The Happy Family and the Magician

A Happy Family made an appointment to have pictures taken by a professional photographer at the beach. In preparation the Responsible Mom, went on a futile search for a black toddler t-shirt. Meanwhile, Disneyland Dad took the children to the park to keep them occupied.

Six stores, 5 phone calls and 2 fast food stops later, RM did not have a black toddler t-shirt. However, she did have the very last 2T navy blue t-shirt which, she was sure, would dye black with little to no effort. She arrived home at 3 pm - plenty of time to dye said shirt, dry it and leave the house at 6:00 to meet the photographer.


Responsible Mom arrived home to an empty house. Disneyland Dad was not home with the children yet. Uh oh. RM rushed around getting t-shirts dyed, clothes ironed, showered, calling DD, calling DD again, and again. Finally, DD arrived home at 5:15 with children who had not napped nor eaten. Dear Readers, this almost became a homicide story. Children were thrown in bathtubs and shoved roughly into newly dyed black clothing. The appointment was met on time.

It became immediately clear that there was going to be no cooperation in the posing for pictures from the smaller members of the Happy Family. D seemed intent upon charging on all fours across the beach with a rhino-like force, head down, sand flying from his hands and knees. B's ADD meds had worn off and he was quickly unwinding. The more D charged about the sand it seemed to act as a catalyst to B's own battery. He began following D around on all fours with his tongue lolling around like a dogs.
Ultimately, Responsible Mom and Disneyland Dad gave up trying to control the children, appologized profusely to Extremely Patient Photographer and settled for some lovely shots of themselves. The whole photo shoot was a ball of crap with a family rolled up in it that hadn't napped or eaten. And yet, the scenery was beautiful and the photographer was so nice and understanding.

Just yesterday, Responsible Mom was called by Extremely Patient Photographer (who, by the way, had offered, time and time again to retake the shoot if there was nothing worthy from this one) and told the pictures were ready. As it turns out, Extremely Patient Photographer is really a magician. Somehow, she turned a ball of crap with a sleep-deprived, underfed family rolled up inside, into a group of pictures very characteristic of the Happy Family. They may not be the "formal" family poses that Responsible Mom thought she wanted. And they certainly weren't the "no pictures" that the children wanted. They were a touch too close to the sabotaged pictures that Disneyland Dad was shooting for... Mostly, they are beachy, scattered, happy, upside-down, laughing and disorganized just like the people in them.

Ode to a 2000 Toyota Sienna

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
Of a surfboard, two boogie boards,
An ice chest and 3 kids.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most desperate need -
A sleeping toddler in a carseat.
I love thee freely for thy dual sliders
As kids fight for seats.
I love thee purely as I pay thy loan
I love thy stained carpets and dirty windows
So reminiscent of my own childhood.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with youth.
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after trade-in.

Awww. I should probably go visit CarBlabber and tell them all about you, Sienna. Or maybe I'll just pine away and do a blogblast instead.

Things that make me go "Oooh"

Everyone pick up your TiVo remote and program in Crazy Sexy Cancer for August 29th at 6:00 or 9:00.

A bit ago WhyMommy had emailed me in reply to my offer to forward some cancer books. He question was a valid one. (I'm paraphrasing here but you get the picture) "Are there any that are positive? Because the ones I'm scanning are scaring the crap out of me." Unfortunately, I didn't have much in the way of good news for WhyMommy and even joked that perhaps that should be my mission - to write the Girlfriend's Guide to Cancer. Well someone beat me to it.

I went to the website and watched the trailer. I cried. Kris Carr's 7 minutes rolled up my 18 months of treatment. I can't wait to see what insight the special will have. I'm definitely buying the book (with forward by Sheryl Crow), Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips. Kris has a blog too...

Watch it. Buy it. Like it.

