Knee Deep Blog

It's the One Year Annivesary of My Breast Cancer Surgery

 Breast cancer, surgery, chemo, radiation, and life have been on my mind this week. Sunday and the Super Bowl marked the exact year of the lumpectomy.  It seems that the continued shift in emotions are still there.

I do admit to being grateful to being able to eat and drink a couple glasses of wine that evening with a few friends instead of being doped up and nauseous due to pain killers, learning to drain the lymph drainage bag, and consuming many Cheetos because they really did make me feel better.

Going down memory lane...here are a few of the post surgery posts

The original surgery update

My excitement over the genetic test results

My favorite post surgery update regarding the amazing discovery that Cheetos cure nausea

Feeling Great and Living With Not Knowing

The procedure went really well last week.  Well it's actually hard to know exactly what happened because one minute I was asked if I wanted another blanket and said yes...and my next memory was someone saying welcome back.  I was now in a different room on a different bed.

Things I am thankful for:

• my chauffeur and loving husband Tim
• being totally unconscious during the procedure
• not feeling like I wanted to puke my guts out as the anesthesia was wearing off
• knowing that my girlfriend was as our home  - tracking down Eli and making dinner so we didn't have to even think about it
• knowing I'd be able to eat and drink water after 17 hours - making Eli cinnamon toast in the morning and smelling coffee sent my brain into overdrive and all I could think about was oh, if I could only have a little
• know sure how to spell it, but lanicane - the pre-shot that injects a numbing agent before they stick in the big IV needle - and so grateful that my veins didn't get screwy like the last couple of times and I didn't feel a thing, but the extra squirting blood did make me laugh.
• amazing meatball soup made with love by Kathy
• wonderful friends checking in
• my wonderful sister who took, and still has Eli, for 4 full days - he's having a great time with his cousins running around and I'm absolutely loving having the house pretty much to myself. With Tim climing Baker this weekend - I had two full days and nights to myself. I don't even remember when that happened last, and I loved it.  And I didn't get on my computer once.
• other than feeling like a big cramp for a while - feeling so much better than I anticipated.
• the nurse telling me in advance that it would be a good week before we found out any pathology results.  Just knowing that helps - and she also offered that in her opinion the longer it takes to hear the better and it often sends better news.  I'll take that - true or not, because I know that within 24 hours of my first biopsy it was cancer.

So that's the dot by dot scoop.

Now we're getting ready for our RV adventure - I can hardly wait.

Because of my history...Getting Ready for a D&C

After my last post on "do I have to" I was hoping to completely get out of any additional medical stuff that seemed to be evolving from the ultrasounds.  But, my gynecologist made me, well actually she politely asked me, to come in for a consultation to review the reports.  She began her consultation with..."because of your history..."

Now prior to breast cancer when I heard, because of your history it meant some thing good, like a promotion, more money, some type of acknowledgment.  Now a days - "beacuse of your history" often begins what now feels like a sentance to do some thing I don't want to do like blood draws, scans, ultrasounds or some other test to look at "suspicous" body parts and happenings.

Who would have known I could become so suspicious and have so many possibilities that I'm clearly not interested in having.

Casa Corey Lentil Soup Recipe

We spent a wonderful weekend on Vashon Island at Frank and Marilyn's beach place.  Talk about good for the soul.  I of course cooked up a storm because I love to cook.  Here's the Casa Corey Lentil Soup Recipe - which is Eli's favorite comfort soup.   The first time he had it was during my chemo and a neighbor had brought some over.  The first thing he said was that looks gross, but agreed to try it - it was a match made in heaven.   Soup is one of the only ways we actually get him to eat a variety of vegetables, meats and beans.

I promised myself I'd start writing down what I'm cooking - I generally "look" at a recipe for inspiration and then do what I feel like doing.  The cinamon gives the soup a great homey feel.

Casa Corey Lentil Soup

What Does Your Kid Stick In Their Pocket? Laundry Treasures

Ever since a red crayon melted in the dryer onto one of Tim's new favorite shirts there is a consistent conversation that mostly happens after the fact - after we find  miscellaneous "things" under the wet clothes in the washer.

Now if we could only train ourselves to remember to first check pockets and then get undressed.  I need to acknowledge that we're still working on it - plus it's much more exciting to find change and bills which I get keep instead of holding my breath and hoping it's not my clothes when I see a string from melted gum or notice a glob of chocolate from a left over cookie.

