Summer Close Out

The last time we met with our medical team, the Plastic Surgery nurse was explaining all the things not to do after a double mastectomy.

The biggest one was no repetitive arm movements and no lifting the arm above shoulder height.  She specifically said no vacuuming.  Awww, darn, I’m so disappointed I’ll have to give that up for a few weeks!

She also said no doing laundry.  Again, awww gee, that really hurts my feelings.  Well, not really because Captain mostly takes care of that one anyway.  

No lifting anything over 10 pounds.  Okay, that hurts because of Cubby.  We’ll have to figure out a work-around for that because there is no way I’m giving up my Cubby cuddles!

It means that whatever canning I don’t have done before I have surgery just isn’t going to get done this year, and that’s okay.  There is always next year, and it isn’t like we’ll starve if I don’t get some of the tomatoes put up.  I did get pickles done, and I will get green beans done, and those are the two must-haves in this house.  

The lifting restriction also means I won’t be able to keep up with Calf Country.  Normally I am in charge of Calf Country sporadically during planting and harvest times.  Now that Captain has a permanent part-time job, so do I--feeding calves four mornings a week.  

For whatever reason, the group of calves we have in the hutches right now are some of the whackiest we’ve had in years.  We’ve got one that gets so darned excited about getting a pail of milk that he comes running out of his hutch, trips over his own front feet, and face plants in the pail of milk...spilling it everywhere.  I have learned to keep a good hold on the pail until he gets himself picked up and back on his feet.

We’ve got another one who seems to think that milk is solid and needs to be chewed instead of drank...drunk...drinked?  Whatever.  He takes freaking forever to finish his meal.  Yeesh!

The little white one in the middle row on the end invariably gets his back feet tangled up in his chain and has to kick like a mule to get it untangled.  That makes a cacophony of noise in Calf Country at odd times of the day, but we’ve sort of gotten used to that.  

I don’t know about crochet.  It’s repetitive motion but more from the wrist than the shoulder.  I’ll have to ask about that because that would be a wonderful time filler for my surgical leave.  

I do have a Plan B in case crochet is kaboshed.  It took me a few days to come up with this, but I think jigsaw puzzles may be the answer here.  Definitely a time filler, doesn’t require me to lift my arm above shoulder height, and visitors could actually sit down and puzzle with me when they visit!  We’ll see, but I think that’s going to be my plan.

It’s still a little surreal to think about the surgery because it’s been over a month since my diagnosis, and it is another month until I have surgery.  These next few weeks, though, are going to be busy for us, so that time will fly by.

Sometime before surgery, I do want to get down to Silver Lake and watch the Join the Journey dragon boat practices.  These are breast cancer survivors who do dragon boating as part of their survivorship.  I heard about it when I went to a support group earlier this month, and it sounded like something fun.  I won’t be able to join in this year, but it’s on my radar for next summer.  Won’t there be adventures there worthy of a blog post from that?!

We also have a trip to Superior Lakeside Cabins in Little Marais planned for next week with some friends to soak up three days of North Shore peace and quiet.  I can’t wait!!

To round out the summer, we will make our annual trek to the state fair for cheese curds, Martha’s cookies, and corn dogs plus a look at the butterheads.  

I hope that you all have some fun last-minute summer plans that will bring you joy and happy memories!

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A Picture In 1000 Words Or Less

A month or so ago, we were at a friend’s annual bonfire, and while talking to one of the guys who were there, it turned out he had been stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado during his Army stint.

This got me thinking because I was pretty sure Dad was stationed at Fort Carson as well, which made me remember the letters I have of his and how I meant to share them here.

Then I sort of forgot about it until today when a conversation with Captain turned to bible verses, and he said something about how the King James version was what he was familiar with.  I told him if he wanted a KJV bible, I had four of them.  He didn’t believe me, so I went to the filing cabinet to dig them out.

Yep, I’ve got mine, Big Brother’s (you can have that back, dude, if you want it), Dad’s and one that wasn’t engraved with anybody’s name.  Also in that file drawer was the stack of letters Dad wrote home from the Army.

I found one from when he was at Camp Chaffee in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in April 1956:

Dear folks and kids,

I just got back from church.  Last Sunday I told you I went to church but it was some other building where they held that special choir.  The church is about the same size as Potsdam’s.  

Yesterday we went on detail and 5 of us cleaned up the church and mowed the lawn and hoed the flowers, watered the flowers and grass.  The day before we picked up paper, bottles, cans, and cigarette butts.

