The "C" Word, as in cancer.

Shhhh.  Most people don't want to hear this word, the "C" word, cancer.  Like myself, most women dread going through a mammogram, but we should.  The doctors, websites, books and just about anyone you talk to say that by the time you reach 40, you should have had one.  I am 45 and I have had well, let's just say one within the last month.

Cancer is not the word I want to hear coming out of my doctors mouth or even the P.A.'s mouth.  Yet I am going again tonight for a second or is this my third or fourth opinion.  I think I was 36 the first time I went for a mammogram and heard cancer come out of the doctor's mouth.  I just sort of sat there in awe.  Hmmm, thinking for a moment.  Yea, ok, that must have been someone else they were talking about.  I had a mammogram, but they needed more views.

It was my gyn who I mentioned it to that a had felt a lump about the size of a BB.  Off I went to get a mammo.  It was read and all was fine.  Nothing showed, not even this BB-sized lump I could feel as well as the doctor.  I wanted a second opinion.  I went to another diagnostic imaging center just for breast cancer called Sloan-Kettering.  Let me just say if you want to meet some great women, go there! There were women who had one breast, two, none and women who were just going there for the first time.  All I know is that I was scared shitless.  By the time I was done talking with some of the other women I felt an ease that was incredible.

The nurse called me in and off the get my breasts squashed, as I put it.  It hurts and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.  I have, well now after my weight loss, small breasts and it hurts worse now than it did when they were larger.  I now go back out and sit to await results.  Tick, tock, time goes by and they call me again, they need more views.

They findings are what they call Bi-Rads 3, which means probably benign.  They want me back in six months and I have dense breasts.  This is nuts.  To me it means, I worry for six months and nothing more until I get cleared.  This just continues for then next five years.  I have nothing wrong as they keep telling me.  They clear me for a once a year mammo and it has been that way since.

As I said prior, I am now 45 and in July I started having some green pus-like drainage come out of my left breast.  Remember now, this is the one I found a BB-sized lump in several years ago.  This lump now feels like it's the size of a golf ball.  I have been complaining and mentioning it to doctors for sometime now, months.  It wasn't until July that I had to do something.  I go to the ER to have it examined and I get an antibiotic.  I still don't think it's an infection, but hey, I'm not a  doctor.  Although it only showed a few strains of an infection I was still given an antibiotic.

It's now November and I have been told that I need to see a surgeon for a biopsy, hmmm, go figure.    They want to run some tests and see if it is cancerous.  Well son of a bitch, I mentioned that to you oh, in July, last year and the November prior on my last mammo.  When you told me I had several cysts in one breast and a mass in the other.  Mass, really, but nothing there.  How many doctors do you need to see before they actually look further?  Do I need to be my own doctor and advocate?  It seems as if I keep getting pushed to the side.  I had leukoplakia in my uterus and had a hysterectomy in 2004, this is in my history.  This is not new.

The doctors put you on pain medicine for everything today.  I have a hang-nail, here's a prescription.  I mean really!?  I don't need medicine; I don't want medicine.  What I would like is to have a doctor know me, examine and and not push me off just because, oh that's right I don't have full insurance.  If it is cancer and you pushed me aside, who pays for that, surely it's not them.

