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Friday 15 March 2013

I'm in Such a Great Mood. I just had to Share.

This is such an exciting time for me right now.  I have so many positive things going on, and after so many months of negative, the positive feels fantastic.

One of the great positives to come my way this week was the results of the follow up with my Radiation Oncologist.  I saw Dr. N on Wednesday, and after much painful poking and prodding of my breast and under my right armpit it was determined that the radiation had indeed done a good job.  The initial swelling from radiation is mostly gone.  Although my breast has grown slightly due to the continued growth of the cancer.  The skin area looks good considering how badly it was burnt so he doesn't foresee any immediate problems with surgery.  The only remaining damage is radiation scarring/damage to the a muscle under my arm.  I think it is the Latissimus Dorsi muscle.  This muscle is tight and still swollen so I'm going to work on it as much as I can to have it in shape for surgery.

Yesterday I had another Echo Cardio Gram, which I am certain was good because afterwards they gave me another Herceptin chemotherapy session.  Sasha is very pleased with my progress so far and as excited as I am to get the surgery done and the cancer out.

Speaking of surgery.  I only have twenty more days before they go in and perform an amputation of my right breast.  I am getting very scared to have this done.  My fear is not so much of the breast removal, although I am sure I'll have some mental work to do to overcome that, more, my fear is of the DIEP procedure the surgeon will do to re-build my breast.  Check out this picture.  It doesn't look too exciting to me.  After they have "harvested" that flap, they go in to my chest area and break a rib and then sew those veins into some veins deep within my chest.  This entire process requires two surgeons and takes eight hours.  I have of course Googled images of the procedure and will not share them with you because they are too freaky.  On some women who had a lot of abdominal fat the results must feel spectacular, and in some photos the women look a heck of a lot slimmer.  However, I barely have enough abdominal fat to create a mini-me boob, so the slimming effect won't be nearly dramatic enough.

As I rode my bicycle with my dog this afternoon I realized that after April 4th I won't be riding my bike for at least six weeks.  I still cannot fathom it.  I can calmly sit here and write about the long recovery and the post surgical pain but truly I simply cannot put myself there yet.  I cannot fully understand how difficult it is going to be because thankfully I have never experienced anything like it.  I am not very good with keeping still and hate it when my body feels all sloppy and fat so I expect my mood won't be the greatest during this time of lethargy.

I'll be downloading audio books and watching movies but I know I'll reach a point where I'll get so frustrated with lack of mobility I'll go loopy.  I'm going to have to learn bed exercises and as soon as I get the okay from the surgeon I will start physiotherapy and scar tissue work.  For now though, I still have twenty days of freedom and I'm going to use them well.  If only the weatherman would co-operate.

The final super exciting thing for me is the response I have received to my book.  I've even had sales as far away as Europe and the UK.  I credit Pascale from Gadbois Photograpy for her incredible work on the cover image.  I truly believe the cover has had a major positive impact on the sales of the book.  Also thank you to those of you who have shared the news release on the book to allow a broader audience the chance to see it.

Don't forget, if you want a personally signed copy you need to order it through my blog.  Click on the second tab above.  The Kindle ebook is available here and there is still time to be one of the fifty purchasers who get a discount from purchasing at CreateSpace.  The password for CreateSpace is "buynow" and you need to email me for the discount code.  If you see a message saying "the title is still being prepared" don't fret, try again tomorrow.  I had to add copyright wording to the book.  I'll send out an announcement when the Amazon print version is ready for those of you who prefer to shop via Amazon.

That's all for now friends.

Happy Spring Break Everyone.
Michelle

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