Updates from my perch on the couch

Well, I made it out alive. Can't say the same for my boobs.

Five hours and two surgeons later, the mastectomy was successfully completed.  In the spirit of over-sharing, I had to get expanders put in -- my wish for same-day reconstruction was thwarted by uncooperative skin -- and I'll have to have a second surgery sometime in September.  So if you see me a few weeks apart and think to yourself, "Holy smokes, her chest seems to magically double in cup-size every time I see her," you'll basically be right.  Except it won't be magic; it will be 60 CC's of injected saline every Monday morning around 10:00.

The day-to-day recovery has been made possible by a doting husband, a mom who relocated to Boston for a month, and a healthy ingestion of painkillers.  As expected, the hardest part of it all has been not being able to lift Owen.  As I lay low in my pajamas, hair in a messy side ponytail, wearing in a butt-sized indentation on the couch, he must think Mama turned into a huge slacker.  He looks at me expectantly when he wants to be held, and doesn't understand why mealtimes/baths/diaper changes/getting dressed/being rocked to sleep have all been outsourced to Daddy and Grandma.  But hopefully in another 2.5 weeks, I'll be given the okay by the plastic surgeon to resume my beloved mommy duties and life will look a little more normal.

Eight months vs. nine months

On the Friday before my surgery, Julette (Owen's nanny/my "co-mom") and her awesome daughter, Rheanna (right), threw me a little surprise party.  Nanny friends and Owen's playmates came along, too.  Too, too sweet.

Disclaimer: Not Funny

I had a long internal debate about whether to mention this here -- this is Baby Spam and not Katie Spam, after all -- but I realized that the story of my first year of motherhood would be incomplete without it.  So here goes...

As many/most/all of you know, on Monday morning (June 11) I'll be having a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy at Mass General.  The key word is prophylactic: I have no active disease, just the credible threat of one.  Thanks to the BRCA1 gene mutation that seems to overstay its welcome, generation after generation, I am one of the way-too-many women in my family that faces an 80% (but in our case, closer to 100%) chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer.  I am profoundly grateful that I have the chance to act preemptively where so many did not; however, right now that fact doesn't seem to be making this process any less daunting. 

My most immediate fears are about the physical aspect.  I’m scared of the recovery process.  I’m fearful of needles and pain medicine and stitches and drains and swelling and loss of motion and chronic discomfort.  I’m dreading that first look in the mirror, facing an alien body.  But more than that, I’m unbearably sad at the thought of not being able to hold my precious son close to my chest and rock him to sleep.  I’m devastated that, for a time, I’ll be unable to lift him and cuddle him close and be his normal old mommy.  I feel, already, the sense of loss awaiting me when his unborn siblings arrive and cannot take their rightful place at my breast after their hard-won entry into this world.   

But Owen needs his Mama more than Mama needs her boobies.

So I will dutifully sacrifice two healthy body parts to reduce the risk of my children being left motherless, my husband being left a widower, and my own body being left ravaged by the brutality of cancer treatments. Empowered -- by information, access to world-class healthcare, the support of family and friends -- I will cut my risk of breast cancer from near-certainty to near-zero. I know this disease all too well -- the surgeries and chemo and radiation and bone marrow transplants -- and those things simply do not have a welcome place in my family's future.

So there ya have it. Hopefully I'll be back in no time, writing about my devious schemes to get Owen to crawl around the house after me (since I can't lift him) and get Aaron to make cookie deliveries to the couch (since I can't lift myself).  It's game time. See you in a week or so. And if my first few posts are a little incoherent, blame the drugs.

Cherishing all my mommy cuddles

Tiny Dancer

Unfortunately, it looks as if Owen has inherited his mother's dancing skills.  What first emerged a month ago as a seemingly involuntary neurological tic has now evolved into a full fledged head-banging, arm-shaking, booty-wiggling baby dance.  True, it's not the most coordinated movement, but it sure makes us smile.