May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours!
~ Robert Frost

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. This is my story of how I faced my risk of breast cancer, the decisions I made, the support I received and my week by week recovery from surgery. I chose to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with immediate DIEP reconstruction at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (March 2010). For more information on my 'Medical Team' please see tab above. I also have a wonderful circle of friends who have supported me throughout. They have provided us with lots of delicious meals and desserts. Many of those recipes are included above under "Feed the Flap" recipes. "Feed the Flap" is a term I coined when trying to increase my abdominal (fat) flap to ensure that I was a good candidate for the DIEP procedure. This was not something recommended by any medical professional, it was just something that made sense to me. I think it worked!! Feel free to join me on this journey and feel free to post comments.

Select the tabs on the left side marked Week 1, Week 2, Week 3..... to go immediately to the surgical/recovery part of this blog.


Wednesday, February 24, 2010

A New Day!

Today I woke up to find several very nice comments on my blog. Thank you!! I am understanding what it means to have support from people who have traveled this road before me. You really can understand the emotional rollercoaster I am riding right now. Most of the time I can block out my surgery, but not for long. A friend described it as "all consuming". She was right.

For me "all consuming" is the planning that goes along with being away from my children, my home, my work (I am self-employed); getting my paperwork all in order from insurance approvals, to medical treatments forms signed for my kids, to updating my will and power-of-attorney, to creating lists for my wonderful sister-in-law who will come and stay with my kids; to planning ahead for meals and setting the house up for recovery.

This last item is tough. We built our home seven years ago with an open concept. It's great, but if you aren't feeling well then there isn't any place to go where it is quiet and dark without going to your bedroom. I was sick a few weeks ago and felt awful. I decided to rest in a recliner in our living room. Oh, the noise. There really isn't any way to shut it out. So I did go upstairs to my bedroom to rest, but then I felt like I was locked away and very isolated from everyone. I will have to ask Teri about this. Since she is living the recovery as I type this. I can't tell you just how helpful it is to have someone who is two months ahead of you on this road to significantly reducing our breast cancer risk.

I am one day closer and feel much more connected and even more secure in my decision today. Teri's friends and aunt who commented on my post yesterday really gave me a boost. Thanks again!!

2 comments:

Positive Results said...

Beth,

It is overwhelming to made this decision a realize that you will be "out of commission" as mom for an extended period of time. My house is also one where the only potentially "quiet" place was my bedroom. I spent much of the day in the living room but retreated to the bedroom when necessary. Take advantage of every offer to help and remember the mantra "someone else will pick it up; someone else will clean it up (and if they don't just ignore it)"

Good luck,
Joi (www.PositiveResultsTheBook.com)

Anonymous said...

I guess it's obvious that I shared your post with some of my friends! I hope you don't mind. :)

Joi (who commented above) just had her book published called Positive Results, and it's a lot like a guidebook for people like us, with mutations (not just BRCA, but unknown mutations too) - It might be helpful to you.

My house doesn't get too noisy. I have a teenager, but he's relatively quite. My toddler takes at least a 2 hour nap each day, sometimes longer, and I've been napping when he naps. I've also been relying heavily on my husband. If the little one wakes up very early, and is extra loud, my husband takes him out of the house on a walk, or to the park, or just to run some errands.

I bet you have friends offering to help - take them up on it - they really do want to feel like they are doing something to help. It's okay to ask for a warm meal, or for them to take your kids for a few hours so you can rest. You are really going to need your family and friends during this time. You can't do it all on your own, and you shouldn't feel guilty about that. You are doing what you need to do to be sure that you are going to be around for a very long time!

There are lots of people here to give you emotional support too - we are pretty much everywhere - and all you have to do is ask. :)

Teri

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