through that. There might be dragons to slay and fire to fight. Love doesn’t help you fight dragons, courage does. What love does is fuel all of that willpower, grit, patience, and courage. Love is not the How, it’s the Why. Only after all of that, scarred and older, do the prince and princess have a chance for a ride into the sunset and a happy ending. Marriage isn’t a simple fairy tale, it’s an epic legend.

Happy 23rd Anniversary, Markus. I love you!

Stupid Tits and Other Cruel Childhood Memories

24 May 2017 Leave a comment

by Suelinhess in Childhood Memories, Communication, humor, Languages, Mother, teenagers, Uncategorized

Here is another pain in the ass assignment I had to write for my intercultural communications class. I’m not sure I count this as writing, because after panicking about doing this last-minute, I decided to follow my son’s sage advice, “Relax Mama, don’t stress. You don’t have to work so hard on it like usual. It’s ok to do some half-assed work once in a while.” I don’t know what dark place this memory barf came from, but it turns out I was a giant asshole when I was a kid…

English was my first language. I grew up surrounded by many foreign languages, however, listening to my Chinese mother exclaim, “PAH-suh-woah!” when I would jump out and surprise her. Literally, it means “scare-death-me.” The equivalent of “You scared me to death.” Or she would rub her tummy before a meal, roll her eyes and say, “Woah UH suh la!” Again, the words literally meaning, “I hungry died.” The equivalent of “I’m starving to death.” Because I was raised hearing the language formed in that way, I didn’t find it confusing. I just had to dial back my thinking to very simplified word combinations. The thing you say when you see a person after a long period of time – “Long time no see!” That is a literal Chinese translation, “How jo bu-jen!” We regularly spoke a hybridized version of English and Chinese in our home. In Chinese, the Chinese language is called, “Jung-wen.” We called our special language “Jung-glish.” When I began to learn Chinese formally in school (unfortunately with my own mother as the teacher), I rebelled in teenage fashion and used my English to twist the Chinese. Many Chinese words are homonyms; they are pronounced identically, but with a different tone to indicate the different meaning. The casual word for Father (the equivalent of “Dad” in English) is “Baba”; with the emphasis on the first syllable. And the word for the way children say “poop” is also “baba” but the tone drops down and up on the first syllable and then the emphasis is on the last syllable. Speaking Chinese is like singing a language. Unfortunately, meanings can be easily changed with different tones, and the “Ma” for mother can turn into “Ma” for horse or “Ma” to mean scolding. So as a teenager with an American attitude, being forced to suddenly transform into a proper Chinese daughter, complete with filial piety, I made horrible jokes like, “Dad was in a race and he stepped in dog poo as we are cheering him on. ‘Go Baba Go! OH NO, Go-baba! Go-baba!’” My parents were not amused. When we were young, we were cruel. My mother would lose her temper and start yelling at my sisters and me; and while she spoke fluent English, she never could say one word properly. She never could say “stupid.” It was always “stupid-tit.” She would yell that we were acting “stupid-tit!” and my sisters and I would drolly reply, “Mom. We aren’t tits.” I kick myself every time I remember those times. Her accent (pg. 273) was strong in my early childhood, and we looked down on it, thinking the reason must have been because she didn’t learn her English well enough. Later on, she would look me straight in the eye and say, “Considering I was born Chinese, I would say my English is pretty damn good. English is actually the most difficult language to learn in the world. And it’s not just the words – sometimes I just don’t get you Americans. Be careful before you judge.”

Now the tables have been turned. It is 40 years later, my mother is no longer living, and I am married to German man who spoke no English when we first met. He and our oldest daughter actually learned their English together when she first started speaking. He is fluent now, and my German has not progressed past the level I learned in boarding school 35 years ago. When I write letters to my mother-in-law, I pass them to my husband to proofread, and I always see in the corner of my eye, his shoulders begin shaking as he tries to suppress his laughter. “WHAT!” I huff. He wipes tears from his eyes and giggles, “Honey, your letter is so cute…like it was written by a kindergartener!” I felt just like my mom must have felt. German has words like “Wintersturmwonnemondwende”. It means “Delight at the changing of the seasons.” They crammed all the individual words together; it literally means, “Winter-Storm-Bliss-Moon-Turning.” Languages are complicated! And as the NPR broadcast Shakespeare Had Roses All Wrong pointed out; when learning a language, we are not just learning the words, we are “learning whole cultural systems.” My stupid teenage antics were perfect examples of what not to do with my newly learned Chinese language; as I matured, I learned to be more mindful (pg. 289). I learned to treat the language with the dignity that the Chinese people have for thousands of years. I grew to appreciate the synergism between Chinese and the culture that my mother was attempting to share with me. I was the younger generation that was disappearing into the American culture, and she wanted to use her native language to pass down her culture to my generation (pg. 266) before we lost our ties with our heritage. The information learned in this chapter, teaching us about mindfulness (pg. 293) with learning new languages, explaining how words can be misinterpreted for many reasons, and how to be aware of conversation taboos (pg. 293) would have been quite useful in teaching the teenage version of me how to use my second language competently in an intercultural context (pg. 293)

Signs of Life (Ch. 8)

07 Jun 2014 4 Comments

by Suelinhess in Breast Cancer, Cancer, Faith, Family, Friendship, Healing, humor, illness, Love, Medical, Roman Catholic, support, Travel, Uncategorized Tags: breast cancer, cancer, Christianity, Death, endurance, faith, family, Friendship, Good, healing, humour, illness, Life, Love, recuperation, Religion, spring, Summer, support, survival, Survivor

I have had a curious kind of Spring; topsy-turvy. Instead of new life growing in nature all around me, I found a lump in my breast and cancer growing within me. As I journeyed through the acceptance of my disease and the aggressive treatment I chose to undergo, my view of my future changed. Instead of assuming I would have decades to watch my kids grow up, I thought, “what if I don’t?!” and tried my best to be more loving and affectionate. Instead of waking up in the morning and wandering around in my pyjamas with my hair standing on end, I thought, “what if I lose this hair in a few months, and look shitty even if I try to look pretty?” and showered, styled my hair, and put on makeup. I looked at my enormous garden space and accepted that I would have times when I wouldn’t have the strength to dig in the dirt and pull the weeds. I begrudgingly admired the beautiful hanging baskets full of flowers that my furry man went out and chose (something I wanted to do desperately) because I knew if we waited until I was feeling up to it, the season might pass us by. All that time, I was waiting for the surgery incisions to heal, so I could meet the oncology team at the Cross Cancer Institute and forge ahead with the chemotherapy I was told I would need. All the while I wanted my body to heal quickly, I also wanted time to slow down before I had to head into a summer of unknown chemo side effects. There was nothing I dreaded more, now that I found out I could survive general anesthesia and Bodacious Ta-Ta Tuesday.

While I healed, we had follow-up visits in Edmonton, with my plastic surgeon. As the stitches on my breasts faded, and my transplanted tissue started to feel smoother and look as close to normal as I could hope for, and as my abdomen incision slowly closed, my doctor always asked the final question during our visits, “Do you have any questions or concerns?” And Markus would ask, “How soon can she travel?” Dr. Schembri’s eyes would crinkle as he smiled, and he would say, “If you promise to stay in your chair and not do any gymnastics while you are there, you should be just fine to go to your high school reunion.” We have been asking this question ever since we met him. The only high school reunion I would ever go to is not just for any old high school. The high school kids I always want to reunite with are from the Taipei American School. We were a tiny little school in Taiwan. Our experiences growing up there have cemented our friendships, and I am never quite as comfortable in my skin as I am when I am with a group of TAS graduates. This recent reunion was an idea that my friends Dacia and Kerri had come up with last year. Any time you bring a few TAS graduates together, anywhere in the world, we call it a reunion. Dacia planned the reunion at her parents’ B&B in Anacortes, Washington, a little spot of Heaven in the San Juan Islands. Through the winter, we put our heads together and had so much fun planning and chatting about it. When I got hit with Barnard in the Spring, I realized that surgery would probably take a huge bite out of my plans for the May reunion. One more shitty thing that I came to accept this Spring… Until Markus caught me reading the Facebook page for the Anacortes reunion wistfully, and told me, “We are going to get you there. This will be your reward for the surgery and kicking Barnard’s ass. You do your job and rest properly like the doctors order, and I PROMISE you we will get you to that reunion somehow. Being with your friends will be good for you. You’re going.” And that is where the Question came in during our visits with my surgeons, “How soon can she travel?” So ever since March, when I first met with the surgeons, we worked toward the May 24th goal of the Anacortes TAS Reunion. A better carrot, there never was. On May 24th, 1 week shy of the minimum 6 weeks recommended recuperation period, I hopped on an airplane in Edmonton and headed out to Anacortes. Missing only one piece of luggage, I met my best friend Duncan Hsu (I call him Punkin Poo and he calls me Poo Pest – my favourite nicknames from childhood) at the baggage carousel in Seattle, and spent the next 2 hours driving to Anacortes while catching up on the last 3 years we had missed together. Arriving on the sleepy little island of Anacortes, Dacia, Kerri, and my other friends tumbled out of the cozy little house, and their hugs took away all the residual pain of both the surgery and the worry of cancer. We spent the entire weekend laughing non-stop. There was crying, but only when it was time to say goodbye. My friend John made an announcement that he was going to join my CIBC Run For the Cure team, The Suepremes, and fundraise for the Canadian Breast Cancer Society. He passed around his hat and said that he would shave his head at the end of the weekend. He raised hundreds of dollars, and I did indeed shave his precious head at the end of Sunday evening. I had to catch an airport shuttle at 1:45 Monday morning, so I never went to sleep on Sunday. And when it was time to go, each friend hugged me and wished me well, knowing that I was flying home to meet with the oncologists in Edmonton, to face chemotherapy. Collectively, their love and support floated me out the door and up into the sky back to Canada.

When I landed in Edmonton on Monday afternoon, I took a taxi straight to Dr. Schembri’s office for another visit. He does a little victory dance every time he examines me and sees his precious babies, “They’re PERFECT! So PERFECT!” He told me that the sections on my abdominal incision would take some time to fully heal, as it was healing from the inside-out, but that I am indeed Wolverine, as Markus labeled me; my body is healing like a superhero. Knowing I was meeting with the Cross Cancer Institute the next day, to discuss chemo, he said to give him a call in 3-6 months and we could talk nipples. I can’t wait to make that call and get him on the line and say, “Hey there…let’s talk NIPPLES.” I don’t know anyone else who has ever made such a phone call. That one is going to give me a giggle, that’s for sure.

Markus and I rendezvous-ed at the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald later that afternoon, and we braced ourselves for our afternoon at the Cross Cancer Institute the following afternoon. Actually, I mostly just slept, having exhausted myself during my reunion weekend. On Tuesday, we dilly-dallied our morning away, and reluctantly made our way to University Avenue and the Cross Cancer Institute. In the parking garage, we passed ladies on their way back to their cars, scarves covering their heads. I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat. Markus grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly and we slowly walked into the lower level of the institute. The very first department we passed was the Wig Department and the rooms where they conduct makeup and beauty tips for those undergoing chemotherapy. I resisted the urge to peek into the door, thinking I would get the chance to see plenty later…

Upstairs at the main registration area, we realized that we were over an hour early, but I stood in line and filled out the paperwork anyway. They made me a special red plastic I.D. card that I would need to bring to every appointment or treatment. I did not like that card. That card was my fear made tangible. I stuffed it into my purse, hoping it would get lost among the mess of receipts and lipstick that lived in there. Then, the registration lady gave me to a volunteer, who was told to bring me to my appointment area. As we walked through the centre, the volunteer pointed out the various areas to us; the lending library, the information department that would be very helpful with resources for families, the 2 cafeterias, the gift shop, the pharmacy, and the labs. The facility is huge. Finally, he deposited us into our waiting area, where a nurse had me fill out more paperwork and instructed me to change into a trusty hospital gown and robe. Then, we were shown into a room where we were told to wait for our different visitors.

Our first visitor was a heavily pregnant young nurse named Magdalene. I kid you not. For someone who has recently lost some of her faith in this unfair scuffle with cancer (if good things happen to good people, and I try my best to be good my whole life, how the Hell did I get cancer, EH?! Explain THAT one, God…), this was a little bit of a punch in the stomach. I had to take an extra breath to answer her questions, as my mind kept whispering, “Mary Magdalene was a best friend to someone who had so much more to suffer than you, Sue.” After Nurse Magdalene left, Markus and I made silent eye contact until our next visitor. She was a soft-spoken representative of the Cross Cancer Institute Tumour Bank. After all of my tumour was removed during the mastectomy, and the appropriate amount was sliced and sent to pathology, the leftover bits had the potential to be deposited into the Tumour Bank to be used for research in the fight against breast cancer. She was there to ask my permission to use the tumour for research, and to make the deposit official. As I signed the papers, I wondered, who ever would NOT give permission? If they could make some use of Barnard and somehow benefit future cancer patients, why on earth wouldn’t I sign? I just had to give a few tubes of blood to accompany Barnard to his future home in the Tumour Bank, and GOOD RIDDANCE to Barnard! That was a very cool feeling, knowing a bit of me was going to stay in the institute and perhaps help others.

