Emotional Dr.s appointment and a Wig !

Well, it's seems I never know how a day is going to go. Just when it seems like a normal day and a simple Dr.'s appointment, suddenly I'm all topsy turvy and crying and all emotional. I never, never know what is going to happen in a given day with me any more.

Yesterday was an arctic snow storm. I'm not kidding, that's how they described it in the news over and over. Citizens were mobbing the grocery stores buying up over loaded carts with food for a winter storm that you would think was going to lock people in for months. This storm is suppose to last only three days, but perhaps Clevelanders know much more than me. I guess that's a given actually.

I was there in the grocery store and when you watch these people it kind of is catching. I started to think I must need a mass of groceries too! I really did. I started to think, what do I really have at home if I get stuck at home and can't get out. I did buy a little more than I had planned on. It works. Mob psychology. I've read about it and now I am a participating member. It is a good feeling though to have too much food. Aren't we the luckiest people in the world.

My Dr.s appointment however was yesterday at the height of this new storm that everyone had bought all this food for. I woke up and was watching the snow fall at an alarming rate. Just standing there you could see that driving in it would be a great challenge. I kept wondering if I should really go.

I really wanted someone to examine the incision since the surgery and the surgeon had canceled that appointment on me. No one had looked at it yet. Now that my white blood count had been high and no one had told me why and no one had called me back to tell me if it had gone back down, well I really wanted to know what was going on. So I kept looking at all that snow piled up and still coming down and I still decided to go. I thought I had a good plan for getting there and I would go. I could handle that snow even if I was sort of a CA girl still.

I got on the freeway and the wind was blowing so hard it blew snow that had already fallen back up in the air. There were times I couldn't see anything at all!! Nothing for twenty inches in front of me. It was really scary driving. I had made a mistake getting on the freeway. I wouldn't go home that way. The back roads would be safer after all. Not as much wind and much slower driving.

So I finally got to the Dr and we talked about the incision and then I just mentioned that my arm hurt all the way from the arm pit to my thumb. I told him I could draw a line exactly the way it hurt and I showed him. It was very specific.

He put his fingers in different places along that line and asked if it hurt and of course it did. I told him he was very good at finding the line.

He looked at me and said, "You have a blood clot from the surgery. It's very common."

I was very surprised to say the least. He started asking all kinds of questions like does your arm swell and such and it hadn't. He was far more concerned about this than the incision. Turned out that this was way more serious.

But still, he told me that it doesn't go to the heart or anything like that. It's not that serious and I just need to put heat on it and it will take up to six months to heal! Rats, it's always something.

But he had me do a sonogram just to make sure it wasn't more serious. It turned out to be just a small clot as he had thought. But it is something to think about cause Thursday I'm having surgery again for the port. He said blood clots are always a risk, but I shouldn't worry. Easy for him to say. Then he said it is something for them to think about just a little when I have chemo cause chemo does thicken the blood. Great.

Man there is just too much to think about.

So after all this and the sonogram I went to the eye Dr to check on the eye drops I have been wanting because my eyes are so darn dry I can hardly see. They told me I have to call the other Dr on the main campus etc etc. So I did. I told them they might need to know that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

She said, "oh yes. Your eyes will get much dryer with chemo."

"Really? A lot?"

"Yes. I'll send this over to the Dr. right away. We'll see what we can do."

"Well, then I'm not going to be able to see a darn thing then. I can't focus on anything right now cause my eyes are so dry." She didn't say anything.

I'm telling you, I was more upset than I thought I would be. I'm starting to get pretty upset with things.

Then I went upstairs to go ahead and get the paper work on getting a wig. Oh my. I really didn't want it. I had been forgetting to do this so many times I can't tell you. She came back with several pieces of information.

One of them was a large booklet from the American Cancer Society. It had tons of photos of women wearing hats and scarves. They did not look good. It was a bit shocking and maybe it wasn't a good day to look at all this.

I sat in my car in the falling snow looking at this crap. I starting crying. This was not my idea of what I wanted. If they didn't didn't look good and they were models, what in the heck would I look like?

I thought, "Who am I kidding?"

There were all these extra things too, to keep the hats on when you are bald. Hum. I thought it would just stay on. Things to put on under scarves to make them look full and not just next to a bald head. Say what?

Maybe I would look into having a wig. I hadn't known that this chemo was going to go on for so long either.

I had heard from everyone that Medicare would not pay for a wig, but I thought I might as well call this recommended place and finally find out.

Not a good day to do it actually, I was very emotional yesterday.

I got out my cell phone, sitting there in the car and I called the Wig Studio. I simply told her I was recommended to her from the cancer clinic and I needed to know if they accepted Medicare.

"I'm so sorry for you honey. I really am." she said with the softest, sorry voice.

I wasn't really ready for that. It kind of got me started right of the bat. I thought they would just be business like and not say anything like that.

