- More Meanderings

Hey there, fellow sojourners! What's new? I have been carefully walking around, recuperating from my Happy Hysterectomy. 

This past Monday was treatment day. For those of you not quite up-to-speed on my fascinating cancer journey, I have finished my chemo & radiation but am still receiving an antibody called "Herceptin" until mid-February.

The nice thing about Herceptin is that there aren't many side effects, other than some joint swelling, a bit of fatigue, and the perpetual difficulty of losing weight. But we won't talk about THAT, now, will we!?!?!!?
 

Anyways, so George drove me to the hospital for noon this past Monday & schlepped around with me all afternoon. And I got to see my cutie-pie Oncologist, Dr. Victor Cohen...he's kinda shy, so he's not terribly fond of getting his picture taken. 

This pic above is the only one I have of him in my files. I did find another one on the Jewish General Hospital website, although it's not a very good one....

He has a beard & looks a little fershivelled here - oops, my spellcheck is telling me that's not the right spelling....anybody know how to spell fershivelled? I've just gone on Google & dictionary.com but neither of them recognize this word....I know I've heard it used..... help???

Anyhoo, he doesn't have a beard now, and his hair looks very nice these days. Gosh, he'd just die if he knew I was talking about him here on my blog. Oh, well. 

So he came into the examining room where we were waiting for him & he always looks stressed, because all he does all day is meet patient after patient after patient after patient with cancer...breast cancer, bladder cancer, stomach cancer, throat cancer....patients who will get better and go on to lead healthy, long lives; patients who will get better from this round of chemo, only to get their cancer back again, and patients who will not recover from their cancer and will eventually die.

Dr. Cohen is a wonderful Oncologist & he really cares about his patients, so I always feel bad for him when he comes in looking so stressed, which is, like, pretty much all the time. I like making him laugh, so when he came in looking so dog-tired, I said, "Hey! What's different about me?!?!?" 

He stopped in his tracks, looked at me carefully, and said, "You lost weight."

"Nope!" I said, wishing with all my might that this was true. 

"Uh....your hair has grown back," he guessed again. "Yes," I said, "but that's not it." He just stared at me, trying to figure it out.

"Give up??" I said. He nodded. 

"I don't have a uterus anymore!!!" Hahaha!! He'd forgotten I'd had my Happy Hysterectomy! 

"And I don't have my ovaries or my tubes, either!"He smiled & shook his head. I like it when caring, stressed-out doctors get to have a little chuckle in the middle of their sad, cancer-filled day. It's the least I can do to pay them back for all the wonderful care they give to me. 

 
















Anyways, we chatted about the drugs I'll be on for the next 5 years to fight residual breast cancer cells that may still be floating around my body, my post-hysterectomy infection that's decided to hang out around the incision under my navel, and a few other fascinating details that I won't bore you with.

Yes, the incision under my navel (where they inserted the camera for my laparoscopic hysterectomy) was looking pretty angry & red, so after seeing Dr. Cohen, one of the Chemo nurses called a doc from Infectious Diseases to come look at it. Doesn't that sound exciting? Infectious Diseases! Like I'm a health risk or something!!

Actually, it's the best kind of doc to look at stuff like this, so he came to gaze at my navel (I thought we were supposed to gaze at our own navels???) and decided an abscess was forming, so he prescribed some antibiotics. Sure! The quickly-shrinking amount of cash in my anorexic bank account is just sitting there, so why not spend it on more drugs, for goodness sake!

Then, a half hour of Herceptin, some witty repartee with Dr. Brahms Silver, my favorite Colorectal Social Worker, a few jokes dispensed to busy, efficient nurses, and then my final quote for the day before leaving:

"Chaos, panic, pandemonium – my work here is done." Ha!!!

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Well, of course, things are never simple with me, and this week was no different. After starting my antibiotics for the incision infection, one of my teeth started hurting. I mean, I'd just finished up a third and what-I-thought-was-final appointment last week with my nice dentist, Dr. Evange Destounis. I think the chemo must've done a number on my teeth, cuz I had all sorts of fillings and cracked enamels that needed fixing. 

Oh, well, so off I went to see Evange & his wacky sidekick, MJ. We had lots of fun together & I managed to do a photo shoot while they were working on me. It's easy - you just hold your cell phone on your lap, and while they're working on you, you take some pics. Fun, eh?

Yes, a good time was definitely had by all - that's for sure.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Tomorrow, I'm off to the hospital again to show my surgeon, Dr. Tulandi, my interesting-looking incision, to see what he says about that. 