Our final visitor was a Nurse Practitioner by the name of Margaret Ann Vlahadamis. She was very dry and stood over by a white board across the room from us. Markus took my hand, and we held our breath. With a very stern look on her face, NP Vlahadamis said, “First of all, before I write all the details and numbers on this board, let me tell you this: based on your tumour’s stage and grade, the oncology team has determined that you will need no radiation and no chemotherapy.”

no. chemotherapy.

There was a ringing in my ears, and I shook my head…what was she saying? Focusing on her lips, I could see her saying, “Breast cancer is fought with several different types of treatments. There is surgery, there is radiation, and there are many types of chemotherapy. You should know that your double mastectomy was a major treatment by itself. Your cancer was completely removed. The pathology revealed that it was a 1.4cm Stage 1, Grade 1 tumour; very slow growing. Your 3 sentinel nodes revealed no lymphatic spread, and during surgery it was found that there was no lymph vascular infiltration within your breasts. It is hormone receptive, but HER2 negative and not Triple Negative cancer. You were very fortunate to catch your cancer early, and for the next five years, you will only need to take one Tamoxifen pill each day. You will have 6 month wellness visits with your family doctor throughout that time, where you will be checked for possible metastasis of the breast cancer into other parts of your body. And that is all.”

Stunned, not believing this could possibly be true, I actually ARGUED with the poor woman. What about my extensive family history?! Won’t that increase my odds of recurrence? My cancer surgeon had warned me to expect chemo. How could it be that I’m all done, that there is nothing further to suffer through?!

After patiently explaining that my family history of breast cancer has nothing to do with the treatment of the breast cancer we removed – WHAT?! (they focus on treating the cancer they hold in their hands – on its characteristics, not on what my future could develop). That my cancer was removed completely by my mastectomy and the Tamoxifen would starve any microscopic bits that might be floating around in my body. That my family history of breast cancer would only be a concern for my ovaries and fallopian tubes down the line, and I would need to approach that outside of this visit. Only then, did she patiently say, “This is GOOD news…”

And only then did her words sink in. No chemo and I am done with the fear of Barnard. I turned to Markus with a lost look on my face; all my anxiety was still built up inside – where was I supposed to put it? Markus repeated what NP Vlahadamis said, “This is GOOD news…” I decided to stop fighting it. Even though I was SURE they were mistaken, that this was too good to be true, I decided to play along. I was confident someone would catch the mistake in a few days and call me with the corrected news and tell me to get myself into chemo…So I turned back to her and smiled and asked what I should do next. She told me to take my new prescription to their pharmacy, and she would be calling me in a few weeks to see how the side effects of Tamoxifen were treating me.

In a daze, I changed back to my regular clothes, and joined Markus in the hallway. We kept looking at each other in disbelief, then he would grab me and laugh out loud and cheer. In the pharmacy waiting room, he sat across from me and kept asking, “What shall we do to celebrate?!” We giggled and said, “I can’t believe it!” too many times before I looked around and realized I was surrounded by people who were suffering from cancer, waiting for their prescriptions, who didn’t have any good news for themselves. Sobered, we listened to the pharmacist explain about the many side effects of Tamoxifen (Hello, Menopause) and grinned when she politely whispered about “vaginal dryness and discomfort” and the various solutions for that. I can buy a fix for vaginal dryness on the shelves of my local pharmacy…can’t say the same for cancer, right?

Tamoxifen grasped in my hands, we retraced our steps to the car; past the cafeterias, past the information centre, past the lending library, and finally past the wig department. I touched my hair and murmured, “I’m keeping my hair…” Markus whooped and hugged me.

In the car, he told me that he was getting dozens of responses to his good news post to my friends on Facebook. He urged me to tell my friends and family right away; that everyone would be so relieved and happy for me. How could I tell him that I secretly could not believe the good news? What if I made the announcement, and I got a phone call the next day, crushing me with the opposite news? I flapped my hands and told him I would write it later. I couldn’t even call my own children to speak the words out loud; I was so scared I would jinx things. We bought a feast at the T&T asian supermarket, and brought it home to the kids. The whole family was giddy with the news, while I sat there quietly wondering. Late that night, I cautiously wrote about my day, sharing the news on Facebook, then sat back and waited for the phone call I was dreading. I put off writing in my blog, thinking I would make it officially good news if nobody called me with bad news in a few weeks.

This week, I got a phone call from a private caller. A voice sounding just like my best friend asked for me…so I yelled, “PUNKIN!!!” and there was a long pause…then, “Uh um, no, my name is John Mackey. I am a medical oncologist from the Cross Cancer Institute.” I swallowed my immediate panic, and laughed and explained about Duncan/Punkin and that his voice was an exact match. With a smile in his voice, John Mackey replied, “Well, if Duncan has the same voice as me, then he must have a very nice voice indeed, haha! I was asked by Doug Goss to review your pathology and double check that you are having the appropriate treatment…he said you are a family friend? I just need your verbal permission over the phone before I open your medical file and read it” Still panicked, I mumbled yes and waited…This was the phone call I was waiting for – finally someone realized that they messed up and my cancer wasn’t all gone and I would have to go to chemo after all and lose all my hair and get sick and be tired and maybe maybe I wouldn’t live as long as I wanted to… There was total silence as he read over my file. I think I held my breath the entire time. When he started to speak, I still couldn’t breathe. He said these magic words, “Sue, based on what I am reading, you can be sure that the cancer has been removed and is gone from your body. The Tamoxifen is precautionary – 5 years of starving any possible cancer that could have been missed on a microscopic level. You should feel confident that you are well. Now, let’s talk about your family history and what that speaks to.” I floated as we discussed genetic testing and I complained that testing positive would endanger future life insurance for me and my children. He paused and said, “Um. You have already had breast cancer. That horse is out of the barn. Life insurance companies will discriminate against you and your children because of that, regardless of the genetic testing results.” I had to laugh when I realized I had totally forgotten that I have breast cancer. It feels good to forget. By the end of the phone call, he had recommended I discuss prophylactic removal of my ovaries and fallopian tubes with my gynaecologist, and wondered if I was ok with that; with early onset menopause. I reassured him that I was done using my ovaries, that the Tamoxifen will imitate menopause for the next five years, and as my mom went through menopause early, I expected it was around the corner anyway. I thanked him for his time and hung up, posting the funny phone call on Facebook. Immediately, my friend Wendy, who lives in Edmonton and is wading through the cancer war like me and knows every doctor out there, posted, “Dr. Mackey is the best oncologist in Western Alberta. You are very lucky indeed!” Holy shit. So, another guardian angel has landed and now I have officially lost track of how many of them are in my life. How blessed am I.

Today, we went to pick up a friend from the hospital in Hinton, and took a little side trip to the garden centre in Canadian Tire. I chose new veggies to replace the ones that have been eaten by frost in our garden, new herbs, beautiful flowers, and seed potatoes. On the ride home, we listened as our friend told us how lucky she was that although she had fallen off of a 20 foot cliff while rappelling, she was wearing a helmet and managed to not break any bones. I shook my head in disbelief, and then I stopped myself. I need to stop this denying of good news. I told my friend that I was so happy that she was safe, and that I was amazed at what a great adventure she survived. How blessed was she!

After we brought our friend home, we settled into gardening. Markus worked on the flowers in the back yard, and I worked on planting pumpkins, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and cabbages in our vegetable patch. The sun shone down warm on my shoulders, my knees got dirty, and I sweated. Every spadeful of dirt I dug up was rich with pink wriggling earthworms, and every leaf on every plant glowed green with life. I sat back on my heels and looked around me. My topsy-turvy Spring was over. As I breathed in the warm fresh air, I realized that Summer was here, and I was surrounded by new life. I can dig in the dirt and pull weeds and let my hair get messy. I can plant the vegetables that I know I will harvest in the Fall. And I can look at those hanging pots of flowers that Markus chose, and I can see that hummingbirds have come, attracted to the colourful blooms. Ganbaru feels extra good in the sunshine!

What Me Worry? (Ch.7)

07 May 2014 Leave a comment

by Suelinhess in adventures, Bitching & Moaning, Breast Cancer, Cancer, confidence, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, Healing, humor, illness, Medical, Thyroid, Uncategorized Tags: adjuvant treatment, breast cancer, cancer, chemo, chemotherapy, dental, dentist, doctor, Medical, root canal

One of the things you’re told to do before going in for chemotherapy, is to get your shit together and make the two medical appointments you dread: the dentist and the gynaecologist. During chemo, your immune system may be weakened, and an infection from a cavity could throw a wrench in the works. As well, chemo can sometimes throw off the results of a pap smear, so it’s best to get one BEFORE beginning chemo. Yee. Haw. Suzy Creamcheese gets a cavity search.

Luckily, the little dental clinic in this town is nothing like the medical clinic. The receptionist is crazily friendly, grabbing my book out of my hands and exclaiming that she LOVES this author and she knows I will love it too, and do I like mysteries? And what good ones have I read lately? And as I listed the names of my favorite authors, she actually wrote them down. So cute. Then the dental hygienist, who looks exactly like my friend Mandy Jackson, brought me to a comfortable chair in an office with giant picture windows looking out to the mountains. She gently took my x-rays (truthfully the most uncomfortable part of a dentist checkup – I shouldn’t complain), and introduced me to my dentist. Of course, I promptly forgot his name (thank you, Hashimoto’s), but he was very friendly and informative. When he understood I was heading into chemo next month, he focused right away on the molar in the very back of my mouth, on the left side. 3 years ago, I got a root canal and apparently the filling part wasn’t done well, and there was a teeny tiny hole in it. The x-ray showed a shadow at the end of the root of the tooth, and the dentist suspected it was slightly infected. However, to confirm it, he would have to send me to a specialist, which could take a month before anything could be done. Then he paused. I blurted out, “Do I really need that tooth? It looks like it’s mostly crown anyway, with just a little bit of roots – would you consider just pulling it out?” His eyes widened, and he said, “Well, I wasn’t sure if you would be able to see it that way…if there is any tooth that needs to be pulled, I would say that would be it, unless you had the luxury of seeing the specialist and taking the time for more elaborate dental work. I think you have more pressing matters coming up, and with your positive attitude, we can get this pulled on Monday and have at least 5 days to monitor if anything goes wrong – are you up for it?”

Am I up for it? Yank away, my dear dentist, yank away. There is no way on this earth, that a pulled tooth could hurt any worse than my surgical adventures thus far. And it’s not like it’s my front tooth. I would not be keen on looking like Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman, no sir. So May 12th is Molar Monday. Hello, Jello! And maybe if the Tooth Fairy is feeling very generous, he could leave a little blue box under my pillow, instead of a quarter?

What Not to Wear (Ch.5)

14 Apr 2014 4 Comments

by Suelinhess in adventures, Bitching & Moaning, Breast Cancer, Cancer, confidence, Faith, Family, Friendship, Healing, humor, illness, Love, Marriage, Medical, self reliance, support, Uncategorized Tags: breast cancer, cancer, fear, healing, hospital, humour, illness, laughter, Love, pain, plastic surgery, recovery, surgery

Tomorrow is Bodacious Ta-Ta Tuesday. And I thought having babies required planning and organization…ha. So far, I have 3 surgeons, 1 anesthesiologist, countless residents and nurses, and one hovering furry man on my Away Team, here in Edmonton. On the Home Team in Jasper, we have our 21 year old daughter Emily as Captain, and Hanna and Simon on Defense. They’re holding down the fort, feeding the dogs, going to school, doing their chores, and trying not to fight with each other while they wait for us to come home next week. And for Home Team support, we have Coach Aunty Lori and Uncle Rob driving 4 hours from Banff to bring Easter and home cooking to our kids this weekend. My freezer is stocked with labeled tupperware full of food I cooked for the Home Team, my hospital suitcase is packed, my furry man has a stocked mini-fridge in the hotel room, and all we had was a pre-admission clinic and a pre-op consultation to attend today. I thought I had prepared myself for everything. Little did I know that fashion actually matters in such a situation. There is such a thing as what not to wear to the plastic surgeon’s office on the day before your planned surgery. Consider this a learning moment for you.

