2011: Four Addresses, a Cancer Scare & 2 Many Funerals

I haven’t blogged for a while. It seems like just when I think things have settled down and I can think straight and catch up with my thoughts, something else happens and I’m again reeling. It’s been a year of change for my family. Change on just about every level.

Let’s start at the beginning. First, we all have to grow up and be okay with the words: breast, nipple and areola. Let’s say them together people: breast…nipple…areola. See, now that wasn’t so hard, was it. Areola is the hardest I know, but I digress. We’re talking body parts people, human body parts. Nothing more. I’m choosing to be very specific so to encourage women and the men who love them to take breast health seriously. Early detection is the key to life. So, stop talking about how you wish yours were bigger, higher and or firmer and take notice of whether or not your breasts are healthy.

In January I quit ignoring some signs of abnormalities on my breast. Or as I like to call it, my sacred left vessel. For the women and the men who love the women reading, you should know puckering or spontaneous inversion of any kind on your breast or nipple (is it getting any easier to say nipple?) is NOT normal. As many of you know I have myriad issues with my hormones causing infertility, complexion issues and the ever popular weight gain, so I gave it time to see if it was an added pretty and kooky side effect of my PCOS issues.

After a few months, said pucker became wider and intense pain ensued. Drying off with a towel hurt, hugs from my children hurt, bras…you guessed it, hurt. So I went to my OBGYN and was told it was indeed abnormal. Bummer. I was quickly referred to the Overlake Breast Center in downtown Bellevue. There I had diagnostic mammograms, which were awful due to said intense pain followed by an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed two abnormal growths. They didn’t look “completely suspicious” but weren’t normal so needle biopsies of both were ordered to rule out cancer or pre-cancer. Having spent the last year watching my amazing mother in law fight breast cancer, I got nervous.

Just after having my rack so well documented x-ray wise, Ben received an unexpected call from a headhunter for Cabela’s. It was looking for someone with his skill set to join its fishing buying team. Ben was so happy in his former job and wasn’t for a second looking for anything new. In fact, we were loving life in Issaquah/Bellevue, WA and had no intentions of ever leaving. Curious though, he decided to talk to them. After all it was Cabela’s and we quickly discovered the insanely low cost of living there and the 160ish mile proximity to our hometown of Longmont. Two phone interviews later we were both on our way to Sidney, NE for Ben’s third interview with the big guns. We flew out on a Thurs. night, Ben interviewed for hours on Friday. We then toured the town on Friday afternoon drove around and looked at houses on Saturday and returned to Seattle on Sunday. The interview went well but they were hard to read and Ben wasn’t sure what would happen. What we did know was my biopsies were on Monday.

Monday came and so did the needle-core biopsies. It’s just what it sounds like. Needles go in to numb the area and then a coring needle goes in and inside the coring needle is another tool that snaps out and grabs flesh of the suspicious area and retracts so the specimen can be preserved and sent to pathology. Repeat 8-12 times. We found out towards to end of the second biopsy not all the affected areas were completely numb. To numb it would hurt as bad as the remaining few pulls, so, you guessed it, snap, retract = pain. God bless my PCP for giving me a few Xanax for the procedure. I'd never had it and would have freaked without it. Up next, was the waiting game, along with ice packs, pain pills and rest. I think it took until the following Wed. to get the call back from the radiologist with the pathology report. I remember I was driving a friend to a doctor’s appointment when the call came. As soon as I dropped her off and could prepare myself mentally for the information, I called back. Unfortunately, the results were, “inconclusive.” Basically they/he missed both growths and now I would need surgical biopsies to rule out cancer. Awesome, ‘cause that’s just the place I want a scalpel slicing around. Unless I’m coming out with a better product, it’s not my idea of fun.

In the meantime, Ben was a nervous wreck waiting on the news about my health and news from Cabela’s. He was told the decision would be made quickly, yet now we were almost two weeks out with no phone call. Later he would tell me this time period was just as stressful as when we had our first preemie Charlotte and I was sick with Whooping Cough. If you knew us then, he means off the charts stressed.

