Finally - I get the longer leash!

Ladies! Let there be cartwheels! Dr appt today went great and I don't have to go back for 6 weeks - can you believe it? Six weeks! Do you know how much hair I can grow in six weeks? I'm thrilled. Also, lifting restrictions are gone as well as clothing restrictions (PJ says I can go topless now) - goodbye sexy surgical bra! (for now, we'll need to reintroduce them after the next surgery in April I'm sure) Needless to say, I'm pretty happy.

Here's some new information that he shared - he feels very confident that we will proceed with the expander surgery in April. In fact we'll most likely book that at my next appointment. This depends greatly however on how I continue to heal. Apparently, if my skin does not heal in the most healthy of ways (it is he says) then we would have to consider doing the flap surgery. This is where they take tissue from another part of my body and form breasts with it - VERY SERIOUS SURGERY. Now, I had no idea that this was even on the table - I thought when I decided to have the surgery I had, the expanders then implants, that was it. Since they had to take the expanders out, that creates more scar tissue. He says the muscle is fine, he's seen that, we just need to make sure the skin heals well and will be able to handle the stretching of the expanders. Oy. I feel like there is always something, something lurking in the background with every step of this process. Like I'm focused on this one goal, then I receive a piece of information that COULD put a potential spin on the whole frickin thing. I'm really getting tired of this. Now, of course, I'm going to focus on healing, eating better, exercising, and really preparing myself for this surgery coming up so I'm ready for it - so I know that I've done everything to be as strong as I can for this. However, to quote Pee Wee Herman in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, there's always a big BUT in these scenarios. Sucks. Tunnel vision, focus forward. Upward and Onward.

So excited I get to wear my new real feeling fake boobies now. The are pretty awesome. I put them on this evening and if someone walked in on me, they totally would have thought I was feeling myself up. They look & feel so real! So happy I don't have to deal with the pads anymore. No more uniboob! I will totally take a picture and post it, let me get the hang of them first.

Talked to PJ today about having my port removed at the upcoming surgery, and here's the conclusion we came to. I can't predict what is going to happen in the future. What kind of sense would it make for me to hold onto something that made me uncomfortable, just in case something bad happened? If I think something bad will happen, will it? Do we have that kind of power over our own bodies? I have been given a gift through this experience of living in the moment. I know fear is common, but as my friend Jennifer said, 'dina, you don't have cancer anymore - so what's wrong with living like you don't'. We can't always wait for the other shoe to drop, because there just might not even be one. We don't know, and we can't know. So, I'm going to chat with my oncologist next month, and if she agrees, I'll have it taken out when he puts the expanders back in. I'm pretty proud of this decision.

We have a good weekend planned. PJ will be helping Terry, our neighbor out tomorrow by driving some family to the airport in Mesa, I'm having a Thank You brunch here at the house on Sat, PJ and I have a date Sat night which I'm totally excited about, then church on Sunday. It feels so good to have the energy and strength to start getting back to our normal lives. I appreciate everything so much more. I am so very blessed.

So, I need to share this cuz it's a little freaky. As I've mentioned recently, Helen's death has brought up some thoughts and theories and basic confusion for me that I never knew I had. So I randomly pick up my bible last evening - quite randomly, in fact, I think I was moving it from the table to my desk in order to set the table for dinner. In any case, I decided to open it up and happened to turn to II Corinthians and stopped at 5 - it reads:

"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it's not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord."

OK, first of all - FREAKY!!!! - that I turned to this so randomly. I don't know the bible well at all, I won't pretend to. But I was definitely led to these verses, and ya know - reading this made me feel such comfort for Helen. Comfort that I didn't have before. Powerful shit.

Have a lovely weekend all, if you see me around town go ahead and check out my rack - I won't mind at all. I'll be wearing the t-shirt that reads "Pardon our appearance while under reconstruction" (thank you Sean);-)

God Bless -