Tag Archives: Breast

My Life With Laura Blog Book Tour & FightPink.org

06 Tuesday Jan 2009

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

If you’re going through hell, keep going.  ~Winston Churchill

Before I begin my post for today I want to thank Stacy from FightPink.org.  Stacy was kind enough to post my original three blog posts on her site in the co-survivor section of her website.  I hadn’t read them in a while and it seems like years ago since I wrote them, but I’m glad she found them and felt they were worthy of posting.  I hope someone finds them useful.

I also want to make sure anyone who reads this post to come back here on January 19th, Martin Luther King Day.  I will be hosting an interview on the Blog Tour for Chad Moutray’s book, My Life with Laura – A Love Story.  It is a love story which ends sadly when Chad and his wife lose their battle with breast cancer.  Chad is having a blog tour about his book and several of us have read it.  I encourage you to follow the different dates on his two week tour of many different blogs.  Here is a link to his schedule:

Today flew by for me, but I can say it was a full day of thinking, laughing, and eight glasses of water to fight my voice which is pretty weak right now.  I received an email that made me laugh.  The person asked me why I was posting “Celebrity Sightings” on my Cancer Blog!  Yes, my life is moving in a different direction.  Cancer still stares us in the face and will occasionally be on topic for the next several years as my wife faces her post-cancer trials and therapy.

In fact as I worked up some interview questions for Chad, I was thinking about the predicament that many men are put in when their wives discover they have breast cancer.  We have to be strong, silent, empathetic, and unselfish all at once.  Some of us have not even had practice at one of those things.  That does not even begin to talk about the tasks that we need to serve as cook, provider, chief information officer, Florence Nightengale, joe the plumber and many other things I can’t remember.  Let’s face it, men just don’t have a good rap as caregivers.  When I was faced with those many hours sitting in the waiting room, I hated being the only husband sitting in the room with a young wife.  Where were the other husbands?  Face it, the waiting room of a breast cancer clinic was no place for a man.  All those glamour and cooking magazines.  I was left to read last year’s ESPN Spring Training Preview where they picked the Detroit Tigers to win it all (boy were they wrong).  I started bringing  in more current magazines on business, sports, photography, and travel.  By the time my father-in-law made it to his first and only visit with his daughter to the doctor (5 months after her original diagnosis) , all he could tell me about was the marvelous skiing magazines they had. My wife and I could only smile.

In those hours of waiting, I did discover the bulletin board which was full of community groups to help with coping.   I wandered around the Clinic’s Cancer Resource Center  which was helpful and I met a few men and befriended a few sharing stories about our wife’s situation then asking if we knew the score from last night’s basketball game.

What I realize was missing when I was working on my questions for Chad was a primer on what to do.  I had gathered so many articles and written so many notes and resources that I put together a small guide.  I think it would be a great set of readings for husbands, so I’ve packaged them together as a reading list for our surgeons and oncologists to give to their patients and spouses.  Even though my wife has passed her surgery stage of chemo I just feel like we owe so much to those that will follow behind us.

So what’s the status with my wife?  Well she still has scars and is dealing with letting them heal.  There is always some mention of them every night.  I keep reminding her that time heals all wounds.  I hate those words.  Who said that anyway?  She has four visits to the clinic this week.  The first was to check on her suture which opened up.  Tomorrow she gets one of her monthly suppression shot to reduce the amount of estrogen that feeds the type of cancer they removed from her, then she meets the following day with her oncologist to go over her clinical trial.  The trial is called S0307 and is a bisphosphonate trial primarily for pre-menopausal women.  Bisphosphonates are a group of drugs that have strong effects on the bones and have been shown to strengthen the bones in many patients who take them. This study will compare three study drugs, ibandronate, clodronate, and zoledronic acid in breast cancer.   My wife is taking clodronate.  The study will take place for 3 years.  My wife will be taking Tamoxifen for 5 years.    She has seen some minimal side effects but we just say that it shows the treatment is doing something. I try not to make a too big deal about it as I want her to feel like it is a normal thing we are ready to deal with. 

I know this is a weird note to end this blog, but I had a great run tonight and at the end, my iPod had a congratulations message from Tiger Woods for running my fastest time yet.  This was a pleasant surprise and I can’t wait to run faster tomorrow.

The Run of 118 Christmas Trees – Life is A Highway

05 Monday Jan 2009

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Our 2008 Christmas Tree

Our 2008 Christmas Tree

The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!”
~ Charles N. Barnard, American author, travel writer.