Dear Lymph Node, I appologize for any misunderstanding

After much poking and prodding, my primary care doctor believes that I have a pissed off lymph node(s). It might be a bit infected or inflamed or just annoyed with the world in general. He says the odds of it being cancer that has jumped from one side of my body to the other is very, very remote - tho, he is quick to inform that it is NOT unheard of. Also, just as I suspected, the pain is a symptom in my favor. It is far more likely that an inflamed something or other is causing me pain rather than cancer, which usually begins to hurt in it's more advanced stages.

So, officially, I've been told to stay off my armpit for the remainder of the weekend, apply heat, and take an anti-inflammatory as needed. Also, he called in a RX for antibiotics that I am to fill if the pain increases by, say, 25% in the next 4-5 days. On Monday, I am to call both he and my oncologist's office to give updates. While he won't rule out the possibility of a recurrence (who in their right mind would with my history), he thought it highly unlikely. More probable was that I was a cancer survivor with a ticked off lymph node.

In hindsight, the only lymph node offending action I may have taken in the last few days is the wearing of my first underwire bra since my mastectomy/reconstruction. In my defense, however, it was very adorable... and lavender.

Pre-appointment update.

I woke up this morning and my underarm is much less painful. While the pain is still there it is far more diffused. Is "diffused" the right word? I'm not sure. What I mean by that is the center spot, while still sore, is not as painful as it was. And the other lines of pain are more broken.

All in all, I'm feeling more positive. I have no stinking idea what it could be and I'm pretty sure someone will insist I have some sort of scan just to be sure it's not a recurrence of the nastiness... but I feel fairly confident none-the-less.

The stinky underarm

All day I felt like I had a bit of razor burn in my left underarm. Nothing too bad. By the end of my work day I reached up to pull at my shirt sleeve because the irritation had become a bit more than annoying. Yow. It felt like I had a big bruise in my armpit. I went back to work. Yet, as with most things that aren't quite right, it kept turning over and over in the back of my mind.

Razor burn. I rarely have to shave under my arms since I had chemo and radiation. The last time was actually about 3 days ago. Too long ago for razor burn. A bruise. What could I have done to bruise myself under my arm?

Once I got off work and was alone in my car, free from prying eyes, I began the probe. As I drove to pick the kids up from the sitter's my right hand was fingering my left underarm, a mental triage checklist ticking off. Can I feel a lump? Is it lymph nodes? No. Who knows what a lymph node even feels like? Why is it so tender? I wonder if it looks different? Swollen? Red? It's not my cancer side. That's probably a good sign. It's tender half way down the underside of my upper arm and down the outside of my breast against my ribs. Shit.

Mello thought it looked a bit swollen compared to my right under arm. I looked at it when I got home but it's impossible to tell if any difference is an actual difference or something because I've had lymph nodes removed from one side and not the other. Well, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that no matter how much it sucks to make the call it's way better to be safe than sorry. So, I called my oncologist's office.

She just moved to a brand new practice. I've never even been there before. I have never met these people. They don't know me. They don't know that I'm not a hypochondriac. That I don't call because I have a pimple on my chest and fear the worst. So I explained the deal. I can tell already that I'm going to love this office. She listened intently, and took notes. (The old office would have just jotted something down and said "I'll have the doctor call." ) She asked pertinent questions: had I fallen, lifted weights, worked out, strained myself in any way recently? Did I feel any lump? How far did the pain go? Did it radiate? What exactly did it feel like? How long had it been there? Then she read her note back to me to make sure she had it exactly right. I have never had a doctor's office do that. Unfortunately, my doc is gone for 2 weeks on vaca. She's leaving for Peru. (Hopefully she isn't already there getting shook up in the earthquake.)

So, she said she'd have the nurse look over my chart and in the meantime I'd have D's pediatrician give my underarm a poke tomorrow since I'm taking him in for an ear infection - just to see if it might be a lymph node or something. Good. Good. We've got it covered. I made the call. Everyone did the right thing. I feel good.

