Wednesday, June 27, 2007

just a bit more

So, I will be meeting with a surgeon in a week and a half. It is a second opinion of sorts. They will review the images and talk about what they feel is the best course of action here. The radiologist felt comfortable with a 6 month follow up of mammography and ultrasound. Having other physicians review the images and give their opinions can't be a bad thing.





It's still probably nothing. That being said, there is something in me that isn't normal and shouldn't be there and it is scary.





Nothing has changed. I am just going one step at a time. Admittedly, I hate throwing all of the stupid words around. I feel a bit like maybe I am sharing too much in my blog. I want to talk this to death, but I don't want to talk about it to just anyone.





It is a weird paradox. I am sure there are people who know me who are reading this stuff here and are hearing this from my blog. I really am fine. I just have to get this out somewhere where there isn't a lot of pressure or expectation about how I am supposed to feel about all of this.



On one hand I feel like I am over reacting. On the other hand, who isn't scared to death of words like: lump, breast tissue, mammogram, surgeon, breast cancer center.



I have to say I feel very fortunate that I am at least getting appointments in short order. I feel so ignorant and uninformed about the kind of procedures and doctor world I am walking into.



When I was pregnant I had the background of having been a doula, I knew all the words. I understood birth as normal. All of the reading I devoured added to what I had already experienced with other women. It was preparing for something joys and wonderful.



I am doing my best to step away from 'the google' for now. I want more information, but I am afraid of scaring myself shitless with worst case scenarios that I don't understand. I don't even know what to read or where to go other than where I have been referred.



I'm so out of my element and am hanging on to the 'its really probably nothing' with all that I have.



I am about 90% sure that it is nothing, but 10% of me is very afraid that it is something big, bad, ugly, and scary.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

In a Moment

My day was a lot of fragmented moments. I had my annual midwifery/OB/GYN exam, tentative plans to go to the pool with friends, and the basic mommy stuff.

I dropped Diva Child off to play with a friend while I took the baby along to my MD appointment. Just another thing to check off my list before moving on to another task. I was happy to see my sweet midwife who has seen me through both of my pregnancies and births.

As she was chatting with me and doing a breast exam she stopped. She made a face. And she palpated some more. She asked me if it was tender, and I said it wasn't. She showed me what she felt, and indeed, a lump.

The rest of the appointment is rather a blur. I was given a few pamphlets about breast health put out by a local women's health cancer center. I was given MD orders for ultrasound and a mammogram. They made an appointment for me while I was in the office for later that afternoon.

I don't know that I can describe the combination of stunned shock, fear, and 'talking myself down' I was doing in the few hours between when I left the office and arrived at the radiology place.

I am only thirty years old. I am healthy. No one in my family has cancer. I don't have any risk factors for breast cancer. I had my kids in my 20's. I breastfed both children and am still nursing my son. This can not be anything. I am a mother. I have to take care of my kids, I can not be sick....

I pretty much rolled all of that around my brain all day feeling really grateful that I was going to be seen the same day. I felt stupid for not knowing there was a lump in my own breast. How could I not feel that? I felt shitty that I felt entitled to be healthy. I shouldn't have cancer. Who the hell deserves cancer anyway....I think every last women who has felt a lump in her breast must go through all the reasons she shouldn't be sick.

So I had my mammogram and ultrasound. I have calcifications in one breast. It doesn't seem to be anything all that alarming or scary. It isn't a 'mass', it is a small group of calcifications that may go away, may change, or may just stay the same. I go back to repeat the same tests in 6 months to see if there are any changes.

I am rattled. I am fine. I did not like the places my brain was going when the fear of all of this started creeping up my throat. I want to be very old and tired when it is time to leave this earth. I want to mother my children into adulthood and love on their children.


As an aside, getting a mammogram was no.big.deal. I got very freaked out while waiting because there were all kinds of directions about how uncomfortable I might feel afterwards, how their may be some discoloration from the compression. That I could take Tylenol for the discomfort. They were initially reluctant to do the mammogram today due to the fact that I am still nursing. Lactating breast tissue is especially dense and hard to photograph, and supposedly very uncomfortable.

I was really nervous when she took the first image....I kept waiting for it to hurt. When I realized she was moving the machine around for a new image I nervously laughed out loud and said 'that's it??!'

Really, thank God that's it....

Friday, June 22, 2007

An Eco-Diet

I am so happy to read the beginnings of Girls for Glaciers. Karen has posted a warm bloggy welcome to them and I just had to mention them as well.

I have also been semi obsessed lately with living in a more thoughtful way in regards to our environment. It started off with me never wanting to clean my bathroom that is attached to the master bathroom because Man Puppy was always napping/sleeping in our room and it always seemed too like the fumes were too strong.

That got me thinking....why would I want to protect him from fumes and not the rest of us? I am endlessly convicted that at a base level, the stuff I want to protect my vulnerable babies from is the stuff that we could all do without.