 

I just got back from my 2nd run of the year.  Thanks to the reader who said they’d help remind me to get out there and “Just do It”.  (Note to self – next time you write down your resolutions, tear them up and burn em).  It definitely was the weekend to start throwing out the Christmas Tree.  I counted 118 trees on the sidewalk during my run.  We could have left it up but the weekends are getting booked up already with travel, basketball games, holidays and parties!

No Christmas tree counting is not what i do when I run, but it sure helped to make tonight’s run a little different than the more than 300 other runs I will have this year.

We had a pretty active weekend.  Since I won’t be able to attend my son’s Little League Skills Assessment this year, we went out and played catch and hit a few balls.  I love sports, but I am not one of those crazy parents (I hope I’m not) who people can’t stand at the games.  My son is so focused anyway that sometimes you can scream at him and he doesn’t flinch.  Last year he ran through my stop sign at third base when I was the third base coach.  I had a good laugh with the other parents afterward and got a lot of ribbing about having more discipline at home and wondering if he would have stopped if mom had been there instead of me.    Seriously though I have a son who has decent capability to play any sport although I’m not sure where he got the talent from.  I have no visions of grandeur though as he definitely got his small stature from his parents!

We also got out as a family to spend time at the park and get some fresh air and exercise.  My daughter called it her highlight of the weekend which made me feel good.  My wife is still limited with her stitches so she and my daughter went for a little hike to a lookout point near our home overlooking the San Francisco Bay.  In fact, one of the stitches seemed to maybe have come out too soon and she might have to go back in early this week to have it fixed.  After our family meeting at dinner tonight where we talked about our schedules and highlights for the week, my wife and I had some alone time to talk about how we are doing.  She laughed at me.  She was the one in college who was going to be a bio major and I’m the one who runs at the sight of blood.  She was quite amazed at how I was able to deal with all the tubes and procedures she had to go through when she was ill.  I told her I sucked it up, and kiddingly told her to promise to never make me go through it again.  Well this little stitch is causing some fluid to run out.  Oh my…..medic! 

She did thank me for being her rock.  I had to do a lot of research for her as she was overwhelmed and frankly quite scared to read everything online and also had selective hearing when it came to what the doctors were telling her.  Depending upon her mood, she’d only hear the good things sometimes and other times only the bad things.  She’s better now and is able to even go online and meet some of the people I met online who gave me lots of advice.  I think it is great that she is now able to converse with some of these people and join the sisterhood of survivors.

Back to normal life?  Well maybe it is with the regular TV season coming back on.  We’ll be able to have our banter about Desperate Housewives, Lost and everyone’s favorite, American Idol…

Listening to win – A Loving Fight

27 Saturday Dec 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

“The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” — Woodrow Wilson

I was recently asked if some of my earlier posts could be used on the site www.Fightpink.org.  Quite frankly I was surprised as I never intended for these postings to be used elsewhere.  The intent of this blog becomes clearer every day as it is more for me than anyone else.  My memory isn’t what it used to be, but more importantly I’ve always documented my thoughts and someday I’d like my children to know why I did what I did or know what I thought about particular incidents in our lives.

Reading those old posts was haunting.  I guess I’d forgotten already how I was feeling at that time.  That is pretty funny given that many say I have a photographic memory.  I laugh at that as I pretty much find myself to be so scattered in life that I just document my life meticulously so I won’t forget.  I listen and listen hard.  I listen to learn and listen  to comfort others.  I sometimes am asked why I don’t speak up on some conversations.  I guess that I’ve always believed that sometimes silence is golden.  And sometimes silence, pictures and images speak a thousand words.

Right now it’s all about listening to my wife’s questions.  I can see and hear her concerns about her surgical scars.  She doesn’t complain but tells me about the research and conversations she is having.  The skin-sparing matectomy has several kinds of scars, but the ones my wife had (over 18 only please) can be depicted through the attached photo links:

Areolar: http://www.justbreastimplants.com/gallery/incision_areola.htm

Crease: http://www.justbreastimplants.com/gallery/incision_crease.htm

The areolar was used for the original expander, but the crease was used to help reconfigure my wife so as to allow my wife to have a bit of a reduction.  Right now the ster-strips still cover the scars.  The black and blue are gone and now the healing once again becomes both physical and emotional.  While many would think this sounds more physical, I’m listening to my wife and her voice.  She wants to look normal.  Normal for me and for her.Pictures speak a thousand words for her.  Seeing things look almost normal will have an emotional healing that things are still the same for her.  Hearing her husband honestly telling her that he thinks she looks great is one thing, but she is going to have to believe it herself.  Any married couple knows that.

Tomorrow I think I’ll talk more about my own expectations and observations for 2009.

