Robotic Box Checker

I thought I was going to get my drains out last week.

I was wrong. 

Unbeknownst to me, the total drainage per side needs to be below 30 cc per day for two days consecutively. Not knowing this, I arrived at the surgeon's office only to be informed, rather snippily by the nurse, that I was not going to be having them removed that day, the next day or probably not until the following week.

When I questioned why she said that I was draining more than 30cc's for the day. When I replied that I didn't know that she said, "I asked you when you called this morning." 

Technically she did. However, she did not ask, "Are you under 30cc's for the day?" What she asked was, "Are you under 30cc's?" I replied that when I emptied the drain that morning it was less than 20cc's. 

She got nippy. I got snippy right back and said, "You'll have to excuse me. This is the first time I've had my boobs cut off so I have no idea how things are supposed to work."

Then I had a massive meltdown... and the nurse got a lot nicer.

But, I still spent the day in bed crying. I was devastated. 

The drains hurt. 

I mentioned previously that the drain on the right was killing me. It was super painful and as it healed it got worse. Add suction pain to the drain pain and I was completely miserable. Seriously, it felt like my skin was being sucked into my chest. 

Sleeping has been nearly impossible which has contributed to my deteriorating emotional state and increased depression. Two antidepressants a day did little to help me. 

Don't get me wrong, I could and did, push through most days but all it would take was a pin to drop and I was off and blubbering again. 

I'm not the worst at asking for help but I'm not the best either. 

Fortunately for us, people have been better at helping than I have been at asking. 

Dinner has been delivered every other night by an army of friends and neighbors. The kids have had transportation provided and extra play time at friend's houses so I could rest and my staff has been UNBELIEVABLE! 

Honestly, I couldn't ask for better employees! I want to go into detail about these women but I will save that for another day and give them the full post they deserve. 

Fast forward to this week and my drains were removed on Wednesday...finally. 

We arrived at the surgeon's office and checked in. 

The nurse (same one) came around the corner and told Glenn that he couldn't come in. I responded with another  massive meltdown...like snot bubble, hyperventilate meltdown. 

Persistent pain is exhausting. I was worn out and clearly incapable of controlling my emotions.

Fortunately she relented, let him come with me and my drains were removed. 

The left one was uncomfortable but the right (the one that's hurt the whole time) hurt like hell! The nurse had to stop halfway through removing it so I could take a break. 

She also removed the steri-strips from the surgery and it looks so good! The incision is still a little wrinkly but it's flattening out a little each day. 

I did apologize for being such a nut job in the waiting room. She told me it was ok and went on to explain that since she was in the room alone she was afraid of having my husband pass out (something that has happened with spouses before) and she would not be able to take care of him and pull the drains at the same time. 

She told me I didn't need to apologize but I did again anyway. I do feel badly. 

Without the drains in, both my demeaner and my range of motion are improving. I'm not crying at everything and I even helped on some of the cakes this week! 

Maybe I'll even be able to fold the massive pile of clean laundry that has accumulated in the house. 

Yippee. <snark>

Glenn washes and dries but doesn't fold. 

After lunch we met with my oncologist, Dr. Tedeschi at Penn Medicine. 

Before the doctor came in a technician came to take my weight, temp, oxygen level etc. then began asking the barrage of general questions. The best one was, "Are you experiencing pain?" Glenn snorted, I laughed and said, "I just had my drains removed, so today is probably not the day to ask." She looked at me like a deer in headlights and asked, "So you have pain?" I replied, "Yeah, yeah I have pain." 

Then she asked...

Wait for it...

...

"Where?"

"Where they cut my boobs off!" I snarked. 

Really?!

C'mon people! I understand that these are trained individuals but seriously, can we bring back common sense?! They are not just trained but over-trained an incapable or not allowed to think for themselves. 

It was like speaking with a robotic box-checker. 

The Oncologist was a different story! I really like her. She is smart, funny, compassionate and has common sense! 

She didn't brush my concerns aside about having two businesses and needing to be as available as possible. When discussing the chemo schedule and possible side effects she made the suggestion of Fridays for infusion. This way if I have a negative reaction to the chemo my down days would be Sunday and Monday when the store is closed anyway and I wouldn't have to worry about finding someone to cover my hours. If it goes well and I feel up to it, I can have the infusion in the morning and then work in the afternoon! 