The 4 hour drive from Jasper was the usual scream. This time, though, we broke up the trip with a stop at Tim Horton’s in Edson (for those of you planning on exploring beautiful Alberta, Edson can be skipped. Unless you need to pee or need some coffee at Timmy’s. Seriously). I splurged on a honey-glazed donut. Best 15 minutes of the entire trip. I figured, if there is any time to indulge in my life, this is it. I am going to lose 15lbs worth of boobs tomorrow – one glazed donut is nuthin’!

Back at the Mac (the elegant Fairmont Hotel MacDonald) we got our usual room 538 with a river view and the extra mini-fridge that Markus had requested. He’ll be living here while I am luxuriating in the fabulous Misericordia Hospital all week. Visiting hours are 9am – 9pm and he’ll be coming back to his room for delicious bowls of cereal on many an occasion. We went to bed, but I tossed and turned all night long, thoughts just piling up in my head. I had go to my bedside table and make notes in my phone just to empty out some of those thoughts. I really wanted to sit up and write everything down in full form, but didn’t want the scolding from the furry man. I forced myself to keep my eyes closed, and waited for the sun to rise.

This morning we had an appointment for a pre-admission clinic at 8:30, so we drove to the hospital. I thought this would be a quick meet and greet with my little Dr. Ing from my sentinel node surgery. Nope. A gangly man in full scrubs shuffled into the room, mumbled that he was Dr. Xanadu, and plopped a giant binder on the table. The giant binder was me. Every little detail from every doctor and nurse, leading up to this moment, was in that binder. We spent some time talking about meds, but most of what he was saying kind of went in one ear and out the other…Dr. Xanadu?!!! There was no way I was that lucky. He left the room, and I whispered to Markus, “REALLY?!” Markus was like, “I KNOW! Is that a real name?!” I replied, “I fully expect him to enter the operating room on roller skates, singing like Olivia Newton John tomorrow!” Then another nurse entered and shattered our fantasies when she asked, “Did Dr. Nadu take all your meds?” Damn. You know I’ll be humming Xanadu when they wheel me in tomorrow…

OH, learn to read upside-down, ladies! While the nurse (Peggy) was going over my binder and prepping me for admission, I happened to read a letter from my internist, Dr. Hossein, to my general surgeon. He remarked that the cancer is in my left breast, and that my sentinel node surgery would consequently be in my left breast. STOP! I have breast cancer in my RIGHT breast and had sentinel node surgery in my RIGHT armpit. MORON. I remember during that particular doctor visit (to discuss whether my current meds would cause trouble during surgery), wondering why he wouldn’t make eye contact and why he was such a pig. His desk looked like the messy room of my teenage daughter. The only thing missing was old cheese and oranges tucked into his underwear drawer…I mentioned this to the nurse, wondering if his untidiness was an indication of his carelessness in noting important medical details on my record. She replied that she had heard similar things about him and just shook her head. So be your own best advocate and know your diagnosis inside and out, ladies. And maybe don’t go see Dr. Hossein, if you can help it.

During the pre-admission clinic, Nurse Peggy went into my hospital visit in great detail. We got to meet the little Jackson Pratt drain that I will have hanging from my breasts, my armpits, and my abdomen. She taught us how we will be draining them and measuring and logging the (gag) fluids that will collect in them. The drains look like the plastic tubing that you use to aerate your fish tanks at home. At the end of the tubing (the other end is stitched into your body) is a soft clear rubber bulb, where the fluid will collect. It’s about the size of the bulb they use to pump up a blood pressure cuff. There is a loop on the bulb, and it gets pinned to the hospital gown. Fancy hospital jewelry.

Following that appointment, my honey and I had a romantic lunch in the West Edmonton Mall. Hey, not everything has to be roses and candlelight. When a mall lunch is followed by a restful nap in a Fairmont bed, snuggled against a warm chest, wrapped in loving arms, I challenge anyone to claim that wasn’t romantic.

At 2:30pm, I called the surgery appointment desk to find out my surgery time for tomorrow. I was asked, “Who is your doctor?” I replied, “I have multiple doctors: Olson, Schembri, and Mehling.” She exclaimed, “OOOHHHHH, you must be Sue!” My cousin Gaby always teases me when I’m at home when I visit the hotel for something and I try to blend into anonymity, not wanting to use Markus’ job for asking favours. She puffs up and puts on a royal voice, “Don’t they know who you ARE?! You need to say, ‘Don’t you know who I AM???!!’” and then we all dissolve into silly giggles. Well, it seems Gaby called ahead to the Misericordia Hospital… The nurse said, “Sue Treppenhauer? You’re going to be our first patient and the big one all day. Come on in at 5:45, honey.” At least there won’t be any rush-hour traffic…

The last appointment of the day was for a visit to my plastic surgeon, Dr. Schembri (remember Dr. Scampi?). This was the first time my furry man was meeting him, and it didn’t occur to me how very awkward it would feel. First of all, I was handed a gown and a pair of very teeny tiny panties to change into, gown open in front. Then Dr. Schembri (the furry little boy who looked like he just graduated from university) came in wielding a blue Sharpie, and started drawing lines all over my breasts and abdomen. Then he started showing us (by tucking in my nipples and squeezing the breasts) how the lines would guide him in reforming my reconstructed breasts. A light went off in my head, and I was like, “HONEY, did you ever see Mad Magazine when you were a kid?” My German furry man looked at my quizzically. I had to explain how the back cover of the magazine had a picture that you had to fold a certain way, and if you did it just right, you ended up with a totally different picture. By the time I was done explaining, Dr. Schembri was laughing hard and nodding his head, “Yup! That’s exactly what I’m doing!” Then he had me lying down so he could draw more on my abdomen and do the whole grabbing-giant-handfuls-of-fat thing again. I can’t even imagine what my husband was thinking. After that, I had to stand up in just my teensy panties and subject myself to a photo shoot. Dr. Schembri swore he wouldn’t share them with anyone. Markus didn’t make the same promise, however. yikes. When I was allowed to wrap my dignity in my front-opening gown, we sat down for a talk. He explained to us that he would see me around 7am right before surgery, and my lumberjack would be there too. While Paul Bunyon was removing my breasts, Dr. Schembri and Dr. Mehling would be working on my abdomen, removing the tissue and blood vessels needed to reconnect to my chest. Once Dr. Olson had one breast removed, Dr. Schembri and Mehling would move up and begin connecting the blood vessels and working on that side of me. Then he stopped and looked at Markus and said, “Okay. I have to tell you. About halfway through all this, we will be taking a break to have lunch. It’s going to be a long day, and we will need some food. I’m only telling you this because I neglected to say it with another patient years ago, and I bumped into the husband while I was in the cafeteria. He looked at me in a panic and was like, ‘Wait. Who is working on my WIFE!!!’ If you see me in the cafeteria, Markus, I promise Sue will be ok. I just need to get some nourishment. She will be being taken care of, I promise.” You never really think about that stuff, do you? Finally, Dr. Schembri handed a blue Sharpie to my furry man, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind going over the lines after I take a shower in the morning, in case I washed anything off. He has no idea what a stupid move that was. It took everything in me to convince my furry man not to draw on me last night, before going into the office today. He wanted to draw smiley goodbye faces on my breasts. Now that he’s had to sit through watching a furry teenager-looking-man squeezing bits of me that are Reserved for Treppenhauer Use Only, I wonder if I’m going to have No Trespassing written all over my boobs in the morning…

So here is where my fashion advice kicks in. For this last day before Bodacious Ta-Ta Tuesday, I had chosen to wear a v-neck blouse that showed my cleavage in all its glory. I figured my girls deserved one last day in the sun before going to Heaven tomorrow. That’s all very well and good, but if you expect to be covered in blue magic marker, you might not make a similar fashion choice. As soon as I put my shirt back on, Markus burst out laughing. I had what looked like a blue tree growing up on the skin of my chest, blooming out of my cleavage, just above the v in my v-neck shirt. There was no covering it up. We headed out to the parking lot, passing turning heads (“hmmm, interesting tattoo on that lady…”). We had planned on a quickie splurge on junk food for my Last Supper, so we walked into McDonald’s. Now, with all the freaking weirdos of the world eating at fast food joints, with tattooed and pierced faces, screaming babies, etc, you would think I would blend right it. Not. And they didn’t even stare inconspicuously. It was straight on ogling. I was so embarrassed, I sat in the only booth facing a wall, waiting for Markus to bring our deliciously salty french fries and my chocolate shake. With his crinkly eyes and laughing face in front of me, I could momentarily forget my appearance. On the way back to the car, I saw a few more heads turn, and pulled my sweater off and held it up against my chest. Markus opened the car door for me, then went around to sit in the driver’s seat. Driving back to the hotel, I held my sweater to my chest to cover up the blue markings, totally embarrassed by the funny looks people had given me, dreading walking through the hotel lobby. Markus turned to me with a fierce look on his face and said, “FUCK them. They don’t know how lucky they are to NOT have a reason to have the blue markings on their chests. Fuck. Them. Let them stare. I am proud of you.” Then he turned back to the steering wheel and drove me back to the comfort of our hotel room. In the elevator, he took one picture of me, after teasing me about my blue tattoo, telling me that I was going to want to remember the funny things. And a v-neck shirt for today was certainly funny, if not well-planned.

In the hotel room, I sat down to write this last entry for my blog, before I meet fabulously new drugs tomorrow. You might not hear from me for days, even though I know Markus will update my friends and family on Facebook. The hospital nurse told me that the powerful anesthetic would alter my senses and my judgement for days. She cautioned me against making any important decisions on legal matters, and I’m guessing writing my blog might fall under that warning. While I was plugged into my writing music and I was swimming in my words, seated in our hotel room easy chair, I saw a movement at the edge of my field of vision. I looked up to find my furry man with a shy smile on his face, standing there shirtless, with my identical blue Sharpie markings all over his chest. Solidarity at its finest. What is love? Love is coaxing someone to laugh through the fear of becoming Frankenstein. Love is being there to relieve pain. Love is furry. And right now, while my heart is brimming over with it, I will bid you goodnight. It’s time to cup my breasts and to say thank you for a wonderful 30+ years of life-giving nourishment, of sex appeal, of giving comfort, and Love. Tomorrow is Bodacious Ta-Ta Tuesday. And ByeBye Barnard; don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Farewell, Brave Sentinel (Ch.4)

09 Apr 2014 Leave a comment

by Suelinhess in adventures, Bitching & Moaning, Breast Cancer, Cancer, confidence, Faith, Family, Friendship, Healing, humor, illness, Love, Marriage, Medical, self reliance, support, teenagers, Uncategorized Tags: breast cancer, cancer, courage, fears, healing, hospital, humour, illness, Love, pain, surgery

This was not going to be the Big Day. This was going to be a little bit of a big day, but not THE big day; that day (April 15th) I was going to call Bye Bye Boobies Day. On this day, April 3rd, I was only scheduled to have my sentinel node removed for biopsy from my right side. If there is cancer in the sentinel node, that would indicate that Barnard is in a travelling mood and on his way out of my breast and into the rest of my body. If that is the case, then I would need radiation treatment and I would not be able to get my breasts reconstructed for a period of time; I would only be able to have a double mastectomy on April 15th. Forget Flat Stanley, Flat Suzy Creamcheese would be the new star. For the procedure on April 3rd, they would first inject a radioactive contrast dye behind my right nipple and then they would go in with a baby geiger counter and see which lymph node got the most clicks out of the sensor. The loudest clicks signal the first lymph node that cancer would encounter on its journey out of my right breast, so that node is removed and biopsied to see if there are any cancer cells lurking. That first node is aptly named the Sentinel Node. Your sentinel nodes are the heroes in your body. They are the front line in your body’s fight against germs and other enemies of your health. Your lymph nodes do their best to fight the invaders and, at the very least, they send out signals to you that there is trouble about; they swell up. When your doctor feels under your ears, by your jaw, around the back of your neck…he’s checking if your lymph nodes are swollen. You can feel them yourself when you have a cold. Sometimes, the ones in your arm pits can be felt too. Your body is filled with them; an army on your side. So everyone on Team Suzy Creamcheese voted NO on Proposition Sentinel Node (cousin Gaby said this) and my furry man had been walking around for weeks, chanting, “Sentinel NO Sentinel NO!” No cancer in the lymph nodes means yes for reconstructive surgery. We want boobs in this house.

