My sister is beautiful. She made a "mock" Thanks Giving Day dinner for me with some family tonight. She told me she was doing it and I was excited about it but I hadn't realized what a big deal she was making out of it.
She invited our mother over. She needs to eat much earlier these days just because of age. We try to to accommodate that some, but having dinner at three is hard. So she told me to come over at 3:30 and we would have dinner at 4 or 4:30.
I walked in and she had decorated the whole house for Christmas. She had all her decorations out and the beautiful giant tree. She loves animated things and they were all out. It was beautiful, sparkling and glowing like a movie. I went into the kitchen and she had the crystal, china and silver out making a gorgeous table with candles and china bowls and everything! I was stunned. She had made home made bread that morning "not by machine" of course.
She makes beautiful perfect hand made bread and I thought I would never make bread ever of any kind just because she was so good. She had the stove full with cranberries, potatoes, dressing, gravy, special string beans and the oven ready with a twelve pound bird. I helped her take that out and it was absolutely perfect. It really was. She has been cooking big family dinners for so long she can bring lots of food together all at once and have it ready to eat hot for everyone to sit down.
I was so impressed. She kept making excuses because she did not have all the food like yams etc. but I thought it was fantastic. Far more than anything I was expecting at all. I thought I was coming over for a little bit of turkey and stuffing with some potatoes. Far, far more than that.
I just couldn't get over how much she had done and just so I could have a Thanks Giving Dinner in case I couldn't now make it to the "real one" next Thursday. My surgery now is Tues and I'm the only one that thinks I might be there in spite of that. She gave me a whole dinner to take home and freeze so that I can heat it up and eat it if I can't be there with the rest of the family that day.
I was so thankful and happy and very pleased. I really felt loved and felt the rooms were filled with love. It was truly lovely.
At the end of it all I took my mom home to her house cause she is on the way for me. It too was pleasant. I haven't seen her much at all lately, trying to stay away from people who were sick so that I wouldn't get sick and not be able to have surgery. That didn't work cause I didn't get surgery anyway.
I got home and peeled off my clothes to put on my new pajamas. I pulled off my bra and as I was looking down I saw what seemed to look like very dark bruise right were my tumor still is. I was shocked and got in more light to look and see what in the world was going on. I was alarmed actually.
I got up to the full length mirror and more light to see the skin over the tumor area was bright red. As big as a half dollar or so. It was very red. It has never been like that before. I kept looking at it.
I was flooded with emotions. I was angry that I even had to think about it. That damn tumor wasn't even suppose to be there. I wasn't even suppose to have to think about this anymore. But I did have to. It was very very red. It is red.
I started crying and being extremely emotional. I'm just so emotional now. I can't help it. I don't know what is going on with anything anymore. Why did I have to deal with more now when it wasn't even suppose to be there???
I picked up the phone telling myself that my sister told me I could call her anytime. She told me she was there for me and I could call any time. So through my tears I punched in the numbers and I called her. I was crying so much I couldn't talk. I just kept saying, "you told me I could call you so I am." She just kept asking what was wrong. I knew I wanted to tell her but I couldn't even get it out from the tears.
Finally I told her it was bright red and it never was before. I was alarmed and she was. We talked about it and I said it had gotten pink before when I took a shower but it would go away and it was fine. I think I had mentioned it to some nurse somewhere but I can't even remember. I remember mentioning the pinkness to someone some where. I told my sister if it was still really red in the morning I would call the Dr. After we talked I decided I would call no matter what and tell her nurse that it had gotten really red. I told my sister I would hang up and go to bed.
I went to google it of course.
After much searching and almost giving up I found what I might have been looking for. Who knows, not me. But now I know I have to talk to the surgeon's nurse and tell them about this.
There is a thing called IBC. Inflammatory Breast Cancer. From what I could read and understand, one symptom is when the skin over the area of the tumor gets pink or red and /or skin changes.
This might change things with surgery or treatment after wards. I didn't like any of what I read to be honest. Nothing about my kind of breast cancer sounds good. Not any of it. Maybe I don't want to know. I know the more I keep reading things and understanding this, the more serious I am taking this. I now fully accept that I have breast cancer and it is a very bad kind of breast cancer. I don't like it and I want to get on with it and get into recovery mode.
Maybe once again this delay is good in the fact that now this new development will be very important...or maybe it doesn't make a bit of difference. I don't know. I know nothing.
I want this surgery done and done now. One of the things that I read is that sometimes with IBC you have to have a mastectomy instead of lumpectomy. I don't know. I'm not a Dr. and maybe I read it wrong even. I don't know what my case is or even isn't. I want this stage over with. I want it on with. I want to move forward for God's sake.
I really never thought it was going to be this hard so early on. I haven't even gotten started with any treatment and I'm about to go loony tunes.
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