On the 28^th of this month I turn thirty-six. On the 29^th I have my tissue expanders replaced with silicon breasts. I’ve gone slightly bigger thank you very much doctor. Still the same bra size as before; it’ll just fit real snug now. Even with the balloon like inflations on my chest I’m happy with the result. I was off balance after the double mastectomy. It made me realize how much I needed the breast form to feel ‘right’.

I stepped onto the road to physical fitness last week. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning (from hereon) I wake at 5:15am and cycle to Genesis (terrible name) for an rpm class i.e. a stationary cycle class. Odd you say … yes, well I like cycling without focusing on road crossings, stop signs and such. I also enjoy the solidarity of other tired people doing something about their hearts and bods. The AM time is unglamorous. We all yawn, plunk ourselves on the bike, and sweat. Then leave with a smile on our faces. This place has a crèche, so next week I’ll take Felix during the day so I can rubber up in Pilates – oh, the modern mum in me.

Last but definitely not least I’m happy to report there are only four Herceptin sessions left. I’ll finish in June, and then have my portacath removed. Yes!

I’m on a squeaky bike cycling around a dirt track that rims a grand canyon. I wobble and my front wheel turns toward the edge. I think I’m going in, but I throw the handle bars the other way and I stay upright and don’t fall. This happens the entire length of the canyon track. ‘I’m a gonna’; ‘No I’m not’; ‘I’m a gonna.’ No, I am not.

I heard this on the radio yesterday:

Women diagnosed with breast cancer within the first year of giving birth are 48% more likely to die from the disease.

However, in a study of almost 3000 breast cancer patients aged less than 45, it was found that if the cancer was diagnosed during pregnancy their risk of dying was only three per cent higher than for non-pregnant women diagnosed with cancer.

The research was lead by the University of WA.

Research assistant Professor Angela Ives said very little was known about cancer diagnosed during pregnancy or up to a year later.

“We decided to find out more so that women could make informed choices about their cancer management and pregnancy outcome,” she said.

With her colleagues, Asst/Professor Ives analysed statistics from the Western Australian Data Linkage System – one of a handful of such systems in the world.

“We know that pregnancy and breast-feeding reduce the long-term risk of a woman developing breast cancer but we also know that, in the short-term, having been pregnant may increase the risk of developing breast cancer.

“There needs to be further research into what might be happening at cell level with the way tumours grow and the role played by the body’s immune response.”

The researchers, who presented their findings at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Barcelona yesterday, are also studying the cumulative effect on survival of pregnancy and breast-feeding time from conception to the date of cancer diagnosis.

(PerthNow, accessed March 26, 2010 3:43PM)

Ah … thanks for that!

No it is not.

Considering I just mistook some poison for Benodryl you could say my synapses are not snappedy snapping very well right now.

My thought process went like this:

Oh look there’s a medicinal bottle on the bathroom dresser-top (we have a medicine cabinet on a wall where these things usually live). It must be the new cough syrup that Brett brought home for us. Grab said bottle. Pour 20mls into glass measurer. Suck it back. Eyes bulge. Throat clamps shut. I look from the glass measurer to the bottle. Benodryl?

This doesn’t taste like yummy, sweet cough medicine. This is horrible. In fact, this burns. Read bottle label. I haven’t swallowed a drop yet.

Vapo Steam oil!

Spit with some force eucalyptis fusion oil into sink. Swill water. Spit. Swill water. Spit. Read poisons warning: ‘Do not swallow.’

I didn’t, but it was in my mouth – eeks – am I in danger? Are my tongue buds slugging back the eucy oil like a thirsty trucker?

I keep hacking any saliva into the kitchen and bathroom sinks. I’m telling Brett the story and moving between rooms – hence the two sink spitting. My tongue is inflamed; not my oesapaghus, which is the better outcome. Brett asks, ‘have you ever done that before?’

‘No!’

But then I wouldn’t remember if I had, would I?

This is one human goldfish wishing to transmog into a dolphin or some other mammal with higher intelligence.

Photo taken by Mezza (my aunty Tess) who came up to visit for three days. Even though the pic is a little mellow in tone you get the idea of my hair’s length and scruffy mod do. Grey is my new black.

I’ve added a Breast Reconstruction page on the side for those who want to read and see some of what goes on with breast recons. Warning: the pictures can make you wince.

Pics: Beautiful flowers from family & friends/Sara & Ian/Brett & Felix (Fee’s sucking on a syringe – don’t worry no needle). At Mater Private I had my own room, bathroom and balcony, which was all rather nice.

4th Feb 2010 – diary entry

First real look at my chest. The dressing can’t get wet, so a nurse sponge bathed my back as I did my face and underarms. With a towel wrapped around my chest I showered my lower half. Part of protecting your lymph system against lymphodema is to maintain well-moisturised skin. After ‘enlivening’ mine I did the does my bum look big in this side to side glancing in the bathroom mirror.

I’m 5ft3 (162cm) tall, weigh 52kg, and my hair is short, and thick-wavy like Mia Farrow in her Sinatra days. I might be 35, but the image before me is of an eleven year old. I’m pre-adolescent again. Flat on the back and front. My shoulders are broad so t-shirts used to hang down before breasts interrupted the curtain look and made a woman out of me. This re-newed body is familiar. I’m doing it again. I’ve lived through the emergence of womanly bits before. However, this time my form will be female but my fertility wont. I am a changeling.

… I’m a woman made anew with saline chest expanders + my flat chest resembles a mini Malibu.

Today was my first full day out of hospital.

Arzu came down by train from Eumundi, 1.5hrs drive north of Brisbane, to look after Felix. Brett and I spent the day doing nice things like sourcing wood for Brett’s stairs project (from our deck to the garden), collecting a library book ‘How Fiction Works’, having coffee, napping and delighting in being in BrisVegas. It pours down for five minutes – abruptly stops – then the sun returns. The moisture in the air is edible it’s so thick.

I’m wearing an elastic boob tube around my chest to reduce swelling. It’s not comfortable. However, the pain is less than I imagined which is nice.

Today’s the last day of my original body. Tomorrow I become cyber woman. First Amazon; then budding adolescent; then breasts made anew to any size I choose.  Living is wilder than any story I can imagine.

I’m getting through the breast cancer treatment in stages. Chemotherapy was the biggest stage. Today I chucked all the drugs that assisted me to cope with the toxic aspect of chemo. A way of ending that stage and starting the next …

The windows and doors darken. A grumble overhead alerts my ears to the coming storm.

Summer rain in Brisbane has thick shafts that demolish spiders’ cobwebs in one sudden downpour.

I love summer rain.

It’s the Friday before Mastectomy Monday.

I feel fine.

In five days my breasts are gone.

If there’s a mammary heaven mine will be with friends soon. The message I want them to take to mammary paradise is not to be good girls, but saucy minxes. May they flirt with anything that flies by; may they bare all without shame; may they flop down in some Angel’s lap and cause them to blush.

Dear mammaries, how I’ll miss you.