Over the past wave of laundry I put the laundry treasures on the counter and took a picture (before the camera broke - see previous post).

I found:

• money
• a blue plastic cube - not sure what from
• the red tube and 4 colored beads from the magic trick box on Eli's birthday
• a semi melted green and a black hollow rubber ball which I have no idea what they are from
• multiple mostly broken sea shells from our Vashon Island Weekend - I actually had to vacuum the washer in between loads to get the many small broken pieces out
• a wrench from a lego set
• plastic money
• a white rock

Needless to say Eli is a collector at heart and his pockets are one of his favorite stow away spots.

Ugh...Do I Have To?

I spoke with my brother earlier this week and was informed that he was doing a multiple month catch up on my blog and after reading he said - shit I didn't realize that this was tough for you.  It reminds me of conversations we have with Eli to help him connect into his own emotional intelligence that often start with "how would you feel if X, Y, Z hit you on the head and took your toy?"

Instead I get to create and answer those questions myself...

How do you feel when you know the Tamoxifin is screwing with your body (ovaries and uterus)?

What Kids Do When You're Not Paying Attention - A Photo Story

 Earlier this week I came upstairs from my office in route to a board meeting to discover  Eli individually creating muffins in the muffin tin. As I came around the corner he was holding a 5 lb bag of flour and pouring it into each tin that contained green  or blue colored water and a variety of floating sprinkles.

After the initial shock I asked him what he was doing and he plainly answered, "I making a yummy muffin concoction."  Yep I'd say that absolutely described it.

As he was speaking I was also scanning to look for the babysitter who was on the phone on the couch in the other room.  He immediately said, "we'll be sure to clean it all up and I've got to finish this call and I'll be right off."   That's nice - my six year old is making colored muffin concoctions and the babysitter who is usually always right there was hanging out.

New Look To Knee Deep Blog - cancer update

It was time to take the bold and bodacious bald banner off the blog - because now I have a real haircut with no more crazy chemo curls and am post cancer, well officially remission.  Now it's my own curls which by the way are slightly more curly than prior to chemo. 

Here is my look according to my son.  I kept hemming and hawing over creating a new banner using a photo because I kept waiting for one that I loved, and then Eli helped me out with a portrait of myself.  It was a close between this one and one where I'm in my high heels playing baseball.  What's also cool is that these are his first drawings that are not line people.

Losing Your First Tooth - The Tooth Fairy's Visit

Eli wrapped up May with a bang - a great birthday party and his first visit from the tooth fairy after losing his first tooth.

My favorite was when he tried to negotiate with us by saying, Mom just tell the tooth fairy to bring me a lego because it takes so long to go to the store.  You never want to go.

I immediately let him know that I"m not in charge of the tooth fairy.  Plus we were lucky that his three cousins from Portland were staying with us and at eight, Ellie has plenty of tooth fairy experience.

Eli's birthday dinner included corn on the cob which did the trick - so that when he woke up the next  morning he was proudly displaying this tooth that he said he found in this mouth.  The day was so busy with four kids, six adults that night for dinner and an impressive 1.5 hour sword fight that we almost forgot about the whole tooth fairy thing, but Ellie remembered.

Rats and Killer Cats for Lease

I simply love when friends nail your current life circumstance with a bit of humor.  So when I saw the email entitled Oceania Killer Cats the smile began before I even opened the email and then subsequent emails - all below.

This past week our babysitter heard something scratching above the microwave and ran into my office faster than you can say the words lickedy split.  Of course I'm sure he was hoping that I would miraculously do something brave like see what was making that noise, but I simply headed back down to my office and told him that he'd be ok, what ever it was it couldn't get into the kitchen and I'd be making a phone call.

How Eli Almost Wet the Bed

I woke Eli up for school the other morning and thought...hmmm...I smell something.  Of course being direct I asked, "did you wet the bed?"  He promptly responded, "no mom, I was really sweaty last night."

I am very grateful that Eli isn't a bed wetter, and maybe he was just sweaty, but I needed to keep looking because I was sure I smelled something.  Then I saw the tell tale dark circle.  The funny thing is that he was adamant that he didn't wet the bed and was only sweaty and responded with something like only Blake (his cousin that is six months his junior) wets the bed.