Less than 5 minutes later the phone rings. It's the oncologists office. Crap. That was way too quick for comfort. The nurse had reviewed my chart. She wanted me to get in to see my primary care dr. tomorrow - they'd already checked their schedule & they couldn't get me in (crap! again). If I can't get in to see my primary I'm to call them back and they'll get me in somewhere else. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Obviously, my chart told on me. I'm sure the unsuspecting nurse opened my chart and was greeted by all sorts of sirens and flying red flags screaming IBC! IBC! DANGER! DANGER! ALL PIMPLES MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! Well, at least they are proactive, eh.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. Ha! If I wasn't worried I wouldn't be posting into the blogosphere about my armpit pain. On the other hand, I do take great comfort in it being on my left side not my right. I don't really see it making a big leap like that with no warning. Shush! All of you! Leave me to my fantasies! Also, with all of my positive lymph nodes before, not a one of them was tender or painful. Nary a one. So there. Now I can sleep.

Sweet slumber

There was the most adorable baby black bear. I was keeping him in our bathroom so he wouldn't tear apart the cabin. He was tiny, about the size of a 2 month old golden retriever puppy. Pure, roly-poly, frolicking fun. B was there (for a short time, anyway, just to ogle to bear cub). Daddy-O was not in attendance. I don't think he existed yet.

Mama C and I were in some strange dream melding of my childhood haunts and Low's old stomping grounds. I found myself disenchanted with some significant other and (as there was a bear cub in my bathroom) making use of the neighboring cabin's shower. For one dream-reason or another I was showering in a fairly open shower with a white t-shirt on (purely for dramatic effect, I'm sure) while talking with the neighbor guys who just happened to be - Steven Webber and Matthew Perry from Studio 60. They were brothers and quite sympathetic. I happened to glance down at myself while in the shower (when I opened the curtain and Steven Webber gaped at me) to see that my girls were gorgeous. The were highschool boobies complete with nipples. Oh, I haven't had nipples in so long. I miss my nipples. I also miss that hungry look from the opposite sex.

Zap! Now we are slowly rafting down a creek, Mama C and I, talking of the old days (which we never shared so that was kind of weird). I whipped off my bikini top laying face down floating in the sun, soaking up the rays. Oh, I'd forgotten how lazy and g-o-o-d that feels. We're talking of people from before and after this mystery point in time as if the whole concept of a timeline was nonexistant - as if all the people in my life co-existed in the same space and time. I came upon a deck and town, disembarked, topless and without self-consciousness. I dressed. I spoke to my old friends and current friends. I was physically whole. It was shocking to realize. So shocking that I woke up and saw that I had over slept.

It's the first dream I've had in the 15 months since my first mastectomy about my breasts. Hard to believe. I've not had one dream about them. Not a bad dream. Not a good dream. None. Last night we pulled out some old pictures to look at with my brother in law. I'm sure that seeded the dream. But it was a nice sweet warm dream while it lasted.

Please insert this where appropriate in "Once upon a time..."

As I talked to my mom this morning I realized I left out one of my favorite parts of my cancer story. So I'm inserting it here for your reading enjoyment.

And now, this important public service announcement...

Many of you have allowed yourselves to imagine the hair loss associated with chemo and have jealously realized that it probably also extends to one's legs and (dare we dream) under arms. Oh, how right you are! It is one of the few perks for the breast cancer patient. Mommy often complained that she couldn't be lucky enough to get a cancer that made her lose weight. Noooo! She had to get one that made her gain weight. So no longer needing to shave her legs and under arms not only seemed like a boon... it really seemed only fair.

Where your imagination may not have taken you, however, is somewhere in between a breast cancer patients legs and her under arms. Have you guessed yet? Yes. Mommy began losing all her pubic hair too. Daddy-O was not altogether unhappy with this development and Mommy was not altogether happy with the reaction from Daddy-O. She wasn't sure she like the thought of the father of her children enjoying her looking like a twelve year old. Hmmm. All in all, tho, it was very nice to be so neat and tidy with absolutely no effort on her part.