Well Friday night they did what we didn’t expect.  They split us up.  There are only 44 left in our barracks now.  They took all the guys that weren’t in perfect condition and put them on the hill.  That is where they get basic training here.  It is a mile away from here.  Among the ones they took were Narveson and Kostel.  

Yesterday they had us put on our O.D.’s and have inspection.  They said we should bother them again and ask when and where we were going.  They said we were leaving for Colorado sometime Tuesday, but we haven’t any written orders yet so it still isn’t for sure.  

Well how’s everything there?  I suppose maybe you’re done seeding?  I don’t know anything about the weather there.  I hvaen’t heard a radio since we left Minneapolis.  The trees are all leafed out and have been since we’ve been here, and the flowers are in bloom.  

Well I better close for now and try and write to Eileen and Shirley.

Love,

Bigfoot

As I read that letter, I realized something I haven’t paid any attention to before.  Dad was pretty darn good at painting a picture with words.  Even if he was telling a story, he’d talk about the scenery or what was blooming.  Must have been the farmer in him!

Thank you for letting me share one of my favorite people with you.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and have a chance to get out and enjoy some of your local scenery, wherever that may be!

Hugs,

Mrs. Captain

Images used:

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Doctor, Doctor

We have a small whiteboard in our kitchen where we have reminders written.  Lately, it has been nothing but doctor’s appointments.  Between the two of us, in a two week period, we had 8 appointments.  That’s crazy! Between that and the lift chair we now have in the living room...we have official become "old people."

For me, it revolves around breast cancer.  For Captain, it’s all about hip replacement.  

He was told two years ago that his right hip is “encrusted” with arthritis plus he has bone spurs reducing his range of motion to about 20-30 percent.  This is why he has trouble putting his socks on.  

He didn’t want to have hip replacement at age 48, so he opted to try corticosteroid injections first.  Those helped for awhile, but he can only have one injection in a three-month period, and by this past spring they were not effective anymore.  

So he had to have a visit with the primary doctor who ordered new x-rays, another steroid injection, and a consult with a surgeon.  He is looking at a potential surgical date of December 18 or thereabouts.  According to Captain, this will allow him to take his annual Lake of the Woods ice fishing trip in early December, have surgery, and be “all healed up” so he can resume ice fishing in late January.  

Hmmmm...we’ll see about that.  

We met with the plastic surgeon last week who will be doing the reconstruction portion of the surgery.  Very nice man, compassionate, and knowledgeable.  We had all of our questions answered and got a surgical date finally.  We were sort of hoping for the first week in September, but that didn’t work out.

So I will have double mastectomy, lymph node biopsy, and reconstruction on Thursday, September 14.  A couple of months to heal up and...ahem...pump up, back to work for four weeks and then on or near December 14, I can have the actual implants placed.

The kicker here is that Captain and I will be both be laid up at the same time, and I have NO idea how that will go.

When I am not feeling well, I just want to curl in a ball and sleep until I feel better.  Captain likes to talk about how bad he feels. There could be problems here, but we’ll muddle through.

To end on a happier note, and just so I don’t spend ALL my time talking about medical crap, here’s a good Cubby story for you.

Young Man called recently because Cubby wanted to talk to Gampa and Gamma.  She was telling a story so fast, I only caught about every fourth word, but whatever it was she was telling was extremely important to her.  When she got done, I told her she was the cutest thing ever.

Her response?

“Gamma….I KNOW!”

Love that kid!  Blessings to you, my friends!

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A Good Place

We had our appointment with the breast surgery team yesterday.  They are the ones in charge of the mastectomy and lymph node biopsy portion of the operation (as opposed to the plastic surgery team who will be in charge of the reconstruction portion).

I had to state my case for bilateral mastectomy when only one breast is affected.  The doctor had to do her job and tell me that there was no surgical or mortality benefit to doing so and could have potential increased surgical risks associated with it.  

Read my lips:  I DON’T CARE.  

There is no way this side of the end of the world that I will ever put my family through another week like last week.  Take them both off.  

Okay.

After the breast surgeon and her resident left the room, the nurse stayed behind and went over some things about the surgery, the first being a potential surgical date.

Here’s the monkey wrench.  Because I was using a nicotine patch previously, surgery will be delayed until early September so that I have time to use a different stop smoking aid that does not contain nicotine.  The reason for this is that nicotine, in and of itself, can disrupt wound healing and increase infection risks, so they won’t even consider surgery until I am six weeks off of nicotine.  

That gives us basically the month of August as a reprieve from the whole situation.  Or at least that how it seems to me.  So when the nurse looked me in the eye and asked me, “How are you doing?”  I almost started crying.