If I don't have any reaction to the chemo, I can switch my infusion days to Tuesdays in Kennett Square vs Friday's in West Chester. The difference in drive time is about 25 minutes each direction so being able to move to Kennett Square would be fantastic! 

Dr. Tedeschi did say that I would probably lose my hair. I replied, "Well, a summer without shaving can't be all bad right?!" She looked me in the eyes, smiled and said, "I like you. We're going to get along really well." 

I know for some losing their hair can be very traumatic. Truth be told? I'm sort of looking forward to not having hair. I've had a life-long love/hate relationship with the stuff. It is extremely frizzy. I once even had a hairdresser refer to it as fuzzy! Not having to deal with it at all might be a welcomed change for a few months. 

Now onto the chemo regimen....

I will be having Taxol + Herceptin infused via a port once a week for 12 weeks and then just the Herceptin once every three weeks for the remainder of the year. 

Many people are familiar with the chemo cocktail of ACTH. This stands for chemotherapy medicines Adriamycin, Cytoxan (chemical name: cyclophosphamide), and Taxotere (chemical name: docetaxel), plus Herceptin.

ACT is much more harsh than just the Taxol and comes with so many more side effects. I am feeling very lucky. Studies have shown that, in patients with clear nodes and a mass less than 2 cm, there is no benefit in receiving the ACT with H and that Taxol plus Herceptin is just as effective. Had the mass been larger or the nodes hadn't been clear my treatment would be the ACTH. 

Chemo will start on June 25. 

When we walked through the door after the appointments on Wednesday the boys greated us with, "Did they take them out?" I pulled my shirt up to show them that the tubes were indeed gone. They both cheered enthusiastically and for the first time in almost two weeks I got to fully hug my kids. 

Something I hope to be doing for many, many, many years to come. 

King Swirly and Parent Fails

The last month passed at lightning speed. I blinked...It's June 23!

How the hell did that happen?!

In addition to being the mother of 19-month-old twins, I am the owner and designer of a cake business, co-owner of an outdoor living business and I work part-time on the weekends for Dyson.

To sum it up, I work seven days a week.

I took the day off for Mother's day, Father's day and another day that as of this moment I can't remember. All I know is that I didn't have to wake up to the alarm clock.

I love all of my jobs.

Of course, most days, being a mom is the best of them all but I'd be lying if I said that getting out of the house on the weekends is a really nice break. The downside of that is I don't get much time with my hubby. I am, however, old enough and wise enough, to know that life will not be this frantic forever and something will slow down...eventually.

Here's a basic breakdown of my days. Roll out of bed at 7:30 (if I lucky and get to sleep that late), get the kids up and dressed, read email while kids eat breakfast. Bake or decorate cakes while kids play, feed kids lunch at 11:30 - respond to more email and/or post pics of my work to Facebook, free children from high chairs and let them play (aka fight) by themselves. Between 1 & 1:30 the kids go down for naps. I clean up the crap that they have strewn about the house, run the Dyson (I'm not just an employee) if I need to, shower, dry and style hair (tell me again why I want long hair) and get back to working on cake.

The boys usually sleep until about 3pm and once they are up my time is completely devoted to them unless I have one of the sitters here. If I have a sitter, I work on cake and then start dinner prep.

Depending on hubby's work schedule he arrives home anytime between 5:30 and 9:00 pm.

The late nights really suck!

Depending on my schedule, I either go to bed once the boys are in bed or I work. I often find myself up until 1 or 2 a.m. As tough as it can be on me the next day, I have to say that I love the quiet.

The day after late nights aren't usually bad but last night was a tough one.

I got to bed around 1 a.m. but the stuntman woke up screaming at 4:30. I grabbed him and put him in bed with us where he proceeded to kick and flail basically beating the crap out of me until I finally gave up and got up at about 6:30.

They are down for naps so, now that the toys are picked up and I've started the same load of laundry for the third time, I'm writing.

I love to write; I just don't have lots of time to devote to it.

We've had so many wonderful little experiences since I last wrote a post that there is no way I could ever fill you in on all of them - besides I know we had them...just don't ask me what they are...my brain is fried.

