No Flower Zone! :)

  Everyone who knows me, knows I LOVE FLOWERS :)  But so does our kitty Lily!  I have to stay on my toes to keep her out of petals and greenery... it's quite amusing as it seems she's 'possessed by wanting them' but I'm not going to have the energy to chase her!  so I'd like to kindly ask that no one send flowers after my surgery:)  I have a beautiful Orchid that I recently received that should keep me supplied with beautiful blooms for weeks!  If you'd like to send a note or email that would be nice... If your bent on 'sending something' ... gift cards from Safeway are good for prescriptions/groceries/flowers :):):)  Of course, no need for anyone to send anything... just knowing you are rooting for me is all I need!!

  So... now we're down to the wire and counting days.  Funny how time can be tricky... want it to hurry - it crawls... want it to slow down - it slips away... in reality, we all know it moves at the same rate, it's just how we deal with it doing its own thing.  In 3 days I'll be getting my injections for my Sentinel Node Biopsy and will be 'radioactive' for a day.  In 4 days we'll be arriving at the hospital at 5:30am to check in for my 7:30 surgery.  I would have thought at this juncture that I would want time to 'stand still'... but actually I'm more of the mind to get it over with and get on with it!  

  Thankfully all went better than I had imagined with my gyn. surgery on Wednesday and I feel quiet well.  I won't know until Monday when I call Dr. Jones' office if they found anything out of the ordinary in my pathology report and I'm not going to worry about it either... I have enough to think about.  For now I'll just call that a done deal and move on to more pressing matters.  

  As far as my bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction, I think I've read and asked all the questions I could and am going into this as informed as I could/should be.  I've been thinking of it as a situation where someone has told me 'You're going to be in a car crash.  It's certainly not going to be fatal, but you're going to get hurt and it's going to take a few months to put things right.  You'll have some pain, it won't be fun... but someday it will be over and done'.  David told me recently that I seem to be very 'matter of fact' about all of this... I don't know how else to be.  I'm trying to accept all of this and be as positive as possible... focusing on everything going as planned (with no surprises!  No More Cancer found in my pathology!) and getting beyond it.

  I'm very thankful to have met and spoken to several women, with various diagnosis of Breast Cancer, in various stages of treatment over the past couple of weeks.  I honestly feel so much better, so much more secure in my decision to have not only the breast where the Cancer was found removed... but also the other breast (which isn't clear either, due to the ALH) and my Sentinel Nodes done at the same time.  I have too many strikes against me to leave this to fate and I do not want to have the dark cloud of worrying about future Breast Cancer to hang over our lives.  

  I think the fear of the unknown is much more difficult to deal with than the reality of discomfort and adjustment... we're just about to cross the bridge between the two... 

  Thank you all for your healthy wishes, thoughts & prayers... we'll keep you posted and hopefully have good news soon!

Lisa xo