Update

I'm overdue for a post. I'm sorry to those of you who may have been wondering after my well-being since my last post. I continue to do really, really well. I've returned to work, and we've resumed shooting of my film.

In addition, I've decided to paint my bedroom. It's a long story, but basically I've been wanting to paint it for a while. We're using it as a set on the film, so I need to get it done. I've been painting all week, and I'm still not finished! It's kind of hard to paint because it has a lot of corners and doors and trim that I have to paint around. I also don't have space to move my furniture out of there, so everything is shoved into the middle of the room, which doesn't leave me a lot of room on the outside to get around.

Anyway, the point of telling you all of this is to demonstrate how much I've recovered since my surgery. The first couple of weeks after surgery, I could barely reach around and fasten the seat belt in a car. And, now, I'm painting my bedroom (ceiling included). I even installed a new ceiling fan the other day. So, yeah, I'm doing well.

I went the other day and was fitted for a mastectomy bra and prosthesis. My insurance covers two bras and one prosthesis for each breast. On the left side, I'll get a full prosthesis. Those things are really amazing these days. The one I'm getting is really soft and comfortable. The woman helping me said that "it passes the hug test." So, I guess when people hug you, they don't really notice that it's not a real breast. Or at the very least, it doesn't feel hard.

Which is funny, because with the implant expander on the right side, my right breast totally feels hard. But that brings me to what I'll get on the right side. I'll get a "shell." This is not a full breast, but a thin shell (they have different thicknesses depending on how much you need to fill out) that fits over an existing breast (or, more specifically, partial breast).

The bra has pockets in the cups where you can slide the prostheses in. That holds them in place. So, when you take off your bra, you take off your breasts. That could definitely come in handy sometimes!!

I'm actually really looking forward to getting the bra and prostheses. I've been getting out and about with my new flat chest, but I still feel a little self-conscious about it... mostly because my right side has the expander while my left side has nothing. It makes me feel really lop-sided. I don't even know if other people notice it, but I always feel a bit like everyone is staring. I mean, people have been staring ever since I lost my hair. So people are staring. But now I feel even more self-conscious when they do.

The cool thing is that my hair is starting to come back in. The ends are super fine, but it's starting to resume its normal thickness as it grows in. The result is that my hair is super soft. People love to pet my head because it's so soft. I also like that you can now see the dark hair on my head. Before, I had a little hair, but there was so little of it that it didn't actually darken my head. I just looked like I had blonde hair. But now, it's dark again. And, by the looks of it, I'm not going to have anymore gray hairs than I did before. So, that's good.

I'm going to be sad to lose it again this winter though. Late last week, I met with my doctor to discuss the metastasis they found in my lymph nodes. As I suspected, they are going to treat my lymph nodes with radiation when they do the radiation on my breast. But, he also suggested that I will probably need more chemotherapy.

After I've completed radiation, they are going to re-stage me. This is actually something that they usually don't do. Once you've been staged the first time, they base all treatment from the initial staging data. Staging is when they scan your body for cancer. This consists of a bone scan and a CT scan. At least, that's what they did for me. I'm sure there are a number of different tests depending on where they found the cancer.

Based on what they find in the scans, they determine what stage cancer you are in. There are four stages of cancer. The fourth stage is when your cancer has metastisized. This means that the cancer has spread past its original site and the local lymph nodes. So, metastasis in my lymph nodes doesn't necessarily mean that I'm stage 4. I would only be diagnosed as stage 4 if it has spread beyond my lymph nodes.

Like I said, usually they don't restage you. This is because it is usually not helpful to do so, and it doesn't affect treatment. However, my doctor felt that my case is the exception to this rule. The reason for this is that the cancer in my lymph nodes should have responded to the same chemotherapy that I received for my breast cancer. The fact that it didn't respond as well makes him wonder if it is the same form of cancer they treated initially. I should add here that when they removed my breast, they did find a mass. What does that mean? That means that I had another type of cancer in addition to the ibc. This is not unusual because ibc often accompanies other types of breast cancer. So, given this set of circumstances, they want to restage me to determine if they should follow a different course of treatment. And that's where the chemo comes in.

I really won't know more about that until after my radiation is complete. I'll meet with my doctor again to set up the staging tests in mid-October. That's when I'll start learning more about what my post-radiation treatment will be. In the meantime, I meet with my radiologist for the first time next week

Okay, that's all I have for now. I'll post again after I've met with my radiologist.