We all need more fruit snacks and July 8th

Wednesday July 8

Marco never sleeps all night, nor does he sleep in. In fact one of the first times he slept through the night was after we had him almost hike 5 miles by himself through Zion. He crashed when we got back to our tent and Darin and I sat in awe at what it was going to take to get that kid to sleep. As long as we kept feeding him fruit snacks he kept hiking. So in my mind, fruit snacks leads to eventual sleep, which is why I always have bits and pieces of fruit snacks in my pockets, purse, car and pantry. It’s the most important food group in our life right now.

Marco sleeps in and me, my mom and Darin need to go to my Dr.’s appt. We haul him over to Mariluz’s house while her and Mike are still in bed. I know he’s feeling the aftershock of everything and that’s why he crashed hard last night and slept. As much as I’ve been trying to protect him from the mess, I can’t. It looks like the aftershock has been the equivalent to fruit snacks. For what it’s worth, I prefer fruit snacks.

I asked Darin to take a different route to the Dr.’s office. He laughs and says, yes. Everyone who works at the Dr.’s office seems to look at me sympathetically when we walk in. I try not to look at people for too long because I am afraid of breaking down. I am afraid of a lot of things and am trying to not let my mind get out of control. The Dr. discusses with us her concern with my ultrasound, even though it seemed clear, this cancer is still almost always associated with underlying tumors. In twelve years she has only seen 5 patients with this cancer. She has never seen it in a young pregnant woman so our conversations are full of ethical dilemmas and grey areas because of the lack of additional tests we can conduct and only being able to go off of “what ifs” and the little information that has been gathered on Paget’s Disease. My Dr. is very intense, but comforting at the same time. I am grateful for her and have a strong feeling that I can trust what she says and that she’s going to kick ass and take names...my type of lady. After hearing her explanation of my situation and options of treatment plans, I decide (I had actually decided on Monday of this week, but had not really expressed it) to move forward with a mastectomy first, a possible removal of my lymph nodes second and a breast reconstruction third. Every step is carefully calculated because I can only undergo anestesthia for so long until there poses risk to the baby. Two procedures (mastectomy and lymph node removal) were too risky, however so was one surgery, because if the cancer has already spread to my lymph nodes then I may be screwed if I wait for too long. But, we won’t know anything until I can send my removed tissue off to pathology.

 I do feel a sense of relief when I actually say out loud that I want to get a mastectomy and when it comes down to it, it’s just a boob right? I mean they’re already in bad shape and if I now have the opportunity to get a newer model I should jump on it, because after all, it is an opportunity. Darin asks a lot of questions. He is so smart, but things that are not black and white he struggles with. I can see him trying to make this situation less difficult by calculating risks and balancing statistics, but it all boils down to the fact that I need to make the decision that is going to bring me peace now and for the rest of my life. When I speak to the Dr., my mom and Darin just stare at me. I can’t tell if they think that I am not making any sense at all because everything seems to be moving in slow motion. When we begin to discuss my mastectomy the Dr. says that if she was in my position, she’d make the same decision, which makes me feel relieved with moving forward.

The medical assistant sends me to scheduling and Darin keeps asking me if I am SURE I want to do this. When I say he keeps asking me, I am not over exaggerating. He literary keeps asking me over and over. I am not answering his question in hopes that ignoring him will make him stop, which is such a stupid intervention to use with him because it NEVER works. It works well with children, but not 33 year old husbands. He just assumes that I can’t hear him, even though he’s practically sitting on my lap. With each time he asks me THAT question, I begin to feel hot and sweaty and irritated because I feel he is questioning me and down playing this whole situation. I was almost as if he was making me feel dramatic and crazy for opting to remove something that potentially was going to kill me, if I didn’t kill it first. This decision has given me the first sense of calm and relief in three days, actually seven days of terror (I had a feeling it was cancer since my biopsy). I snap at him in the waiting room and make everyone uncomfortable, then immediately feel bad. My mom puts her head down and does what I do when I feel uncomfortable…pretend like what I am seeing is not happening. I used to get in trouble a lot in school for screwing around and whenever I got called out by my teacher I would put my head down and start working furiously and pretend that she was yelling at the “other” Allison in class that was clearly the problem student. I feel like I want to scream because it’s my body, my breast, my piece of mind, my psychological wellbeing, my life at risk…then I stop and am reminded that this cancer actually belongs to all of us, not just me.