Ta ta for now!! xox


Love, Wendy

Oh, and here's a little video for ya, from a Girls' Night Out I did in Brockville, Ontario, Canada last month - hope you get a chuckle!!!

- My Happy Hysterectomy!

Yes, it's all over with and I am minus my plumbing. I had my Happy Hysterectomy on November 30, 2010 at 9 am. 

Just before we went into the Operating Room, I told my surgeon, cutie-pie Dr. Tulandi, that I was hoping I'd weigh less after the operation.

He just laughed (I think he thought I was serious - and I was, kinda) and said, "It only weighs a few ounces!! Ha ha ha!!" Yeah, I figured that. Oh, well, a girl can always dream....

Ya, so this is Dr. Togas Tulandi, my favorite gynecologist in the whole world. He's super-nice, always in a good mood, never snobby, and he has a great reputation. 

He's the one who removed my left ovary (it was pretty beat up from too much endometriosis) around 10 years ago, so I figured he should be the one to finish the job & get the complete set.

I also like him because he laughs at my jokes, which is an important factor in choosing a doctor. For me, anyways. And would you believe, he CALLED ME AT HOME the night after the surgery to see how I was doing!!! How's THAT for a doctor, huh?!?? What a cutie-pie!!

Ya, so this was my FIFTH surgery since this whole breast cancer saga began in August 2009. And the weird thing is, every one of those five surgeries has been done in "ODS", or One Day Surgery, something I never would have imagined. 

I mean, it's not like I was getting a wart removed or something. These are major surgeries they're doing! But at the end of the day, home we go! (Well, they did keep me overnight for the bilateral mastectomy, which was very kind of them).

So I've had, in order of appearance:

1) a bilateral mastectomy in September 2009

2) lymph node removals in October 2009

3) my Port-A-Cath installation in I-don't-remember-when

4) my Port-A-Cath removal & re-installation of another Port-A-Cath that actually worked properly in September 2010, and 

5) a hysterectomy in November 2010. 

I think that's enough, already!

Of course, I'm good buddies with the ODS - One Day Surgery - staff by now....I mean, we're practically family, don't you know! This is Elizabeth, the receptionist in ODS. She's SO much fun and we always have lots of laughs when I'm there.

So this surgery was what they call a prophylactic hysterectomy. That means I had it done for preventative purposes. 

I figure if I can get every major organ removed from my body between now and, say, 2014, why, I'll be SO much more at peace because the cancer won't have anywhere to hang out if it did come back, right?

Except I draw the line at them removing my brain. I need my brain. And my heart. I need that, too. 

But I figure everything else is expendable, so I'm getting it cut out. Ha!


The oral medication they put you on for five years, following an episode with breast cancer, actually stimulates the lining of the uterus, which can cause cancer! Sheesh!


So I figured it was safer to get a hysterectomy. If I don't have a uterus, I can't get cancer of the uterus. A no-brainer, right? 

Dr. Cohen - my cutie-pie Oncologist - and Dr. Tulandi, my gynie, agreed with me. I like it when my doctors agree with me. See? I make their jobs so much easier for them! I tell them what I want, and they, like, do it! It's like I'm diagnosing myself - what fun!

So that's all....I'm still kinda tired from Monday's surgery so I should get back to bed, now. But I knew you'd want to be brought up-to-speed on my fascinating life, so I felt I had a moral duty to post this before completely relaxing & taking it easy.

Till next time! Bye bye!

Love, Meeee xoxo

- Still Here!

 Oh my, I'm so behind in my blogging, aren't I? It's been forever since we've visited each other here, isn't it? 

Well, no worries, as they say - I'm doing just peachy, although I've been pretty pooped lately, waiting for my increased thyroid meds to kick in. Silly hypo-thyroid! Who needs it?

Last Friday night, I went to Brockville, Ontario to do a Girls' Night Out Concert Of Hope. It was fun! 

Here's what the crowd looked like when I got up on stage:
 

Wow! Pretty big crowd, huh? Yup, yup - I'm one popular chick, I tell you. Okay, maybe this wasn't the exact crowd, but it was pretty similar.

Okay, so it was nothing like that. But 160 women came to see me, which was pretty darn cool, since they'd never heard of me & didn't really know what they were getting into. 

They were one crazy bunch! I got to do my Depends gag with them! What's that, you ask? Well, you know when ladies get older, sometimes they can lose a bit of bladder control, right? That means when they laugh, things can happen. Like, you know, small little leaks. You know what I'm saying? So that's why some smart business people invented diapers for adults.