On April 2nd, we packed the car full of children on Spring Break (“WooHOO, let’s go to the hospital for Spring Break!”) and made the 4 hour drive to Edmonton. We tortured the kids with an audiobook – Under the Dome by Stephen King. It was narrated by this dreamy guy named Raúl Esparza. I fell in love with a new expression, “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit!” You have to say it with a drawl, in a shocked voice. I have a feeling I will be saying it a lot in the near future… I had to call between 2:30-8pm to get my surgery time for the next day. The booking desk is a well-oiled machine. When I called, they asked for my name and my doctor’s name, then they brightly told me, “First thing in the morning! Go get your contrast dye injection at Meadowlark Health Center, then head straight over to Misericordia Hospital Day Ward at 8:30!” The happy ending to my day was room service dinner at the Fairmont Hotel MacDonald in downtown Edmonton. No dishes give me sweet sweet dreams.

We brought our kids because they were on Spring Break and they would otherwise be home unsupervised. We wanted to give them a day of fun in the city while I was in hospital, but we also wanted to make sure the house would not burn down. Going to the city for doctors’ appointments on my own versus bringing the family is a shock to my system. Hanna packed all of the contents of her vanity table – about 20lbs of makeup. We actually argued with her about the makeup buffet that she had spread out over the hotel room floor and on the desk. She woke up at 6am to start getting ready, and by the time we were pushing to get out the door at 7:15, she was squealing about her hair not being “done.” Between her squealing, my husband’s scolding of the kids, and my son’s beatboxing (he wakes up making noise every day), I had no room to think about my day. It wasn’t until we were in the car on the way to the imaging office, that I thought about getting injected with radioactive contrast dye in my nipple; in my N.I.P.P.L.E.

No matter how I imagined it going down, I could not picture a scenario where the needle in the nipple would NOT hurt. Nobody I know had shared this experience with me, so I had no idea how to prepare. My furry man tried to keep it light and said he’d always fantasized about Rebecca Romijn as Mystique (the blue lady) in X-Men…and now he would get to sleep with his very own Mystique with glow-in-the-dark boobs…rowr. That silliness, and having the 2 kids there to put on brave smiles for, helped me to get through the waiting room time. Soon, they called my name and I was in the radiology room with a big blowsy blonde nurse, who gave me a regretful smile and said, “Honey, I’m not gonna lie. This is gonna hurt.” I was like, WHAAA? What happened to all the people soothing me and telling me happy things? Nope. Blondie was a realist, and it turns out I like it like that. I nervously asked, “But…don’t they give me a numbing shot first? Before the dye is injected?” She said, “Well, yeah, Dr. will freeze it first, but he shoots in the dye immediately after – sometimes the anesthetic just doesn’t have time to kick in…we’ll try to make it quick to get it over with.” I sighed and said, “Well, I guess I gave birth to 3 kids. I can do this.” She smacked me on the back and said, “THATTA GIRL.” And when the doctor walked into the room, she said, “HEY, Sue says she gave birth to 3 kids, so she can DO this. Let’s do this!” The doctor, a dark little gentleman with a hint of a moustache, who reminded me of my friend Sunil in high school (who has since shaved the little hint of a moustache and grown into a handsome bigger man with a spectacularly bald head…I love bald men…I digress…), smiled at me and said, “I will make this hurt as little as possible.” Blondie rolled her eyes at me and grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I asked if I could let go of her hand so I could pinch my left leg when the needle went in. It’s my stupid way of faking out my brain when I get anything involving a needle. I count to 3, and when the needle goes in, I pinch my leg as hard as I can. My brain yells, “OW” at my leg, and sometimes doesn’t really mind the needle. Blondie giggled, and said, “Of course! And hey, look at me for a minute.” I did, and while the doctor was doing his needlework and I hissed through the first injection, she gasped, “OH MY!!” I was like, “WHAT?!” And she gushed, “You have the whitest teeth I have ever seen! I wish my teeth were as white. My mom is a dental hygienist and tells me it’s all in the enamel, and some people are just blessed. Oh how I wish I was so blessed…” And on and on, she had me laughing, and before I knew it, she winked at me and said, “Guess what, you’re done.” What? What happened to the needle with the dye? “Oh honey, he did that a while back. What a great talk we had, eh?” Blondie was a sly thing. After I got dressed, she stopped me at the door and said, “I just want to give you a big hug and wish you all the luck on your procedure today. You have the right attitude and you are going to beat this.” Then she enveloped me in a huge soft hug and made me feel completely safe and confident. Ladies, if you can have such a perfectly orchestrated radioactive contrast dye injection, by equally-sly medical staff, it will be a piece of cake for you too.

After my nipple injection, I was told to head straight to the hospital Day Ward. A Sentinel Node biopsy is a relatively short operation. The actual cutting and removing of the node takes less than an hour. There are a couple of hours of recovery time (wakey wakey, cookie cakey) and they send you home with big bandaids and strict instructions. At the Day Ward, they told me the surgery had been changed to 12:30 and to come back in 2 hours. We were all starving for breakfast, but since I couldn’t eat and I wanted the kids to have some fun for the day, I decided to suit up and stay until surgery time. There was ample opportunity for Markus to take embarrassing pictures of me in my hospital gown and for the kids to be hugged and kissed and reassured. While the family waited in the waiting room for a few minutes, I was escorted across acres of cement floor to a large room with about 30 hospital beds separated by curtains. I was the first to arrive, so I got the nurse all to myself. I asked her name twice, but I still can only remember that it started with an M and was one of those names that parents thought they were being creative by adding letters to established names. Malexa? Malicia? I’ll just call her Nurse M. She gave me a thin cotton hospital gown, told me to remove all my clothes, put on the gown, and leave it open in the back Remove all my clothes? This was supposed to be a quickie day surgery on my armpit. Remove all my clothes? Yup. And for those of you who worry about being on your period, they sweetly give you a pair of disposable undies and a retro maxi pad from your mom’s stash in 1971; the kind that needs a belt…only they don’t provide a belt. To complement the lovely gown, they offer a hospital robe in similar shades of blue, and a fabulous pair of booties made of the same material as their surgery shower caps. Fully outfitted, I was ready for the runway. Big kisses and hugs goodbye to the worrying family, then the nurse sat down to explain the whole procedure and how I should expect to feel after the surgery. Basically, I was told I would probably feel like crap, and they would do everything in their power to reduce the level of crap for me before we drove home to Jasper. Not only would I feel nauseated with a sharp pain in my armpit, I would likely have a wicked sore throat because of the breathing tube that would be inserted. Oh, and did I have any loose teeth or dentures that might be knocked loose by the insertion of the breathing tube?

Waiting in Bed #17, I could eavesdrop on my fellow patients. My surgery was scheduled for 12:30 and it was 8:30 in the morning. I had some time to kill. The magazines were from 2005, and were Christmas issues. I flipped through them pretty quickly, ran down the battery on my phone from posting selfies of me in my glamorous hospital gown and slippers. This area was the staging area for surgery prep, and surgery recovery. By listening in, I could figure out who was in for what surgery. Men and women, mostly elderly, most of them had the same questions I had. By the time it was my time to be wheeled upstairs, I had the answers I needed. I never met a single one of my curtained neighbours, but I felt strangely connected. It was calming.

Here is where I confess my biggest fear of all. I had never had surgery before. My mother always had difficulty with general anesthesia, telling us (regarding her 2 caesarians, her lung cancer surgery, and her breast cancer surgery) “Oh it was terrible – the nurses couldn’t wake me up. I almost died. Every time it gets worse.” And when I went to stay with my father for his heart surgery a few years ago, I waited for hours as they transferred him into the ICU post-surgery, because they had so much trouble bringing him out of the anesthesia. Ever since I found out I had breast cancer, I have secretly been dreading an operation that required general anesthesia. What if I don’t wake up? What if I go under for a simple procedure, and I never had the chance to say goodbye properly to everyone that I love, never had the chance to tell my children that I am so proud of them and wish all their dreams will come true, never had the chance to tell my husband that I could thank him forever and it would never be enough, for our beautiful children and for our happy life? A couple of weeks ago, I was getting ready for bed, and it just overwhelmed me. Should I write letters? Should I say something now so I could tell my loved ones all the things I might never have a chance to say? If I did, wouldn’t it freak out my kids and make them worry needlessly? I was sure I was being foolish and needed to just shut my mouth and breathe through the anxiety. I came to bed, and my furry man immediately saw the worried look on my face and said, “What’s wrong? Tell me, honey.” I just blurted it out. All of it. And I bowed my head in shame for being so stupid and worrying about such a crazy thing. He grabbed me and hugged me so hard that I couldn’t breathe. He murmured into my ear, “I never knew you worried so much. You’re not being silly. But for all your brains and your ability to research and find information faster than anyone I know, why have you never looked this up? You have looked up everything there is to know about cancer but you’ve never checked this? I am sure medicine has improved since your mom had surgery 30 years ago, and your dad had alcohol the night before his surgery – I am sure there were good reasons for their problems. Let’s look it up right now. Let’s find out everything we can about this, ok? Information will make you feel stronger. And if you still feel worried about it after we research, you go ahead and write those letters. Just seal them and give them to me to give to the kids if necessary. If the worst happens, I promise you I will give your letters to the kids. If you wake up and everything is fine, we will just throw those letters away.” What a wise man my furry man is. We spent the next hour looking up everything we could find about general anesthesia and advances in the field to improve safety in the past few decades. It quelled the worst of my fears, but there was still an echo deep down in my heart of what if?…

So, while waiting nervously in Bed #17, all by myself, my silly mind took me to dark places. All the Facebooking in the world couldn’t distract me. As I thought about composing a quick email to Markus with letters to the kids, I got a text from my bright friend Kathy. Kathy is bright in all senses of the word. She is a tiny bundle of sunshine and fire; full of energy to run through life while juggling job, kids, friends, husband, and any challenge that comes her way. Her first response to my breast cancer announcement last month, was to say, “What can I do?” And feeling helpless in a town 4 hours away from me, she decided within a few minutes of hanging up the phone that day, that she would form a team for the CIBC Run For the Cure event in October of this year. By that evening, she had emailed and Facebooked everyone we knew, and we had a team of over 30 people signed up, from all over the world, to raise money for cancer research; all in my name. So a text from Kathy shone a little light into my dark mood. All she wrote was, “Why r u still on FB? Have you not gone in yet?” Immediately I thought, this is someone who can do what needs doing. I wrote back, “Hey, this is crazy, but if I don’t wake up, I love you. And please tell Markus and my kids that, a LOT, if I can’t. I think I’ve said it 100 times to them already. But I didn’t want the kids to worry so I just sent them to breakfast.” She replied, “I love you too!! You are going to be fine!!! It’s sentinel NO day!!! Positive energy!!! I can’t even imagine how you feel, but you are a strong woman and can conquer anything! You are determined!! You’re in a hospital 30 years later. You’ll be fine!” She talked me down from the ledge, and my sanity was restored (temporarily).

At 11am, Nurse M popped her head into my curtains and brightly announced, “Dr. Olson is ahead of schedule! You’re up!” No more time for fretting, I sent a quick text to Markus that I was going in, and he replied that he would be there when I came out. I put my phone and my glasses into my little bedside locker, and hopped onto Bed #17. I was given a pretty blue bonnet to tuck my hair into, told to lay back, and went for a wild and crazy ride as Bed #17 was pushed by my new friend Lola, to the operating rooms on the 2nd floor. Lola was a short, round asian woman, with rosy cheeks and a big smile; and every time I looked at her, I wanted to sing, “Oh my Lola, L-O-L-A!” but I didn’t know if she’d get it, so I bit my tongue. She was the first person to ask the Questions. Each new person I met had to ask me: “What is your procedure today, and on what side are we operating?” Sentinel Node Biopsy, Sir! Right breast, sir! They also asked me to spell my last name and to state my birthdate. I tried to keep track of how many people asked those questions, but when they got into the double digits, I stopped. A dozen recitations of T-r-e-p-p-e-n-h-a-u-e-r had me longing for my short little maiden name…

Barnard has pick-pocketed one more thing. I was supposed to have Lasik on my eyes for my birthday, so I would no longer be legally blind. It was going to be the highlight of my year. Imagine waking up in the morning and being able to see the expression on my husband’s face without having to reach for my glasses! Imagine swimming with my eyes open and actually seeing the line at the bottom of the pool! Then Barnard came along and I was told that since they would be taping my eyelids shut during my surgeries, they might accidentally put pressure on my eyes which could damage my repaired eyeballs. So here I am, blind as a bat, as usual. And the first thing they tell you to take off pre-surgery is your glasses. Most of my story happened in a blur. Literally.

