ah, sh*t

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My mom had a follow-up today with her doctor to get her stitches removed and talk about her test results. I don’t really know how to sum this up, but basically, the story is that the surgeon removed the entire tumor bed and everything around it tested negative, which is great. But they also run tests on the extra tissue that the plastic surgeon removes when he does the reduction. And unfortunately, when that came back from the pathologist, they found a whole other cancer against her chest wall.

On the one hand, it’s good that they found it, because it’s so small (only 0.9 centimeters) and so far back, it could’ve been years before it showed up on a mammogram. And by that point, it might’ve been stage 3 instead of stage 1. But at the same time, are you kidding me? She just went through all this, and now she has to start over? WTF?

So she’s going back on Tuesday for a full mastectomy, and reconstructive implant. She isn’t sure yet if she’s going to have a preventative mastectomy of the other breast or not, she’s going to wait to discuss that with her doctor. She has a really good attitude about it, she says that she feels like she’s still in recovery mode, so the idea of starting over doesn’t seem so bad. She says she thinks it was divine intervention that this was found when it was.

My dad, on the other hand, is really freaked out and pissed off. They’ve been married for almost 38 years, and he’s 10 years older than her, and I think the idea that she might not be around scares the bejeezus out of him. So I’m almost more worried about him at this point.

My sister was supposed to head back to NYC on Wednesday, but since my mom’s surgery will be on Tuesday, she’s bumped her flight until Sunday the 16th. I still wish I was there, but there isn’t really anything I can do about that. I’ll be there two weeks from today as it is.

Somebody pass the ibuprofen. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to stop grinding my teeth at this point.

family stuff, etc.

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My mom’s surgery went well. The doctor removed the three lymph nodes closest to the tumor and they all tested negative, which is great news. Not sure yet what the next steps will be as far as treatment, but so far so good. She was discharged from the hospital this morning, so she’s home and high on painkillers. Sounded like things were as normal as can be expected. Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts and prayers.

Just to make yesterday a little bit more stressful for me, my in-laws arrived from the UK, so I went on the Mandatory Cleaning Frenzy that I do every time we have houseguests. I don’t know why I do that – they’re here to see us, they don’t care about the state of the house, but you know, I have this Southern Hostess Gene and it makes me a teensy bit irrational sometimes.

Also, why is it that every time we have company, everything in the house starts falling apart? In the past 36 hours:
1. Cate’s closet door fell off (WTF? No idea how that happened)
2. Our septic tank alarm keeps going off because of all the rain we’ve had. Seems the tanks are getting flooded. Fabulous!
3. Our kitchen sink started to leak, which is the exact same thing that happened back in March when Alphagal and e-baby were here.
4. The faucet in our bathroom broke and we couldn’t turn the cold water off, so we had to shut off the valve under the sink.

Our plumber is here fixing the last two items on the list. We’ll get the closet door fixed later, and there isn’t really anything we can do about the septic tank until all this damn water starts to dry up. Oh, and our street is flooded again, just like it was last year, so we have to go on crazy-long detours to get anywhere.

I hate winter in the boonies. Oh well, at least we still have our electricity. (Quick, knock on some wood before that statement sends me to Jinx Hell.)

good vibes request

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My mom is having her breast cancer surgery today. I’m relieved that she’s just having a lumpectomy and a reduction, but I’m still a little freaked out and worried. It’s just that whole idea of thinking about your parents’ mortality, which I think is one of those things that nobody likes to think about.

If you are at all the praying type, please throw one or two in our direction. And if not, good thoughts and healthy vibes are just as appreciated.

snow day

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What do you know, it’s my first “day off” from blogging, and here I am.

Last night we had a little bit of snow, but it melted quickly this morning. Then this afternoon, the snow just started coming down like crazy. Big huge white clumps falling down. I guess I’m truly a Southern girl at heart, because I get so excited when it snows. You know, assuming I don’t have to drive in it. That’s a whole other story, driving in snow makes me really cranky (see: one of many reasons why living in Massachusetts sucked for me).

Anyway, this wasn’t Cate’s first snow – that happened within a few days after she was born back in January. But it was the first time she was old enough to see it and be aware of it. So I bundled both of us up and walked outside to see what she’d think. It was really coming down hard, so she seemed sort of confused by it. There was lots of blinking and smacking her lips when the snow hit her in the face, but she wasn’t unhappy. She didn’t seem thrilled by it either, so we came back in after a couple of minutes.

Later, she pulled herself up to a stand on the big trunk in our living room bay window and she laughed and laughed while watching the snow outside. So I guess she’s sort of like me with thinking that snow is best when you can watch it from a cozy, warm place.

It’s let up now, but I’m guessing there’s at least an inch (maybe two) of snow on the ground. Good thing we didn’t have any big plans this weekend. Catching up on laundry won’t require me to leave the house, so we’re fine.

NaBloPoMo Day 30: The End, and back to baby stuff

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I guess the lesson I learned from this whole NaBloPoMo experiment is that I can, in fact, come up with something to write (most of the time) when I feel like I have nothing to say. I just need to sit in front of a blank entry page and see what comes out. I don’t know if I’ll stick with this whole thing of posting more frequently, but I’d like to. Not every day, but more than I was before.

Oh, and I know I just did this three days ago, but I have a couple more baby milestones:
* Cate stood up! On her own! No holding anything! This just happened for the first time about an hour ago. We were playing around and she was standing up holding on to Dave, and then she just let go and kept on standing. She held it for a few seconds before she fell on her butt, but she did it again, so I think this is going to be her new favorite trick.

Question: what’s the approximate time gap between independent standing and walking? I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?

* The past two days, when I’ve gone to pick her up at daycare, she took one look at me and said, “Mama!” So I think she might actually know what it means, which is pretty exciting. Earlier tonight, she was in the living room and I wandered into the kitchen for a minute. From the next room, I heard her say, “Mama?” with a definite question mark on the end. It could’ve just been babbling (since she does that non-stop), but it sounded intentional. I said, “Here I am!” And a few seconds later, she came crawling in to the kitchen. So who knows?

* Also, when I drop her off at daycare now, not only does she not cry anymore, she actually reaches for Patsy. So I think we’ve found a pretty happy arrangement there. Happy baby, no guilt for mommy, everybody wins.

Oh, and have I mentioned the teeth? They’re hyooooge!

Last night I had a dream that Cate was in bed with us, which is not a stretch, since she’s usually in our bed from around 4-8 a.m. everyday. (She stopped sleeping through the night when she got sick back in October.) But in the dream I could hear her babbling, so it seemed very real. Then I woke up, and she wasn’t there, and I panicked. We prop open the baby gate at the top of the stairs at night so the cats can come & go (and so Dave and I don’t bump into it in the dark), and I just thought, “Ok, I heard her, but she’s not in the bed. Oh god, she’s crawling around and the gate is open, and she’s going to fall down the stairs!” I bolted to the top of the stairs, and since I heard Dave watching TV, I yelled downstairs, “Is she with you???” He was like, “Uh, is who with me?” That’s when I woke up the rest of the way and realized that I am, in fact, one of those obsessively anxious new moms that you always hear about. Way to go, me.