Well, when that many ladies get to laughing over my jokes, things can happen. So just for a laugh, I bring along a bag of Depends, and when the laughter gets to a certain pitch, I pull out my bag of Depends and show it to the crowd.

 

Which gets them laughing even harder! And then, of course, I pull out a few Depends & start throwing them into the crowd. I threw out one to the section on the left, one to the middle section, and one to the right. I told them to share. Which would be really difficult, when you think about it. Not that I want to. Think about it, that is.

Anyways, it got a good laugh. And because I told them how expensive those things are, they even brought them back to me at the end of the concert, which was very thoughtful of them, don't you think? I think so.
 

It was a wonderful concert. They didn't really want much singing, so I did mostly comedy! They gave me a standing ovation, and the organizer said I had to come back again & do another show sometime. "Oh, if you insist," I said. Then I went out into the foyer & sold some CDs, made some new friends, and apologized for any accidents they may have had while laughing. 

I mean, it's not like I had enough Depends for everyone there. I'm not Celine, you know. I'm not made of money.

And even though Celine has lots of money, I'm sure she doesn't throw Depends into the crowd. That's more of a Wendy thing.

Well, what more can I say? I think I've said it all for tonight. You won't believe this (or maybe you will), but it's 4:30-ish am and I haven't gone to bed, yet. I got busy on my little computer here, blogging away amongst other things, and suddenly....poof! It's almost daybreak! I really must get my rest!

So ttfn - ta ta for now, dear friends, and see you again soon....in person, on Facebook, or right here in bloggy-land!

xoxox Love, Wendy

 

- No Longer Loopy

Yep, so this past Wednesday, October 20/10, I got unlooped. I'm now unloopy. No Longer Loopy. Sounds like a brand-name shampoo, doesn't it?

Anyways, so if you don't understand this title, you should look on the right sidebar, scroll down, and find my previous posting entitled "I'm Loopy". Read that, then come back here and everything I'm saying today will suddenly make sense.
 

So I showed up at 7:30 am like they told me to and changed into my surgery costume, which they insist you wear when you get surgery. It's kinda like Hallowe'en, only it's, er, not.

The hat is completely superfluous, when you think about it. I mean, it just looks dopey & a nurse told me after an hour or so that I didn't need to wear it, even though the gown-hand-er-out-er told me I did. So I took it off cuz I don't like looking dopey...who does?

Anyways, so they took out my loopy Port-A-Cath & put in my new, unloopy Port-A-Cath. The surgeon was going to put in the new one on my right side instead of my left, to avoid the risk of possible infection, but as it turns out, one of her colleagues said there wasn't really a significant risk, so she put it in on the same side. Which is good! It means I don't have yet another scar.  

Yep, so like I said, I was at the hospital at 7:30 am, and they finally took me around 1 pm. Sigh. Lots of ODS (One Day Surgery) patients ahead of me. Oh, well - no complaints...it's free! Thank you, Quebec Medicare! Thank you, socialized medicine! Thank you, Quebec taxpayers! Waiting around for a few hours is a small inconvenience so no worries.

Hey, check this out! One of my FB friends says she went to France for a Lance Armstrong-type event & ended up writing my name in the sand as a sign she was thinking of me. Sweet, eh? That's a yellow Lance Armstrong Livestrong bracelet sitting there on the sand in the middle. 

I wonder if it's one of those photoshopped deals she did, and she just made up the story about her being in France? Oh, well, it doesn't matter...it's the thought that counts! I guess I'm a little cynical cuz I found this way cool website where you can do stuff like that.

You just choose a frame like this window box, then add your photo, et voila! It looks like Timmy-In-A-Windowbox. The website is www.imagechef.com - very cute.

See? I wrote "I like to blog" in this sandy pic. Kinda fun, right? 

Anyways, in other news, Timmy the Cat got a manicure a few weeks ago. We have some leather furniture & he managed to put a few good gouges in it, so rather than declawing him, we opted for "Soft Paws". 
 

It's these cute little caps you glue on their front claws so that they can't destroy your furniture, woodwork, etc. It's painless & they last about six weeks. 

He's looking pretty mad in this pic - this is when we first put them on - and he acted really funny when he first started walking with them, but now he's used to it. He can't ruin our furniture, and when he scratches on the wooden door to come in from downstairs, it sounds kinda like chalk on a blackboard as the plastic squeaks against the wood.

