"I love a big rack"...

On Friday, I had my surgical and plastic surgery consultations.  My husband, always the funny man, decided to wear this shirt.  In case you can't read what the shirt says, I will tell you.  "I Love a Big Rack!"  He says he didn't realize the irony in wearing this shirt and the boob doctor appointments I had...and I actually think he had no clue when he was putting it on!  I asked him if this was a hint for the plastic surgeon!  "Maybe!" 

Anyways, I met both of the my surgeons and really, really like them both (the plastic surgeon thought Omar's shirt was funny, so how could I not like him!  Plus he had an east coast Jersey Shore accent!).  I got lucky in that my surgeon is the most sought after breast surgeon in my area, and my plastic surgeon is the chief of plastic surgery.  My surgeon believes that a mastectomy is the best option for me.  My plastic surgeon believes that I am a good candidate for immediate reconstruction. I will have expanders placed and will slowly stretch my skin through weekly saline injections into the expanders.  At a later time, I will undergo another surgery to have my "real" boobs put in!

No word yet on radiation or chemotherapy.  The plastic surgeon is hoping I won't need radiation because that will either really speed up my stretching (6 weeks instead of gradually over a longer period of time) or stop the stretching until after radiation.  The surgeon thinks chemo will be recommended since I am so young.  The treatment plan won't be decided until after the final pathology results after my surgery. 

I have decided to take my boobs (life) into my own hands and will undergo a double mastectomy.  It was a hard decision, but one that Omar and I feel is the right decision.  The recovery is going to be a bitch, but at least I will get some nice, new boobs out of it!!!!

How to do a Breast Self Exam

This information is courtesy of Cancer.org

"Breast awareness and self exam

Beginning in their 20s, women should be told about the benefits and limitations of breast self-exam (BSE). Women should know how their breasts normally look and feel and report any new breast changes to a health professional as soon as they are found. Finding a breast change does not necessarily mean there is a cancer.
A woman can notice changes by being aware of how her breasts normally look and feel and by feeling her breasts for changes (breast awareness), or by choosing to use a step-by-step approach (see below) and using a specific schedule to examine her breasts.

If you choose to do BSE, the information below is a step-by-step approach for the exam. The best time for a woman to examine her breasts is when the breasts are not tender or swollen. Women who examine their breasts should have their technique reviewed during their periodic health exams by their health care professional.

Women with breast implants can do BSE, too. It may be helpful to have the surgeon help identify the edges of the implant so that you know what you are feeling. There is some thought that the implants push out the breast tissue and may actually make it easier to examine. Women who are pregnant or breast-feeding can also choose to examine their breasts regularly.

It is acceptable for women to choose not to do BSE or to do BSE once in a while. Women who choose not to do BSE should still be aware of the normal look and feel of their breasts and report any changes to their doctor right away.

How to examine your breasts

• Lie down and place your right arm behind your head. The exam is done while lying down, not standing up. This is because when lying down the breast tissue spreads evenly over the chest wall and is as thin as possible, making it much easier to feel all the breast tissue.
• Use the finger pads of the 3 middle fingers on your left hand to feel for lumps in the right breast. Use overlapping dime-sized circular motions of the finger pads to feel the breast tissue.

• Use 3 different levels of pressure to feel all the breast tissue. Light pressure is needed to feel the tissue closest to the skin; medium pressure to feel a little deeper; and firm pressure to feel the tissue closest to the chest and ribs. It is normal to feel a firm ridge in the lower curve of each breast, but you should tell your doctor if you feel anything else out of the ordinary. If you're not sure how hard to press, talk with your doctor or nurse. Use each pressure level to feel the breast tissue before moving on to the next spot.
• Move around the breast in an up and down pattern starting at an imaginary line drawn straight down your side from the underarm and moving across the breast to the middle of the chest bone (sternum or breastbone). Be sure to check the entire breast area going down until you feel only ribs and up to the neck or collar bone (clavicle).

• There is some evidence to suggest that the up-and-down pattern (sometimes called the vertical pattern) is the most effective pattern for covering the entire breast, without missing any breast tissue.
• Repeat the exam on your left breast, putting your left arm behind your head and using the finger pads of your right hand to do the exam.
• While standing in front of a mirror with your hands pressing firmly down on your hips, look at your breasts for any changes of size, shape, contour, or dimpling, or redness or scaliness of the nipple or breast skin. (The pressing down on the hips position contracts the chest wall muscles and enhances any breast changes.)
• Examine each underarm while sitting up or standing and with your arm only slightly raised so you can easily feel in this area. Raising your arm straight up tightens the tissue in this area and makes it harder to examine.

This procedure for doing breast self exam is different from previous recommendations. These changes represent an extensive review of the medical literature and input from an expert advisory group. There is evidence that this position (lying down), the area felt, pattern of coverage of the breast, and use of different amounts of pressure increase a woman's ability to find abnormal areas."

