I'm sorry it has been so long since I have written-especially for you friends far away who don't see church updates. There is so much I could write about, but I'm just going to give you the pertinent details for now and then some thoughts about it all.
Just a week or so after I was done with chemo, the geneticist called with my test results. Yet again I have beaten all odds. I am in the 1 to 2 percent of the population who has the BRCA-1 gene. This means I have a dramatically increased risk for a new breast cancer and for ovarian cancer. It also means I can't do radiation to complete my therapy for this cancer because radiation is bad when you have this gene.
Therefore, I will be having a double mastectomy with reconstruction and most likely a full hysterectomy sometime in the relatively near future, probably at Mayo. I have not been working at all this semester, other than coaching speech. I'm trying to get strong enough to handle the surgeries. I am still in pretty bad shape from the chemo. I spent two weekends ago in the ER both Saturday night and Sunday night, and finally my Dr. admitted me on Monday. I couldn't stop vomiting, and on top of that I was having panic attacks. It took a good deal of lorazapam and morphine to calm me down. I've lost somewhere between 15-20 pounds. I very rarely have any appetite, except for fresh fruit. That always tastes good.
I'm regularly seeing the social worker, nutritionist, and exercise guy at the Cancer Center, as well as getting a massage every week. I also just started seeing another therapist to start dealing with mastectomy issues. The amount of support provided by the Cancer Center is truly amazing. It has been very helpful for both me and Darrin.
However, life has not gotten any easier. It's gotten harder. We thought we were almost done, and then we got blindsided by the BRCA-1 diagnosis. We did manage to get away for a couple days right before Christmas (funded by a dear old friend!) Unfortunately, the whirlpool in BOTH the hotel's whirlpool suites were broken. :( The manager knocked quite a bit off our bill, but we didn't get to relax in a whirlpool- which was kind of the whole point of going to a hotel instead of staying home. And we ended up spending a lot of our time finishing our Christmas shopping. But we were away from chores at home, so it was still nice. :)
Anyway, since then we've been trying to get our heads around everything. Many days I don't get up until the afternoon. If I do too much on one day, I'll have to sleep the whole next day to make up for it. After speech contest on Saturday I slept until 5 pm on Sunday, and then only got up because friends were coming over. This week is a little better physically. I've been more awake. Emotionally is a whole different story. People keep telling me I'm brave. But they don't see the days when I am curled up on our bed weeping my heart out because I'm so afraid. I'm afraid of these surgeries coming up, I'm afraid of never feeling better, I'm afraid of not getting my joy back. The battle seems never ending and I am exhausted. I didn't know I had so many tears to cry. Darrin and I made a list of everything I am afraid of, and it was a full notebook page long. As we talked through them all, Darrin pointed out that many of my fears are performance based- that I'm disappointing people or disappointing God. That was quite a freeing revelation. I'm not disappointing God- He loves me and is caring for me no matter what. And people know that I have cancer and cannot do the things I used to do right now. (badly constructed sentence, sorry- too lazy to fix it). I'm sorry if they are disappointed in me, but I can't worry about it.
We head up to Mayo on the 12th of Feb. Please pray that the consultation will be good and we'll ask all the right questions. And please pray with me against all this fear. I want my joy back. We need to keep fighting. Team Robin!!