I told her I was doing very well, thank you.  And that makes me nervous and almost a little guilty because shouldn't I be falling apart and having much wailing and gnashing of teeth?  (BTW...I swore from the get-go I wouldn’t do any of that.).

She said every patient is different and that I should expect some of the whiny-ass behavior to manifest at some point and that was okay.

The thing is, right now, all of the aspects of surgery, coping, and survivorship are theoretical for me.  I haven’t had to put up or shut up yet.  When surgery happens and I look down for the first time and see my feet instead of my boobs...well, y’all may hear my wailing and gnashing of teeth.  I just don’t know.  

But since we have this month of August, we took advantage of it over the weekend and went to see my Mom.  Big Brother was there too, so we had a wonderful afternoon.  We had lunch together on the patio of the marina supper club near Mom’s house.  

From there, we toodled about a half hour east of Chippewa Falls to the town of Thorpe where there is a cheese shop called Marieke Gouda.  Only it isn’t just a cheese shop, it is also a working 350-cow dairy.  The dairy facilities had observation windows where the public could watch how 24 cows are milked at one time in a double-12 herringbone parlor.  There was a play area with bikes, wagons, and pedal-type go-karts for the kids.  

And the cheese shop...oh my!  Gouda, Gouda, Gouda everywhere in so many flavors!!  We loaded up on cheese, crackers, and some chocolate candy before heading back to Mom’s to have cheese and crackers on her deck.  What a wonderful time, and being able to see me looking healthy and happy, I think, helped my Mom process the whole cancer thing a little easier.  

Sort of in the same vein--making connections, offering assurances, getting support--took us to the Olmsted County fair last night.  It was the open class Holstein dairy show, so we knew a slug of people on the grounds and in the barns.  It was good to talk to good friends and neighbors.  Plus I got a Rib Tickler pork sandwich out of the deal, so win-win for me!!

Between the appointments we had yesterday and our fair adventure, someone from the Pink Ribbon Mentor group called me.  This is a group of volunteers who are all cancer survivors who now give their time and talents to help newly diagnosed breast cancer patients navigate their journey.  They try to match the newbie with a mentor who has had a similar path.

My mentor, we’ll call her Dove because I think she will be a Godsend in the weeks ahead, called to find out how I was doing.  I told her the same thing I’d told the nurse...doing fine, but wondering if that was normal.  She said each person has a different normal and that she would help me along my path.  

She also told me some things I hadn’t thought of, like what kind of clothing to wear after surgery since I will have limited range of motion in my arms as well as fairly significant pain.  So there is a shopping safari in my future to find women’s extra large button up shirts and elastic-waist pants/pajamas.  

I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but the one thing I was sort of freaking out about was how I was going to wash my hair. Maybe that was an subconscious avoidance tactic so I wouldn't have to think about how to deal with everything else. Who knows, but we got the hair washing thing covered now that Dove gave me some advice on that front.  So glad I was able to talk to her!

All in all, I’m in a good place right now.  That may change at a moment’s notice without warning, but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Please know that Captain and I appreciate all of the thoughts, prayers, and kind words you’ve sent our way. Don't forget that he is on this path with me!  We are so blessed to have such an amazing circle of people.

Hugs,

Jude

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Garden Strolls

One thing that I have learned very quickly about a cancer diagnosis is that it puts everything else into sharp perspective.  Things that might have annoyed me a week ago are not even a blip on my radar now.  

Take the daily garden tour we do in the summer.  Two weeks ago, when Captain would suggest cruising down to check the progress in the garden, I might have turned up my nose and been a touch snarky.  After all, how much can plants grow in 24 hours.

Now?  It’s a smile and a nod of agreement, and I take his hand to stroll across the lawn in the quiet late evening sun over to the garden.  

Last night our inspection revealed that our cucumber plants have teeny tiny cucumbers growing, so I’ll be making pickles in a week or two.  We started harvesting cherry tomatoes over the weekend already, but the romas are starting to pop up as well.  We already went through the first crop of radishes and are anxiously awaiting crop #2 to ripen enough to harvest.  

We had fresh Swiss chard out of the garden for supper last night.  Beats that crap in a can to heck and back.  

Oddly enough, our zucchini plant withered and died.  For Pete sake...who can’t grow zucchini??  It’s a mystery.  

The eggplants seem to be doing well, however, and the squash plants...well, they are just taking over everything.  

We also have some volunteer plants growing among the lettuce and the green peppers.  It’s either squash or cucumbers, but we just aren’t quite sure yet.  So that’s a little mystery that we check each night as we poke around.  

