Picture of Health

This is my first post. I was not sure where to start. I decided to start with the story that made me feel a blog would be helpful to me and possibly others.

 May 5, 1999 was the worst day of my life. I lost my dear sweet Mama. My mother was 80 years old. She died of congestive heart failure. All of moms health problems where self induced. She was always 200 plus pounds. She smoked, drank and loved desert. She was a very smart business woman, my best friend, and the most grateful woman I have ever known. I see many posts about her in the future. These posts will make it clear where I get my thoughts and values.

 Mom quit drinking and smoking about 8 years before her death. She once said “Rach, you think I am in the shape I am in because I smoked”?  Of course it was her planting the seed for me to think. I was never a big smoker. I quit every time I was pregnant and nursing. I would pick it back up because it would make me sit down and take a break. Two weeks after Mom died, I quit. I quit many a time before but it took my love for my Mama to make it stick. I have never touched another one. How crazy is that I would not quit for myself? But in my mind it was to honor her. She was no longer here to love me physically. I could love myself for her.  Oh boy did I love me! Then I loved myself with plenty of food and drink. I gained 50 pounds.

At 40 years old, I had my last hoorah! It was now time to get healthy. I started walking Lafortune Park every day. I took a gym class at TCC then I graduated to the YMCA. I was a 5:00 am gym rat. By the time I was 42 years old, I was in the best shape of my life. I never looked or felt better.

It was time for my annual mammogram. I had one every year since 40 years old so this was my third, no big deal. I was a picture of health. Well to my surprise my mammogram came back with some suspicious calcifications. I was called back for a magnified mammogram. After those findings, a biopsy was recommended. This entire process took about a month from the first suspicious mammogram to the pathology results of biopsy. During that time I had written and re-written my eulogy and borrowed more trouble than anyone person can carry.

My diagnosis was DCIS stage 0. This is a pre-cancer condition.  I am a very conservative type of patient. You get a lot of options for treatment; some of the options are pretty drastic in my opinion. I choose the least invasive option. I choose a lumpectomy and that was all I wanted to do. I had asked my primary doctor to speak to my breast surgeon about radiation treatment. I was not interested in at all. Well my surgeon made a great argument for my Harvard educated doctor due to my age I was 42 years old. I had 39 radiation treatments. The other suggestion was for me to be on a medicine called Tamoxifen for the next 5 years. This medicine throws you in to menopause and I was not interested in that at all so I decided against it.  I have no regrets what so ever in the choices I made. I looked at the odds and I felt I was doing the right thing for me. I still do. It is what it is.  Funny thing, no not funny at all, in late October it was all in the news that DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ) is not real cancer it is pre- cancer that might never turn into anything which is what I had been saying all along. Woman should now wait until 50 years old to get mammograms. WRONG!  I do not care how healthy you may look or feel get your mammogram done every year after 40 years old and do not miss a year!

 Now where am I today? I am laying here doing really well considering less than two weeks ago I had a bilateral mastectomy with the removal of 9 lymph nodes with 3 containing cancer. I have Invasive ductal carcinoma. I should have an appointment with an oncologist made today. Doctors make me a little crazy.  Everything I have read says if the cancer is in lymph node or if the cancer area is a certain size you will have chemo. No doctor has told me that yet. But of course I have yet to visit with an oncologist.

I believe this will be the end of my first blog.