Here I sit, on the day before my second surgery in eight months.
For some reason, I dread this one most of all. Compared to the first, it’s
certainly not as massive of a surgery, this “ectomy” combo meal (“I’ll take the
No. 2: a
hysterectomy with a side of
oophorectomy. And let’s see. Oh yes, I would like to
wash it down with some dee-lish-ous magnesium citrate. ”)
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| For a good time, call 1-900-POO-PARTY |
I’ll be in the
hospital one night, recovering from the loss of the “girly parts”—very
technical terminology my gynecological oncologist has asked to borrow—and coming
one step closer to being done with all of my surgeries.
***
But let me back up a bit. So much time has passed since my
last blog—almost four months, to be precise—that I feel a recap is in order.
(Or if anyone made a shitty Hollywood movie about my life, you’d insert a
montage here.)
The big milestone for me was finishing
chemo on April 15. The actual completion of it was pretty uneventful. I kept thinking that after eight, seemingly endless rounds, this deserved to be aired on
Telemundo, where there would be balloons
dropping from the ceiling and shit. “Chemotherapy Gigante! Arriba! Arriba!” But
no, I got my last infusion and quietly went on my way, left to traverse that
vast terrain known as “Oh shit! Chemo’s over so I no longer have a safety net.”
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| Yay! No more chemo! Now what? |
I grilled my oncologist at follow-up appointments about what we’d be doing to
make sure the cancer hadn’t come back. I felt disappointment settle in as he
informed me that, for the most part, screening would consist of clinical breast
exams by the breast surgeon every six months and testing if I had symptoms. Given my relatively young age, they had to be
judicious with any radiation-based screenings, as getting those frequently
could result in radiation-related cancers. Oh, the malignant irony! And
technology such as MRI is super expensive. But given I had no symptoms when my
breast cancer was discovered, I wasn’t keen on waiting for some to appear
before I took action. (Mental note to self: Harass oncologist to abide by my
made-up surveillance program, which involves having several oncology specialists
on stand-by, 24/7, to check out my every ache and pain.)
The really tough thing after finishing chemo was how I
managed to look sicker. The last drug
in the regimen, Taxotere, had finished off my eye lashes and eyebrows and done
a real number on my tear ducts, leaving me simultaneously with dry eye and
tears streaming down my face. My eyes were red-rimmed from all the wiping I was
doing.
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| Chemo is not kind to the ocular area. |
Every morning in those early weeks, my eyes were glued shut and every
morning my husband, Sal, had to retrieve a warm, moistened washcloth from the
bathroom and wipe the ‘ol ojos so I could actually open them.
Taxotere also seemed to upend my reflex response
time, so much so that I took myself off of driving duty for a bit; you and your
rear bumpers can thank me later, drivers of New York.
Anyway, my zombie eyes and headscarf were a dead giveaway to
everyone around me. “Look, I don’t mean to get into your business,” the girl
behind the bakery counter at
Adams said to me as she scribbled
something on the back of a business card. “But here’s my mom’s name. She’s on
Facebook; look her up. She’s been our rock, our inspiration.” I couldn’t read her
handwriting. Another time, when I was at the customer service desk, signing up
for a Price Chopper discount card, the girl behind the counter started asking
me questions about my diagnosis. Turns out her mother had had breast cancer and
succumbed to it less than a year prior. “Did you get your boobs reconstructed?”
she asked. I didn’t even flinch. Ah, cancer. The great modesty-killer.
A mom at my son’s dojang
asked me politely about my headscarf. After I told her, she smiled and tugged
on her short, blonde hair. She, too, was a survivor. We were apparently
everywhere.
***
But back to this surgery business. Maybe it’s because of the
preventative nature of the procedures that I’m fretting; unlike the mastectomy,
there would be no big, bad tumor to target, although my gynecological
oncologist had warned me they could find something malignant. Maybe it’s the
dreaded sudden menopause at age 37. Or maybe it’s because I’ll no longer be
able to do the one thing I was put on this planet to do: reproduce. Likely,
it’s a mix of these things. My husband and I were done with kids anyway. (Sorry
about that unnecessary vasectomy, Sal!) But this marks the no-going-back point.
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| A calm day in Menopause World |
There are also
health issues associated with plunging the body
unsuspectingly into menopause at such a young age.
I’ll be more prone to heart
disease and osteoporosis, as my trusty pal estrogen will no longer have my
back. I’ll struggle to keep weight off thanks to a metabolism that’s in the
shitter and my hair will likely thin. (I’ve also been told by several of my
older friends that I’ll need to start carrying tweezers, as the hair
will pop up in unwanted places, such as
the chinny chin chin.)
But you know me. I like silver linings. So I guess I can be
happy that the end of periods has come. To mourn this “loss,” I had my husband
go out and buy me a box of tampons. I’ll never use them. Mainly I just
wanted one final opportunity to make him buy tampons.