So Mommy would be going about her busy bald little home life, adjusting to her side effects as best she could. There was intermittent nausea, variations of constipation or diarrhea, rushing to the bathroom then peeing on her pants... Oh, wait. Not everyone does that? Well, Mommy did it constantly. She felt like a little boy learning to pee on the potty for the first time. She'd sit down to go... and the next thing she knew, her waistband was all wet or there was a large waterfall going over the bowl to the floor. She used to joke that she changed clothes and spent more time on her hands and knees cleaning the floors in the bathrooms than she ever had during potty training B.

Finally Mommy realized what the problem was. Apparently a little known fact about nether hair is that it is a great urine-flow director. Without those little curly gals down there to keep things in line Mommy had a stream gone wild! Well, at least once she figured it out she could adjust for damage control. Still, it was a long, damp, laundry-filled three weeks.

You can all stop giggling now. And if you're experiencing this yourself at least you now know you're not alone.

And she lived happily ever after

Whew! What a weekend! I am too pooped to pop! Plus I am a bit on the beat up side. Hint: campsite at tip-top of hill + bathroom NOT at tip-top of hill & ridiculously far away + bottle of wine + slippery grass + sandals = two skinned knees, one bruised hip and profuse apologies to the ears of campers between Lobo 11/12 and the bathrooms. Otherwise, a great time was had by all. As soon as I can find the blasted cable to download the pictures from Daddy-O's camera I will provide a proper post as befitting a 7th birthday party.





So, back to the summer of 2006 and the ever popular medication, Xeloda. Not every cancer patient gets to take additional chemo, ya know. IBC patients are special. IBC is one tough customer so they like to make absolutely certain that nothing can survive in your body. Perhaps not even you.




We need to go back a bit in our story here. Right after Mommy went to meet her BFF, Mama C, in Las Vegas she came home and had Right Booby cut off. That's right, a modified mastectomy on the right hand side. They removed 12 lymph nodes. After 8 rounds of chemotherapy Mommy's tumor was still greater than 11 cm and she had several positive lymph nodes, although, remarkably, she cannot remember exactly how many now.



Mommy spent 3 days in the hospital and was glad for that. Can you believe that many hospitals do mastectomies as OUTPATIENT SURGERY??? Even though she was glad to get the bad-news boob gone for good, Mommy still felt a bit less than whole. She just did not feel right being so out of balance, with one tube-socky booby and one man-chest side. Mommy was profoundly sad inside. Daddy-O must have known Mommy would feel like she'd lost a part of her body because he bought her a new toy- a laptop which she loved almost as much even if it didn't fit into her bra.



Mommy started on Xeloda in June 2006. It is an oral chemotherapy drug. Mommy was relieved not to have to go anywhere or feel like an invalid with needles, etc to get her treatment. She could just pop a pill in the comfort of her own home. Easy, right? Right. Well, Xeloda's big side effect is neuropathy. For the record: neuropathy bites. It's all it's cracked up to be and then some. Just in case you don't know what it is here's the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. It does nerve damage. Semi-permanent nerve damage. Mommy's has mostly gone away. Nana (Mommy's Mommy) still has most of hers.

Mommy started getting a tingling line from the top of her head, straight down thru her right eye ending in the hollow of her cheek. The tingly numb line was about 2.5 inches wide. It would come and go for an hour or a so at a time. Her fingers and toes would go numb and she would get clumsy. Daddy-O would tell you that Mommy isn't exactly the most graceful of women on a good day. On Xeloda Mommy would do things like miss the step while carrying a laundry basket because she couldn't feel it with her foot. The she would fall and feel very stupid - and sore.



Every day Mommy tried to get up and moving so she wouldn't become too sedentary. It became harder and harder as the summer progressed, however. Soon she developed hand and foot syndrome. This is when your hands and feet (or in Mommy's case just her feet) become really red and sore and maybe blister and peel. Every time Mommy got up from her chair she felt as if she was walking barefoot across scorching hot asphalt - just like when she was a little girl. It was excruciating.



