More Surgery

I bought beautiful earrings yesterday. They are so beautiful. I use to make silver jewelry. I have a real fondness for beautiful things. I bought these after my Dr.s appointment.

I saw the surgeon yesterday. I wasn't nervous at all. Not one bit. I was still on a high. No cancer in my lymph nodes. I still am so happy about that. There is much sad history in my life about cancer with boyfriends, which I haven't really even gone into yet . But that alone makes me very, very happy that I have no cancer in my lymph nodes.

I was checking the surgery sites quite often to make sure they were healing really well since I'm still even now on prednisone. Being on steroids makes you heal in a lot of ways and on the other hand makes it hard for you to heal in other ways. I'm taking it to help get rid of this darn asthma cough that I still have! It's getting much better, but it is still there and my voice is still rough. It's making me, or as some would say, I'm allowing it, to make me grouchy. Turns out quite a few things kept getting me grouchy through out the day yesterday and I just kept getting more and more grouchy. My poor sister was with me most of the day and guess what happens? I started snapping at her. So we know what to do when we get like that with each other in the past and I think it's still a good policy now....take our separate ways for awhile.

Anyway, I was all set to tell the good Dr. that one part of the incision at the breast site had not held together and I was going to even ask her if maybe a stitch or two might be required. It was still weeping from time to time but not bad. It just wasn't going to heal as nicely as the rest of the wound.


I had said it was ok for my sister to come back with me. She is supporting me totally with all this and there is so much information to absorb with all this. I didn't know I was going to be examined right away first though. So she was there for the whole thing. We are so close and closer and closer now, it didn't really matter. Some funny things have happened through out all this though.

The first time she saw me naked she said, " You don't have any nipples!".

I looked down knowing she had to be wrong because I had been fully aware that I did and nothing in that area had changed lately and I hadn't even had surgery at that point.

I looked back up at her and asked, "What do you mean, I surely do?"

"Well, mine are dark and you don't have any! How come yours are like that?"


She was really being honest and quite surprised I could see.

Yeah we are sisters, but still we have different coloring. When she was just a little kid her black hair was so black it honestly had blue highlights. It was so beautiful. People would stop my mother and accuse her of dying her hair and how could she do that to such a young child. She has always had darker skin than me.

We have olive skin from our fathers side and my mother has blond hair and blue eyes. Our older sister got both of those and my younger sister and I got the darker hair and brown eyes. People use to think we all had different fathers or even mothers but we are all from the same two people. We all in this world just have many colors and it shows up even in one family.

I looked back again at her and said, "Well we just have different coloring. I'm more pink. I have nipples but they are more pink than yours is all. For heavens sake."

I really thought about it and to tell you the truth having lived in S.F. for all kinds of reasons, one being hot tubs, I had seen a lot of naked people. I had to think back to that and realized most people don't see other people naked. Too bad really. Also drawing naked people in art school I had seen a whole lot of naked women and men and I had become quite use to it.

So it seems I'm getting off the subject but I'm not. I'm talking about the beautiful body and loving or hating it. That's what I'm talking about. I've learned a lot about that in the past years.

I love my naked body. I really do. It's not a beautiful one. Not by far. But I like it and sometimes I really love it.

When I found out I had breast cancer and had to have surgery on my breast I was in mourning for my breast.

I really was. Just for what ever was going to happen to it. I kept and still do, carress it and cuddle it and hold it. I talk to it. I was doing it in the Dr.'s office with out really thinking about it and my sister saw me do it.

"That's cute." she said.

"What?"

"The way you're holding your breast and talking to it." She was smiling.

"You poor thing. I'm sorry for you. My sweet baby."

I hold it and cuddle it. I don't mind that one bit. I had told my sister that I love my squishy large breast. I didn't want to loose any of either one of them. She was surprised and raised her eyebrows and looked at me. I guess people don't usually think like that or especially talk like that. But, yes, I love my breast. I really do.

So here I was on that darn examining table again with that horribly ugly green, crinkly, hundred old giant gown on with the Dr. bent over me looking at my beloved breast. Her face was right there next to mine which of course couldn't be avoided.

I was spouting off about the site not healing quite all the way but the surgeon had other things on her mind and I could tell. You can tell when a Dr. is not listen to you. Unfortunately, that is often.

I didn't know why though. I had just blocked out some of the things from my mind that I had thought about a lot before when I had to make a decision whether to have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. I had just put it all out of my mind for some reason. One thing that could happen with a lumpectomy was that not all the cancer would be removed because it was a guessing game when it came right down to it.

She started talking about the surgery itself and she wasn't talking about what I had been talking about. I knew something was wrong but I had to catch up to her mentally.

Switch gears fast, Valorie.

Took me a couple of seconds to do that, so I didn't really know what the first couple of things she said was. That's why it's good to have someone with you when you go see Dr.s about serious topics.

Then I realized she was talking about the pathology report. Why didn't she just say that? It would have helped me a lot. So the pathology report said what? It said she hadn't gotten all the cancer out. Great. I had forgotten that was a very real possibility.

She was being really nice and gentle and for my part beating around the bush.

This is great for some people but I hate it. Just give it to me and don't make me have to guess what the hell you are talking about. She hadn't actually said it yet even. I had figured it out.

"So you're saying you didn't get it all, right?" I was being a little ticked off because she was wishy washy and not direct.

"Please, just tell me out right, be direct. I want to know."

"There are two parameters that still show cancer cells and we have to get those out."

"So I have to have more surgery then?"

"Yes. We have to get all the cancer out." Her face was still right there bent over my breast looking right at me and still touching my breast. She was being tender and caring but honestly it was strange.

We're talking about my breast and tossing more of it away and more surgery and more mental centering and gathering.

