It’s been a busy week, full of fun life stuff and blah appointments. Saturday morning, we drove down to San Diego to celebrate my birthday with lots of our amazing friends and family members. That day didn’t start out the greatest though. I officially had my first chemo puke. It was like being pregnant all over again. I was standing in the kitchen and out of no where, BOOM. Vomit. I couldn’t stop. Harlon was yelling at me. Not words, just yelling. Sort of like when he yells at me when I use the dust buster. Like he’s seeing if he can be louder than the machine. Cute kid. 

I started to feel better on the drive down and by party time, I was all good. I loved celebrating with everyone and felt honored to have so many people there for me. 🤗 33 is going to be spectacular. 

Monday was my Look Good, Feel Better class. I left looking good and feeling better, so…. mission accomplished. I walked away with a bag-o-goodies and a few good tips. Although, I feel like I could have totally run that class with more pizazz. Hell, we are in there for a shitty reason, might as well have some fun with it. The girl in charge was great, very talented and sweet but also very much by the book. Maybe those are the rules, I don’t know. I tried to crack a few jokes and they went over pretty well. 😜I think I got this. John said I could run the class- it would be like the Comedy Traffic Ticket classes. You know, you get the option of the normal class or if you feel spunky enough, you can sign up for the comedy version. Needless to say, it was a nice trip to Kaiser amongst all of the other crappy ones. 

 

Harlon’s birthday was yesterday, big boy turned 2! We must have sang the Happy Birthday song like 27 times throughout the day. He loves it. We celebrated with an extra long park trip, a two year doctors checkup, Target (his fav) and finished strong with Farrell’s ice cream. 🍦 Man, I love that kid. 

Today was my first visit with the plastic surgeon. It started with a 15 minute video. Ho-ly. Shit. The video was completely overwhelming. John said it made him feel “not ecstatic” 😐 Turns out, I am totally terrified of reconstruction. 

My surgeon, though, is amazing! Super smart, comforting, spent so much time with me, answered and re-answered all of my questions. I cried in there. I almost felt like I did at the beginning of this journey-not ready and scared as fuck. And he understood. 

Per Dr. Iyer, I will be having delayed reconstruction because of the radiation treatments. He likes to wait 3-6 months after radiation to begin any reconstruction. So I won’t be back to see him for quite some time. Most likely, I’ll be boobless for most of next year. Maybe I’ll be able to better my mile time without the extra weight 😉 🏃🏻‍♀️


My options seem to be (please, google with caution):

A DIEP flap- He will take fat from my stomach- basically give me a tummy tuck- and put it up top. 

A Latissimus Dorsi flap- He will take skin and muscle from my upper back to put on my right side breast area. Both sides would get expanders and then eventually, implants. 

Both are way more complicated than this- obviously. And I’m not even sure I totally get it. We won’t know which option to go with until we get closer because we need to see what I’m working with in the belly department at that time. If I don’t have enough belly fat, then my only option seems to be the latissimus one. Both freak me out and involve lots of scars. So there is always the possibility that I love not having breasts, that I own it, and I don’t do any reconstruction. We shall see. 

Oh and I don’t think I mentioned that I saw another surgeon last Friday- he’s the man who will be all up in my lady bits and removing them. Because I am BRCA positive, I need to eventually have my ovaries removed. After a lengthy discussion with him based on my situation, we both agreed that I will be having a hysterectomy. There is no date planned for this procedure but he and I we will be in touch. This appointment didn’t even phase me. No tears or second guessing. Go figure.