“Please pace yourself. This is just the calm before the storm”
My wife has so much spirit right now that I think she feels ready to take on the world. The truth is I think she needs to save that inner strength and fortitude. We have yet to even visit with the breast surgeon or had the MRI.
One of the hard things to do is tell people you have breast cancer. It has been my job to do that but I think the best strategy is to not tell people until you have all the facts and maybe not until after. Right now everyone wants to help when we don’t need their help. We’ll need their help after the surgery. We decided to not even mention it to other parents in our children’s class.
Although that is a good plan it can backfire. My “superhuman” wife decided to run a milion errands even taking the kids with her to the hospital to pick up slides and arrange a few more appointments. It was a good idea to get them used to the sight of a pleasant hospital surrounding. She then decided to clean the house and got caught while washing her car but a neighbor kid who invited himself into our home. This kid is really nice but way too much energy and my wife should have just put her foot down and told him to go home. Although my wife said it was fine, I could see her body was tired at the end of the day, she was still feeling short of breath from being tired, and I was not coming home to the dynamo wife I had been seeing the past few days.
We discussed the need for her to pace herself and she agreed. We are beginning to set out a plan through the holidays and it will keep us focused on the future. This might just be longer than a marathon. Yes, the Olympics start tomorrow.
Hello!
I found your blog while looking up resources for breast cancer patients, and thought you might be interested in a woman who’s taken a pretty unique path in her own cancer battle. Meg Gaffney is a nurse, and when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she decided to skip chemotherapy and radiation, and go right to a bilateral mastectomy. But when her plastic surgeon recommended a skin graft surgery to build up new nipples, she decided to incorporate art into her own personal healing process.
For Meg, that means getting nipples tattooed onto her body instead of the graft surgery, and now — after months of searching for an artist willing to take on her challenge — she’s about to get the work done!
We’re 8 parts into a documentary on Meg, which is featured on GrowingBolder.com. I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think!
http://growingbolder.com/media/health/cancer/confronting-cancer-part-8-181742.html
Meg is dynamic, creative, and completely committed to ridding the world of cancer, and her spirit is contagious.
Thanks for your time, and best luck in your own journey!
Katy Widrick
Executive Producer, GrowingBolder.com
katy@growingbolder.com
407-362-8237
Thanks Katy,
Very interesting story. Ironically we were talking about this possibility of the tattooed nipple before we met with our surgeons, but I guess things have changed. We are having the skin-sparing surgery and different from the diagram on breastcancer.org, my wife’s nipples will not be removed and she will be able to preserve them.
I wish Meg well in the process and will check it out. We’re obviously focused on the task at hand at the moment with school starting for the kids and surgery looming.