Up on the 2nd floor, my Lola wheeled me into another large holding area where various other bedridden patients were waiting for their turns in the operating suites. I was beginning to notice that, other than the hospital personnel, I seemed to be the youngest patient around. Suzy Creamcheese; Spring Chicken. Before Lola left me to shuttle more patients, she told me to expect to wait about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist and Dr. Olson to find me. 20 minutes of watching fuzzy green blobs rush around and attend skinny wrinkled blobs on beds. Very confusing. Suddenly, a few yards in front of my, one of the fuzzy green blobs crouches, shoots both of his index fingers at me, and booms, “HEEEYYYYYY, it’s my favourite American girl!” I figured it was safe to assume it was my own personal lumberjack Paul Bunyon/ Dr. Olson. Sure enough, he ran up to me, pumped my right hand and plopped a great big kiss on my forehead. “Doing ok? Great to see ya! One incision Sue, one incision. Sentinel node comes OUT and you wake up. We’ll have you up and running in no time. I’m going to hand you off to a great guy – Dr. Ing – he’ll be your anesthesiologist- give you the good stuff. I’m going to go scrub up – SEE YOU IN THERE!” And he was gone in a puff of smoke. All surgeons need to get this guy’s bedside manner. All of them.

Dr. Ing did, in fact, give me the good stuff. First, however, he had to inspect my teeth (what is it with their worries about my teeth? And more admiring comments about their whiteness – good promotional material for Crest Whitestrips: use Crest Whitestrips and have medical personnel oohing and ahhhing over your gleaming pearly whites pre-surgery!). Also, as he was inspecting my throat and inserting the IV and saline drip in my hand, I wondered: “are all anesthesiologists asian? and it’s a good thing I inherited the big ugly veins in my hands from both my mom and dad – they pop out just right for the needle. and how does someone want to grow up and become an anesthesiologist? and how do you say anesthesiologist without your tongue ending up in a knot?” That could have been the oxycodone doing the wondering…he really did give me the good stuff. They wheeled me through strawberry fields and down the hall, past a big clock that read 11:50am, to the operating room, where they had me tumble onto the operating table with my head kind of hanging over backwards, pulled out some boards for my arms, and had a good laugh when they asked me the Big Questions for the final time. Spelling my last name while incredibly high is very difficult; you try it some time. I panicked at the very last moment, when the guy by my left ear told me that what he was injecting into the IV was going to sting a little, while the guy by my right ear pressed a mask on my face, saying, “I need to press this hard for just a minute so you can take some deep breaths of oxygen. Don’t struggle, just breathe deeply.” I tried, but got no air, and at that moment, my left arm was lit on fire. Eyes bugged open, in great pain, I struggled, and realized I had forgotten to say my star wish.

Here is another one of my weird things: every time I see the first star in the night sky, I make a wish. I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl. I have only made 3 wishes in my lifetime, and they have all come true; I just wish the one wish on every first star I see until it comes true. The first was when I was a pre-teen living in Shanghai, incredibly unhappy, with parents that seemed to hate me, big sister in boarding school, little sister in her own world, with only one friend who had moved away with the only family that had ever been kind to me…and my wish every single night when I walked my mom’s precious dog GiGi, was, “Please please give me a family that will love me as much as I love them.” Boom. 1992 I get Emily. 1994 I get my furry man. 1998 I get Hanna. 2000 I get Simon. Family complete. Boy, do I love them and boy, do they love me back. The second wish was during a horrible time while living in Hawaii; after 10 years of marriage, my furry man thought maybe it was time to separate. My wish was pretty primitive and desperate back then, “Please please make him love me again. Please please make him love me so our family can stay whole.” I’m pretty sure I have less to thank the Universe for that one, and have more owed to the hard work we put into couples therapy and re-inventing ourselves and our marriage. Universe or not, that wish came true. My third wish for the past 9 years has been, “Please Please watch over our family and keep us safe and happy and healthy and in love and faithful and successful and having fun.” I don’t ask for much.

So there I was on the operating table, feeling myself losing consciousness, trying desperately to finish the wish! “Please please watch over our family…and…please please…love…” and I sank into slumber.

After closing my eyes and floating away, it felt like in my very next breath I heard a bright voice telling me, “Time to wake up, it’s all done now!” Directly above my head was a monitor on which, if I squinted through the sunshine coming in the window, I could see lots of numbers, and a set of them that read, “1:48.” My throat was so sore I could barely swallow. I croaked, “Is that the time? 1:48? Is that the time?” And the person, who was behind me so I couldn’t see her, answered, “Yes, that is the time. I’ll be with you for a little while. Just relax. I’m not leaving your side.” And I heard her turn and start turning pages and writing on something. The time changed to 1:50. I blinked and realized that the sun was shining, it was 1:50pm, and I had woken up. I was alive! Incredible relief washed over me and tears rolled down my face. Worst fear conquered.

As soon as I wiped my tears, I felt a deep aching in my right armpit…the kind of aching you feel when a muscle is really sore. I lifted my right arm and started to stretch and rotate it, all while my eyes were too heavy to keep open; I just wanted to work out that ache. All of a sudden, I heard, “OH HONEY honey HONEY, STOP!! You’re making it BLEED and you’re going to pull out your stitches!” And some very gentle hands pushed my arm back down on the bed. I mumbled, “It bugs me.” I guess that translates to “please give me morphine” because I got a very sweet injection into my IV line, and I totally stopped minding the armpit…what armpit? A while later (time flies when you are stoned), I was wheeled back into Bed #17’s original spot in the recovery room. I think my Lola was driving, because by the time we whipped around corners and skidded in and out of the elevator, I was so carsick I could barely keep it together. I kept my eyes closed and pretended I was in the first trimester of pregnancy, making gentle huffs and puffs to keep the nausea at bay. After a few minutes of huffing, my new nurse asked me if I was feeling nauseated? Oh, just a wee bit…so I got a big dose of Gravol (one of the best inventions in the whole wide world for an upset tummy), and I heard somebody far far away calling my husband on the telephone. The next time I woke up, it was to kisses all over my face by my furry man. Still heavily medicated, all I could manage to whisper at him was, “I woke up, honey, I woke up.” With tears in his eyes, he continued kissing me, replying, “yes. yes, you did.” The next time I opened my eyes, my two younger children were there to hug me. Then I closed my eyes again. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I could hear my neighbours leaving one by one, and eventually, the janitors coming in to clean the ward. I opened my eyes, put on my glasses, and saw that it was 4:30pm. Why the heck was I still there?! I announced to Markus that I would like to leave please, and sat up. Alarmed, he tried to stop me, saying we didn’t need to leave so soon, he could drive home to Jasper in the dark. It turns out the nurse was waiting for ME to ask to go home. Sheesh. They needed to see that I could pee (and after 3-4 bags of IV-dripped saline, boy could I), then gave me post-op instructions. During one of my cat naps, Markus had magically gone to pick up my pain meds at the pharmacy. He also brought ginger ale that he force-fed to me (“You need sugar! Drink!”) Blech. The nurse was being very serious about wound care and stretching exercises, then she mentioned that the breast could be stained at the injection site with the radioactive contrast dye for up to 6 months. She was completely un-prepared for, and shocked by, my furry man’s flippant answer, “Well, that stain will be gone by April 15th no matter what.” (Double mastectomy scheduled on the 15th) and my out-of-control drunken guffaws. C’mon, you gotta laugh. If you don’t laugh, you will cry, people. Finally free, my furry man wheeled me in a chair out to the car on the curb, and we began our long drive home.

Once home, I actually can’t remember much, thanks to my new friends T3 and Gravol. I slept a lot a lot. After 24 hours, I felt disgusting and demanded to clean myself. My furry man, ever helpful, hovered. I had to tell him, “Honey, I know you want to help, but I can do this sponge bath. After the mastectomy, you can sponge away all you like. And I would love your help with this bandage change after I am done washing.” He reluctantly settled for that, but babied me all weekend long. It was heavenly, actually. Meeting the incision for the first time kind of turned my stomach. My whole armpit was swollen, and the incision was an angry smile of stitches along the natural lines of my skin. I sent up a silent little thank-you prayer to my brave sentinel node who sacrificed himself for me. Markus cleaned it, gently re-bandaged, and tucked me into bed with a drug refill.

Monday morning, my furry man had to head back to work, and Real Life hit me. The kids are on Spring Break and wanted sleepover marathons and playdates with friends; for the previous 3 days, Markus had been the chauffeur – it was my turn. Ever since my breast cancer diagnosis, I have been determined to be a nicer mom and to make sure that my kids have a really good childhood; I’d been getting kind of lazy in their pre-teen years, and had been letting the teen attitudes drive me crazy. New leaf, new Mom, more effort. I had to change out of pyjamas, comb hair, and put on makeup. The sun was very bright. I had to stop my drug habit so I could legally drive, so was a bit grumpy with just wimpy regular Tylenol. Not only this, but I had been walking around on pins an needles for days, nagging thoughts jangling in my head, “Sentinel Yes or Sentinel No??? When will they tell me? Will they know before my mastectomy? Will they have to postpone surgery if the results don’t come back in time??? Will I be okay if the results are positive for cancer in the lymph nodes and I have to walk around with no boobs for a year or so? How would it be to live in Edmonton by myself for 5 weeks while I have to have radiation therapy?” ‘Round and ‘round my head, these thoughts flew, like bats in a cave. Markus called me and texted me often, telling me, “Sentinel NO!!” My cousin and sister texted from Australia, “Sentinel NO!” Friends from all over the world sent prayers and lit candles, and posted selfies of themselves on my Facebook page, holding up their middle fingers, “Eff You, Barnard! Sentinel NO!” I told myself I could hold my breath until Friday; they had to have the results by Friday. I let my kids have all their friends over for slumber parties just to distract me. Holy Hell, that was an exciting time full of all-nighters, boys farting into water bottles, girls scaring themselves shitless on Walking Dead marathons, and more dirty dishes than I thought we even owned. I tried to carve quiet time for myself by taking long showers, looking at that new smiley face in my armpit, temporarily letting myself get irritated by silly things like not being able to shave that armpit. I dallied with wild ideas, like maybe doing some Movember fundraising of my own this November; I’ll grow a mustachio for my little armpit smiley face, and raise funds for prostate cancer! During all the chaos, I missed a call from Paul Bunyon’s office, yesterday. They left a message for me to call them back, but I didn’t get the message until after they’d closed. ARGH!

This morning, Markus told me, “I’m going to call them. I can’t be home to be with you for the news and I know I can take it on my own. I’m going to make the call.” I think I turned blue for 20 minutes with my breath held. At 9:20, he called me back and said in a very serious voice, “Check Facebook.” Whhaaa? Logging in, I read his post, “Thank you all for saying prayers, lighting candles, going to temples, making faces, cursing or even swearing. The sentinel in fact is NOOOOOOO.” Both Markus and I just let the tears fall in pure relief. Suzy Creamcheese 1: Barnard 0.

And on to the Big Day on April 15th. Bye-Bye Boobies Day is a GO, and thanks to Sentinel NO, I will have immediate reconstruction and will be coming home feeling whole and in control. I think this calls for a glass of champagne. Lift your glasses: here is to my sentinel node. A braver sentinel there never was.

Domestic Godess…Naked Plumbing

25 Mar 2014 1 Comment

by Suelinhess in adventures, Breast Cancer, Cancer, Family, Friendship, frontier living, Healing, home repair, homemaking, humor, illness, Love, Medical, self reliance, snow, support, Uncategorized, Winter Tags: breast cancer, cancer, Friendship, hair loss, kindness, Love, plumbing, recovery

Please excuse this interruption; your regularly scheduled cancer programming will continue after this mundane reminder that Life continues…and if you are me, Life is weird and good. Sometimes useful things happen when you are totally nude, and if you bare your heart as well, love will find a way to you.

I had a haircut scheduled. An hour before my appointment, I decided I should jump into the shower to wash the unruly mane. Standing in the shower, looking up at the “rain” shower head that our hotel clowns had so thoughtfully installed for us, that only ever dribbled out water a few tablespoons at a time, I snapped. I turned off the water and marched buck naked into my son’s room closet, where I kept our old shower head from our last apartment. I knew that it could turn low water pressure into a normal shower, so I just needed to un-screw the old head and screw on the new one, right? It would just take a few minutes, right? Wrong. Old shower head was rusted on (we have orange well water…it has magical properties). Undaunted, I marched into the kitchen to find a rubber glove from the sink, so I could get a better grip on the rusty shower head. As I was still naked, the march into the kitchen quickly turned into a hunched-over scurry. Rubber glove in hand, I scurried back to the bathroom. I shoved my son’s desk chair into the shower stall, stood up there wearing nothing but one rubber glove, and wrestled with the rusted-on shower head. 5 minutes and many curses later, I realized I needed an actual tool to help me. Very dangerously, I jumped off of the chair onto the wet tile, then slid my way back into the kitchen, sporting my one-glove fashion. I found our multi-purpose tool with the pliers attached, in a cup next to the microwave oven. Up I hopped onto the chair in the shower, and spent another 5 minutes fruitlessly banging on the old shower head, inexplicably wearing that yellow rubber glove on my right hand. I finally figured out I needed something bigger; something from the actual toolbox…in the garage.