3 Days of Shopping to go – Life is a Highway

22 Monday Dec 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. – Washington Irving

Tonight’s run was a cold and painful one.  Each run is like every day in life.  One day you might feel good but the next day you might feel like you are running a marathon without shoes.  One day is different from the next.  It’s like life.  Many of us are given the same set of circumstances, but some make more or less of it than others.

I’m reading a book by Chad Moutray, another man who had a wife with breast cancer only his story ended tragically.  Why would I read it?  Why do I care?  I often wonder if I am alone in this world.  In fact I think we all wonder if our life is unique or normal.  Do others deal with similar issues?  Are all my peers being hit with the recession the same way? 

Chad, while raised differently, has many similar qualities to me.  I’m finding the book entertaining at times and hard to read at others.  It hits hard and close.  I’ll write more about the book at a later date once I am finished.

Today my wife went back to the clinic and the nurse practitioner supplied her with new and cleaner steri-strips to cover her scars.  Her breast surgeon came by to say hello.  This would be the last visit with her for another 6 months.  She gave my wife a hug and then said some complimentary words about me.  We had become more cordial with each other over time and recently discussed my blog.  I was hesitant at first to tell her about this blog , but gave her the adress.  She told my wife that she loved my honesty.  Whew!  I was not ready to go back and edit anything here.  While this blog is more of a channel for me to express the feelings which I can’t describe with words, I find it to be more of a release for me and hopefully a memoir for my children

I am encouraged by my wife though.  Her energy levels are high and her desires to enjoy herself and get back to a regular exercise regimen.  She is worried about the scar and I’ve told her that I’ll help her to get used to her new self and promise to be honest and open about my feelings with her.  It’s hard to argue with her when I want to be positive, but I have to pick my points.  Sometimes she deserves the ability to just be down.

We are getting ready for the holidays this year with a full house of family.  While everything might be the same as years past, just like running, it might be a bit more of a struggle than in the past

Courage and relief – Life is a highway.

16 Tuesday Dec 2008

Posted by in Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

” Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin

Finally after five months my wife’s parents arrived to console their daughter.  I could see the relief in their eyes.  More importantly I could feel the relief in my that she felt her parents were finally concerned enough.  Their was never any doubt that they were concerned about their daughter, but their hesitation had started to wear on my wife.  Quite frankly it started to wear on me.  Her courage through all of this has been nothing less than a revelation for me.  How she was able to put so many feelings behind her as she went through this battle over the past 5 months has been amazing. 

It couldn’t come at a better time for them to arrive as my work is getting more busy with business integration coming on the heels of the holiday season.  I feel a great weight lifted off my shoulders as I can go to work knowing that someone else is around to care for my wife during the day.

Right now our only concern is that my wife is feeling uncomfortable with some redness around her stitches that is very itchy.  I am concerned there might be an infection, but we are not sure.  She’ll be able to go in with her mother to take a look again with the doctor to see if there is any relief they might be able to provide her.

I even noticed my change in my mindset as I ran tonight.  I ran an extra mile and for the first time in a long time, my wife’s cancer did not wander into my head during my 20-25 minute run.  That’s probably because I barely broke a sweat in the bitter 35 degree temperatures outside.   I’m really pleased to have broken the 1100 mile mark this year.  It feels real good and I can feel my stamina and speed to be improving each day.

Maybe now I can start to write about something new.  Hopefully it will allow me to really express some of my real passions in life.

Another Trip to the Hospital – Life is a Highway

15 Monday Dec 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Those who are lucky are happy, and I’m happy to be lucky.  No excuses.

– Participant in the show, Survivor

The reconstruction surgery didn’t go as long as smoothly as we would have liked.  It lasted five and a half hours and will require more healing than we anticipated, but I think the relief of the surgery being over was felt both by me and her.  As soon as the surgery was over, a storm hit the city.  She was delirious but okay so I decided she was stable enough to go home for the night and get back first thing in the morning.

I woke up after 7 hours of sleep ( 2 more than I had been averaging) with a major knot in my stomach and a huge throbbing headache.  I think the stress of the week that I had been internalizing came crashing in on me.  I had read myself to sleep by reading he story of another husband who lost his wife to breast cancer.  I read the synopsis and realized how lucky I am.  I’ll write more about this book later.  I quickly grabbed some ibuprophen  and went to pick up some breakfast.  She hadn’t eaten in 35 hours so she would be famished.  Fortunately my mother had spent the night to watch the kids.  After calling her parents to tell them she was okay, I arrived at the hospital.  I would later find out that she had not told her parents before that they were going in to clear her margins some more.  She had not told them as she didn’t want them to be worried.

