Drama Queen?!? I'm A Fucking Super Hero Bitch!

June 2010

Last month I had HAD IT. It had been three years since I started living in CancerLand. Three Years! Something about the anniversary was really getting to me. I don't think my husband and I could have gotten through the last three years, if we hadn't kept thinking it would be over in two months. But we weren't counting on the Chemo almost killing me, swelling my hands until my fingernails popped off. We didn't expect the infection I got in the hospital. Didn't know I was a "seeper" who has to have fluid drained from surgical sites again and again. Didn't know Everyone Would Fall Away. At any rate, I had HAD IT. Then, at 8:15P on a Friday, the phone rang. Greg and I were already in bed. The combination of house remodel, surgery recovery, and running a home business, often finds us in bed that early. I picked up the message the next morning. It was from Missy's boyfriend. "Hey, We're meeting Jenn and Ben at 9:00 at Park for drinks and dinner. Hope you can meet us there." That was the last straw. I pulled out my lap top and started typing an email to my two best friends, Missy (fifth grade) and Jennifer (college dorm mate).



"If either of you had bothered to keep in touch you would know that I'm still bed-ridden with draining tubes and a wound in my stomach so deep that has to be packed full of gauze soaked in BLEACH solution 3 times a day. You know, just Fuck You Both. I have been stuck in bed since March 15. Flowers? No. Cards? No. Phone Call? No. Can I bring dinner? Take you to a dr. appt.? Take your mind off of being in bed for SEVEN FUCKING WEEKS? Even KNOW I've been in bed for 7 weeks? I love you but Jesus Christ, Where Are You? I have had my issues over the years and maybe I'm too much of an energy drain. I don't know. I do know that I feel like I have been abandoned by both of you to the point that a last minute dinner invitation is just pouring salt in the wound. And I have enough wounds right now thank you very much. Missy, I drove 9 hours for a 10 minute hospital visit when your son was born. Jenn, It was Greg who watched the obituaries every day when your father-in-law was sick because he wanted to make sure Ben knew we cared about him. I have had an entire new Fabulous Wardrobe sent in for my Fabulous New Body and was sad that I didn't want to call either one of you. Boo."



The next day I get an email from Missy, and within two days a ridiculously large bouquet and a cheese basket. We talk, there are apologies on both sides and much love. Greg and I meet her and her guy for breakfast. She is Missy, my Sister by choice, but Sister none the less, and all will always be forgiven.



Jennifer left a voice mail. "I just got your Fuck You Very Much email. I think you're in a funk." There is more to it than that, but I am blind with hurt and rage. "A Funk?!?" I shout to an empty house. "A Fucking Funk?" Since chemo, my verbal skills fail me. So back to the email. "Dear Jenn, Shove your Funk UP YOUR ASS!" Her response translates to: "I can't do this via email. I love you. You know I love you. I know you know I love you." I ignore this. She sends a note that makes me laugh, and remember that you have to love Jenn for Jenn. We meet for dinner.



I can tell when I arrive that Jennifer is still back on her heels. I've touched a nerve, calling her out as a shitty friend. The conversation is friendly, but not comfortable. Half way through the bottle of wine Jenn says, (paraphrasing), "Fuck. You've had so many surgeries. How am I supposed to know which are the big ones and which are the little ones? It pisses me off that you're putting yourself through this. I have two other friends  who have had double mastectomies and reconstruction in the last six months, and they are fine now. I think you have to consider the fact that maybe you Don't Want to Heal. Your self-esteem is so low, maybe you don't feel like you deserve to be healthy. Fuck! It just pisses me off because you have OPTIONS, but it seems like you're addicted to surgery. I feel like you're being a Drama Queen."



Processing....processing.... Am I hearing this right? She thinks I WANT THIS? Even on a subconscious level this is appalling. Drama Queen? I'm a Fucking Super Hero Bitch! I am speechless. Finally, I say, "What options? What are you talking about?" "Come on! You can't tell me none of the surgeries weren't optional." "OK, Jenn. Let's run them down. You tell me which surgeries were optional." "Go." Says Jenn.



Surgery #1. Double Mastectomy. Jenn agrees that was not optional.



Surgery #2. Double Oophorectomy. My cancer fed on estrogen so the ovaries had to go too. (It's called Medical Menopause and it is a MOTHER FUCKER when you can't have hormone therapy.) Again, Jenn concedes this to be necessary.



Surgery #3. Expander Insertion. My breasts were DDD. There was so much skin available, reconstruction was expected to be a breeze. Jenn says that while not technically necessary, she'll give me this one because she probably would have done the same thing.


Surgery #4. Expander Removal/Implant Insertion. She'll give me that one too.



Surgery #5. Christmas Morning Emergency Surgery after checking into ER late Christmas Eve due to breast pocket infection I received in the hospital during Surgery #4. Left implant is removed. Not a lot of Option there. Surgery or Death.



