Yet another date post

Dates have always held significance to me. I tend to remember them – birthdays of people from my past, dates of major events like deaths, dates of trips and adventures. I like to find meaning in random ones, especially if the numbers are ‘cool’.

Today would have been my 13th wedding anniversary. I loved my wedding date: 06-07-08. I always joked that I picked that date so he would never be able to forget. We chose the date before we were even officially engaged, as soon as I saw it was a Saturday, I knew that’s when we would get married.

But today is officially the first June 7th I haven’t been married since 2008. The divorce was final in November. It was surreal to see the birth and death date of our marriage just written out in black and white. It was about the only thing of our divorce that seemed concrete, everything else felt some depressing shade of gray.

Despite the sadness that surrounds this date, I’m doing good. I started my day watching the sunrise with my girls and my parents, then took a 3-hour nap before sitting around in my PJs until 1 when we decided to enjoy some time at the beach on the last day of our vacation. I sat and talked with a new friend for a few hours and I can’t explain it but I feel like I was meant to talk to her today. Our kids played for hours in the water, after only meeting the other day. Of course, my daughters are my wing-ladies, not for dating but for finding new friends.

Thirteen years ago, it was 98 degrees with a heat index of 108. I had an outdoor wedding. It was miserably hot. Today it was 92 with a heat index of 98. Not nearly as bad, but I have much less heat tolerance. I kept looking at the time, remembering what I was doing that day. Make up and hair, arriving at the venue, saying our vows then partying the night away. I was so happy that day.

Nevertheless, I’m just as happy now. I have my independence, I am in control of my own life, I don’t have to worry about the actions of others taking away my security. I don’t have to doubt my intuition (which was right about 98% of the time). I have so much possibility in my life and I feel as though I’m mature enough now to appreciate it and chase it. When I got married, I was 24 years old looking at the fantasy of marriage and love. I ignored the red flags that caused me doubt because I thought forming a new family with him would make those flags fade. I realize now that is almost never what happens. And that’s ok. I see the red now, and have no desire to make those flags fade.

I get to live my own life and show my girls how to love their lives. So, I’ll never regret that day 13 years ago, because if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have my Sunshine and HoneyBunch.

Sunrise from June 7 2021

Two Month Countdown

August 3rd, two months from today, I will go through what should be the last major step in my cancer journey. I will finally have my reconstruction done. Just shy of two years after this whole ordeal began. My journey stretched out much longer than others, especially those with more severe diagnoses. I didn’t have any major complications or side effects. I handled chemo and radiation with relatively little issues. My adventure has just taken longer because, I will admit, I didn’t want to deal with it. I wanted time to decide each step, to process what was happening to me. After diagnosis, I waited to decide on my surgery plans until my MRI and genetic testing results were back. After my lumpectomy, I waited on my final surgery decision until after my SECOND lumpectomy. After that one, I decided on a double mastectomy some time in the future.

I pushed the start date of my chemo until the last possible week I could. The doctors prefer if you start within a certain amount of time after surgery, to lessen the chance anything continues to grow. I had a trip planned for work and refused to miss it because it’s the one time a year I get to socialize with coworkers. I then went through five months of chemo, which I wasn’t able to push back, though I wanted to so badly. Once chemo was over, I waited more. I waited to schedule a consult with my doctor about my surgery. Then when I didn’t like what I was told (the type of reconstruction I wanted was not done in my area), I waited to find a different breast surgeon and plastic surgeon. Once I got set up with the amazing surgeons I ended up working with, I had to put off the surgery due to a court date set for my divorce. Finally, August 12 I had my surgery. It all went well, I healed great. But my breast surgeon recommended radiation, and so I put off scheduling the consult for that, because of course I did. I even scheduled a second consult with a different radiation oncologist to make sure we were doing the right thing. He didn’t let me wait, and sent me to be scanned that day to set up my plan of care.

Radiation finished in December 2020. See the pattern here, its now June and my final surgery is still 2 months away. Granted, I did need to wait 4-6 months after radiation before I could schedule to make sure my skin healed, but still…its just more of the same.