I was not only the last visitor to check out the night before, but I was also the first visitor to check in that morning.  Opening the door and seeing her sitting up and smiling was more than a relief.  She was in pain still and a bit week but she was hereslf again.  When she starts barking orders I know she’s fine.  There weren’t side effects from nausea like the previous surgery.  Both physicians came in and checked on her.  They said it had been slightly more complicated than thought, but that it just required more adjustments.

We were able to check out by 11am and we were soon a family again.  The children were happy to see their mother sleeping in her bed.  It was a bonding experience.  I left my son to watch his mother and get her anything she requested while I took or 6-year old daughter run errands to the pharmacy to pick up medicines, the deli to get sandwiches, and the card store to get my wife’s birthday card.  As I ran the errands, I could only think of the book I was reading and squeezed my daughters hand.  She was enjoying being my helper and I was enjoying the bonding time.

I slept the whole rest of the afternoon with my wife.  I needed the rest and she held my hand.   She requested sushi for dinner so I took the children out for sushi and brought back the leftovers.  Dinner was different.  A dinner for three instead of four.  I saw people look at us.  Was I divorced dad?  A widower?  It didn’t matter.  I knew what I was feeling.  I was thinking how much I wanted to be a complete family and how good that feels to me. 

I told her I am so happy to still have her with me and feel so fortunate.  I’ll never take her for granted again.  This week isn’t going to slow down with the holidays upon us.

Her parents arrive on Tuesday and there are a bunch of “honey do’s” that I have to get done around the house before they arrive!

Racing Down the Highway – Life is a Highway

12 Friday Dec 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I’m Driving like Hell, Racing Down the Highway – Blake Shelton

Although the lyrics above are from a song about a guy who realized he let his woman get away without telling her how much she means to him (which is not my case), those words seems to express my feelings these days about how my life is going.  I feel like I’m spending my days on those things which I shouldn’t and not on the people and things that matter.  Have I lost perspective?  It’s so easy to find your way in life one day and then lose it.  Yes, just like driving without a map, going 85 mph and not talking to the other people in the back seat.

 As I write this I’m sitting in the 3rd Floor waiting room of the CPMC Carol Franc Buck Cancer Clinic waiting for my wife who is undergoing her 3 hour reconstruction which includes a brief procedure from her cancer surgeon to clear margins that will help reduce her chance of cancer returning.  This surgery will be about half the time of her original surgery.  It is a weird feeling as I felt so prepared for her original surgery that today’s procedure both of us felt so unprepared.  The results maybe aren’t so much about mortality I guess, but I feel like I haven’t given today’s proceedings as much attention as they deserve.  The same goes with the time I’ve had to spend with our kids. 

Last night we each had a brain dump of thoughts.  When we communicate it is almost like a game of chess with a time clock.  First me for 1 minute, then her for a minute, then me, then her, etc.  We race through topics such as how she ran into her friend Jessica at the Starbucks (Jessica is also a breast cancer survivor and an inspiration to my wife), how our son was nominated for a summer Young Scholars program, holiday dinner plans, coordinating pick up of her parents from the airport, etc.  This type of communication might not work for many, but it works for us.  Twenty-four years together will do that to you.  In the end we finally smiled and did a sanity check (maybe it should be an insanity check).  How are we feeling?  Are we prepared for this next surgery?  Is she feeling side effects from the hormone therapy? Apologies to each other are also part of the conversation.  These are mostly from me for the guilt of not being there as much as I wish I could, but she understands the stress we are all going through.  Who says love is about never having to say you’re sorry?

Back to the present, I’m sitting here waiting with two other gentlemen and have about 90 more minutes to go of waiting.  The smile on her face as she chatted her way through the swinging surgical doors are so typical of her, and so atypical of the image of someone going in for a major surgery.  The looks of concern on their faces tell me that their cases seem more grave.  There is a certain somberness in this room that hits me and reminds me of sitting in this room three months ago.  There is a déjà vu with the smells and sounds all around me.  I hope we never have to be here again.  Once again the stress and anxiety of the week have caught up.  The sleepless nights have me and I need to rest.

The next 90 minutes are going to be spent napping and listening to an iPod mix of inspirational songs.

Hopefully the next couple of days will let me catch up, slow down and give everything its proper attention.

Now is the Time – A Loving Fight

08 Monday Dec 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Now is the Time When You Show How Much You Care – Ronnie Lott

I was driving to work today listening to talk radio and heard Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott talking about his foundation and giving.  I was thinking to myself about how hard it must be to give at this time of year and in this economy.  Doing some of my own fundraising for our kid’s school I was sensitive to his comments.  But he inspired me by saying how he didn’t get as much from everyone but got more people to participate.

