I've Got This

 And just like that, six years have come and gone. The years have seemed typical, I suppose, with laughter and love and friends and family.  We have watched our son grow (and grow and grow) into an incredible young teenager.  I have felt strong(ish), healthy, and whole.  I have worked with countless patients, volunteered excessively, and lived life, always trying to be the best wife, mom, and friend. I have also been uncomfortable.  I have felt, for the last six years, like my chest has been wrapped in the tightest industrial cellophane or tape you could imagine.  I have been unable to do even one pushup.  I have been unable to regain my shoulder flexion (overhead) strength, and I even tore my acellular dermal matrix (ADM or mesh) in a Pilates class.  I have been unable to lie on my stomach.  I have lost countless hours of sleep.   I have been unable to receive any MRI imaging to check for implant integrity, which was recommended wh...

There is something indescribable about receiving a malignant diagnosis that can make you feel so very empowered and at the same time so small and inconsequential. When I learned that something has gone wrong within my body, this vessel that I have been in command of for my entire life, that now I hoped that I have taken sufficient care of yet somehow failed, I was terrified.  Once I got my ducks in a row, somehow formulated an appropriately aggressive plan and began to execute it, the storm grew still.  Once the dust settled and I felt the validation of my choices in the eyes of my medical team, I grew more confident. You may feel your spirits grow, and you will certainly find that you will take almost immeasurably less crap from almost everyone than you did before. Here's to taking less crap! XO

I am an educator.  If not by trade (which I am sometimes), then by personality.  I have always taken the time to explain things to people, the why .  I suppose that is the reason for this (rambling?) blog. It started when I was in kindergarten.  I don't have a vivid memory of this actually taking place, but I have been informed that my mother received a call from my teacher, asking her to have a conversation with me about why I don't need to teach the other children in the class how to read.  In first grade, I was given a reading group to lead.  In high school, I tutored other students in chemistry.  College students.  (Thanks, Mr. Worley.) I had to educated myself extensively on the subject of breast cancer, from the perspective of a patient.  Although I am not qualified to speak at a pathology symposium regarding cribriform vs. micropapillary growth patterns of ductal carcinoma, I can certainly hold my own in almost any other setting ab...

I wrote this in the early morning hours of September 30, 2010 as part of a scholarship application (which I was not awarded).  Wow!  If I only knew then... It is 6:00 a.m., and my house is quiet.  This is the time when I make my son’s lunch for school, prepare his breakfast, and ensure that he looks presentable in his school uniform, papers signed and checks written, knowing  that I share this quiet ritual with hundreds of thousands of moms across the globe.  Once he is safely delivered to school, I will schedule this week’s conference calls for an AMTA volunteer workgroup, schedule a charity auction meeting for my son’s school, and then begin advanced reading in preparation for the upcoming fall quarter, which doesn’t begin for another week.   I have returned to school at South University in order to obtain an Associate’s degree in Physical Therapist Assisting.  As a Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Lymphedema Therapist, I require an add...

June 5, 2014 What is bravery? The dictionary says it's "the quality that allows someone to do things that are dangerous or frightening," but what does it look like? That seems too simple.  I always envision a figure that is in mortal peril, facing an absolutely dismal, no-win situation, a la Joan of Arc or an innocent person facing a firing squad or a hungry cheetah.  I don't know why, but those seem like the scariest possible scenarios to me, and I imagine that anyone who could remain conscious in the face of certain, impending doom is incredibly brave. Fireman?  Brave.  Passengers on the Titanic?  Brave.  Holocaust survivor?  Extra double brave. I am not brave. I'm just Whitney.  John's wife.  Nicholas' mom.  The last five months have been a little uncomfortable and extremely inconvenient for me, but I am not brave. I was diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer, and I was terrified.  I was terrified by the thought...

Dear Tissue Expanders, Tonight is our last night together.  I'm breaking up with you. It's been real, these last three and a half months.  Really, real .  So real that you have been on my mind for every single waking moment, as well as countless non-waking ones.  Although our time has drawn to a close and you will be carelessly discarded in the morning for a pair of more demure implants, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how I feel:  it's not me, it's you. I thought I knew what I was getting into, choosing to go the tissue-expanders-to-implants route.  I heard that there was pain and discomfort with each subsequent fill, but I had no idea that you would become such a constant, pervasive force.  You have dominated most of my thoracic sensory nerve activity since Valentine's day.  You are all I feel.  Even now, after all this time, you're still the dominant presence.  I still feel like I'm wrapped tightly, and I give you ...

I love babies.  I absolutely, positively LOVE them.  I want to watch them, to hold them, to look at their little features, fingers, toes. I loved my own.  To pieces.  If I was holding him, there was an unstoppable force that drew my lips to his head.  I had to smell him and kiss his face... I just had to.  Constantly.  That force is still strong.  Mostly if he's sleeping, because he has now developed an aversion to being kissed on the face by his mom all day. Puhleeze. There is something so incredibly natural about holding a baby to your body, about cradling it to your bosom.  It's really the absolute most natural act for almost any person.  Your breast (as a location, not anatomical objects) is where you breathe.  It's where you love.  It's where you experience the best and worst of life -- crushing love best, and crushing love worst. My friend just had a baby.  I spent most of her pregnancy with her, experiencing a...