lornagrl

As if cancer weren't enough...

Oh joy!  Oh fun!

The surgery went real well, and I'm recuperating quite nicely.  As a matter of fact, I would be capable of running on the beach right now if it wasn't for one major set back.

After I was home for the hospital about two days I became very ill.  I had intense stomach cramps, low grade fever and diarrhea.  At first the doctor thought that it was from the antibiotics and told me to stop taking them.  "It should clear up in a day or two...eat yogurt."

But it didn't clear up.  It got worse.  I spent Thanksgiving day curled up in a ball while my friends ate and begged me to try to get some food down.  Every half an hour I would get an intense stomach cramp followed by a trip to the bathroom. (and I will spare you what that involved).  The rest of the time I spent on my bed, begging God to take me home. 

It was worse than chemo-therapy.

By Sunday I'd had enough and called my plastic surgeon again.  He told me that he feared I might have C.difficile.  An infectious disease that I picked up while recovering in the hospital. The only way to diagnose this was to go to the emergency room and get a culture. 

The test came back positive. So now I'm on a round of antibiotics to kill that evil C.difficile.

Home from the hospital...

Just a quick post.

I got out of the hospital on Friday.  Since then I've been doing okay.  I was a little sick from all the medication this week but I'm starting to feel better now.

More later...just wanted to let everyone know that I'm home and doing okay.

Sayonara boobies!!!

Monday morning, these babies are history.

Dear Buffy and Hildegard:

I remember waiting for your arrival with eager anticipation.  I was a late bloomer.  At fourteen years old I was scared witless that I would walk through life with a flat chest.  I think I speak for every women when I say that "growing boobs" was at the forefront of my mind in my early teenage years. You were a little slow growing but you did arrive.

Over the years I had a love hate relationship with the two of you. Being a D-cup has it's advantages but makes life rather difficult when I wanted to buy a blouse, run on the beach or sleep on my stomach.  You two were always in the way. I usually kept you well hidden under a heavy sweater or a hoodie, and would only show you off when I was wearing a sexy dress or a v-neck blouse which, I've been told, I apparently don't do nearly often enough.

Unfortunately, Hildegard has been giving me some trouble lately.  And since nobody Fxxx's with me, I'm afraid I am going to have to let both of you go.  So on Monday, November 12th at approximately 9:30 am we have a date with a breast surgeon.  Because even though we have blasted Hildies tumor with chemotherapy, we don't know if there are some cancerous cells remaining that may grow and kill me later. 

After the breast surgeon is finished an upper east side plastic surgeon will be stepping in to give me two new boobs made with fat and tissue from my stomach. 

I'm getting smaller ones this time.

So this is good-bye Buffy and Hildegard.  We did have some good times over the last twenty years.  But developing monster cancer cells before I hit the age of forty..well that's just rude.

Peace, out.

Your host.

Lorna

Melatonin/breast cancer connection

I am fascinated by the melatonin/breast cancer connection.  It has been suggested that those who live by night and sleep by day may be apt to develop certain cancers--specifically-- of the breast.

Well that explains everything!!

Before I moved to NYC and adopted the 9-5 lifestyle (of which I find impossible to adjust to at times.) I was quite the night owl.  I worked and played by night and slept by day.  I cut my teeth in this world in the theater. I was nearly thirty  before I watched an episode of David Letterman or Saturday Night Live. I also worked grave yard shifts as a telephone operator and a floral order taker in Orlando, Florida.  I wore my sunglasses at night...so to speak.  Could it be possible that this lifestyle led me to where I am today? Could  it be that the midnight hours spent in fluorescent drenched cubicle farms sent me on the road to a premature dirt nap??

..or what about the years of relentless insomnia? When sleep was as valuable as gold. 

It haunts me.

So it's probably safe to say  that I'm probably a  little low on Melatonin and so, I've been taking the little buggers. According to Beating Cancer with Nutrition, I should be taking about 25mg per night and here lies the rub...they usually come in 3mg tablets and these 3mg tablets usually come in a bottle of 6o capsules.  Do the math...60 capsules at 3mg each...thats 8 capsules a night.  I burn thru a bottle a week.  That's four bottles a month. 

That's a lot of empty Melatonin bottles strewn around my apartment.