When I was thinking that I would be having surgery this week and then laid up for six to eight more weeks, those garden tours took on a bit of sadness because I figured I wouldn’t be able to can a darn thing from the best looking garden we’ve ever had.

Now with a surgery date more in the late August to early September time frame, I will be able to do some canning at least...pickles, green beans, vegetable soup, and carrots.  The tomatoes may or may not be ready before I have surgery.  I guess Captain is going to learn how to can!!

The flower beds, too, are doing well.  The mutant whiskey barrel was a different experiment this year.  Usually I put plants in there, but this year I received a seed packet of “Old Fashioned” seeds from my work unit as part of National Medical Transcription Week, so I put those in there.  The first bloom opened up the other day--an orange zinnia.  There are more plants in there getting ready to bloom and I have no idea what they are, but they are growing like the little mutants I expected.  That zinnia plant, yeah...the stem is a good 18 inches high.  I don’t know if that’s normal for zinnias or not, but it looks sort of big to me.  

I find that I am looking forward to those evening strolls with my husband for more than just checking the garden.  It reminds me why I married him in the first place and let’s me know I am a pretty smart cookie for doing so!

Love to you all,
Mrs. Captain

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Before and After

Once again our lives have been divided into before and after.  This time it is before cancer and after cancer.

I have done my mammograms faithfully on time.  I even started early due to not knowing my family history.  You’d think you would be rewarded for being diligent, not punished.  

I’ve even been called back for second films once before, so when they called me back for second films this time, I wasn’t overly concerned.  In fact, while I was waiting in that nasty three-hole gown, there was another lady next to me who was clearly distraught by being called back.  I did the best I could to calm her down and offered to pray for her.  I never saw her again, but I hope that she is not now going through what I am going through.  

I didn’t start to get nervous until I got done with the second films, and they told me to get dressed and wait to be taken to a consultation room.  The radiology resident was very nice and explained that I needed to have a biopsy because they just needed to be certain what these areas of concern were all about.

The biopsy was as unpleasant as anything I’ve ever experienced.  Even my colonoscopy wasn’t that bad.  Imagine someone stretching a thick rubber band between their thumb and first finger, pulling it back like a slingshot, and then letting it fly right against...well....a very sensitive and prominent area of your breast.  It’s okay, I’ll wait while you cringe.  

I’d never been so glad to be done with something as I was to be done with the biopsy.  That was on a Wednesday, and the radiologist said that the pathology report would be available maybe on Friday, but probably on Monday.  Joy and rapture.  

Friday came and went with no word, so it hung over us like a black cloud all weekend.  Despite that, Captain and I did have an enjoyable weekend.  We even went on a picnic to Frontenac State Park on Sunday and enjoyed beautiful scenery and time together.  Still, we were both pretty twitchy and anxious.

Monday morning rolled around, and then Monday noon rolled around, and then it got to be mid afternoon and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I called my primary doctor’s nurse line and asked for the results.  Well, they weren’t done yet, and more alarm bells went off in my head.  The nurse said she would get someone to read the films right away and get back to me.  

Forty-five minutes later, our lives changed.  The nurse called to say that the two (out of three) areas they biopsied were positive for cancer.  The big fancy medical term for it is ductal carcinoma in situ.  In Medical Terminology For Dummies, that apparently means there are cancer cells in the milk ducts but not spread to anywhere else in the breast.

I consider myself a person of strong faith, but I had to wonder...why me?  What was I going to do?  How was I going to tell my kids?  Basically I went into WTF mode.  

Captain wasn’t home, but I called him and he came.  I am here to tell you, he has been A ROCK.  It made me realize all over again why I fell in love and married him.  Love that guy.

We made some phone calls and gave the people who needed to know a heads up.  Pretty much we upended a bunch of other lives in a matter of minutes.  

After doing what we needed to do, we both said later that our brains just shut off.  I seriously would catch myself just staring at the wall having absolutely no thought whatsoever going on in my head and not knowing if I’d been sitting like that for seconds or several minutes.  

A couple of nights later, a good friend came to visit.  When she asked if she could bring anything, I told her something with chocolate and caramel.  She showed up with caramel M&M’s and a sea salt caramel pie.  Who could ask for a better gal pal than that.  She let me cry on her shoulder, stare into space, talk about other stuff...whatever I needed to do.  Love that girl!

The kids came over Tuesday night for some Mama time.  They are so funny.  When I explained to them that I would probably have to have a mastectomy, Molly’s first question was if I was going to have a double mastectomy.  Yes, I will.  Her next question was if I was going to have reconstruction in a bigger size.