Yes, we live in the woods, but the snow plow for the hotel does drive by occasionally. I did not want to scar the snow plow driver for life, so I put on my winter parka to cover my nakedness. Why take the time to get fully dressed for a quick trip across the front yard to the garage; this was just going to take a few minutes, then I could hop into the shower, right? As soon as I stepped outside and the icy wind took a swipe at my backside, I should have heeded its warning. But no, I’m not known for any kind of wisdom, whatsoever. I scanned the horizon of our driveway to make sure the coast was clear, then clunked awkwardly out to the garage in my son’s winter boots. My 2 dogs scampered beside me, perhaps thinking this was another of Mama’s crazy moments, and maybe I would stop and play catch along the way; they were only right about the crazy part. Thankfully, it was only a mild -10° Celsius and just beginning to snow. I rooted through the garage, found the toolbox (which should be stored in the house, dammit!), found a giant wrench, and clunked back to the front door in record time. Correction, I clunked back to the LOCKED front door in record time. Picture naked woman cloaked in a Northface parka with a furry hood, standing in snow boots, in the falling snow, shaking a giant wrench up at the sky, while howling in banshee-like fashion. She slumps her shoulders in defeat, thinking she will just stand there and die of frostbite until her menfolk return from Calgary 7 hours later to recover her frozen body. This would be preferable to walking her naked self down to the hotel front desk and politely asking someone to find a spare key for the cabin. Then, a lightbulb blinks over her head and her head snaps up with the memory of a brighter time when her mind was fully functioning, when she had hidden a spare key in a secret location, elsewhere on the property. Crazy naked woman in parka and snow boots points her giant wrench in the right direction and slips and slides to the hidden key, blessing her formerly sane self. Victory!

Back in the house, I clunked to the bathroom, shed the parka and the boots, climbed up onto the chair, made short work of that rusty shower head, installed the new shower head, and threw the chair out of the shower stall. Ahhhh, sweet hot water cascaded out of the ceiling, and all was right in the universe. It’s amazing how a good shower can restore sanity; or at least the appearance of sanity. At least I remembered to get fully dressed for my haircut appointment.

At the salon, I met a lovely lady named Shawna. My little boy, Simon, has always hated haircuts. Whether I cut it, or someone else cuts it, he always feels foolish for days, waiting for the hair to grow back to an un-embarassing look. This is how he felt until he met Shawna. For the last 2 haircuts, he has come back glowing, posing in front of the mirror, making studly faces at himself. My furry man told me last week, “You can only get your hair cut on a Tuesday because that is the only day that Shawna works. She lives in Valemont (1 1/2 hours away) and only comes in on Tuesdays. She will be worth it. If she can make Simon happy, she’ll make you happy, I promise.” Shawna is a petite young lady in horn-rimmed glasses, hiding behind a fringe of long straight brown hair. There were just the 2 of us in the little salon, and she shyly smiled and reached out her hand to me, “Are you Susan? I’m so happy to meet you!” I haven’t felt that welcomed in this town in so long, I don’t care that she got my name wrong. I was so happy to meet her, too.

When I shook my long hair out of my bun, she gasped, “Oh, what beautiful shiny hair! Are you sure you want to cut it?” I explained that I was due for some surgery and that my husband would have to wash my hair for me for a couple of weeks. I wanted to cut it short enough that it would be very easy for him to care for. She brightly said, “Oh! If you want to come in here, I would be happy to wash it for you? Or?…” I realized it was so much easier to just blurt out that I have breast cancer, instead of dancing around the subject, and told her that the short hair will come in handy for not only the post-op recovery period, but possibly for chemotherapy down the line. Shawna put both hands on my shoulders and spoke to me in the mirror, “Thank you for sharing that with me. I want you to know that my grandmother just finished her treatment for breast cancer and she is doing well, and that the hospitals in Edmonton are wonderful.” Then, knowing exactly what type of low-maintainance hairstyle I will need for my upcoming adventure, she settled into cutting my hair perfectly. We chatted about kids (she has an 11 year old daughter) about safety in small communities, about camping, about both of our husband’s loving to lead us up mountains and on hikes we get lost on, and about living far and away from cell-phone reception, near the North Pole. An hour passed in the blink of an eye, and I looked up to find my face looking years younger, framed by my sassy new haircut. Shawna walked me to the reception desk of the salon, and said this to me, “If you are feeling unwell and just need to freshen up, call me. I will come wash your hair, cut your hair, or even just blow-dry your hair after your husband washes it for you. And it doesn’t need to be a Tuesday. I wish you all the best for your future.” Then she wrote her home phone number on a card and handed it to me, holding my hand for an extra moment in her hand, as I took the card. How blessed am I? Every corner I turn, I meet kind people with loving hearts.

So here is the lesson of the day, boys and girls: a naked plumber in the chill of winter, is not as wise as a plumber fully clothed. But a naked heart in the chill of cancer, can sometimes be the best kind of wise there is.

An Ode to Breastesses (Ch.3)

20 Mar 2014 2 Comments

by Suelinhess in adventures, Bitching & Moaning, Breast Cancer, Cancer, confidence, Family, Healing, humor, illness, Love, Medical, Uncategorized Tags: breast cancer, breast reconstruction, breasts, insecurity, mastectomy, plastic surgery, surgery

Your brain can adjust to any situation, no matter how awful. Just because someone is in a grave place, when thoughts of death lurk in the shadows of her brain, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t snap at her kids for arguing at the dinner table, or that she doesn’t look in the mirror and curse the grey hairs creeping into her brow line. Cancer doesn’t turn you into a noble person; it just makes you feel incredibly guilty for having petty thoughts. I’ll share mine with you, since I love to barf my personal feelings at your feet.

I met my plastic surgeon on Monday. Dr. Mehling (the potential Babe the Big Blue Ox to my lumberjack Dr. Olson) had me meet with his partner, Dr. Schembri. The name is pronounced “Scam-bree” which, to my addled brain, sounds too much like “scampi” for me to ever remember to refer to him as Dr. Schembri ever again. So until I get to know him better, I can only remember his name as either Dr. Shrimpy or Dr. Scampi. He looks like a younger, smaller version of my Paul Bunyon. He even wore a plaid shirt. He introduced himself to me by apologizing for Dr. Mehling’s absence, saying that all 3 men will be operating on me at the same time in the operating room, and the only difference between himself and Dr. Mehling is that he is a taller, hairier version of Dr. Mehling. Later, I got a glimpse of Dr. Mehling, and the description is dead-on. Dr. Mehling looks about 4 feet tall, is super skinny, and has a shiny head as bald as a cue ball. I’m glad I got to meet the furry one; furry men please me. Anyway, Scampi explained all the different options for breast reconstruction to me. Dr. Olson had referred me to them because that is mostly all they do; they primarily work to help women rebuild their breasts after they have been damaged by something awful like a cigarette-smoking, beret-wearing, stinking Parisienne pickpocket named Barnard.

Breast reconstruction has moved light years beyond slapping a ziplock baggie full of silicone into your chest cavity and sewing it up. For you newbies out there, those are called Implants. Babe the Big Blue Ox and his partner Scampi specialize in Autologous tissue breast reconstruction. This means that they use your own body parts to repair your breasts. It’s a beautiful thing. They can take tissue, fat, and muscle from your back, your bum, or your abdomen, and re-connect the blood supply in your chest. If all goes well, you are all you, in the end. Don’t get me wrong, nobody will walk out looking like a Playboy bunny. There are really vicious scars that will make a permanent smiley face across your entire abdomen or your back, and you will not have nipples unless you choose to have them reconstructed in a separate surgery down the line, and get them tattooed to look “normal.” But the goal isn’t to get pretty boobs. The goal is for you to feel whole, for you to feel good in your bra, for you to feel your usual silhouette in your clothes. It’s done so you can tell yourself, “Okay, Barnard took part of me, but I am whole, still.” Yes, there are women out there who choose not to have reconstruction after their mastectomies, but I am fine admitting that my breasts are part of my identity. They may have outlived their function as baby-feeding machines, but I still need them to be me. Without them, I would feel less of a person.

Back to the making of bionic boobies. Scampi and I both agreed that a DIEP flap reconstruction would be right for my body. Free Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator (DIEP) Flap reconstruction is where they will take my abdomen with a small piece of muscle, remove it and and rebuild my breasts. They will reconnect the blood supply in my chest and the tissue will eventually heal and become my breasts. After a short discussion, Scampi asked me to hop up on the examining table and lie down, then proceeded to grab huge handfuls of my tummy as he eyed my breasts. Essentially, he was trying to gauge how much breast he could make to match my current cup size. I had to laugh, expecting him to start grabbing the boobs to compare to the handfuls of tummy. He told me that during surgery, Dr. Olson would be working removing my breasts, while the Babe the Big Blue Ox team would be working on my abdomen, then they would move up to my chest for microsurgery that would take up to 10 hours. As he was pinching and calculating, I stared up at the ceiling and started trying to count how many times I’ve had to flash my boobs to strangers in just the last month. I counted 10 people. That’s more than 3 times the number of people who ever got to play with my boobies for recreation in my entire LIFE. And it turns out that those might be the last times I will ever feel anyone playing with my boobies in the future. The new ones will not have the nerve endings to make playing fun on my end – they will just feel like my arm getting squeezed. Part of the package. The Six Million Dollar Man Steve Austin had both legs, his right arm, and his eyeball replaced. I bet he never felt his girlfriend playing footsie with him under the table, but he appreciated the thought, and it never stopped him from playing the rest of the game. Yeah, I’m comparing myself to a fictional person because I have yet to meet a person in real life who would talk about this with me. I’m going to be the first person in YOUR life who will be frank. I’ll keep you posted.

After all of that detail, talking about recovery, about the ickiness of excess fluid coming out of my breasts and my abdomen, of draining tubes into plastic pouches, of possible infection, of fat necrosis, I thought, “hey, there can’t be anything worse this guy can tell me.” Then he drops the bomb: if my sentinel node surgery comes back positive for cancer, they will have to treat my lymph nodes with radiation, so I would have to delay my reconstruction. That means walking around flat-chested until after radiation therapy (about 5 weeks typically) and until I can be scheduled for reconstruction surgery after that. The current delay for plastic surgery is 1-2 years. This is because after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, you are technically considered “cancer-free.” You then get lumped into the rest of the regular plastic surgery patients waiting for new boobs (i.e. the women who just aren’t happy with their little boobies and want big jugs so they can fall out of their bikinis in Vegas). And all those women get bumped on a daily basis for women exactly like ME who have active cancer and want immediate reconstruction; meaning they may wait forever! I knew this in advance (from my research online), which is why I had insisted on mastectomy with immediate reconstruction. By law, they have to perform immediate reconstruction upon request during a lumpectomy/mastectomy because the cancer bumps the woman to the top of the list. And now I find my evil plan could be thwarted by my own sentinel node. Traitor.

Since first discovering the lump in my breast, I have been able to move forward by focussing only on short-term goals. First, it was “just get to the mammogram/ultrasound; it could be nothing.” Then, “oops, it’s something. Ok. Just get to the needle biopsy. The tumour could be benign.” Then, “Oops, it’s malignant. Ok. Just get to the surgeon. It could just get cut out, you could get rebuilt, and you could be normal by summer.” Now, “Oops, it could be in your lymph nodes so you might not get your breasts back for a looooong time.” OK. New Goal: Just get to the sentinel node surgery on April 3rd and wait for a week for the results. They could be negative for cancer. They could be clean and beautiful and cancer-free. Or, as my husbands’s new battle cry puts it: “Sentinal NO!!!!”

So here is my petty thought. I really love my breasts. I love the way they make my furry man’s eyes light up, then narrow with purpose. I loved the tug my nursing babies gave them. I loved the rush of milk letting down to nourish my sweet infants after the initially painful suckling. I love the gentle swell of my cleavage when I am in a beautiful dress and ready to dance the night away. They were works of art in my youth, only second to my legs as my favourite parts of my body. As I have aged, they have headed for my knees, making me a perfect cover girl for National Geographic. But ptosis or not, they are soft, they are lovely. They are where I hug a crying child. They are where I cross my arms or clasp my hands when I am heartbroken or worried sick. They cushion my heart. They still have purpose. Without them, nothing comes between my heart and the outside world, to insulate me. Without them, I feel vulnerable. If I could have reconstructive surgery, I wouldn’t have my original breasts anymore, but I would have acceptable substitutes. I don’t want to not have breasts. So there you have it. I expect you now have the same stunned expression that my husband gave me when I confessed this to him a couple of days ago. He slowly said, “But. You. Will. LIVE.” You see why these thoughts are such shameful secrets? How can my mind betray me by getting so used to the idea of possibly dying from cancer, that it lets itself get bothered by THIS?! I know I should let all the little things in life just roll off my back, considering there are much bigger things to worry about. I can’t help it. Remember, cancer hasn’t turned me into a noble person; I’m as silly as I ever was. And if you know me, you know that’s what I am, a bundle of everything all jumbled up inside. I have serious thoughts, but this little one is in my face right now, and I can’t shake it. Help me out. On the count of three, please join me in chanting my new mantra. 1…2…3… SENTINAL NO!