I gingerly started the process of cleaning with vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils. As I was deconstructing my initial distaste for that vinegar smell....I wondered why I am so accepting of that 'clean' bleach smell? It has been a paradigm shift for me. But truly, that strong vinegar smell dissipates quickly even if you don't use essential oils. I have to say, my bathrooms and kitchen sparkle with my crunchy cleaning products. Vinegar is as effective as bleach and a whole lot better for everyone. It turns out vinegar and baking soda even works on the pee spots on your carpet from potty learning pre-schoolers.

I also transitioned to using reusable shopping bags and totes at the grocery store. I am trying to now wrap my mind around using them everywhere. It is really silly that I think bags=grocery store. What about Target? What about other stores? I don't need disposable bags. We are getting there, slowly but surely.

I was very excited to purchase a share at a local organic CSA. Sadly, I submitted my payment too late and they had already sold all of the shares for the season. There are many local farm stands I can visit, and there is always next year.

This article about plastic in our ocean's made me want to wordlessly rock in a corner for a few days. My friend Karen gave me a heads up about Ikea's glass storage in various sizes. Not only do they look pretty and stack nicely and securely, they are glass with a plastic seal and glass lid. Less plastic in contact with food seems like it could only be a good thing.

I still need to work on my addiction to zip lock baggies. A message board friend mailed me some wax paper bags, and I have started to use more wax paper in general. I think the wax paper bags could work wonderfully for packing up dry snacks in the diaper bag. I am not as concerned about pretzels in a zip lock plastic bag when it comes to health, but again, I am trying to leave my dependence on disposable plastic bags behind. If it has a minuscule or possible health benefit, that would be icing I suppose!

Karen also passed along a recipe for laundry soap. I am sure it is less toxic to the environment and it seems to be cheaper. It feels like a lofty goal this morning, but I think I will give it a try! I have stopped using my beloved dryer sheets when I discovered that they are one of the most toxic things in our homes.

There are a lot of other things I want to work on. Anyone know of a solution for automatic diswashwers? I came across something that says the soap residue on our dishes is a carcinogen.

Baby steps....baby steps.

Please, offer up your best simple ideas in the comments, or better yet at Girls for Glaciers.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Something in the air

I live near my childhood home. 7 miles from home to be exact.

I was pitching in last night to let the dog out while my parents were away. It was that beautiful twilight time of day...a humid but cool Summer evening. My kids were safe in their beds while big daddy was doing stuff at home. I had some good tunes going with my windows open and I was immediately transported back at least a decade. That car ride filled me with the carefree feeling I had for all of my teenage years and early 20's.

Once at home, I took my old man childhood dog out and ran around the back yard with him. For brief moments, I really could have been 16...except both the dog and I are a bit more haggard then when I really was 16. To be honest, the dog is more haggard than *I* am...of course!

I went in my quiet home....rifled through the fridge to see if they had anything good and sat at the kitchen table. I could almost see and hear my grandmother sitting in her chair in her room with the TV squawking loudly. I closed my eyes for a minute and could feel the heat from all of her bedroom lights, see the paper clutter on her little table, neatly organized in piles. I really wanted to ask her if she had heard any good celeb dirt today. I wanted to brag on my babies.

While I was sitting at the kitchen table I saw a checkbook. Being nosy as I am, I picked it up and flipped through it. It was my grams check register. No checks, but her neatly balanced register in her distinct handwriting. I read each line like it would mean something. 'Gift for Mama Sarita....ATM withdrawl...Blair's....Lodge Dues.

There was an abrupt blue line where the handwriting changed to my mother's script. The things started to be sad purchases .... The Eatery (catering for the funeral reception), something monuments....Church....medical bill payments.

Even though she has been gone for 2 years this week, my bigger than life gram's presence is greatly missed. I want to hear more scandalous stories about island life 50 years ago. I want to talk about how Tom Cruise has totally flipped his shit...and what a damn shame it is for someone who is so good looking. I want to know my Gram's theories about what the merits and drawbacks of Scientology are and how that has played a role... I want to play devil's advocate when my gram blathers on and on about the greatness and wonder of the almighty Oprah...you know, the important life conversations.

I want to learn how to decorate a cake....what did she leave out of the instructions for the family birthday cake?? I want to bicker with her a little. I want her to be in awe of her great grandchildren like she was when we all lived together for Diva Child's first year of life. I wish she could have met Man Puppy. I want to sit at the kitchen table with her....her in her seat, mine across from her as we drink coffee and talk about how its too damn sunny in the kitchen.

The evening was such a sensual experience. Between the perfect temp of the air, the light of the end of the day, the smell of my childhood home, and seeing my gram's handwriting, I may have believed that I had fallen back into time. Gram was gone at a lodge event, my parents were out ...Dad at a baseball game, my mom doing some mom thing....my brother was out with friends, and I had stopped home to shower and change before a night out on the town flirting and laughing with friends.


It is amazing to me just how close we are to a different time and place; how quickly it is all recalled and felt. I wonder if I will feel the same reckless thrill at age 75 when driving down the road on a summer evening; windows down & music cranking?