A visit from the parents...

My parents came up from home to visit us in good ol' Sactown.  I always love when my parents come to visit because we always have soo much fun!  Drinking, talking, eating, shopping, golfing....what more could I ask for?!?!?!?!

Well, I am glad that you asked!  As many of you know, one of my (and my mom's) favorite past times is shopping (the other being pedicures, which we also did and got super sparkly toes!).  Well, on Saturday my mom and I went shopping.  I was looking for a big honkin' purse to carry all of my breast cancer stuff (notebook for taking notes, planner, and accordion file to keep receipts, etc).  Shopping for purses is just about as awesome as shopping for shoes (we bought some shoes too!)!!!  And when I say awesome, I mean it in the super cool way!

I should probably explain our love of purses in a better way....

Back in early 2009, my mom was my date to my friend, Mercy's wedding in Las Vegas (Omar couldn't go because he was teaching the next generation).  Anyways, we stayed at the Palazzo Hotel which connected to one of those nice shopping areas.  We happened to find the Michael Kors purse store.  We just wanted to go in and look around.  Seriously, we really only wanted to look.  Well, you know what happened?!?!?  We found purses that we just had to have, of course!  It was my first super expensive purse and it was blue!  I was soo excited that I had the sales associate take a picture of my mom and I with our new purses! 

Now, back to this past Saturday at Arden Fair mall in Sacramento.  My mom thought we should look in the Coach store for a big ol' honkin' purse.  I just wanted to look at Macy''s.  We walked into the store just to look around.  I found a purse that I wanted to look at.  It was just the right size, a pretty pink/coral color (perfect since pink now has to be my new fave color), but wow..the price not soo much.  But the guy who gave it to me to look at said, "If I give you $100 off would you buy it?"  Yup, I sure would.  Then he went and got the matching wallet too.  When he came back I was telling my mom, "I totally deserve this purse!"  The guy asked me why...my mom and I looked at each other and looked at the guy again.  "I have breast cancer," I said. The guy looked at me stunned (this is the reaction that I am trying to get used to).  We all started crying.  Embarassing.  But, I did get the purse and the wallet.  But, the guy also gave me a coach key chain too! 

Would you like to know what my husband's reaction was?  "If he was willing to give you $100 off, you should have held out for more!"  Oh, Omar!  Actually, he's probably right!!!

Wait...what??? I have a what, where???

I had my first MRI last week (see previous post on putting my boobs through 2 holes in a table!). I got the results and while I was prepared for the doctor finding more possible cancer spots, I wasn't prepared for what they told me next.
While they were checking out my boobs, they also happened to look at other organs in the same vicinity.  They found a spot on my liver.  Wait...what?  I have a what on my what?  According the doctor, I have a hepatic spot on my liver?  Weren't they supposed to be checking out my boobs, not my liver and other organs?  I kinda freaked out.  The doctor told me that since I had cancer, they would have to check my liver out "just in case."  Again...wait...what?  Oh crap.  Wouldn't that just be my luck?  What else could go wrong?  Never mind.

So, the doctor recommended a double ultrasound of my boobs (they found some more spots in my left boob and one spot in my right boob), and an ultrasound of my liver.  No joke. 

Long story short...my liver is a-ok!  I am back to drinking heavily just to make up for the 2 days I didn't drink for fear my liver was as shot as my boobs are!

Next up...double ultrasound!

Wait...you want me to put my boobs where?????

I had a MRI on Tuesday...it was awesome.  I am  not sure exactly what I thought I was getting myself into, but there were several things that I was NOT prepared for.

After I filled out the paperwork I changed into those beautiful gowns - one to open in the back and the other to open in the front.  Super cute.  Then the MRI tech had me crawl up onto a bed.  He happily said, "Let's put the IV in your right arm!"  Ummmm, what?  I did not have any idea that I was going to have an IV which would allow a bunch of glow-in-the-dark medicine to  make its way through my veins to my boobs.  If I had known this, I would not have gone out drinking the day before (I had the day off!) and made sure I drank enough water so that he wouldn't have to dig around in my arm.  Oh well, you live and you learn, right?!?!?

Then I walked over to the MRI machine.  Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of a MRI, I imagine laying on my back.  Oh no....not when you have to have a MRI for your boobs.  Instead, you get to lay on your tummy with your boobs hangin' through these two holes in the table.  No joke.  Not only are my boobs going to be glowin in the dark, but they were just flappin' in the wind.

Then they didn't even have music for me to listen to while I layed there for 40 minutes.  Oh, no.  I got these 1980's style tie-dyed ear plugs.  Awesome. 

