A Word on Vanity -- or Wearing my Battlescar with Pride

I've been going around with one boob, and not even a bra -- so forget a prosthesis. I don't even have a real one yet -- just the one I crocheted when I couldn't figure out the knit instructions Maretta sent (the link is in the comments for a post I made months ago, probably at the beginning of my treatment.) I had been planning for that to be a temporary thing, but I find myself liking the asymmetrical look more and more.

I am wearing a sports bra again, today for the first time since radiation -- My scar has finally healed enough that a bra doesn't hurt! Still, I have nothing in the bra on the right side -- because I don't have to; sports bras are flat til you put something in them.

And I find I like that look just fine. A sports bra with nothing else. Nice and easy, no extra time needed for getting dressed -- and it looks fine! I don't get all these women who worry about how they look with only one breast. I think it looks fine -- nice, even! And it's not because I'm not vain.

I didn't like the eyebrowless look. I thought I looked like an alien without eyebrows. The first makeup I've ever bought and used almost consistently was eyebrow pencil. (Okay so I wasn't real consistent. I couldn't always be bothered...... but I had a pencil in my backpack in case I ever went anywhere I wanted to have eyebrows on for -- that's pretty serious, for me!)

And then there's my thing about eye color. I could have stayed on the xalatan, a wonderful glaucoma medicine with no adverse effects except that it will probably turn my eyes brown. I went off it. Is that smart? It's not entirely stupid -- my eye pressures are okay. They were a little better on the xalatan, though..... It's just vanity really.

But I am liking the uniboob look more and more. One pretty breast or two pretty breasts -- who cares? (Okay so it's a droopy breast, as Em points out, but that's okay too. I didn't want a teenaged breast again. Been there, done that.) I don' t wear particularly loose fitting clothes, either -- now that the burn is better, anyway! (I did while the burn was oozy, because my shirts stuck to it -- and wearing gauze made it worse.) I have decided that the two boob thing is just one of those things people expect to see, and so everyone with a mastectomy tries to emulate it. It's actually not necessary, and maybe if more women went around sporting one boob, women wouldn't feel bad about looking like this the way most of them seem to.

Besides, who are we protecting, when we hide the evidence of our breast cancer? It seems to me that breast cancer is spreading rather quickly -- and that there is an increasing number of environmental factors involved. What better way to let people know that I've been there and might be able to offer some help or at least shared experience, than to wear my battlescar with pride?

sick

I just got sick for the first time since my diagnosis! It's funny -- I was soooo careful when I was in treatment that I didn't catch anything. (Okay I did get a couple of yeast infections -- but I don't think they count if we're talking about catching things. Not for me, anyhow -- I could catch one of them in a vacuum I bet.) ANyhow I did finally get sick -- but the timing is such that I don't know exactly where, who, how I got it.

See we were around all these sick people when we were out of town -- but we left a week ago Sunday morning. That's a week and a half now. Last time we saw Sandi's sick family was Friday night, almost two weeks ago now. Mary's family, who we visited with all Saturday afternoon, got sick after, but it was not the same kind of sick I got. They got fevers and aches -- I got a chest cold.

What happened to me was, last Friday I came in from a bike ride and my chest was full. That's it, no other symptoms. I read in the paper that it was a high pollen count day and thought, hmm, maybe that's it? Didn't feel like it, though -- it felt like a cold that had moved down into my chest -- except that I didn't HAVE a cold. So I tried to fend it off (cats claw and airborne) and for a couple of days it seemed not to do much. (That was okay but not great because it was supposed to be receding!) Finally Sunday night I started feeling a little achey.... so I knew it had taken a firmer hold. BY then we had visitors -- with sick kids! (COuldn't have been them, either; I already had it by then.) And don't even tell me we shouldn't have had them over. We hadn't seen them in so long that they were only a she when we last did -- and we weren't married yet ourselves. I hope I didn't get any of them sick.... course they would assume it came from their kids if I did. ANyhow, Alan did all the cooking except for the soup, which cooked for a long time.

I started coughing overnight. Coughing up blobs. Still no other cold symptoms, though. ANyone ever had anything like this? (I think I have once, and I thought it was weird then too.) I started to get tired and take naps..... On Monday I reschedulede my radiation follow up so I could stay home and be sick with EMily, who was also home sick. (slight sore throat, but mostly her tics made her tummy hurt -- and I didn't have the energy to fight her about it.) I didn't keep her much company though -- I rested a lot. On Tuesday I rescheduled my eye appointment -- It was a beautiful day but didn't feel up to biking to CHevy Chase.... or even driving. I made an appointment with the regular doctor instead, and got some antibiotics. ("You haven't been here in a year," he said, as though I'd been doing anything other than medical appointments in that year..... My last appointment with my primary care doctor was when I went in to see about the lump in my armpit...... )

ANyway the doctor wanted to give me some strong new antibiotic. I think he was worried that I might have something bigger and worse than the usual crud because of my story about having biked to all my chemos, and the fact that he could see I wasn't in that kind of shape now. However..... he said that that drug (the fancy new one he wanted me to take at first) can cause bad tendonitis if you exercise while on it. Ruptured tendons sometimes. Could I lie low for a week? he asked.

Hmm, let's think. For about one nanosecond. No, I don't think I could do that. Actually I don't think I stopped to think at all but reacted instantly with an "Are you kidding?" I mean I JUST had to lie low while we were out of town, and then I was jsut getting back into the swing of things when I got sick, so I was lying low because of that .... so, no, I was thinking more like the antibiotic fixes me and I get back on the bike in a day or two.

So he gave me azithromycin, which was what I had expected, and told me to call him if it didn't make me better in two days. I pointed out that perhaps I just do better on chemo than on a bacterial infection...... since I wasn't in fact sicker than I have been at other times when I've needed antibiotics for chest colds. It might just be about the chemo..... which was probably easier for me because I was active throughout. (In fact I am sure people will start to see chemo patients encouraged to remain active, to be active, throughout treatment. Just you watch.) They don't know about this yet -- not really. But they will. The cool thing would be if it were discovered that exercise actually helps the long term prognosis........

ANyway so I started the antibiotic yesterday early afternoon, and by evening was feeling a bit like my usual whirlwind self. THought it might be the power of suggestion or maybe the sudafed I'd taken at the same time as the antibiotic, but no -- today I woke feeling MUCH better, and went on a bike ride. It was only 28 miles (it was raining, people had to get back......) but I took Pinky for a hill walk after, for almost an hour. Now I'm tempted to mow the lawn -- which needs it all of a sudden!

Maybe tomorrow I will call the doctor and tell him the stuff worked wonders. It was just what I went there looking for, the antibiotic fixes me and I get back on the bike in a day or two. Antibiotics are just really something, aren't they? I wish chemo worked like that. POOF, gone.