Surgery #6. Expander insertion on the left side. Jenn's iffy on this. Maybe I should have just stopped then. "OK. I've got one healthy breast implant on the right side, and the results look good. I'm flat on the other side, due to a freak hospital infection. What do I do? Be lopsided? No. To be even, either an implant has to go in, or an implant has to come out." Jenn says she would have made the same decision at that point.



#7. Expander removed, implant inserted. Jenn nods.



Things go terribly wrong. I'm overdosed on morphine when I get out of recovery. They can't find a vein to give me the antidote. My left arm is off limits to needles due to lymphectomy during Surgery #1. Tapping a vein in my right arm is always tough. It is absolutely impossible when the nurse has left a fully inflate blood pressure cuff on my right bicep. I go in and out of consciousness. "I'm having a heart attack." I tell Greg. They have pushed a button. Made an announcement. Doctors are rushing in from everywhere. Greg is standing by my side. My mother is hiding in a corner. They can't get a vein. They start on my feet. "Not between my toes!" I scream. Jab. Jab. Jab. No luck. "Greg. Greg. I'm having a heart attack." They jam the needle into a vein in my neck. The blood pressure cuff leaves a tribal tattoo looking bruise that lasts for months. I am rushed back in for....



Surgery #8. Hematoma removal. Also, surgeon notices implant is damaged and replaces it. Jenn doesn't have much to say about that one.



Surgery #9. Nipples are skin-grafted on, and my "dog ears" are trimmed. "Dog ears" are the flaps of extra skin that have been hanging off my sides for fifteen months. (You know a male surgeon came up with that term.) Jenn is shaking her head. This must come under optional. Technically it was optional I guess. I didn't care about the nipples, the Barbie look was fine with both Greg and I by that time. The dog ears had to go for mental and emotional reasons. So I say: Not Optional.



The results of Surgery Number Nine were Beyond Hideous. I could tell by the horrified look on Greg's face when the bandages came off, that something had gone Terribly Wrong. The left "breast" was offside. Way offside and uneven to the other one. And the nipples made me laugh out loud.



An Interruption for Nipples. Even though I lost my nipples three years ago, I still feel that "nipping out" sensation when there's a cold wind. I automatically cross my arms in front of my chest. Phantom Nipples. After my first surgery, I had two fifty-cent size holes in my chest. Every day, when I stepped out of the shower, I had to press my hands up against my bruised skin, and push water out of those holes. It was the most dreaded part of even my hardest days. The memory makes me shudder even now. I was so dissociated with my body, that I had been pushing water out of those holes every day for two months, when a comment from Greg made me throw up. His comment was innocuous, but so traumatic, I've forgotten what it was. Whatever he said, suddenly, in an instant, I realized the holes were WHERE MY NIPPLES USED TO BE. Words fail me. I am sorry Nipples, that I did not appreciate you when you were parts of me. I am grateful to you for helping me make a fat happy baby for the first four months of his life. Thank You.



Meanwhile, back at my Surgery Number Nine post-op visit, one my new "nipples" is huge and pointing straight ahead. The other is half its size, not quite round, and pointing across the room and up to my armpit. It looks like my chest has a bad case of Lazy Eye. Months of complications, tests, and in office drainings follow. (If I had a dime for every hour I've spent in waiting rooms... I could make a dent in my medical bills.) After some very bad weeks, I lost faith in my surgeon. I insisted on answers. I saw many doctors. Finally, one of them found their balls, and referred me to a specialist out of my Health Network. I meet with one of the best breast surgeons in the country. He tells me the skin on the left breast is damaged and dying. It has to go. There is not enough healthy skin to patch me up after they remove the implant, even if I choose to stay flat on that side. A major skin graft is required.



"I'm going to ask you to do something embarrassing." says Super Breast Surgeon. He has me stand facing the exam table, leaning over to grab the edge. He stands behind me, reaches around, and grabs two hands full of stomach fat. "Why did you choose implants instead of using stomach fat?" he asks. My God. "I didn't know that was an option." "An excellent option." says Super Breast Surgeon. We have to harvest the skin anyway, and you have the Perfect Stomach for it." (Did you catch that? Someone said I had the Perfect Stomach!) He asks me if I would be interested in removing the implant that's left, having a tummy tuck, and using the fat and skin from my stomach to make New Boobs. "See, that's optional!" Says Jenn. Some of it, yes. But I had to have a major skin graft. Why not make the most of it?



Surgery #10. An Angel/Genius of a Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Jennifer Murphy, makes me beautiful, natural-looking, breasts, out of my before hated stomach fat. This is my favorite body out of all of them. I love it! That is a miracle in more ways that I can count.

I have one more surgery to go. I'm forgoing nipples, but will get some clean up work around all the major surgical sites. Nothing too invasive. Jenn thinks I should wait at least five years before going under the knife again. I feel her love for me. I see her bafflement, and fear. She wants me to stop. Wait. Heal. There are always Options. Until there aren't. Just best guesses, crossed fingers, and silent prayers. I understand Jenn. Me? I want to be done. I want to move on. Not optional.