I’ve Got MacGyver, Paul Bunyon, and The Suepremes – Barnard Hasn’t Got a Chance (Ch.2)

13 Mar 2014 3 Comments

by Suelinhess in adventures, Breast Cancer, Cancer, confidence, Faith, Family, Friendship, frontier living, Healing, humor, illness, Love, Marriage, Medical, support, Uncategorized Tags: breast cancer, cancer, family, friends, mastectomy, Medical, support, surgery

Today, March 12th, my breasts and I met my surgeon in Edmonton. All I knew about the doctor in advance, was that the name was Dr. D.W. Olson. Images of characters from children’s television shows floated through my mind. I pictured Arthur the aardvark’s little sister D.W. (old PBS animated series), married to Nellie Oleson’s little brother Willie (from Little House on the Prairie), sporting a white coat and chopping off boobs. That, plus the warning from my Nurse Navigator (more on that later), had me a little bit nervous to meet the Knife. “Sue, I want you to brace yourself and not put too much store in the surgeon’s manner. Surgeons can sometimes come across as clinical and lacking empathy. But those characteristics are also the very same characteristics that make an excellent surgeon; they spend most of their time with you when you are unconscious, not chatting with you. If your questions are answered and you feel confident in the surgeon’s experience and explanation of all of your options, don’t let the bedside manner dictate whether or not you choose this one to be your doctor.” Needless to say, I was a fretting bundle of Useless during the drive.

It takes 4 hours to drive from Jasper to Edmonton, so Markus and I kissed the children goodbye and shivered into the car at 6 o’clock this morning. During the boring and seemingly endless drive, we had plenty of time to discuss what we hoped to achieve with this visit, and what questions to ask the doctor while we were in his office. Being in the early stages of my breast cancer journey, I have to be honest that Markus and I are also struggling a bit with our new roles. The furry man wants to be my best cheerleader, and take everything onto his own shoulders. I am much more practical, and I know that even superheroes can burn out unless they take a break or ask for help. These are early days – I want him to mellow out and save his energy for the hard days of clearing drain lines dangling out of my chest, and cooking and cleaning if I need to spend time as a chemo zombie. He thinks I should let go and let him take charge. I think he should reach out and ask a few people to bake some lasagnes when I go in for surgery down the line. Hess Tough vs. Treppenhauer Stubborn…much head butting and growling ensued. Markus is reading a very good book titled: Breast Cancer Husband; How to Help Your Wife (and Yourself) Through Diagnosis, Treatment, and Beyond. It has taught him invaluable things, like how to read pathology reports, how to write down everything the doctors say to me, and how to stay calm in the face of a frightened PMS-ing wife who seems to be losing her mind. Normally my furry man is the light in my life, keeping me smiling and laughing. This morning, his own worries plus my hen-pecking transformed him into Serious Markus. I hate Serious Markus because then we are BOTH grumpy. In the parking lot of the doctor’s office, I told him I don’t like Serious Markus; that I want my funny man back. He pointed a finger at me (I won’t say which one) and said, “Then stop BOSSING me, woman! Hess Tough sucks when it’s me that gets it. Trust me. I’m going to take care of you. I got this.” Message received; Hess Tough Torpedo Guns have been aimed elsewhere.

Enough soap opera; back to the Journey! A Nurse Navigator is the main angel in a special program that we have up here in Paradise (aka Canada). The Alberta Comprehensive Breast Care Program takes patients that are at high risk for cancer; patients like me that have discovered a lump, or had abnormal mammogram results. We are pulled out of the sometimes confusing mainstream of our national healthcare system, and fast-tracked toward the appropriate doctors, procedures, and cancer centres that we need, cutting to the front of the line of any waiting lists. If further tests come back negative, those patients are bid farewell are sent back to real world. The rest of us keep marching forward. When admitted into the program, we are each assigned a Nurse Navigator; our medical guardian angel/advocate. My personal angel’s name is Diana. She is a nurse, packed with ages of experience in the field of breast cancer treatment. She handles most of my appointments, calling me to tell me when and where, and how to get there. She spent what seemed like hours on the phone with me, as soon as I got home from hearing the worst 3 words I’ve heard in my life, last week, “You have cancer.” My family doctor is a moron and actually could NOT explain most of my pathology report, and “didn’t want to go out on a limb” to explain anything further to me, for fear he would be held liable if I misunderstood, blah blah blah, welcome to Jasper. So I had asked for a printout of my pathology report, took it home, and looked up every single word I didn’t understand, and then I called Diana. She confirmed what I had concluded, and in a very gentle voice, began to tell me about the road I would need to travel to reach wellness. She spoke for so long, reassuring me, sharing what resources this wonderful program had to offer, told me that she would be mailing me a big packet of information for me to read through, including a book to help my children cope with my new illness. She told me that I would be overwhelmed with information, and to write everything down. She told me to be careful about choosing websites to read about breast cancer, and she gave me a list of good sites to explore. On the spot, she booked me in to see a surgeon, and told me that she was there on the other end of the phone if I ever felt confused. And if she was ever away from her desk, she told me that her office was full of professionals ready to help; that there were therapists and social workers on-call if anyone in the family ever needed to talk to someone about how they are feeling throughout this time. How IS it that this beautiful country can create such a brilliant program to take special care of frightened, vulnerable women, without having to worry them about how they would manage to pay for everything? My Nurse Navigator told me, “Mental Health is just as important as Physical Health. Just treating the cancer with medicine would be pointless if, in the end, if you are an emotional and financial wreck. We treat the whole person.” Reason #437 to love Canada.

After the showdown in the parking lot, Markus and I entered the Meadowlark Health Centre in Edmonton. We were immediately greeted by a bevy of sweetly smiling receptionists. Markus and I looked at each other, our faces saying, “We’re not in Jasper, anymore, Toto.” We were 45 minutes early and thought we were in for an enormous wait (one is never seen earlier than 30 minutes past their scheduled appointment time in the Jasper clinic). I didn’t even have time to put down my purse, when a lovely lady came to collect me for a breast exam. I followed her down a long corridor to a private room, where I donned my lavender gown and waited for my aardvark surgeon. A knock on the door, and a perky young blonde with a ponytail entered, with a pimply teenager in tow. She introduced herself as Dr. Olson’s (I found out the spelling was different from Little House on the Prairie, bummer) Chief Resident. Her name is Dr. MacGyver. I kid you not. I’ve got MACGYVER on my team! And she introduced her skinny little sidekick as Mark, a medical student at University of Alberta. Yay, I get to flash my boobs to a crowd! After extensive questioning, MacGyver proceeded to palpate my breasts very carefully to confirm location of the tumour, etc. Then, she invited sidekick to join her from the edge of the room, where he was nervously nodding his head, and asked him to palpate my right breast to see if he could find the tumour on his own. I had to keep a straight face as he timidly reached out and poked at my boob like it was a bowl full of bad jello. Poor boy. Anything I can do to bring added education to the world, I am happy to do. Perhaps it was the first breast he had ever met, because as soon as he thought he’d found it, he jumped back to his wallflower position.

After the breast exam, MacGyver asked me if I had any questions from my pathology report, and I said that I am an American, so please forgive me, but I didn’t understand why my tumour was measured in millimetres, yet all literature about breast cancer discusses tumours in centimetres. She and Mark smiled at the ignorant American, and kindly explained that it was because my tumour was smaller than a centimetre. Well, duh. That shows you just how flustered I am these days. Then MacGyver started talking about hormone receptors, and I was like, “WAIT. Your pathology report doesn’t match my pathology report!” As if it could be possible to have an even lower opinion of my Jasper doctor, it turns out he only gave me HALF of my biopsy results. When I had asked about hormone receptive or not, or HER2 and triple negative, he flapped his hands at me and told me they would tell me that after my surgery, when they had removed the tumour and examined it further. One more medical lesson learned: DON’T BE A SHEEP! So MacGyver told me that my tumour is estrogen receptive, which is well-treated with hormone suppressant chemo. Hello, Menopause. Then, MacGyver and Pimple Boy left to find the doctor.

After a few minutes alone, I heard a booming voice coming down the hall, “WHERE IS THE AMERICAN!” and a bearded lumberjack in glasses swept into the room, replete with plaid flannel shirt. He reached out his hand and said, “You must be the American! I’m Dr. Olson. So pleased to meet you! What on earth brought you to Northern Alberta?!” I explained about the furry German man and Fairmont, but that actually I’m only American on paper, having grown up all over the world. And he laughed, “AAAHH, a nomadic type – so I can’t even ask you where you’re from, eh? There goes my next conversation starter.” He blew my worries about cold, clinical, aardvark-Nellie-Olsen-sibling-surgeon right out of my mind. Tension melted out of my shoulders almost immediately.

After another breast exam, Dr. Olson (aka Paul Bunyon) went out to get my husband. I could hear them in the waiting room, Paul Bunyon calling out, “I’m looking for MARKUS! And upon meeting him, declaring, “So you’re a FAIRMONT man! Yes, your wife and I have been talking about you. She told me everything. Come this way!” He arranged us in the small exam room, “Sue, you’re the Queen,” (how did he KNOW?!) “so you get the throne. Markus, you sit next to her. MacGyver, you sit in this chair. And Mark, you’re going to have to pretend to be the patient for the day and hop up on this exam table; UP you go.” Then he sat down on his stool, faced me, and said, “Ok. Now let’s get serious. We have much to discuss, and you have some decisions to make.” In the blink of an eye, Paul Bunyon turned into a doctor. He explained that there were many choices for an average woman in my shoes. Breast cancer starts in the milk ducts; most breast cancer stays in the ducts, just growing bigger. Mine is invasive, and has escaped from the duct it was born in, and has microscopically begun to get around in there. With a relatively small tumour, likely no cancer in the lymph nodes, many women just need a lumpectomy and radiation, and they may never have a recurrence of breast cancer for the rest of their lives. He explained that radiation is typically 5 minutes of focused X-rays, 5 days a week, for 5 weeks. There may be skin changes, there may be slight burning, there might be some fatigue, but it would be nothing like my mom’s radiation 30 years ago (she used to laugh about how one of her nai-nai’s had a very nice tan from the radiation). Then he said my situation was slightly different, with the family history of breast cancer. He said, “yours could have been a hereditary thing, or it might not be. You can take a genetic test, like Angelina Jolie did, but you also need to understand that currently, who ever takes it and gets positive results, will be refused life insurance applications forever, and their children will also never be able to qualify for life insurance. It will be permanently on the records. Those rules might change in the future, but that’s how it is for now.” Whoah. He followed that with other possible options for me. I could have a skin-preserving mastectomy on one side, with reconstruction to include an implant to match my “generous” other side. I asked about a bilateral mastectomy for my peace of mind. He said it could be done, but that would have to be my request. He said he could do that and preserve the nipples, and I asked “what about the odds of recurrence of cancer in the nipple, I heard it was a considerable risk?” He replied, “Well, true. The nipple is the front door; all the milk ducts and glands lead to that – it goes to reason that cancer might appear there in the future.” I said, “I could always get nipple tattoos…” (Look at me, wild woman thinking about tattoos!) and he pointed his fingers at me and said, “YES, you can. And there is nipple reconstruction too. You have LOTS of choices.” My mind spun as he offered even more on the breast treatment buffet table, the whole time my furry man scribbled furiously in our Journey Journal (we knew that we would forget 1/2 of what we were being told). Regarding reconstruction, there are fillers made of man-made materials (saline/silicone implants), and fillers made with Suzy Creamcheese-made materials (my own skin, muscle, and fat, from back, abdomen, butt, or inner thighs). During this discussion, he mentioned, “You have ptosis.” We looked blankly at him. He said very tactfully, “Well, when women have, er, generous breasts, over time, they tend to lose volume and they are not as perky as they used to be…” I was like, “OH! Yeah, after 3 kids, they are not at all what they used to be. That’s okay, they fed 3 children; they did their job.” And now I have a proper word to use when referring to my gravity-stricken breasts. “National Geographic boobs” is too much of a mouthful. I have ptosis. Sounds more mysterious.