When I was five

My life hasn't been the best and it sure hasn't been the worst.  I have had my share of I don't know what I would call it, but I have had my share of it.  I can remember being five, yes I remember that well, I had this bicycle.  It was my first two-wheeled bicycle that was blue and white striped with training wheels of course.  The hard plastic seat, that made you want to stand to ride it even though at five we couldn't do that as we didn't have any coordination to do such things.  It had the shiny chrome fenders on both wheels and yellowish orange reflectors on the spokes of both tires.  It was a great bike.  One afternoon on this glorious summer day, my brother and I were outside playing in the yard.  There was no indoors playing then, 40 years ago, who could have ever imagined typing this memoir on my MacBook then.  We're playing in the front yard and my brother decided he wanted to take my bike and turn it upside down so we could turn the pedals by hand and spin the tires really fast.  It seemed fun to me, after all he was my older brother and he always did fun stuff, well at least to me it seemed fun.  Tom, my older and only brother is four years older than me and since I was quite the tomboy growing up I loved hanging out with him.  I went along with just about anything he wanted to do.  Over went my bike and we would get the tire spinning so fast you could barely see the spokes they seemed as if they were one.  Cool was all I thought of.  We quick ran in the house, grabbed some playing cards and clothes pins.  Came out and attacked them to the fender.  Now this was just incredible, tick, tick, tick, tick.  The sound was just so crazy.  Quick we flipped the bike over and did the same to his bike and off we went, riding around, and doing this to the both tires.  Making a ramp of two cinder blocks and jumping the bikes off the ramp now.  I was having such a great day.  Who could want more.  My mom yelled at my brother, don't hurt the baby, meaning me of course, umpf, still the baby to this day of course, but that's ok.  We had to stop and back to the front yard we went.  Tom or Tommy as I called him then wanted to flip the bike over again so we did and back to making funny sounds.  Getting some twigs and anything we could find to tap on the spokes.  Next, he grabbed some sand and started throwing it in the gears where the pedals turn, the sprocket area.  Well, so much for that idea.  The chain didn't want to go around much anymore.  He looks at me and says clean that out of there.  After all its all full of grease and he is the oldest, so I listen to him.  In go my fingers to get the sand out and whoosh, there go my fingers, they get caught and sling half way around the sprocket.  My left ring finger, stuck; I mean really stuck, blood going everywhere.  Oh shit is Tommy in serious trouble!  I'm screaming and the pedals are stuck.  He backs it up and my fingers are free.  I'm now looking at my hand holding it with the other one.  Tommy looked at me and tells me not to tell my mom.  He knew in that moment that he was in deep shit.  I run in the house of course to tell my mom that Tommy cut off my finger.  My mom of course, the mom of four kids, by now nothing really bothers her and not over reacting to anything, says,"Let me kiss your boo-boo and make it feel better." Well, that was a holy shit moment for my mother to say the least.  I hold up my hand and my finger drenched in blood and my finger top dangling, she just screamed, "Thomas Albert!"  Oh, I knew in that instant that was it for him.  She wrapped me up in a kitchen towel and ice and ran me to the neighbors.  I was born the fourth in a low income family.  We only had one car and at that time, my father, who had already left us and my mom was living with my soon-to-be stepdad had the car at work.  My neighbor, who was my best friends grandparents, Abe, drove like a bat out of Hell to Horton Hospital Emergency Room, so they could sew my finger back on.  It seems like yesterday that the big surgeon light was over me and the blue sterile blanket was there.  57 stitches later and the doctor gave me the whole bag of lollipops because I was so good.  God, I loved that hospital then.  What happened to the good ole' days, when everyone cared about everyone.  The scar still remains but the nerves and tendons were damaged in my finger and I was told I would probably never be able to feel it or even use it again.  That I would be lucky if the nail ever comes back normally.  All I have to say is today you can barely tell anything ever happened.  I know that the day it happened is a day I will never forget, but the doctor who kept it for me, thank you, thank you, thank you.  It was only attacked by the skin and nothing more by the time I got to the hospital. 40 years ago and this was done.  I am so grateful to him.  My finger may look a little funny and the one next to it may be crooked still, but it there still.  Oh, and Tommy, yes, yes he did get grounded and a spanking.  In those days and old-fashioned spanking was allowed.  After all, mommy did tell him not to hurt her baby.

The 80s

The Breakfast Club, does anyone remember that one?  What a great movie.  I loved the 80s. This was my teenage years and the beginning of the better times in my life.  Hanging out with kids from a whole different financial status, racial backgrounds and was seemingly allowed now and was totally different than it is today.  But now that I look around, I mean really look around it really isn't so different.  Racial wise, people still get looked at, a lot.  I hear you talking in the diner and in Wal-Mart and Target.  No, I really hear you talking, because most of you are quite loud and the ones who aren't loud, well I do tend to stand a bit closer.  Do the rich date the poor?  Do the black date the white or even Mexican, Spanish or do we mix religious beliefs without thinking twice first?  Here's one for you how about a rich white girl with a poor black guy?  How many people would stereotype this relationship?  My guess is there are a lot of you still out there.  Not me, if you love someone, then you love them no matter what.  Treat the one you love with dignity and respect, that's what counts.  Remember Arthur, there's another good movie or Maid in Manhattan.  Well I am not poor (depends on who's counting), but I am far, far from being rich and I am not looking for hand outs.  I don't like the feeling of being needy, it makes me feel useless, alone and unable to care for myself.  I wrote this because I met someone who reminded me so much of one of the characters in The Breakfast Club, not their personality, but the look, the 80s look.  He had the look back then and it was so great.  Funny, great, the whole persona with the floppy mop hair, hanging out with the other "popular" kids.  He is the Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Breakfast Club type, well all grown up now.  I still see it and although he may not, I am still asking myself, why he asked me out?  I do love myself and take care of myself.  Sure, I have a great personality and great body, now, but am I your type?  Or should I say are you my type?  We dated recently and I had a great time, meeting new people, going to different places close to where I live that I had never been to before.  Even if the dating only goes as far as that, then I still thank him for introducing me to places and people that I would have never known.  So I can only say, thank you to myself for being alive and independent finally after all these years of being locked up in my own mind.  Nearly 25 years of the same thing bringing you down not thinking you were much more than negative with a good personality, well guess what world…here I am.  I do love the 80s.

