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| A thumb's up in vacuum bag couture |
This is a huge, huge occasion! Recurrence rates plummet once you hit that 5 year mark. (I used to know all the stats, but they've escaped my mind over time.) I'm smiling just as big as you see in the picture above, but this time it's not forced. 😉
So, catching up on things...
- As you might have seen in my previous post or on my Facebook page a while ago, I visited my surgical oncologist's office at Froedtert in February and was released from their treatment. Yay! Now I only have to have one doctor's visit a year instead of two.
- I've finally beaten the issue I was having with weight loss. I have officially lost 23 pounds since the beginning of the year. My secret? I honestly don't know. I cut out almost all alcohol consumption, stopped eating quite as much during the day at work, and changed up my exercise routine, and it just started happening. So, I keep doing what I've been doing and the pounds slowly keep disappearing.
- I visited my medical oncologist (previously in Elkhorn, now at St. Luke's in Milwaukee) a couple of weeks ago for my official five year follow up. My numbers looked great. We made the decision to keep going on my Tamoxifen for another few years. Since I have no major side effects from it, I would rather have the peace of mind knowing that it's there working for me. The doctor agreed - especially since I'm so "young." He was also astonished by and happy about my weight loss since it's really hard for people on tamoxifen to lose weight. I love getting kudos from doctors. I'll be seeing him once a year for the next 5 years.
- I do have one issue created by my weight loss... because one of the first places I tend to lose weight is in my breasts (I know, totally not fair), I'm once again two different cup sizes. This is what happens when one is fat and the other is silicone. *sigh* So, once I'm done losing weight, I'm going to have to get in contact with my plastic surgeon again and see what my options are and if possibly going from implant to natural flap would remedy the problem if I lose/gain any more weight down the road. Not that I want to go through another surgery. I've kind of had my fill of those.
- My anxiety still shows up from time to time when it comes to the c-word. I still have the words "breast cancer" blocked from my Twitter timeline. I change the station whenever an ad for cancer care comes on the radio. I still want nothing to do with New Year's Day (the day I found out). That might never go away. February 22nd (head shaving day) is still remembered, but not dwelled upon, and of course July 30th will always be a day that is silently celebrated.
So, that's where I am. I was hoping to mark today with a quiet day at home alone, but circumstances did not work in my favor for that to happen. I'll take a rain check. I need a day to reflect, focus on how far I've come and then turn to the future. I'm not sure how I should be feeling about things now...or if there is a right or wrong way to feel. Part of me wants to move forward, never looking back, pretending it never happened. Another part wants to take my experience and turn it into something helpful. A foundation or volunteer organization or something. Maybe down the road I'll do something like that. Right now, I know that this experience has changed me for the better and I hope that maybe that fact in itself will be useful for others.
And that's where I'm going to leave it. Thank you all for being there for the ride - the ups and the downs, the times of self-pity, the bits of craziness, the good, the bad and the bald. I appreciate you all more than you know.
Now it's time to pack the blog away again...