At the beginning of July, Mommy began radiation treatment also. This was quite the coop on Mommy's part because it meant cutting down her treatment time by 6 whole weeks! Mommy has always been a big advocate of multi-tasking. So she went in to see the radiation oncologist and got very fancy black dot tattoos to mark her for the radiation treatments. With IBC there is skin involvement so they purposely bring the radiation all the way out to the skin level in order to kill off any remaining cells that may be hiding there. This means lots of skin burns.

About three weeks into Mommy's radiation, the little family, minus D, went to Disneyland for B's 6th birthday. Mommy used a motorized cart to get around and still from the combination of the radiation and Xeloda she didn't fare too well. When Daddy-O, Mommy and B went back to the room for dinner Mommy noticed a large raw spot under her right arm. When she dabbed at it a bit all the skin just rolled away. She put band aids on and sucked it up for the cause. She had to change her shoes because her sandals had caused blisters between her toes too. By the end of the weekend, Mommy had no skin under her right arm, and the entire ball of both of her feet were blistered all the way across and up between her toes.

Ultimately, Mommy's radiation had to be postponed for 3 weeks to let her underarm heal. It was a green, nasty, oozy mess. Mommy's feet were so bad during this time that she could hardly walk. This was the very worst time in Mommy's treatment. But her hair had already started growing back when she was at Disneyland so she didn't have to wear hats anymore at least. Well, as long as she didn't mind people assuming she was a little butch.

Daddy-O and Mommy took a wonderful vacation to Puerto Vallarta with good friends of theirs in October 2006. They had a wonderful time. They slid thru the jungle on zip lines and spent lots of quality time in the lounge chairs. When they got home Mommy did one more week of Xeloda then thru away her prescription bottle for good. She was officially no longer a chemo patient.

At the beginning of November Mommy had her ovaries removed because she (and Nana) was BRCA 2 positive. In January 2007 she had free flap reconstructive surgery with a left modified mastectomy and immediate implant reconstruction (and bonus tummy tuck). She went back to work in March. The first Monday in November Mommy finally gets her nipples back.

Today Mommy is perfectly healthy. She feels great and is full of energy. She works full time and chases both her boys. Her check ups are down to every 3 months. So far her blood work looks great. But Mommy has a 90% recurrence risk. Whatever. Who's got time to worry about numbers?



That pretty much brings us up to date. I left a bunch out. I forgot a bunch. Mostly that's from chemo brain. Do your self exams. Be aware of your breasts. Have a mammogram. Insist on swift medical attention. Don't be put off by doctors who may have never seen IBC. Know your family history but don't depend on it. Most women diagnosed with breast cancer have no prior family history.

Whew. I don't know about you guys... but I just relived the hardest couple years of my life. I think I need a nap and perhaps a bunch of chocolate and maybe wine.

Once upon a time continued...

Sorry, Folks. I took yesterday off to work. It's a little thing I do every now and again to pay the bills. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I had just been diagnosed with IBC 3 days before Christmas 2005. By this time my right breast was very large (my girls are/were no slouches to begin with), tho not red or discolored in the least. My nipple was beginning to retract a bit, however. At this point I still had not seen an oncologist, only a surgeon. I encourage any woman diagnosed with breast cancer - no matter how small the lump/mass/spot/dot/shadow - to see an oncologist. Even if a surgeon says a lumpectomy will do the trick it never, ever hurts to get a second opinion from an actual doctor who specializes in all that cancer stuff. Anyway... back to our story...



Mommy and Daddy-O decided to keep their new reality to themselves through the holidays. It's not exactly tidings of comfort and joy, now is it? So no one knew but Mommy's co-workers (because that's where she got the call) until after New Year's Day. On January 3rd, 2006, Mommy officially became a cancer patient - two weeks after diagnosis, 3 months after discovering a hardened area in her breast and 4 months after D rejected Right Booby for the first time. Right Booby was rock hard, half again as big as Left Booby and Mommy's tumor was over 10 cm in width.