We've had some rather comical parent fails that I would like to share to prevent others from making the same mistake....

Do not refer to peas as "little balls." We did and the end result was a kitchen floor covered with "little balls" because well, what do you do with a ball? That's right...you THROW it! Their obsession with balls seems to be waning so we might try the peas again soon.

While reading the book Goodnight Gorilla I foolishly suggested that the boys refer to the armadillo in the story as a "dillo" because they could not pronounce armadillo. This resulted in my boys shouting DILDO every time we get to that page. Yes, this is in fact hysterical and they are so cute when they say it, but everyone knows that children at this age are little parrots. I can only imagine what people must think we talk about around our children whenever they feel compelled to shout "Dildo!" at the top of their lungs.

Referring to my hubby's daily beer as "Daddy's bah" was probably not the best idea either. They drink from bottles so daddy's must be the same right?

Not so much.

The other night I heard the Stuntman coughing in the kitchen. I rounded the corner to find him standing next to the table with the longneck bottle in hand, a pretty disgusted look on his face, basically gagging from the taste of the contents of "daddy's bah."

Oops!

Father's day was both good and bad.

Hubby loved our present but I was sick as a dog!

After a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, the Stuntman picked the blueberries out of them and left the pancake behind, I went back to bed.

I was awaked by hubby saying, "You guys stay here, I'll be right back." Followed by an unending chorus of "COW, COW, COW, COW, COW, COW..." (you get the point).

I dragged myself to the bathroom window to see what the commotion was and discovered hubby walking across the back lawn (the south 40 as we call it) with a cow tethered by an old piece of line from hubby's sailing days.

We live behind an Amish farm.

The calf was teething and chewed thru the fence. The cow is his mother.

Hubby got a hold of her and walked her home.

For a moment I thought I was at a 4H fair.

As I began to climb back into bed I heard the door to the powder room downstairs open. I threw on my sweatpants as fast as I could and raced downstairs to find that the Engineer had dunked Moo Moo in the toilet.

Moo Moo is a black and white bunny that was given to the boys for Easter. The stuntman won't go to bed without him. There is another Moo Moo that is brown and white that belongs to the Engineer but he is not as attached to his Moo Moo.

Moo Moo is the same color as the cows...in case you were questioning our sons' intelligence.

After disinfecting the bathroom and hall floors I rinsed out Moo Moo and put him on the back porch to dry in the sun, hoping that he'd be dry enough for nap time.

Fortunately, it worked!

Nap time is the easiest part of the day. .

I prepare the bottles and put them in the "magic box" (aka microwave) and when it beeps the boys meet me at the bottom of the stairs. As they climb to the top I always ask if they can go close mommy's bathroom door, which is nothing more than an incentive to climb the stairs. Once at the top I go into their room and place a bottle on each of the cribs, then retrieve the children. In the 12 steps that it took me to put down the bottles and come back the Engineer had managed to not only dunk Moo Moo in my toilet but had given him a King Swirly!

What is a King Swirly you ask? It's when the bully of the school would put another kid's head in the toilet and flush.

Thank goodness the Engineer held onto Moo Moo...things could have been so much worse.

I threw Moo Moo in the tub, put both of the boys to bed, gave the Stuntman the Engineer's Moo Moo, closed the door and went back to bed.

The rest of the day went fairly well and we had a wonderful time with my in-laws celebrating Father's Day.

I don't normally make New Year's Resolutions but this year I did and the fact that I had done nothing about it had been bothering me for months.

I am a pile maker and like my mom, I have Flat Surface Disease (FSD). If I am not sure what to do with something, I do nothing and just let it stack up.

Having children has exacerbated my FSD as it takes time to deal with the piles. When the piles get to big or start to fall over, I move them to the office. The piles were taking over and I was living in fear of the producers of Hoarders showing up at my front door.

My resolution was to clean the office.

I had a cancellation in my cake business last week so Friday, which is usually hell day for me was very, very calm. I had the kids with the sitter/mother's helper and then turned them over to daddy when he arrived home and stayed in the office until it was finished.

This was what it looked like before I started. 

It took hours and three trips to empty the office trashcan before it was finished but here is the end result: 

Ta Da! 

Now all I have to do is lock the door and it will never get messy again. 

I wonder if there is a 12-Step Program for FSD?