No electric

In today's society we rely on electric.  We rely on electric and gas and a host of other resources.  Hurricane Sandy just wiped out many people's homes as well as leaving hundreds of thousands without pow  I know I was one of them.  I had no power for 11 days.  It took me three just to get a generator going, but even then I had to rely on gas, just to use that.  It didn't bother me much having to use the fireplace except for the ten times, if not more,  the smoke alarm went off because the wood wasn't seasoned enough.

I can't believe how much we use electric, gas, propane and oil.  It just simply amazes me.  My children on the other hand were just mad that they couldn't use the internet or catch up on "the shows" they watch.  It seemed everywhere I went people had the same issue, either they had lost it all or didn't lose a thing.  Crazy world we live in.  Make a phone call to try and find out when you might get electric back and yet the automated computer answers, yet even in a time of havoc.

Days go by and a week and still nothing.  There are people who lost their homes to fire and massive water damage all due to Sandy, what a bitch she was.  Were we not prepared or does society just overlook the fact that we can build wherever we want to and are invincible to the weather.

There is nothing more destructive than the weather, except humans.  We put ourselves in harm's way thinking we can be stronger than a hurricane that can produce yet other havoc wreaking storms which can only produce more damage.  This then disables all the resources we have only come to depend on for many years.  When did we become such a reliant society?

Who are you?

Who are you?  Deep down inside, who are you?  I went to  wake,  a memorial service, for my cousin last night and besides crying ten different times it made me think.  It made me think, a lot.  It's not every funeral that I go to that makes me think about who I am or where I stand in life.  This one was different.  He just turned 48 a few weeks ago and was recently remarried in July.  How can this happen to such a great guy?  Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a complete angel growing up, but then again who is?  He didn't or wouldn't hurt a soul.  He was a man of many friends and touched the hearts of every one.  

As I paid my respects to his new wife; I cried of course, then his mom, being my aunt; I cried again.  I made my way around the room speaking with the entire family, hugging and crying.  I finally sat down by myself in their white cushioned folding, yet soft chairs and just looked around the room.  I didn't make the early viewing, so it was just after six.  The room was full, full of people, full of love and full of stories about how he touched the hearts of everyone there.  I just kept thinking to myself, how is this, why is this and when I pass will the room be as full for my services?    

I didn't talk to many people at first as it was quiet in the room, but as time went by and people were starting to meet the aura changed.  You could hear and feel the despondency  lift and the happiness fill the room.  As much grief and sorrow there was for his death, there was rejoicing and contentment around for the memories that remained.  Looking around I caught a glimpse of his wife who just brought pure agony to my heart that I cannot explain.  I could feel how much hurt and pain was on her heart that she could not explain to anyone.  I looked over at my aunt, his mom and only saw a glazed look in her eye as she has the beginning stages of Alzheimer's Disease.  Will she remember this tomorrow when she wakes and has to come to the burial?  Next week, when she calls him for Thanksgiving?  Or even next year, when she  wants to wish him a happy birthday?  My heart yet is even more bleak.

Michael, my cousin, had just died of a massive heart attack, at the age of 48.  How do you begin to put this together, to even allow this to make sense?  You can't.  Life is a strange and mysterious gift that we have.  Our life is not who we are or how we live but who we are is how we live, so as I type this I ask;  who are you?  Do you let your life define you or do you define your life?                    