They come in all kinds of fun colors like hot pink, green, blue, purple, etc., but to save his dignity, we decided on black. I think he would have felt ridiculous sporting hot pink claws.

He doesn't look too thrilled here, but he's totally used to them, now...he doesn't even notice it at all...just bites at them a bit once in awhile. As the claws grow longer, you just clip them off & apply a new set. We got 40 for around $11.95 from Hong Kong. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, that's my news! I've got another six gigs or so coming up....Montreal....Alexandria.... Brockville....Toronto.... So I'm resting up, doing lots of online marketing, for my music & comedy, and looking forward to treatment being over and done with in February 2011...only six Herceptin treatments to go! Once every three weeks isn't all that bad, right? 

And then maybe I'll do a world tour, like Celine Dion! Or maybe I'll just take a nap. We'll see what I'm in the mood for by February 2011. So stay tuned! You never know just what's going to happen in my exciting, Adventures-With-Wendy-life, now, do you? :)

Blessings to all of you!

Wendy

- Battle Scars

Well, let's see....what's new in my interesting & varied life these days? Oh, yes, last time here on The Young and The Breastless, I was telling you about my adventures of being loopy. 

My Port-A-Cath line had mysteriously looped inside my vein, preventing my Herceptin treatment from being administered through it. Last time I went in for treatment, they had to use a vein in the back of my hand, which was, like, ouch!

Here, I'll show you what I mean. Ooh, talk about a personal picture of me!! Yes, this is me, faithful blogger friends!! Up close & personal!!

It's very sexy, if you ask me....I mean, you can see right through my hospital gown. 

Anyways, now, look at the upper right hand corner of the x-ray where it says "JGH" & "Wendy". Now look at the date underneath that, "2010 Sep 20". Now look to the left of the date & down a bit, and you'll see my loop-de-loop just to the right of my spinal column. Isn't that cool? That's my loopy Port-A-Cath line!

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to see the lovely doctor who installed it (she really is lovely! Very pretty!) She looked at the x-ray and exclaimed, "I've never seen anything like this before!" She said she was fairly certain that if it had ever happened to any other patients of the hospital, their doctors would have mentioned it to her. 

Isn't that fun?!? This means that once again, I've found a way to be special!! I love being special! Helps me stand out in the crowd, I say!! Why, it also helps my reputation as a Drama Queen!

Of course, it also means that they'll have to remove this Port-A-Cath, since it's now officially useless.

Sigh. Now, you see, I thought my treatment was going to be over in mid-November, so if that was the case, I'd grit my teeth & get the last two Herceptin treatments the regular, needle-in-the-vein way. 

But last time I saw my cutie-pie Oncologist, Dr. Cohen, he looked at me like I was...well, loopy when I mentioned that I was looking forward to being finished in November. "No!" he exclaimed, "you'll be finished in February 2011!" 

 "What???" said I. Yep, turns out I'd misunderstood. I thought I'd be getting Herceptin for 9 months in total, but he'd meant 9 months after my chemo finished, plus 3 months of it at the same time as my chemo. So a year in total. Yay.

Oh, well....I'm tough; I can take it. It's only once every 3 weeks. Which means, I kinda still want & need a Port-A-Cath. So on October 20, I'm going in to get this one removed, and another one put in. On my right side this time, cuz if they put another one in on the same side, it can risk infection. Hmph. 

A scar, scar here, and a scar, scar there....here a scar, there a scar; everywhere a scar, scar...little Miss Wendy had a farm...e-i-e-i-o. 

So on my chest, I'll have:

(a) my bilateral mastectomy scars - two, to be exact

(b) the scar from my lymph node removals

(c) the scar from inserting the first Port-A-Cath

(d) the scar from removing the first Port-A-Cath

(e) the scar from inserting the second Port-A-Cath

(f) the scar from removing the second Port-A-Cath - sometime in 2011.

(g) the scar I'll get when I have some corrective surgery on (a).

Oh. My. Word. How attractive is all THAT going to be!!! Should I win a special award or something? I'll look like a blinking road map!!! 

Not to mention (further south of my chest) the scar from my umbilical hernia (when I was 3 years old), my appendix scar (when I was 7 years old), and the scar from when they removed a uterine cyst (when I was 40-ish years old).

Never mind. They're battle scars, dah-lings! Just think of the tale each one tells!!! It proves I've got loads of experience living life, doesn't it? Yes, it does. 

Same applies to wrinkles. Your face might look like a road map, but it just shows that you've been around the block enough times to know a thing or two, right? They're beauty marks!