Nevertheless, it’s scheduled. I have multiple pre-op appointments between now and then. Getting surgical clearance, blood work, marking appointments etc. On August 3rd I’ll have a DIEP flap reconstruction. The doctors will take part of my stomach and replace my expanders with the tissue from my stomach. I’ll forever have a scar from hip to hip. Battle wounds to lay bare what cancer did to my body. Fortunately, my spirit doesn’t carry the same scars. This is just another step in my journey, another message to share. I’ll have plenty of time to rest and appreciate the fact that I can consider my cancer battle concluded.

An Introduction

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end

Seneca

I though today would be a fitting day to start my blog. It’s a day that has signified a few new beginnings in my life and thought I would throw another one into the mix. Twelve years ago, May 23 2009 my now ex-husband and I moved into our very first home. We bought a house hoping to build a life for our future family. We were young (24 and 25 at the time), relatively naïve, but oh so hopeful about what this house would mean to us. And for 10 years exactly, this was our home.

Two years ago, May 23 2019, another new beginning. My ex-husband decided he no longer wanted to be married to me and left. I won’t go into any more details, because at this point those details don’t matter, but I’ll say it wasn’t my choice and I was devastated. I had to figure out what I was going to do. I had done a lot of the parenting and adulting on my own already, but now I really had no back up.

What I didn’t know at that point, was that I was about to face the most difficult, emotionally draining, soul crushing times I could imagine. I was consumed with grief about the loss of what I thought my life would be.

And it was excruciating.

Two months after he left, I went to the doctor to finally get a lump in my breast checked. It had been there for a while, I had even pointed it out to him, but when my world crumbled, it got pushed aside. In a matter of days, I went from worried about a lump to being diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Breast Cancer. I sat and took that news with a straight face. I knew it was coming. Because why wouldn’t it. The hell I’d been through the prior two months just figured to continue. As soon as the doctor left, I sobbed. Then the ball started rolling. I met with a cancer nurse navigator, who set me up with a surgeon. Then the surgeon scheduled me for an MRI to make sure there were no other spots on the other breast. I also had genetic testing to make sure I wasn’t a carrier of any gene responsible for my cancer.

Over the next few months, I had a lumpectomy which found the cancer had spread to a lymph node. I had to have a second lumpectomy because the first still showed cancer. That lumpectomy STILL showed cancer. In December 2019 I started chemotherapy. Sixteen rounds over 5 months. I lost all my hair, my eyebrows, my eyelashes. I was nauseous most of the time, but still gained weight due to the steroids I was being given. I had lost of feeling in my fingers and toes, my fingernails hurt, my joints ached like I was elderly. I worked full time through the whole ordeal. I was the sole caretaker for my girls about 90% of the month, as they only went to their dad’s every other weekend.

Then the pandemic happened. I was still in chemo at the time. I was already terrified of getting sick. Terrified of not being able to take care of my girls. And now I was terrified for my life from a virus no one understood. I began working from home full time. I pulled my girls out of daycare and the three of us stayed home, other than my chemo appointments. I didn’t step foot in Target for 3 months!

Then I finished chemo. I got to ring the bell. I scheduled an appointment to meet with a surgeon for my mastectomy. I was making the decision to remove both breasts because I did NOT want to go through this again on the other side, even though there was nothing there. I had my surgery August 12 2020. After healing and consultations, I then started radiation in November 2020. Twenty-five rounds. I drove to the hospital 5 days a week for over a month, using my lunch breaks most of the time. Or I’d go right after work, get zapped then pick up my girls from daycare, go home and be mom for the rest of the night.

So, I’m reclaiming May 23. It will now be a different beginning for me. I’m going to put myself out there in ways I haven’t done before. I’m hoping I stick to it; I’ve wanted to do a blog for so long. I’m hoping to share my adventures in single parenting, tackling home improvement projects and maintenance, rediscovering who I am, and maybe one day dating (but that’s way down the road, I don’t have time for that now). I hope you’ll continue to join me on this adventure. I’m not the best with words, so bear with me.