Surgery

Have you ever had to have surgery?  I mean any type of surgery.  If you have, then you know that there is a lot of preparation that goes into it prior to actually having the surgery done.   I had to have surgery on my hip; my left hip. 

I woke up in excruciating pain one Sunday morning and had no idea why. I swore someone was stabbing me with a pitchfork. They were standing over top if me in my bed just repeatedly stabbing me. Of course no one was there and the only way i knew this for sure was the fact that i had no holes in my hip and there wasn't any blood. I got out of bed and looked around my room, looked in my bathroom and even called out some hellos to see if someone was there.  Again, there was no one.  Pain, I tell you, just massive pain.  I have no idea where this came from, but all I know is that I wanted it gone and at that very moment.  

I took a cool shower hoping, oh heck, I have no idea why, just hoping the pain would leave.  It didn't disappear, but lessened ever so slightly.  I took some Tylenol and tried to go back to sleep because it was around 4am.  I woke back up at about 6am and just paced until I could call someone to bring me to the emergency room.  I am not the type to call you at 4am or even 6am to bring me to the ER.  I waited until almost 10am before I started making calls.

Finally after three or four phone calls my one friend said just call your doctor and see what they tell you to do, after all it is Sunday morning now and you will only sit in the ER for hours and be referred to anther doctor anyway.  Umpf!  So true she was.  I called my doctor who was on-call and she told me to go to the ER anyway, because she wanted to to have a cat-scan first.  The staff at her office was on-call and would take at least an hour to get there and the hospital had all the right equipment in place already. 

Off I go, well after my friend came and picked me up of course, I wasn't driving anywhere.  I get the the emergency room and holy crow, I realize I just want to go back home, lmao.  I don't like going to the hospital, does anyone?  I will cut through all the extra and tell you that a cat-scan and a few x-rays were taken, well besides a hip being all messed up, I have three kidney stones and an enlarged ovary with three cysts on it.  Well, bust my britches!  This is why I dislike doctors and hospitals.  Did I need to know all that?  Am I going to die?   Is my body going to explode from the inside out now, damn new technology.

The ER sends all my records to my primary doctor and gives me whatever for the pain, ok, it made my head spin, but my hip...the pain was just overwhelming, nothing was touching that.

Monday morning, my doctor calls me to tell me the great news, haha, kidney stones, complex cysts on your ovary and there is a bone island on your left hip.  Huh?  A bone island?   Do I have water, houses a palm tree maybe?  What the heck is a bone island?  

The referring begins.  First she said, oncologist.  Are you kidding me?  OK, she wants to be sure.  Now I'm scared and holy my whole life flashes I'm scared.  I went through this crap in 04 and 05.  Freaking really!?  I'm just thinking to myself, shut the hell up mind, stop wandering and do what they say you are fine.  She tells me go see your gyn and the oncologist and this week.  I make my appointments and off I go.  I had a hysterectomy in 2004 and we decided to leave in my left ovary for hormonal purposes.  So far well, so good.  I go see my gyn and of course a bunch of testing starts, blood-work, all the bells and whistles.  If you are a woman and you have had any of the testing, I mean look at you in depth testing, you know what I mean when I say, isn't there another way to not be so invasive.  After a week or so of that, everything was good, cysts disappeared, and that was back to normal.  This happens to me quite often as well as a lot of women so I hear and  my heart goes out to you also.

Now I am finally at the oncologist and he wants to know why I am there.  I'm looking at him with the wtf in my eyes.  I just say to him, I was referred and smile.  He explains to me that this bone island is an anomaly and it could have been there for many years.  The reason it was found was because of the cat-scan and they came across it by incident.  Hmmm, well ok.  So why did I get referred to him?  Just to be sure he says, I want to send you for a full body bone scan.  This is just getting ridiculous I was thinking to myself.  I have some island vacation resort in my hip, found by mistake but you want to fun a full body test to see if I might have cancer?  Are you covering your own ass or do you see something you don't want to tell me this early in the game?  Or is it an insurance plug?   Whatever it is, now my head is spinning, because my hip has not hurting, I limp when I walk and I need a peace in my own mind.  Off to get a full scan.  Thank goodness I have insurance at this point.  

