The plan and The shift.

Happy 4th y'all! (A few days late) Guess what?! It's quittin' month! July has arrived and with that comes a whole lot of celebrations for our family normally but this year it is also time to celebrate the end of my chemo journey! Goodness me, HAPPY DAY! A lot has happened over the last couple weeks and after a much needed "time out" this past weekend I have had time to process. Now I update my fluffle! I will try to stay in some sort of order but I did not write everyday, oops! Why is starting a new habit is so hard?

I have had some good and bad days the last couple weeks. I am 10 (of 12) rounds into my taxol as of Tuesday. Overall the side effects are not what is more commonly seen so I have not had as "easy" of a time as I was hoping for. (But I am so thankful to be doing well). A few weeks ago Ava had a camp in Michigan for volleyball. I had signed up in hopes to have time to skip "out of town" with a mom friend but life happened and we knew no one else going. The drive was about an hour and thirty minutes. Wednesday I left with a big bag of work to do and a panera gift card. Half way through my chicken noodle bread bowl, the devil came knocking. I felt like I got hit by a train. My head was pounding, I was nauseated, and I was positive my back was going to snap. After trying to sweat it out in the bathroom I ended up driving back to the college and napping in the back of the mini. #minivanmomwin I made it home just in time to give back the soup and sleep until Ryan left for work. I ended up doing the same thing again Thursday and Friday. It was not pretty and I would not have survived it without the help of Wolfe. My bed was always turned down and my water filled. Friday I got fluids and some IV meds that helped me get some time in with a good friend Friday and my family Saturday. This was the worst week I have had yet. I described it in my journal as this….

Everytime I try to be human, the universe tells me to sit the f*** back down. I attempt to do a normal activity like cooking dinner and I end up on the floor sobbing over a hot flash. (7-5-21)

Last week I was able to take the kids to Cedar Point with my dad on my one good day a week. I was never a thrill seeker and I think I missed out on some awesome thrills because I was afraid. This year, sharing that experience with my girls and my dad was even more important. We are not promised tomorrow. Facing that fact and having a death tap on your door has been the current mental struggle I have been facing. I want to be ever so present and full of gratitude for all of the wonderful blessings my life has provided me. So where do I find the balance between educating my young minds, fulfilling my career, loving my spouse, my health, and our families? After all, we are all just human.

So I recovered from my thrill seeking adventure with a massage and a visit to my infusion nurses. I was feeling good about being able to get out and about! I even got to spend Friday with Willow celebrating her third birthday! We had a great party with all our favorite people. After the party my sister Rachael and my parents took the girls to the lake for a long weekend. I am so incredibly grateful for this gift of time. Something Ryan and I really did not think about was having to have life changing conversations around our kids. We are pretty open and they are raised to talk about their bodies, but nipples are not normally a dinner topic unless Willow eats something messy then it's game on! So on top of just having some time to catch up on house chores Ryan and I were also able to "debrief" on the plan for us moving forward! I would highly suggest making this time for yourself and your spouse if you find yourself where we are. Though Ryan has been supportive and insists that all these decisions are mine, we have a family and my plan affects everyone. It is good to be on the same page!

The plan… I am a planner so this paragraph right here makes my heart happy. I have met with my surgeon, Dr. B, here in Findlay and he will be performing a nipple sparing double mastectomy on September 2nd. At the same time my plastic surgeon team will come in and place a temporary spacer implant and fill it with a small amount of saline. I will have a 2-4 week recovery where I will have drain tubes and some pretty bandages that will need cared for at home. Following surgery I will have a 4-6 week time frame where I will heal and get weekly "fills'' for my implants. Then I will have 5-6 weeks of radiation followed by another surgery to place my final implant. And maybe by winter of 2022 I will have my calendar back!

I wasn't sure if I wanted to share that much info about my boobs on my blog but after much reflection I decided that the people reading this are already thinking about my boobs, it is just part of the diagnosis. So why not share my "whys" and maybe help the choice a little less hard on someone else. I am moving forward with a double mastectomy purely because it is the safest option for my cancer. I am choosing to follow the guidance of my doctors because I want to be here for all my girls' big things and I am comfortable with the plan. I did make the choice on my own to spare my nipples. This barely changes my risk factor for a recurrence and gives me the confidence I need for the next 50 years. I have found humor in my "new boobs". I used to tease Ryan when I was pregnant with Willow that I was going to cast my boobs so one day when I got myself a perky pair I had it to show them. I really wish I would have! But to know that there was nothing to center that Barbie boob was not as easy to laugh about. So they will stay and I will feel confident under my blouse. On a side note, I have recently discovered one of the downfalls to having cancer young is that you have an ample time of life yet to think about. I will never take for granted that I had my babies young. This was a blessing I did not understand at the time! It saved Ryan and I from that choice. But there have been many choices where my age and the phases of our lives we have not yet experienced have caused us to think about something twice or make a choice we may not have thought we would make. I am talking about menopause at the age of 30…. yeah we never think it will happen to us. So we are finding humor in the painful moments. I am glad Wolfe and I have a strong foundation that has allowed most of these conversations to flow effortless. Fun Fact: Wolfe and I have known each other for 16 years, more than half our lives.

Painful moments are sometimes easy for me to share with Wolfe and those close to me. But this is definitely the first phase of my life where I have had a hard time leaning on others for relief. In my countless hours of therapy last year I discovered something about myself. I am always looking to others for approval. Sometimes I take it and other times it causes a fight about a difference of opinion. Now I have yet to find where it stems from in my life but I know now I do it. I spent months practicing the habit of not asking around. Man what great timing. Fast forward to cancer, I have a hard time relating to anyone. Now please don't misunderstand, I have found great breast besties and I am so thankful for them. But everyone's story is different. So when it came to my grief, I had to handle it alone. I found the right guidance and practices and as Kodi once told me,

Loving yourself is like practicing yoga, and no one ever got good at yoga by talking about it.

So through my grief I have been learning to love myself again. I have learned to trust my own opinions. I have learned that it is okay to put yourself first every once in a while. You can and should take days off from being happy and feel your sadness. Your style can be different everyday and that doesn't make you inconsistent. Your bad days, negative thoughts, and self doubt are scabs not scares. Scabs heal. And I find myself healing a little bit every so often. Not everyday and some days I heal more than others but I definitely have felt the shift from grieving to healing. It is a beautiful thing. I find myself feeling extremely grateful to all of you still here. Still following along, and keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. It is because of you that I want to be healed and continue to move forward. I still do not feel 100% confident in my future path but I do see the road ahead and I will keep putting one foot in front of the other. Xoxo