"No, Medicare doesn't cover wigs. I'm sorry. " She was really sincere and concerned. It got to me.

"ok, Thanks." I said very matter of factly and was ready to hang up.

I was just going to go ahead with my idea of hats and scarves.

"Well what are you going to do?" she said very alarmed.

She asked if I had secondary insurance and I told I didn't have any. I told her I was going to do the hat and scarves thing.

"Oh no you can't do that! You're too young to do that. You can't! Come in here and see me. It's Christmas, I will give you a discount. Come talk to me." She was determined.

She was so kind and so serious. She didn't want me to hand up with out saying I would come in. The store was just about five mins away from where I was sitting in the parking lot.

I had starting crying. I get very emotional some days. I couldn't talk to her I was crying so much. I just felt kind of lost and confused and I didn't know what I wanted to do or even accept all this. I just didn't want to wear a wig. I'm still not sure why I didn't want a wig so much, but I really was against it.

"Are you alright honey?"

I couldn't even answer. She asked two or three times and then I finally squeaked out a yes. I was crying so hard I couldn't talk. I agreed to come over but I told I might not buy a wig. I would just talk to her.

I called my sister and told her to come to the store and be with me. Her husband came too! I knew it was really snowing hard and I was asking a lot, but I wanted the support and I wanted her there.

I got there and the store manager told me she too probably had breast cancer! Probably? I felt so bad for her. She told me that 89% of her customer's have cancer. Yikes. Now she too might.

She told me that she had a suspicious lump that they had done two or three biopsies on and two Dr.s had looked at it and they couldn't figure out if it was cancer.

I don't get that. But she is going through hell. What we women are going through is unbelievable. It really is. We did a lot of hugging and talking. I tried on a wig and my sister and brother-in-law came in.

I tried on several wigs and I was going to give it up. Turns out I have a flat head in the back. lol. Again, who knew. Another reason being bald might not look so good.

The wigs wouldn't stay on because there was no roundness in the back of my head to hold them down. Then I tried one on that looked really good and would stay on. I really was about to just fold my arms and say I just knew in the beginning that I would not be a wig person. But then this wig showed up.

It was a different color than my hair I have been having, but it is really pretty. Everyone thought it was a better color for me than what I have been having. I agreed too. It's a light ash brown instead of the dark brown I have been doing. It has a lot of colors in it too and the front is lighter than the back.

I said the most foolish thing too. I couldn't wear the wig stocking cause that won't stay on either and it holds all the real hair in it.

"But what about all my hair then, how will I hide it?"

Then everyone just stood there looking at me and I realized I wouldn't have any hair.

"Oh yeah, I'll be bald, what am I talking about?" Everyone just nodded. They didn't say a word.

I'm having a very hard time accepting all this and admitting that it is happening.

It took me still another hour or something, but then I finally decided to go ahead and get the wig. However, my sister and her husband insisted on buying it for me! They are great.

It is a beautiful wig, but even with the wonderful discount that Maria gave me, it was still very expensive. It is so beautiful I was willing to go ahead and buy it though. I was more willing to buy and wear a wig that looked that good.

A woman came in just as I had decided to buy it and I still had it on. She asked me if I was going to buy a wig.

"Yes, I'm buying this one!" I said as I pointed to my head!

She looked at my head and she couldn't believe it was a wig, so I took it off. We talked and she was there because she had breast cancer too.

She had come straight from her very first chemo treatment.

She was having chemo first of everything to try and shrink the tumor before surgery. Her tumor was five inches big, so they had to try and shrink it first. wow.

I don't understand how it can get that big before it is discovered. There is so much about breast cancer that I will never understand.

While we were talking and encouraging each other and hugging and everything, my sister and brother-in-law were buying the wig for me. I was torn between trying to get over there and thanking them and trying to split it with them etc, that I had already talked to them about (which they wouldn't allow) and talking to this woman about her cancer.

I have found that we women with breast cancer are like a sisterhood that support each other no matter where we are, no matter how we find each other, no matter what, period. It is a giant sisterhood too, I'm telling you. Everyone of us has a different story too. Amazing.

So, thanks to my sister and her husband I have a beautiful wig that I even wore out of the store.

I'm going to take it at Christmas and put it on with the little ones that are four years old.That way they can see me with hair and playing with a wig and get use to the idea. Then when I don't have hair they won't think much of it. They will just see me with that wig.

So now after all, I will be wearing a wig. I still have a couple hats and I will wear them with the wig. I asked and she said a loose hat in winter with the wig is ok. No ball caps though.

So things are changing for me daily. Now perhaps I need to change the name of my blog. I love my wig? It's the same idea. It's the same thing. I need to embrace it and love it. I'm working on it. The hat embracing was an easier idea for me. Now I have to embrace my wig. :)