A few days later, on a Thursday, Ben and I met with the surgeon, Dr. Kristine Harrington and she was/is outstanding. She offered to do the surgery as quick as possible to give us some peace. So the following Tuesday I went in and had the growths removed using a guide wire. So basically the biopsy guy numbed me up and placed a wire through my breast to guide the surgeon as to where the growths were. This lends itself to smaller incisions and scars. Awesome. What wasn't awesome was him denying me my god-given right to more Xanax which my PCP had prescribed for the day. I missed my floaty minded pharmaceutical friend as I waited the three hours between guide wire insertion and surgery. It paints a pretty picture doesn’t it? Me, on a gurney, with a 12 inch guide wire slicing through my boob, waiting for surgery. In fact I even took a wheel chair ride in a hospital gown and wire boob from one side of the hospital (The Breast Center) to another (Outpatient Surgery). Good times. Three hours later, as nurses rolled me into surgery I got really scared with a bad case of the what-ifs. Ben and Eli saw me off, but seeing their faces as I was wheeled away choked me up fierce.

The surgery was done under conscious sedation by choice. Anesthesia is scary, I’m a mother after all and to be honest my practical mind also worried about the cost. So, I opted for conscious sedation, this means I’m not completely knocked out but numb and drugged up good and sleepy. Wouldn’t you know it though…at one point I felt the scalpel? Yeah, that’s right, felt, the, scalpel. I remember wincing and mumbling, “Um, I can feel that,” and the doctors acted so fast it was only a few seconds until the increase in narcotics and numbing agents kicked it. I still remember it though. Later, I woke up and soon saw my husband and beautiful kids waiting to take me home. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Poor little Eli, he was so upset at seeing me in a wheelchair. He kept yelling at the nurse to leave me alone and cried asking why I wasn’t walking. I’ll never forget him being so worried about me.

This is where the story gets good. Two days later, I think it was two days later, the sweet surgeon called to say I was fine, it wasn’t cancer, or a ductile papilloma, it was more random (totally me) and I quote, “sludge.” I have sludge boobs people. The scientific word is ductile ectasia. As most people wonder, I’ll tell you, the incision is like a half moon and follows the outline of the moon on my sacred left vessel. (Areola, for the thick readers – it’s still not my favorite word.) Recovery was painful. I walked around in exercise bras with ice packs stuffed in them for weeks. It took months for it to quit hurting. I feel for the women who experience worse and get bad news after. Every now and then I still have a shooting pain but not often. So, back to the call part. Not 30 minutes after the good news, Ben comes home, we hug relief and the phone rings again. It’s Cabela’s. There’s a job offer on the table and it’s a good one.

We thought it through over the weekend and accepted. Gasp.

Ben had to leave that week for a business trip. So the following week I flew to Denver, drove to Sidney, NE, home of Cabela’s’ corporate offices and looked for housing. You should know that Sidney is very, very small. Like 6,200 people small. There are no decent rentals and of the decent ones, no unfurnished rentals. I ended up agreeing to reserve a furnished corporate rental house sight unseen. That should tell you the state of the housing I actually did see.

Two weeks later the moving trucks arrived to pack and move us. We said goodbye to our friends, family and life in the Pacific Northwest. As crazy expensive as it is to live there, it’s also awesome, full of diversity and breathtakingly beautiful. I miss it and my friends there every day.

Three weeks later we were living in Sidney. This brings us to our second address: the AmericInn & Suites. We had a decent relocation package and all our food was covered during this time, but in a town of 6,200 restaurants are few and far between. We were there for about 3.5 weeks. Eating out lost its appeal after week one. During that time despite having no real money to put down, we checked in with a lender and decided to see if we qualified for a loan and if we did what we needed to save. It had been years since we went through the process. Times and the economy had changed the game exponentially. So had our lost business, but that’s another story. We were told we qualified. The housing was so cheap comparatively and therefore the down payment was doable, so we started looking at houses.

During this process we moved into the temporary rental (address three). Where we stayed for six weeks and started our new life. The kids adjusted to new schools and I spent most my time tracking down documents for the lender. Our loan changed three times during this process and I just about lost my mind to stress. A cancer scare, move across country, and home purchase were all taking its toll…

End of Part One. hee hee...