In the meantime, I was referred to a hip specialist who wouldn't take me until the gyn cleared me, which was now done.  I get the full body scan and go see the hip specialist the same week.  Lots of tests and MRI and x-rays along with the best exam I have ever had.  Let me just tell you the pain, I hurt more when I was done than I did when arriving, but Dr. Tomlinson was great.  He showed me the results ad went over everything before I left the building.  I have a labral tear in my left hip, there is debris in the joint as well as the iliopsoas muscle being impinged.  My hip was moved forward almost a quarter inch because of this.  We no wonder the pain and limping.  He wants me to go to therapy first and see if this works.  I was in physical therapy for six weeks, no change, just pain.  We opt for surgery.  I had the surgery for a labrum tear and an impingement.  I had surgery August 15, 2011 and it was amazing.  I was back in therapy the very next day.  On the bike for only two minutes, but the doctor didn't want my hip to seize.  I went to therapy for eight weeks then another six weeks.  I still limp to this day, but that massive pain is gone. 

I am feeling good now, and my hip is still gives me a little pain from time to time, but it's not an artificial one.  I had to have all the debris removed as the doctor put it, lol.  Hmmm, garbage in the hip, now thats a good one.  It only gives me a problem if I over exert myself or of course if it gets cold and damp out, then its just a stiff achy feeling.  I would never put this pain on my worst enemy, even though I don't have any, well none that I know of.  It was the worst pain I ever experienced in my life prior to having the surgery, well next to having the brain surgery.

I feel as if its a never ending process in my life.  People who continue to get sick I do feel bad for because I know what they go through all the time.  I feel worse going through the motions rather than the illness at times.  Just keep your head high and your attitude up you will be fine.  Be positive no matter what the situation, be happy and you will be healthy.   Stay away from the negative, it does't do you any good.


Below is (his surgery photo and a link) Alex Rodriguez, Yankees third baseman, whom I adore by the way, from the NY Daily News (thank you).  This was the exact same surgery I had done, so I know what kind of pain this man went through, as well as recovery time and rehab for the hip, not easy!  

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/a-rod-successful-hip-surgery-expected-return-mid-july-article-1.1241528

Dreaming...

What are your thoughts on dreams?  I mean truly.  Do you dream?  Do you remember them?  Are the real to you and do they have meaning at all?  Do you go and google the crap out of everything after you wake up just to see if what you dreamt pertains to anything.  Woo hoo, am I coming into some money or am I going to meet Prince Charming next week at the laundry mat.  I mean seriously?  

Does this shit really happen?  

Ok, possibly some of what you dreamt could have absolute meaning, but Prince Charming or hit the lottery?  Do you in a hundred years think this will happen to you?  I know if I eat before I go to sleep I will dream some crazy stuff.  I mean toss and turn all night long crazy stuff.  Not getting eaten by zombies or anything that off the wall, but falling out of a tree and my arms turning into elastic type crazy.  

One night I had this dream and the crazy thing is, is that I haven't seen or talked to the woman I dreamt about in 30 years, nor to this day.  Here is my dream:
     I sat down at a table in a restaurant, it was Japanese style low square and it seated about eight to ten people.  A woman was there named Lynn, no last names.  I grew up with her.  We were just sitting there at the great table and we were talking about how Arizona was. Lynn had moved to Arizona right after high school and I haven't seen or talked to her since.   She said it was ok. She looked amazing.  I mean absolutely amazing.  She said that she was working as lawyer but it wasn't enough so she modeled on the side.  For some reason the companies she worked for told her that her the looks were good which was fine but she needed to work on her walk. Since she never had finishing school, she would need help in a few areas.  Lynn out of no where decided to climb out from under the table. She wanted to show me her walk and ask me what I thought.   She got up and preceded to show me what she meant. Her hair was up and she had a halter dress on. It was white. She had a short jacket on with it and took that off to show off her shoulders.  Then she pulled it back up.  There were two other men on the dream watching her but she didn't care. Her husband was there when I asked about Arizona on the beginning.  

What I find weird about this dream is that everything was complete and total opposite of what was real.  Lynn would have never done any of this, she isn't a lawyer or model.  I'm sure there aren't finishing schools still open also.  Lynn is also quite heavy in reality as well.  I am certain that she still does live in Arizona though, even though the whole thing didn't take place there.  

So again I ask, does it mean anything at all or is it just a dream and mean nothing because well maybe, just maybe I had too many cookies for desert before bed.  Dreaming, is it real, a figment or something we all want to believe?  Makes me wonder.