Something you should probably know about Mommy is that she is a "planner". This is how all the people who love her refer to Mommy's tendency to obsessively research and map out every minute detail of her life and sometimes those around her. People who don't love Mommy probably call it something much less flattering. Keeping this in mind, when Mommy started chemo treatments, control was the hardest thing she had to give up. Mommy sometimes wondered if this was maybe why God might have given her that particular trial to overcome.



Mommy's first chemo treatment was pretty scary for her but she hid it inside because that's what she does. She buried it in humor and sparkling personality... because that is also what she does. A very sweet nurse tech came to administer Mommy's IV meds, her name was Fia. This first time Mommy had to have her treatment through her vein and it made her c-o-l-d. She huddled under a blanket and made out thank you cards for Christmas presents. (She had a port-a-cath put in before her next chemo so she never had to use her veins again.) She peed red from the pretty wine-colored cocktail they pushed into her veins. But she felt good and she went home to see what would happen.



The next day Mommy went to work, then went in & had her neulasta shot. Mommy does not like neulasta. Neulasta may keep your white counts up so you don't get sick... but it is NOT a nice shot. She wants everyone to know that growing bone marrow is painful work. Mommy took one day off work that 1st round of chemo (plus the time for treatments and drs visits) but felt pretty good all in all. The second round went much the same with an extra dose of bone pain compliments of neulasta and two days off post chemo for nausea and pure exhaustion. A note here... By round two Mommy's hair had begun to come out. At first it wasn't too bad. It came out if she pulled at it which is suprisingly hard not to do. But by the day after chemo Mommy felt like she was showering with spider webs. Her hair just kept coming out and coming out and coming out. The water didn't wash the hairs off. It was like the water coming from the showerhead was really hair and the more Mommy rinsed the more hair there was. Mommy cried that day like she had never cried before - except the day she found out D would never see. Mommy realized that losing one's hair is much easier in theory than it is in reality. So that night, when Daddy-O came home from work, Mommy had him shave her head. Daddy-O was a bit on the freaked out side but Mommy felt liberated and, most importantly, in control again.



The 3rd round of chemo was the turning point for Mommy. As soon as she got her neulasta shot she felt weak and nauseous. She spent 4 days in bed and didn't go back to work for the next 13 months. There were alot of good days, and some bad. And alot of blessings that can't even be ennumerated here.

By April 14, 2006 when Mommy finished her 8th round of chemo, her face was bloated up like a puffer fish from the steroids, she was bald and very tan. Did you know that chemo makes you photo sensative? Neither did Mommy. Also, Mommy had hot flashes that could power her whole neighborhood. Chemotherapy also does not like ovaries and kills their cells with wild abandon. Mommy's bloated round head would burst into bloom with little beads of sweat if she even thought of moving. And poor Daddy-O had to get up in the middle of the night to change sheets that had been night-sweated upon more times than Mommy could count. He was a trooper and only complained a little. At the end of April, Mommy turned 40 and a week later she and Daddy-O went to Las Vegas on a very, very special trip.

Not only was Mommy celebrating her big 4-0 in Vegas... but she was meeting, for the very first time ever, her bff, Mama C. They had a wonderful time and forgot all about the other C in Mommy's life.

Meanwhile, back in the sewerless small town on the left-hand side of the America, Mommy's oncologist was planning more treatments for her. When Mommy came home she started taking Xeloda for six months. And also radiation for 6 weeks.



Sorry to stop short. I'm leaving to go camping with the family for B's 7th birthday weekend. We are taking 5 of his friends to the waterslides and camping. Hurray! More later.

Once upon a time

It seems that Inflammatory Breast Cancer is getting a lot of play these days, what with WhyMommy's campaign over at Toddler Planet and all. I really wish I had been introduced to the whole blogging world before I was diagnosed for many reasons. First, it would have given me lots of reading material during those l-o-n-g days otherwise spent in front of the tv. Also, because it would have been, oh, so theraputic to write about the whole process. And also, mostly, because I wouldn't have felt so alone. And since I have a whole slew of people, well, three - three people who swing by here every now and again to looky-loo at the IBC survivor freak show I thought I might tell my story. So here goes...

