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.


Monday, March 29, 2010

Today is the day.....

By the time you are reading this, I will be in surgery. It will be very long day for DH (dear husband for non-bloggers). He has been such an inspiration to me. Never once did he complain when I said, "Well, there's this doctor in Portland that was recommended" or "What about looking at Boston?" or "I found this doctor online that everyone raves about." or "Maybe we should check with just one more plastic surgeon." or "I don't think I will do anything." or "What if I didn't do reconstruction?" or "What if we do this when I am 60 instead?" This journey has been more like a rollercoaster and DH has been on the ride right beside me. Believe it or not, he wants me around. Although I know that this past year and a half has been very hard on him, he has never once told me what to do or to hurry up and make a decision. I could always see the love and concern in his eyes. I have never been more appreciative of anyone in my life than DH. His sister, who is watching over my beloved JieJie and MeiMei runs a close second!!! Their mom certainly did something right in raising these wonderful, loving, caring, supportive people.

In addition to being on the ride with me, DH has also carried the ball at home when I was obsessed with researching "just one more thing" on the internet late into the night. My way of figuring out what to do is to gather as much information as I can possibly absorb and then some. Once I had taken in just about everything I could about LCIS then I started talking to doctors and then I started talking to old friends and new friends (I won't name you, but you know who you are) who have taken this path before me. It was much like a puzzle. Each little piece fitting into the right spot at the right time.

By the time I walked to the hospital this morning I was confident in my decision. I had the facts. I knew the risks of both having surgery and not having surgery. At times that decision felt like the toss of a coin. But I can honestly say that each time I thought about backing out, it was only to pick a better time, never to walk away and wait.

I can't say that I wasn't scared this morning. Probably as scared as I have ever been, but I am truly in good hands - the best. But, I would still appreciate all the prayers and happy thoughts you can send our way.

3 comments:

teri said...

sending all the happy thoughts i can muster up! best of luck!

Anonymous said...

Lots of prayers for you, Ani, Jaelin and DH!
We love you all!
Patty

Hannah C Beattie said...

Love this post. Love you and all that share. Can't wait to hear more. Know that it will be all good news.

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