Well, here's to staying young at heart, even when life sneaks up on us & shouts, "BOO!!!"

Incidentally, I googled "battle scars" and up popped a very inspirational piece, which I've posted below. If you've got the time, read it.

Talk to you soon, and stay young!!

Love, Wendy

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Show Me Your Battle Scars

November 12th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina 

Whenever you set an ambitious goal, it’s virtually guaranteed you’ll encounter some roadblocks.

There’s no reason to let that stop you though. A roadblock isn’t much of an obstacle for a human being. You can climb over it, walk around it, blow it up, get someone else to move it, or otherwise bypass it.

Roadblocks do an outstanding job of frightening away the timid. But to those with a modicum of courage, roadblocks have very little power. When a committed person tackles a roadblock, the roadblock stands very little chance. After a little time spent hacking away at the roadblock, the universe will tend to do the equivalent of saying, “Well, alright then… I was just checking to see if you were serious. I won’t stand in your way anymore. You’re free to proceed.”

Perhaps it’s a universal safety mechanism, something along the lines of survival of the fittest. Maybe the universe won’t allow weak-minded people to go too far down the path of goal achievement, since if they were to succeed in a big way, they’d just make a real mess of things. Strong-willed people are free to pass, while weak-minded ones get knocked back and have to train up a bit more.

Time for a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

So the question is… are you a timid adventurer? Has the world been scaring you away from setting and achieving some really big and meaningful goals? Is a scarecrow enough to derail you from getting what you really want? Have you been derailed so many times that you’ve stopped pursuing what you want and settled for what you think you can get?

Have you defined as “impossible” or “highly improbable” a whole host of possibilities that other human beings have already proven achievable?

Sure there are some goals that would be really tough for you to accomplish. Maybe you’re right about certain things being impossible for you. So let’s see your battle scars then. Show me the wounds you’ve endured as a result of pursuing goals you couldn’t achieve. 

Let’s see that bankruptcy, that broken heart, the rejection letter, the lawsuit, the divorce, the public humiliation. Show me the total failures, the brutal disappointments, the smack-downs.

Let’s see them battle scars.

What’s that? Do my ears deceive me, or are those crickets I’m hearing? No scars, eh.

Alrighty, how about some cuts and bruises? … A skinned knee? … A boo boo? … Heck, I’ll settle for a henna tattoo at this point.

If you have no scars, then you’re a super-duper mega-achiever, right? You must either be a complete genius or incredibly lucky. Nothing but a huge string of successes one after the other.

That’s not it either?

But if you’re not experiencing unfathomable successes and you’re not taking heavy damage either, then what the heck have you been doing with yourself? Playing it safe, eh? Playing… Pretending…

Did you really come here to live a pretend life? Perhaps you should stop doing that. Think about living a real life for a change… the kind of life people write poetry about.

If this world were a role-playing game (RPG), would you be classified as an Avatar or an NPC (non-player character)? NPCs sit around and repeat the same actions day after day. Avatars go on quests, where every day is different.

Do you have a quest? Or just a queue? Those last couple letters make a big difference.

Is your life safe? The word safe is both an adjective and a noun. As an adjective it means “being free from danger.” As a noun it’s “an enclosed storage container with a lock on it.” If you’re living the adjective, you’re living the noun too.

The word brave is also an adjective and a noun, meaning “possessing courage” (adj) and “a warrior” (n). Same rules apply.

Put an ending to pretending. Design your character, train him up, buy him some cool weapons, and send him into battle. Leave the safe behind — it will only slow you down.

In other words, decide what you want, develop the required skills, acquire the necessary resources, and go after your goal with courage. Don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way. Be that resolute young fellow (regardless of your age) as opposed to the timid adventurer.

It really is true that you have nothing to fear but fear itself. If you get hurt along the way, then suck it up and keep going. Battle scars are a part of life. To deny yourself disappointment is to deny yourself victory. If you want to go on a meaningful quest, you’re going to have to risk losing some hit points now and then.

Imagine playing an RPG without losing any hit points. You’d be playing scared, and it would be mind-numbingly dull and plodding. Is that how you’re playing the game of life right now?

Is your life full of ghastly defeats and glorious triumphs? Or has getting the mail become the highlight of your day?

Do something today that causes you to risk outright failure. Polish that old armor, and clean up those rusty weapons. Put some of those hit points to good use for a change.

If you fail, then nurse your wounds and celebrate that you’re finally living as human beings were meant to live — impassioned, emboldened, and completely unafraid.

But if you succeed, go find yourself a damned good poet.