Well yes, I think I should get some benefit out of all this crap so I’m gonna go big or go home.  Molly and Young Man looked at each other for a nanosecond, grabbed their smart phones and said, “Let’s find Mom new boobs!”  That’s the kind of kids I raised...always looking to find the positive!

Captain and I are both doers.  We like to fix stuff.  We need information and answers, so waiting from Monday afternoon to this morning was pure unadulterated hell.  

Today is better because we have some answers and the start of a plan.  The bad news was that a simple lumpectomy, as we thought, was not going to be an option; rather it would be a mastectomy, and I opted for double mastectomy because, really...who needs ‘em?.  While having both breasts removed does not in any way, shape, or form affect outcome or longevity in the long-run, it would bring me the peace of mind I need by knowing that I would never have to put my family through this again.

The good news is that because they are nearly 100% certain the lymph nodes are not involved, I will not need radiation at all.  Because the cancer has not spread anywhere else, I will not need chemotherapy.  Because the cancer is not driven by either estrogen or progesterone, I will not need hormone therapy.

I just need the surgery.  Which I was hoping could be scheduled next week.  You know what they say about the best laid plans…

So I have more appointments in July and August to see a breast surgeon and a plastic surgeon.  After that, we will have a firm timeline on the plan, and I think that’s when I will really start to feel at least a little more at ease.  

In the handbook that every breast cancer patient is given, they talk about self-care and coping methods.  One of the big ones was writing it all down.  How lucky for me that writing is what I enjoy most.  Please know that I am writing about it not as a bid for sympathy or as a means to get attention.  Trust me on this, I would rather not be writing about this at all, but it is the best means of coping that I have in my arsenal.

I would please ask you to pray for us as we head into the journey of cancer survivorship.  We know absolutely that God is with us and has a plan, but prayers are never a bad thing.  

Love to you all!

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Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Dramatic stories are supposed to start with It was a dark and stormy night, but this one starts out It was hot as hell and I was crabby.

I was five days overdue with our second child.  I’d been sent home from the hospital three times in false labor, the last time late on July 1.  I swore an oath to myself I was not going back to the hospital to be humiliated in such a way again.

So when the contractions started at 3 a.m. on July 2, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say a word to Captain.  He got up as usual to go and milk, and I didn’t say a word.

Unlike the other times, these contractions didn’t stop, but even when Captain came home from  milking, I didn’t say a word.  I walked with him...okay waddled...while he carried grain to the cattle.  

I thought about saying something because the contractions were now coming two at the same time, but I kept silent.  

By this time, Young Man was up and about and busy as all 3-year old boys are.  When his aunt called me and asked if she could pick him up, spur of the moment, and take him to watch his uncle in a tractor pull, it was a relief to have him out of the way while I was fighting what I refused to believe were labor pains.  

After he’d gone with his aunt, I finally called the labor and delivery area to explain my situation and why I was loathe to come back to the hospital.  I wanted assurances that I was not going to be sent home again.

When I told the nurse the contractions had been going on for about 8 hours and were now coming two at a time, she very firmly told me, “Mrs. Brogan, you need to come in and I mean right NOW!”

Oh crap.

Captain wasn’t close by in the yard; he was out in the hayfield behind the barn.  I could see him, but I couldn’t yell loud enough to make him understand.  Remember, this was before cell phones.

I did the only thing I knew to get his attention.  I went out and blew my car horn loud and long until he looked my way, and then I pointed to my belly and pointed toward Rochester.  

Captain isn’t one to do a lot of running, but he hot-footed it to the house and got cleaned up faster than I have seen him before or since.

We raced to Methodist Hospital receiving unit where Captain dropped me off and went to park the truck (free, as it was a weekend).  As I walked into the receiving unit--that place where they make you sit down and do all the paperwork--I had a monster contraction.

The nurses took one look at me, said “Mrs. Brogan?”  When I nodded, they skipped the paperwork step completely, shoved me into a wheelchair, and ran down the long, long hallway of the hospital to the elevators at the other end.

When we came out of the elevators on the delivery floor, they wheeled me into a room, stood me up...and then my water broke.  

From that point on it is all a bit of a blur, but I remember nurses pulling clothes off, pushing a hospital gown on, and getting me in bed.  

“Mrs. Brogan, you are going to need to push in a minute.”  

Where was Captain...I couldn’t do this without him.  

He came flying into the room, and within minutes, our baby girl made her entrance.  One scary moment when everything paused because the cord was wrapped around her little neck, and then all was well in our world.  

From that day to this, Molly has had a flair for the dramatic, the entertaining, and the surprise.

Happy, happy, happy birthday baby girl.  Keep being unique, wonderful, and amazing.  

Love,

Mom and Dad