Toward the end of our appointment, having weighed all the possibilities, I decided that I would opt for a bilateral mastectomy, with immediate reconstruction. Bracing myself for my doctor’s disapproval of what even my own sister has deemed an irrational decision, I was so grateful to hear him respond, “This is your choice. It is your body, it is your fight, and only you can decide this. There is something to be said about the breast cancer phobia that someone with extensive family history like yours might be feeling. It weighs heavily, and if this brings you peace of mind, that must be taken into account and respected. So skin-saving bilateral mastectomy with immediate reconstruction it IS!” He turned to Markus, pointed a finger, and said, “Write this down, Scribe. ‘Dr. Blair Mehling.’ I will set you up to meet him after you have a sentinel node biopsy.” If Dr. Olson is my lumberjack Paul Bunyon, then I suppose his plastic surgeon friend, Dr. Mehling, must be Babe the Big Blue Ox! Can’t wait to meet him…wonder if he will have horns…

A sentinel node is the very first lymph node that the nasty little cancer cells would bump into on their way out of the breasts, as they try to sneak into the rest of you. If there are cancer cells in that first lymph node (the sentinel…the lymph node on guard duty, get it?) then it shows the cancer is on the move; more lymph nodes need to be biopsied, and your adjuvant treatment (follow-up treatment to surgery; radiation, chemotherapy, etc) is adjusted to be more aggressive. The more information the doctors can glean from the sentinel node biopsy, or from any tissue with cancer for that matter, the better armed they will be in the fight. Before the operation, they will (brace yourself) inject a radioactive dye into my right nipple. Guys, hearing or reading that for a woman, brings a similar feeling to you reading about injecting radioactive dye into the little buddy in your pants. OW. Then, they will put me under general anaesthesia and use a Geiger-counter like a metal detector to probe into my armpit. The first lymph node to light up is the sentinel node. This good soldier node will be cut out and sent to a lab for analysis. If there is cancer, we will regroup. If there is no cancer, rejoice and full-steam ahead with our booby going-away party!

When I was first diagnosed, my friends and family quickly rose to my defence, with the collective battle cry, “You will kick cancer’s ass!” On my Facebook page, one day, my sweet furry man was commenting about that bastard cancer, and autocorrect oh-so-helpfully inserted “Barnard” instead. My cousin Gaby took it one step further and envisioned cancer as the stinky Parisienne pickpocket who tried to steal my iPhone while we were visiting the Eiffel Tower last year (a whole other story). Barnard the Parisienne has developed into a full-blown effigy who is after more than my iPhone. He wears a dirty beret and dangles a perpetually smoking cigarette between his decaying yellow teeth. My Facebook page now has a middle finger salute to Barnard, a toast to kicking Barnard’s ass, etc. Occasionally, someone who hasn’t been paying attention will comment, “Who the heck is Barnard?” Now y’all know. Barnard is goin’ DOWN.

So now the initial shock of discovery is over and it seems this journey is turning out to be more a race of endurance, rather than one of speed. I need to take my own advice that I gave to Markus this morning: calm down a little. I need to save my strength by not using it to panic. Be the turtle, not the hare. I would hate to run out of energy close to the finish line. Now I wait for April 3rd, to have my sentinel node removed. Between now and then, there should be less worry, and more living. There will be a thousand moments of joy; a thousand chances to smile or laugh. And I must be fully present to grab those moments and savour them. This journey is turning out to be adventurous, indeed, with colourful characters to meet all along the way. Diana the Nurse Navigator angel, MacGyver and sidekick Pimple Boy, Paul Bunyon, possibly Babe the Big Blue Ox Plastic Surgeon, and my parade of angels: my CIBC Run for the Cure team; 30+ strong women and men, coming together from Alberta and all over the world, to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Society. I’m Suzy Creamcheese and they are The Suepremes. Say it, SAY IT: I’m a Chinese Diana Ross, baby! Our team would love to raise $9000 by October 5th, when we will come together and walk and run side by side. By that time, I hope to be healthy and well. Here’s the link if you’d like to help us collectively kick Barnard’s ASS: http://www.runforthecure.com/site/TR/RunfortheCureFY15/PrairiesNWT?px=3564263&pg=personal&fr_id=1851

I hope you enjoyed Chapter 2 of Follow the Breast Cancer Road. I expect many of you read, “BLAH BLAH BLAH MacGyver BLAH BLAH BLAH lumberjack BLAH BLAH BLAH National Geographic Boobs” and left this blog with your head spinning. Don’t worry. You and I, we have much in common. I am going through my days in a similar state. “Blah blah blah malignant blah blah blah absolute outcome blah blah blah wait 2 more weeks.” I want more “blah blah blah Mom I can burp the abc’s blah blah blah honey give me a kiss.” And flying monkeys; I want flying monkeys. If I have to be on this road, send out the flying monkeys…I already gave birth to the lollipop kids years ago.

Ganbaru 頑張る! (Ch.1)

05 Mar 2014 7 Comments

by Suelinhess in adventures, Bitching & Moaning, Breast Cancer, Cancer, confidence, Faith, Family, Friendship, Healing, humor, illness, Lent, Love, Medical, Roman Catholic, support, Uncategorized Tags: breast cancer, cancer, healing

(Facebook post from March 2014)

I learned a few new words today. The first words were Infiltrating Duct Adenocarcinoma. In layman’s terms, it means breast cancer. Words that I have dreaded for 30 years since my mom was diagnosed while I was in high school. Statistics told me that the chances of it striking me if my 2nd-degree relatives (grandmother, Aunt Barby) had it, are higher than average. Statistics told me that the chances of it striking me when a first-degree relative (Mom) had it, are even higher. I think my sisters and I held our breaths for years, waiting for one of us to come forward with the awful news because when you have our family history and you add a sister with breast cancer on top of that? It’s like really bad compound interest on a maxed out credit card; you’re probably going to get a call from that creditor for payment … So a few days before Valentine’s Day, I felt the lump, and the first thought was, “Oh no, JoJo and Annie…”

As I was out of town enjoying the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had, I ignored that lump like it was a whining child in the backseat of the car. I would deal with it when I got back home. As soon as I came home, I saw our family doctor and he sent me straight to Edmonton for a mammogram/ultrasound. My furry man (Markus, my husband) and I kept telling each other, “This could be nothing. Let’s not freak out until someone officially tells us to freak out.” I called my Aunt Barby, since she has been a survivor for 14 years, and she briskly told me, “Now, don’t you go hanging crepe, Sue. Even if the worst is confirmed, so much has advanced in breast cancer treatment in the last 14 years. You can do this. You hang tough and you don’t forget to look out for your furry man. After all, you’re a Hess and you are Hess Tough. He has a slight disadvantage.”

Although there are many critics of some of the wait times in a national healthcare system, it is almost a magical thing to see how quickly people can move in such a system, when things are urgent, here in Alberta. I went in for a mammogram/ultrasound (normally several weeks – months wait), and after a closer look, they asked me to overnight in the city and come in first thing in the morning for a core needle biopsy (normally a few weeks’ waiting time) on the lump and a surprise lymph node that looked “suspicious.” I turned to the radiologist and asked in a shaky voice, “May I see what you see on the ultrasound? Why do you think it’s suspicious looking?” She obliged, showing me the lump, which looked icky and alien, and the lymph node, which turned out to look EXACTLY like the Death Star, I kid you not, complete with the narrow alley that Luke Skywalker had to fly through to blow up the place. I thanked her and held it together until I reached the parking lot and melted into a blubbering mess behind my steering wheel while on speaker phone with Markus. After soothing me and letting me cry for a while, he waited until I calmed down a bit and said one very true thing, “Honey, we have been waiting for this for years, haven’t we? We always knew that this might come up, with your genes. Now that the moment is possibly here, I know we can do this together. Our family can do anything.” So I went back to the hotel room and for the first time in my life, raided the Honour Bar in the room. I binged on Pringles and chocolate and ordered cheese from Room Service. Then I went to bed at 5pm to try to sleep away the time until my morning appointment with the giant needles. Had the craziest dreams from the chips, cheese, and chocolate, and woke up completely unrefreshed.

The needles were super big AND they had a spring-loaded trigger that reached out a mini-claw to snip off core samples of the lump and lymph node. I swear the trigger snapped exactly like my automatic cookie press at home. Each “SNAP” made me jump, and when the radiologist, Dr. Ling, muttered, “darn it” I knew she would have to try again. She apologized and said, “I’m so sorry. I need 4 core samples from each site and these tumours and lymph nodes don’t just sit there nicely. They’re slippery little suckers…like..like…” and I blurted out, “Like bubble tea taro bubbles?” She burst out laughing and said, “YES, EXACTLY! I have never thought of that comparison, but they are JUST like bubble tea…now I don’t know if I ever will drink bubble tea again…” So laughing together and with me doing my Lamaze breathing to stop panicking, I got through that procedure. We taped up the two little tunnels in my breast and armpit, and I drove 4 hours home into the arms of my loving family.

At first, I thought I would wait to tell the kids anything, only sharing if the news was bad. But I made it back home in time to pick them up from school, and Hanna and Simon immediately started to cry, and asked me, “Mama, are you going to die?” I guess not knowing CAN be much worse than knowing. And they jumped to the worst case scenario when they found out I had to stay overnight in the city for more testing. So I decided to tell them absolutely everything. Of course, I had to give them the all the possibilities, which did include possible death, but considering I’ve been having annual mammograms since I was 30, the tumour could only be, at most, a year old. And I caught that sucker all by myself in a self-exam. And I reminded them, I am Hess Tough. We had a big cry and a big hug, and luckily, they went back to being normal children.

The last week has been miserable, waiting and wondering. I used the time to read up on anything I could find about all the possible outcomes, all the types of breast cancer, all the potential treatments. I tried in vain to find cases of a negative biopsy on both a tumour and a lymph node. The very worst part of all was not telling anyone. I didn’t want to worry my dad if it turned out to be benign, I didn’t want to put my sisters into a panic, I didn’t want to burden friends, and even though I am the first to share everything with friends and family on Facebook, I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.

Normally I give up Facebook for Lent. Yesterday, I realized with a start, “TOMORROW IS ASH WEDNESDAY.” How was I supposed to go through this ordeal in this Godforsaken place, with most of my friends and family so far away, without my touchstone? With Facebook, I log in and see that you’ve had your morning coffee, that you share my teenager problems, that you laugh at the jokes I love, and that you care about me. I have conversations and I give sympathy or lend a helpful shoulder for anyone to cry on. It could be 3am here in Canada, but my friends in Taiwan, my cousins, friends, and sister in Australia, my old friend in Turkey, and my other loved ones around the world might be awake to have a chat. For the first time, I realize that this would be the wrong Lent to take a Facebook hiatus. This would be the time I would need my friends the most. I bargained with myself, “If the news is good, I’ll give up my FB connections for Lent. If the news is bad, I’m going to ask my friends and family to lend me their shoulders.”

So here I am, on Ash Wednesday, letting you know that you won’t be getting a Lenten break from Suzy Creamcheese this year. One of my closest friends, Laurie, called me from Arizona tonight, marveling, “Sue, what timing you have. Here we are on Ash Wednesday, getting ready to begin a spiritual Lenten Journey, and you have ahead of you the biggest journey of all. Don’t forget that you are not alone, that you can glean strength from all those who love you, and from your faith.” And then I started reading some more and I learned the best new word of all: Ganbaru (頑張る). It’s a Japanese word which some say means “to do one’s best.” But to the Japanese people, it means more than that. It means to do more than survive; it means to “commit oneself fully to a task and to bring that task to an end.” And I hope my furry man, my sweet precious children, my family, and my friends, will Ganbaru by my side. I’m going to do my usual oversharing. I understand that some of you don’t know me as intimately as most so this might gross you out. Don’t worry if you need to bow out and block my feed for a few months. I will see you on the other side. And I am determined to do that – to get to the healthy side of summer. With you to keep me company on this journey, and Ganbaru and Hess Toughness…this shitty little disease hasn’t got a chance.

Letters From Narnia

Not a Fairy Tale

Stupid Tits and Other Cruel Childhood Memories

Signs of Life (Ch. 8)

What Me Worry? (Ch.7)

What Not to Wear (Ch.5)

Farewell, Brave Sentinel (Ch.4)

Domestic Godess…Naked Plumbing

An Ode to Breastesses (Ch.3)

I’ve Got MacGyver, Paul Bunyon, and The Suepremes – Barnard Hasn’t Got a Chance (Ch.2)

Ganbaru 頑張る! (Ch.1)

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