The mental part of excepting all this information is hard. It feels like compacting data and putting it away into a special place that sits there. That is the place for it. It stays there for further investigation and processing at a given time.

It stays there all the time and it is always open. It may be only slightly a crack or it maybe flapping in the wind, but it is always there and always open. Sometimes I try to close it all the way, but even if it seems like it is closed, it's not. There is always that space, that little dark space that can never be reached to close all the way. It's there in everything. That little tiny open space is always there day and night even if it doesn't seem to show itself.


The surgeon was still being so gentle and nice and really not quite like the way she had been in the past. So was this really bad news she was telling me?

Actually right now that I'm thinking about it, maybe she was scared that I might blow up like I did in the hospital when the surgery was canceled. wow. I hope not. I was really terrible that day. Maybe she was afraid. wow. Well I didn't blow up. I knew this was a real possibility.

"So what kind of surgery, are you saying I have to have, a mastectomy?" The way she was acting I thought that was going to be the bad news.

"Well from what I can tell about you, you want to do breast conservation so we can still do another surgery to remove more from the area and see if we can get a clean area." She said something like that but not verbatim.


"That's still a choice?"

"Yes, of course!" That was more like her. She wouldn't say that if it wasn't a choice of course.

I just laid there. I was trying to absorb all this again.

Then I asked,"So then since this time will be even more of a guessing game to remove the cancer than the last time, if we don't get it this time, then I will have to have a mastectomy ?"

"Yes, that is correct. We will have destroyed too much tissue to do anymore surgery like this and it would have to be a mastectomy if we don't get a clear margarine this time."

I just laid there as before and tried to get all this in the right place in my brain. Was there room for all this information I had to put away there? How far back did it have to go? Where did it have to be filed?

There was the fact side of everything and there was the emotional side of everything. The emotional side had to have a double lock most of the time. A secret lock. I only have the key and no one else gets it. Most of the time I have to put that data in there and lock it up right away, don't even get to process it much at all til later. Got to put it in there and deal with it later on my own. Let a little out when I decide to and how much.

I locked that in and decided to deal only with the next step of course which was to have the next surgery and hope that all the cancer would be removed.



My sister started asking the surgeon questions, but I didn't hear them.

Then the surgeon said that since it would be a much easier surgery, I wouldn't have to be out all the way this time. We could do it there at the satellite surgery center.


Oh no, was I going to do it there? We talked about that a lot and the Dr. was very sensitive to the fact that I might not want to do it there. But, she had a cancellation there this very week and the sooner the better. Since I wouldn't be out all the way I agreed to do it there.

"It's just tweaking." My sister was saying with a smile.

"I've had twilight surgery twice before and it 's easy. I loved it. It's so easy. Don't worry about it. It's just tweaking, Val." She was comforting me with a soft, happy voice.


She was saying it and kind of bouncing in the chair trying to be really happy about it and supporting me and all that. She didn't want to seem upset about it, I understand. But I thought she was a little too happy about my surgery, honestly. It was a bit strange.

"Ok, ok." I get it.

"I've had twilight surgery twice before myself" or more I wasn't even sure I was thinking.




I know it's so hard for people to be supportive and what in the hell do they do?

What can you say and what can you do? I think the stress for care givers is much harder than most people ever know. I have been there too. I know people want to give you love, support and boost you up and help you some how. They don't know how and the more they love you the more frustrated they are. I know this. Their stress is tremendous and I think might be even as much as the one they love.

The best thing most of the time is simply being there. Your body, your soul. Your quite support, believe it or not. The person that is there to hear everything and know everything. The other person. You are that person. To listen to the loved one. Just listen a whole hell of a lot. Not forcing anything if the person doesn't want to talk, of course. I'm a talker. But, if the person does want to talk, just listen. You don't even have to respond much. You most likely wont say the right thing anyway. Be ready for that most of all. Just about anything you say is a lot of the time is going to be...he/she didn't get it, didn't understand. You simply can't experience what that person is going through or heard. Silence goes a long way. Listening goes even farther.


For me, I don't like things to be trivialized or dramatized. I think I can say this for many people in my situation. It's really not for others to decide anything about my/your experience. This is hard because this is confused with supporting the that person.

For me, my sister telling me that my surgery is just "tweaking" and that it's not a big deal did not really go over well with me.

It would have been better for me to express to her how I felt about it. In this case I was suppose to try and accept how she felt about it. She told me that over and over. She wanted to comfort me and for me to accept that most of all. I understand that, but sometimes it's really hard.



This Thursday, surgery again. Boy.

I'm not looking forward to this at all. I told the Dr. that most people would be more scared about having general surgery and not scared about twilight surgery but I was the other way around.

She talked to me awhile and I just tried to settle down about it. I don't like it one bit. I have had twilight a few times and when I'm not suppose to feel anything I have. Oh well, I never died from it and this will save my life. Just get it over with. It will probably go fantastic. Thursday will be here really fast so I don't have to think about it forever. Just get it done.

I didn't know I would talk and post so much about what is going on for me. I think it is probably way too much, but it seems to be good for me.

I like drawing and painting and photography and guess what, I like writing too. When I was in college I entered a writing contest and one of my friends got so mad at me. She told I couldn't do everything and what was wrong with me? She was really angry for some reason. I never did figure that out and I remember it well.

I'm working on a big drawing now and I'm really getting forward on it finally. It takes a lot of planning and thinking and prework before actually drawing. I call them projects. I love to draw.

When I was in college one of my professors came over to me while I was drawing and made the remark that I really liked to draw. I thought that was the strangest remark. I looked up at him and said of course. I was an art major at a huge art school. He said a lot of students didn't like to draw. wow. I've never forgotten that.