I'm Being Deported

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to have my port removed.  I know that I've been done with chemo for a while, but having that removed kind of makes it official in my head.  I'm looking for all of the milestones I can find, and this is a biggie for me.

Also, as of today, I only have five more radiation treatments left, and they are boosts.  Boosts are higher doses, but to a smaller, more concentrated area.  The highest chance of my cancer coming back is for it to come back in the skin around the scar where the mastectomy was done.  These last five will concentrate on that area.  That means that the rest of the skin can heal.  I am SO ready to be done holding my left arm out away from my body and adjusting my bra, trying to find a few seconds of relief.

I'm also all done (emotionally) with that office/Dr.  That's all I'm going to say about that for now.  

Two months from now, I'll have a follow-up with the plastic surgeon to assess the damage to my skin and tissue.  I plan to have NO damage by then.  Yup.  That's my plan.  Four months after that, I'll have the exchange surgery.  No, not THAT kind of change surgery.  It's the one where they exchange the tissue expander for an implant, and do the surgery to the other side for symmetry.

Ahh, symmetry.  How I miss symmetry. 

Yup, the milestones are ticking by.  I wonder when I'll feel like this is over?  After radiation?  Nah.  Still daily reminders as I'm getting dressed. When my hair has grown enough to not require a head covering? After exchange surgery?  Maybe, but how long after?  When the scars have healed?  

I just can't wait to go an entire day without the C word entering my head.  I have a feeling it will be a long time before that happens, but I'm heading in that direction. 

Online Relationships

I have a lot of support from my family, coworkers and friends.  Still, when I found some breast cancer message boards while doing research (right after diagnosis,) I started growing close to the members there.  I'd never met them, and will likely never get the chance to meet most of them, but there was something I needed there.  These people were going through the EXACT same thing that I was going through.

They would ask questions that I had in my mind but hadn't verbalized.  They would answer my questions with the hours and hours of research they had done before me.  They would lift me up when I was down and just listen when that was what I needed.  I got to "know" them.  I grew to love them.

Someone in that group decided to start a group on Facebook.  That group grew even closer.  They understand the parts of this that nobody else could understand, unless they'd been through it.  We share pictures of scars and of newly growing eyebrows.  We share stories of wigs and prosthetic breasts.  We laugh, we cry, and we make inappropriate jokes.

Yup.  This is a new group of friends that mean the world to me.  I love them all, and I'm thankful for the internet for bringing them into my life.  I've had a rough couple of days lately, and spending a lazy 3 hours online "visiting" with them this morning just makes me smile.  Thanks, girls!