Then the "ride" began (I  felt like I was on the Superman roller coaster at Great America in SoCal).  The table rolled back into the MRI machine and it started making this noise that sounded like a really, really awful rave.  I thought I was going to go crazy.

But, the roller coaster came to a screeching halt.  I climbed off the table feeling quite proud that I hadn't thrown up!  Score two points for me!  Plus, no more glow-in-the-dark boobs flappin' in wind! 

You have to have a sense of humor...

Most of you know that I am a pretty big goof ball.  I love making people laugh, especially in uncomfortable situations.  My sorority sisters could tell you many stories, but one in particular always sticks out in everyones mind.  I won't go into details since it's top secret sorority stuff, but I will say that to break the tension in the room, I sat on our coffee table and spun around on my butt.  It made everyone laugh and shake their heads (probably trying to figure out who in their right mind would ask me to join our sorority!).  But, more importantly, it helped everyone relax about the situation.

As you follow my blog, you will probably become very aware of the sarcasm and dry humor that will fill my posts.  I refuse to sit around and feel sorry for myself and my situation.  Yes, it's breast cancer, but guess what?  I've been working out, so my muscles are pretty big and strong (not really, but I can pretend, right?!?) and I am going to kick breast cancers ass!

Laughter is the best medicine, right?!?!?!?

And the journey begins...

My journey begins with my sister-in-law.  In late 2011, my sister-in-law, Misty, found a lump in her boob (fyi, I will always refer to a breast as a boob since the word boob makes me kind of giggle!). She waited it out to see if it would go away and when it didn't, she made an appointment to see her doctor.  Her doctor recommended a mammogram and ultrasound.  The doctors were unsure of what the lump was exactly and scheduled her for a boob biopsy.  Misty was freaking out.  My mom was freaking out.  I was freaking out.  Everyone was freaking out.  We (the girls) all thought for sure the biopsy was going to come back as breast cancer.  The others (the boys) felt it was best to wait and see before we started going off the deep end.  Misty had her biopsy on Thursday, January 12 and found out on Friday, January 13 that she did not have breast cancer.  She has a fibroadenoma which are common in young women our age.  We were all super happy.

On Monday, January 16, I found a lump in my left boob.  Misty had sent me an email encouraging me to do a self exam of my boobs.  I don't know about other girls my age, but I can honestly say I didn't check my boobs as often as you are supposed to and when I did actually get around to it, I did a half ass job.  So, I thought I should put some time and effort into and what did I find?  Yup, a lump in my left boob. But, since we had just gone through Misty's experience, I thought it would be wise to have a professional take a look, or actually cop a feel! So, on Tuesday, January 24th, I walked in to see my Nurse Practitioner.  She felt the lump right away.  She suggested I should have a mammogram and an ultrasound.  I walked over to the Imaging Department to see when I could get them scheduled and much to my surprise they had appointments available on Thursday. 

Thursday rolled around and off I went to have my first mammogram.  I was scared and nervous especially when no one in the Imaging Department was my age.  I had the mammogram and holy crap, it hurt...bad...really...really...bad.  I had 3 images on my right boob and 6 on my left boob.  I really thought my boobs were going to explode.  The nurse assured me that would not happen.  After the mammogram, I went down the hall to have the ultrasound.  I was not looking forward to the cold gel (like the kind that was used for my ultrasounds while I was pregnant) being squeezed on to my boob, but how awesome was it when the gel was a nice warm temperature?  It was awesome!  The lump showed up on the ultrasound, but unfortunately the doctor who looked at the lump could not determine what the lump was and recommended a biopsy.  I had the biopsy scheduled for Thursday, February 2.

Omar and I arrived at the Imaging Department at 8am on Thursday, February 2.  I was scared, but being me, was trying not to show it.  I was trying to be strong.  The nurse came to get me to start the prep for the biopsy.  I started crying.  The procedure started and the nurses and doctor were all trying to keep my mind off of the procedure by asking me questions about my husband, my child, my birthing experience, and a bunch of random questions.  It made me laugh, but I couldn't help but stare at the lump on the screen as they took samples of it to send to the lab for testing.  I think deep down I knew then that I had breast cancer. 

After the procedure, I had to wait until Tuesday, February 7 between 5pm and 8pm to find out the results of the biopsy.  I tried to stay positive about everything, but I just knew it wasn't going to be good.  At 6:30pm, as I was on my way home from the gym, my doctor called me to tell me the results of the biopsy.  I safely pulled over to the side of the road since you can't legally drive and talk on the phone!  She told me the lump had come back positive.  She believes that it was caught early.  The doctor said I should thank my sister-in-law until the cows come home because if I hadn't found the lump when I did, in 6 months when the lump would have become very noticeable, it would have been a totally different story.

I have invasibe lobular breast cancer.  I will have surgery.  I will have some form of treatment.  But, most importantly, I will have a sense of humor.