Once upon a time, in a sewerless small town on the left hand side of America there lived a mother, a father, and a son. Mommy and Daddy-O had been living happily with thier son B for 3 years but wanted another baby with whom to share their life. But sadly, it seemed babies were not as easy to come by as all that. Just when all the family was giving up hope the happy news of a new baby was discovered! Mommy and Daddy-O and B were thrilled!

D was born a bit on the early side as Mommy said he would be. Mommy is very smart about these things so people should learn to listen to her. Because he was still so young, only 35 weeks, but still pretty big, 7 lbs 3 oz, he had to stay in the NICU for a few weeks and learn to eat. It was a very frustrating time for B - being a big brother but not having a little brother to show off around and all that fun stuff he'd been looking forward to for so long. That part kind of sucked.

Then things got better. D got to come home when he was 3 weeks old. At his six week appointment Mommy asked the doctor when he would start focusing. She was told alot of stuff about adjusted age and such which all meant, "not yet". Then things got worse. Four days after D's six week appointment his right eye clouded over.

Fast-forward through an emergency trip to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, several references to "masses" and "blastomas", an eye ultrasound and an Exam Under Anesthesia (EUA) and we find Daddy-O dazedly listening to Dr. Tawansy tell him how D's retina's are detatched and are causing some sort of very bad glaucoma-like pressure build-up in his eyes so he had to remove his lenses... The rest is a blur and a distant murmur as Mommy wanders the room looking at cross-section eye diagrams through unquenchable tears wondering how D will ever appreciate the brightly colored dancing bears on his bedroom walls when he'll never, ever see.

Slowly over the next several months the little family adjusted to it's newest member. As with everything else, B, Daddy-O and Mommy were up for the challenge and opportunity D's blindness provided. Mommy and Daddy-O were awed that God had placed so much faith in them and felt honor-bound to not let Him down.

In September of 2005, when D was 5 months old, Mommy went back to work. Also, around this time she began limiting D's play time with his booby friends. This upset D so much that he decided he hated one of his booby friends. In fact, he hated Right Booby so much that he refused outright to associate with her at all. He would scream and arch his little back if Right Booby so much as pointed her little nipple in his general direction. Mommy chalked this up to a Blind-Boy Downfall, that is, positional aversion, which can be very common and unexplainable in vision impaired children. Also, Right Booby was feeling very sad, and lonely and engorged about now.

Soon September became October and D and the Booby girls quit playing together entirely. But poor Right Booby was never quite right again after her rejection. She always felt engorged and bloaty and generally cranky for the effort. Slowly it seemed that the little soft spot for D inside Right Booby just hardened up into a rock. It was a rock the size of Mommy's fist. This kind of tripped Mommy out. Mommy started asking her other Mommy friends about it and many of them assured her that they too had felt rocks in their girls on one side or the other after weaning... but they had gone away after a few weeks. So, not being in any pain at all, Mommy decided to wait a few weeks.

Enter the Holidays: Thanksgiving with all it's office closures and vacations. Also enter Mommy's first cycle since having a baby. In all the frosty coldness of late fall the only thing growing is the rock in Right Booby. Mommy decides to see her doctor. After much debate with the nurse about how she was NOT comfortable waiting until December 23rd to be seen she was worked in the next week - December 12th, 2005. Soon there was a mamogram on the 14th (showing nothing followed by an ultrasound which showed nothing), a surgical consultation with a fine needle biopsy (VERY mean procedure) which was inconclusive, followed by a core needle biopsy (not too bad at all), followed by an unbearable 24 hour wait for results. On December 22, 2005, she was diagnosed with stage IIIb Inflamatory Breast Cancer. Her tumor was 9+ cm.

Whew! I'm pooped just writing about the journey to diagnosis. I guess the thing I want people to take away from this part of my story is this... I never had a lump. I had a thickness that solidified. Even though it's IBC, my breast was never red and I never had any skin changes until the very, very last. And, folks, my tumor was HUGE!

I'll finish the story tomorrow.