Wednesday 28 January 2015

Shave-in-waiting?

I'm thinking of participating in a Shave For the Brave for YACC.  I wouldn't be shaving it all, however, that's still a little scary for me right now.  I can, however, donate 10" minimum of hair.  There is no big shaves happening in Halifax right now, so I am hoping to find a few friends that want to participate, or maybe an organization/school/workplace that would like to follow suit.

For timing, I am hoping to have this done late March or before the end of April.  The baby is due May 15th, so I'd like to have it done well before Malcolm makes his appearance.  (Yes, it's a boy and we're naming him Malcolm).  Short hair can help with caring for a newborn, frig, my daughter is still going through a bit of a hair pulling phase.

If you know of anyone that would like to help out young adults with cancer to connect, feel less isolated, and more informed, please contact me, especially if you're willing to join up with me in this Shave.  You don't need to shave, you can donate a minimum of 10" or you can hunt out people to shave/donate, instead.  Lots of options and they all help people like me cope with having cancer.

*Click the links above for more info on Shaves and YACC*

Sunday 11 January 2015

Surprise!

I had a surprise pop up back in September, a week before I was scheduled to have my breast implants exchanged.  I was anxiously awaiting the surgery, it was very close to the last step of my reconstruction.  I had been having issues for over six months, however.  (Get ready to cringe guys).  My periods were shortening greatly, only a couple days at a time, and they were much more frequent.  One month I had two, another I had three.  My gp arranged for me to see a gynecologist in at the IWK to see what was going on.

I had a lot going through my mind.  There was the less severe things like going into menopause early because of the chemotherapy back in 2010/2011.  Another much more terrifying thought was that cancer found a new home and had started up this change in my body.  My husband was trying to help me stay positive, but he's realistic like me, so he was trying to see all possible angles, as well.  Of course, the day before my appointment he says one possibility that I had not given a single thought, and quickly dismissed.  I'll elaborate shortly.

I have the gyno my history, the elaborate story of my cancer journey, including the birth of my daughter post cancer.  At the gyno's I had a test that was routine, just a precaution, that they had to always preform.  The gyno came in the room, preparing to do a scraping of my uterus to test for a few things, including types of cancer.  She looked at the test, so did the nurse.  My gyno says, "What does the second line mean?"  The nurse is still staring at the test, "It means she's pregnant."  My reaction?  "What do you mean there's a second line??  That wasn't there a second ago."

Sure enough, my husband jinxed me.  He had asked me the day before, "What if you're pregnant?"  I said to him that this had been going on for close to 6 months, if I was pregnant I'd be showing just a little by now.  Besides, we had been using protection.  I refuse to use birth control pills since cancer, but they claim that condoms are 99.9% effective.  Well, guess what, we're that magical 0.1%.

The funny thing, I was just 5 weeks pregnant.  I'm not sure what was causing my issue for the previous 6 months, but it had not been the pregnancy.  Everything medical got put on hold.  No surgery could happen after they knew I was pregnant.  Luckily, I could still get the injections for my back and shoulder while pregnant, so that was a lifesaver at least.  But, the reconstruction is on hold again, and I was not looking forward to how my injuries from the car accident would be paining me throughout the pregnancy.

This was a big surprise, we didn't plan on having more children.  We had talked about it for months and decided to leave our family at four, not five, just us and the two kids.  I had started gathering all my maternity clothes to take to my friend's consignment shop in Dartmouth, we were going to next start gathering the baby items and clothes to clear out.  As luck would have it we had not quite done any of that yet.

We're trying to figure this all out as we go.  Part of our reasoning before for staying a family of four had been my condition with my back and shoulder, but that is out the window, now.  I'll get to test my ability to withstand pain as I will have three munchkins to take care of.  Thank heavens I have my hubby, and my parents and siblings close by.

Let the next adventure begin!