I’m feeling that right now.  As I ran last night I was thinking about my “Secret Santa” exchange which our family set up and just remembered how fortunate I feel that my wife is still with me and that my kids still have their mother.  I’ve decided that I have all the gifts I need.  If someone wants to give me a gift, they can donate those dollars to my wife’s cancer clinic, the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center.  My family is pretty bitter that I’m ruining their Secret Santa because I don’t want anything, but that is truly how I feel.  Even if they gave me something I truly want or have wanted, I just can’t enjoy it this year.  Now is not the time for me to be greedy.  I know my family wants to give me something, but I’ve been a materialistic person my whole life and right now my wife is the only thing I want and am so glad to have her.  

Maybe it is the stress of the holiday season, work integration projects, the bad economy, and my wife’s upcoming surgery this Friday, but I just can’t sleep or feel like I can rest.  Now is not the time to be selfish.  No matter how bad life is, the only way to feel better right now is not to feel sorry for onesself, but to make yourself feel better through the gift of giving to others.

Maybe my wife’s energy level is what is driving me.  She seems to be so strong now while on OS, Tamoxifen and bisphosphonates while staring surgery in the face again.  I just don’t know how she does it, but maybe for her now is the time as well.  I can only gather strength from her this holiday season which will be the greatest gift of all.

Finding our Heart – Fighting for Life

02 Tuesday Dec 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

If you lost love, do you know where to find it? – One Republic

My wife has reached what I think is her second wind in this battle.  She has resumed her gym membership, gotten off all of her pain killers, started wearing bras again, watching old episodes of Sex and the City (the ones where Kim Cattrall has cancer and laughs about hot flashes), and strted her 3 years of hormonal therapy (Tamoxifen).  She gets her first OS shot in two days.

What else?  She has completed her shopping list for the holidays and is getting ready to send out the holiday cards.  She has an energy and zest for life I haven’t seen in a while.  She cracked me up tonight when she mentioned that when her 75 year old mother comes to visit for the holidays that she is going to drag her to the clinic to get tested for the BRACA gene.  All of this energy is so beautiful in my eyes.  I am thinking of the days when my wife wanted to just curl up and cry.  This was all a little over 3 months ago.

Now we laugh at Kim Cattrall in a bad bra and wig giving a cancer speech while suffering through hot flashes.  Obviously not funny to all but we are having to laugh at it knowing that we are just around the corner from all of that.  Somehow just commiserating has helped her find her heart.  Our heart.  We’ve lost it the past few months as we wrapped it in armor and tried to protect ourselves from the pain.  The armor seems to have been shed and we are coming out again just in time for the holidays.

I can’t take credit though for her recovery.  Its is all her.  Her fight, her energy, her love, her heart.  I’m so glad she has returned to me and our kids.  He’s been there the whole time physically, but her true being is starting to come back and the smiles in our house are returning.

Still Thankful – Life is a Highway

30 Sunday Nov 2008

Posted by in Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

“If I could, I wish I had the cancer, not my son” – mother of a cancer victim at the local pediatric cancer ward

This past weekend was a nice chance to sit back and be thankful for all that we have even though things are not perfect.  It has been a long four months but we are entering the home stretch.  We do have some issues and unfortunately I am frustrated that i can’t help my wife with some of her final decisions related to a clinical trial with bisphosphonates that could become a problem should my wife need oral surgery.

Other than that, life isn’t bad right now.  My wife has been able to get herself off of all her drugs and will be starting her Tamoxifen treatments tomorrow.  Her OS treatments start Thursday.  I will be having to watch her moods as these two new drugs entering her system might have an effect on her moods.  She is off of Ibuprophen and the Adavin.  Next Friday is her swap surgery and we will begin the recovery.  Its a lot to be going through with one’s body so I hope mentally she is okay.

I did have to tell our children that their mother was going to have one more procedure as I don’t want them to be worried when there mother has to go to the hospital again.  They are smart so we can’t fool them twice.  We told our kids that it is a smaller proceudre to check on their mother and make sure she is okay.

On a side note I took our son out this weekend and he got his first birdie.  I’m sure it will be the first of many.  What impressed me more was his low key manner and smile when I congratulated him.  He is learning to take life on an even level but I sure do hope that he learns to enjoy the many simple pleasures in life that he will have.

Well tomorrow is the first day of December!  I can’t believe this year is almost over!  It has definitely been one of the more trying years in my life and I am going to be happy when it is over.