Date: 2014-01-31
To: My bout with cancer
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Don¢t you just hate going to the dentist or doctor? I went for a regular dental cleaning last summer. Everything was going well until the dentist came and touched a spot on one of my back teeth. I nearly went through the ceiling! Next thing I know, I¢m a candidate for TWO root canals!      Then, after having my annual, routine mammogram in late October 2013, I got called back for an ultrasound, then a biopsy. No big deal. I went through all this about 19 years ago. They¢re just ¢seeing¢ it again and want to check it. Except, my nurse practitioner called a few days later to say it was positive for cancer! Oh My Gosh! The ¢C¢ word! I got linked up with a surgeon, and all of a sudden we¢re discussing lumpectomy, radiation, mastectomy. Just a month previous, I was thinking, ¢Life¢s great! I got my health, and I¢m planning to hike the AT with my son in a few months.¢      During the appointment with the surgeon, I did bring up the hike. Dr. Sheila Fay, the surgeon, said that I¢d be fine by March, but then she ordered an MRI to check for other lumps. When we went to see the surgeon I was thinking I¢d have surgery by Christmas and on the road to recovery by the New Year. So much for my schedule! With the MRI, which showed another smaller lump, the need to biopsy it, and the holidays right around the corner, I didn¢t hear back from Dr. Fay until the day after Christmas that this new lump was also cancerous. Two days after Christmas, I got a call to schedule surgery for a mastectomy!      I elected to have a bilateral mastectomy and went into surgery on Friday, 3 January 2014. After surgery, I was getting a little hungry and decided to get an early dinner, a stir fry. It looked good, smelled good and even tasted good, but about a third into it, I was getting queasy. I stopped eating, and fortunately there was a barf bag close by! Marty finished the meal. I was going through cranberry juice rather steadily so I asked Marty to go to the Food Co-op to get my own bottle of juice. Oh, and get a bag of those vegetable chips too! By the time he came back, I was ready to rip into those chips! No barfing after that!      Late that afternoon, my son Michael was coming back from a 3-day bike trip on Whidbey Island, with a friend and caught a ride from Seattle to Olympia with his PCT hiking friends Claire (Scones), Katie (Doodles), and Stewart (Super Ultralight), who then visited me in the hospital. Thanks! That was a real boost to my spirits! (Look for Doodles' doodle on the hospital board!)        Having surgery isn¢t great, but I went in style: I had a hospital gown that was heated (warm air was pumped into it) and leg messagers were wrapped around my calves, while a wedge was put under my knees! (How can I take all this thru-hiking?) The leg messagers stayed on almost my entire hospital stay. They were a pain when I¢d need the bathroom, along with that drip stand, but I noticed when I got home that my knees didn¢t hurt at all going up steps!        When I got home, I had drains that needed emptying a couple times a day, and I needed to record how MUCH fluid I was draining! Isn¢t THAT pleasant?! I met with Dr. Fay again, 5 days after the surgery. Sounded like a clean bill of health, but she would refer me to an oncologist, just to see if there¢s anything peculiar about the life and times of my specific types (2 types) of cancer. She told me I was Stage 1, with an estrogen-sensitive cancer and an ¢old woman¢s¢ cancer. This second one was the smaller lump that was picked up by the MRI. Dr. Fay commented that if we hadn¢t done the MRI, she¢d have recommended just a lumpectomy with radiation, which might not have done anything to it, then years down the road (hence, ¢Old Woman¢) it would finally manifest itself.        With the two lumps in the one breast and a recommendation of a mastectomy, it was easy to choose a bilateral. Although I was considering it, I probably would not have gone that route with just the one lump. Once mastectomy was on the radar screen, I knew what I wanted to do. When I told my sister and brother about this, my sister commented that our paternal grandmother and her four daughters dealt, in some way, with breast cancer. Well, like I¢ve told people, in keeping with ultra-light backpacking, you don¢t take what you don¢t need!        I¢m on the road to recovery, as I started walking 2 days after surgery, albeit only a mile back then. After seeing a lymphodema therapist, just to see how I¢m doing and to prevent lymphodema, she said to start walking with the empty pack to see how it feels. I went 5-lbs first time out. There was a little pressure in my arm pits, so the next time, I lowered the belly band and cinched the shoulder straps a bit closer together. That 4-mile walk went a lot better. After a couple more days of that, I started increasing the weight.        Life is STILL great! I got my health, fortunately. I don¢t need radiation or chemo, and the AT is STILL on track. And, as the song by Don Freed goes ¢You can¢t be a Pirate with all of your parts!¢ ?Marilyn, Mother of: