Old Faithful

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2012 7:43 PM, EST

Old Faithful

It was a standard hot Summer in Alabama in 1995. I was fit to be tied when I found out that Nannie was taking us on a "field trip" during the last week of Summer before my Junior year in high school. I mean, what self-respecting 11th grader wants to spend the last week of Summer with her sisters and cousins on an 8-day trip?

We called them field trips for years. We were in a fortunate position in which our grandmother took us on these fabulous trips across the United States, mostly to historical places. We went to Nachez, Mississippi once and toured Antebellum homes. We rode on a train from Alabama to Washington, DC, which was amazing! We visited the Cheeha Mountains, the Cabbage Patch Hospital, Disney World. As children, we were jet-setters. It was kind of a private joke between the 3 of us that Nannie was taking us on yet another field trip. So imaging our surprise when the week prior to our trip, we were each handed two red, screen-printed t-shirts that read in white, "Tatum's Taterbugs Big Horn Country Field Trip." I looked at Tiffany and thought, "You have got to be kidding me." I remember seeing Nannie's look of disappointment when we didn't show up in the airport in our field trip t-shirts, and I thought, "This is going to be the longest 8 days of my life." 

The trip was a blast. We went to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the rodeo in Cody, Wyoming, and Yellowstone National Park. If memory serves me correctly, Nannie told us that she and Grandaddy honeymooned there in a cabin. At one point during the drive through Yellowstone, Nannie rolled her window down to call a donkey (yes, it was a donkey, though I'm not quite sure why it was roaming around Yellowstone) over to the van with Tiffany, Jayme, myself, and our cousins Joshua and Amber. Nannie was driving, and the donkey came over more quickly than she anticipated. She rolled the window up, but not fast enough. Its lips were reaching further and further into the van, and we were of course belting in laughter. We must have said a million times during that trip, in our deepest, silliest of voices, "Give me a kiss, Nannie!" Jayme and I still crack up over that moment. 

Another memory from that trip was watching Old Faithful. There is something terribly interesting about what's going on under the surface of the earth. And that over thousands of years, something can be so predictable as this geyser that more or less erupts on cue. It is fascinating, and under-rated. I'm sure that Nannie was disappointed in our reactions to the trip at the time. She probably thought that the only memory we'd have of that trip would be going to see the movie "Clueless" in the movie theater. I came back with many new favorite phrases like, "What? I totally paused!" when I ran a stop sign. Or using the word "sporadic" over and over again. Cher never would have appreciated that trip, and neither did my eleventh grade mind. But looking back, it was one of the most significant trips of my life, and of course, applicable to what is going on now.  

I went to the Filling Station Friday for my routine 2 week fill. My right expander was oddly half the size of the right. Dr. Quintero's face told me that this was not going to amount to good news. He looked perplexed. It was a similar look that Dr. Hargis gave me when he told me I had an "old lady tumor." So Dr. Quintero doubled the contents of the right expander. When he pulled the needle, I could feel the saline solution dripping down my rib cage on the right side...he removed the gauze pad, and there it was - Old Faithful, right on cue. The damn thing was leaking at the port site...likely a manufacturer defect. I knew this wasn't good. I asked Dr. Quintero if we could just place the implants, to which he said no. My right skin isn't stretched enough to get the implant in, and placing the implant now may pull too much on the incision. And so we take a different route...Plan B.

Plan B starts tomorrow. I go in at 8am for what I like to call an "additional" surgery. Dr. Quintero will replace my faulty expander with a working one. The surgery is quick, only about an hour. Then the recovery should be pretty easy. It's after recovery that gets me. This lengthens the expander process (which has been just so much fun!). Dr. Q can only fill me about halfway on the right until my incision heals. In about 2 weeks, we will continue the expansion process until the right catches up with the left in volume. Until then, I will giggle about being lopsided. They say that one breast is generally a little bigger than the other...I don't think this counts!

Nannie has taught me many things...things she probably doesn't even know about. She taught me to love other places, and to learn about them before I visit. I love to travel. Some day Nathan, the boys and I will travel again. And we will appreciate it more when we do. Nannie taught me to love fine things. I have a great love of shoes and other accessories that stems from my Nannie. And Nannie taught me that you have to be nice...that's the legacy you want to leave. Until then, I was just totally clueless.

(Insert fortune here)...in bed!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012 1:41 PM, EST

(Insert fortune here)...in bed!

Mama used to take us out to dinner for Chinese about once a month when we were little. Every month she took us to the same restaurant - Bamboo Garden. The staff from the hostess to the wait staff watched us grow up, and in turn, Mama watched them grow up and have babies. We ate the same thing over and over again, most likely because it was an inexpensive way to feed three children on a nurse's budget. It was an standard Chinese restaurant appetizer that came with a couple of spare ribs, a couple of wontons, shrimp, and beef skewers. It was called the Pu Pu Platter (yes, pronounced "Poo Poo Platter"), and it still makes me giggle to say it out loud (however immature that may be). Month after month, Pu Pu Platter after Pu Pu Platter, we expanded our taste for ethnic food. Honestly, I couldn't have cared less what was in the Pu Pu Platter, as long as I got my fortune cookie at the end of the meal. 

And so began my love of cookie fortunes. I keep them now when I feel they are applicable to life. They are on a peg board in my office at work - a simple reminder of what the future holds..."a new journey will change your direction in life." Or perhaps a reminder that I have everything I need, just a phone call away..."friends are closer than they appear."

I have admittedly placed the phrases "in bed" or "with no pants on" at the end of a fortune to entertain a group at a sushi dinner. There's no shame in a little entertainment. But I secretly have hated that game because it somewhat ruins the fortune for me. And yet, I cannot remember the last time I opened a fortune and didn't think, "...in bed!" 

Yesterday I posted about Pollyanna, which was followed by a resounding reminder from my sister Tiffany who said, "GIVE IT TO GOD." And give it to God I did. Nathan and I took a break from stress last night and joined our first Louisville friends, BFs Kerrie and Nick, for dinner. I read that reminder from Tiff on the way to the restaurant, and silently gave it to God.

We met Kerrie and Nick at the YMCA just a month after we moved here. Logan was 8 months old, and Nathan and I decided he needed to have some exposure to the water. We enrolled in swim lessons at the YMCA down the street.  There were several parents and children in the class, but one couple looked like the kind of people we would have things in common with. We left swim lessons, and I told Nathan that we would both go to the YMCA the following week dressed for the pool, but whoever stayed out of the pool needed to come home with a phone number. We had been in Louisville for a month, and we needed to make some friends. 

The following week, Kerrie was in the pool, so I jumped in with Logan. Nathan was aware of the expectations. Kerrie and I spoke a little during swim class, and Nick and Nathan had good conversation about snowboarding and wake boarding. So when we got into the car, I asked Nathan excitedly if he got the number. I will never forget the feeling I had when he said, "Tina, do you know how awkward it was going to be for me to get a grown man's number?!" I understood. 

The next week was the last week of swim lessons. We all went to lunch afterward, and we've been connected ever since. As it turns out, Kerrie and Nick were married at the same resort in Mexico where we were married...just one month earlier. Kerrie has also been hit by a car. Neither of them are from Kentucky. Their son is 10 days older than Logan. We continued the trend, and their daughter is 5 weeks younger than Parker. We have an enormous amount of fun together, and we love having them so close. 

So dinner last night was a nice break from reality. We ate at Louisville's Napa River Grille - a place that is known for its Tomato Soup (topped with a puff pastry over the top) and Caesar Salad served in a parmesan crust bowl, as well as their steaks. Nathan ordered a Pad Thai - interesting choice I thought, given the specials. But I, too, love a good Pad Thai. Nick had the pork tenderloin, Kerrie had the salmon, and I had an Ahi Tuna special. Dinner was wonderful, and the company was fantastic, but something special happened last night that I feel compelled to share. Nathan's Asian-themed dish earned him the only fortune cookie at the table, and I do love a good God-wink. It read, "Happier days are definitely ahead for you. Struggle has ended." Without paying attention to the words I had heard, I ended it with "in bed!" which earned itself a good laugh...and then beep, beep, back up the truck! "WHAT did that say?" He read it again, slowly. And in that moment, fortune in hand, my husband and a couple of great friends by my side, I felt relief.

Praise God.

Pollyanna, this is Anger...

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2012 2:21 PM, EST

Pollyanna, this is Anger...

When we were kids, we watched a lot of movies. I still watch a lot of movies. In some circles (very small ones made up mostly of Mama and BF Nicole), I consider myself a critic. I fondly remember many movies from my childhood: The Wizard of Oz, Grease, and Pollyanna to name a few. The Pollyanna attitude is something that I think I’ve adopted throughout life, and certainly through my cancer experience. I am a “glass half full” kind of gal – it’s who I am. I like crystals and prisms, the Glad Game, and I would have steak and ice cream for dinner every night if I could. But honestly, my favorite thing about Pollyanna was the intro, in which a naked boy runs bare-bottomed to a rope swing and releases over the lake, arms flailing. Tiffany, Jayme and I would rewind that VHS tape 15 times to see that poor boys bottom run across the screen…and we would laugh every time like it was the first time we had seen it.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I've been really angry. I'd say I've been hurt, or even sad, more than I've been "angry." But as we all know, anger is one of the 5 stages of grief. And I have officially met Anger, who introduced me to Pissed Off.

I'm not the whiny "Why me?" kind of person. But there's nothing like cancer to make you look back on 8 months of your life with contempt. Please excuse me while I have an all out bitchfest for a second. I think we can all agree that it is long overdue, and my therapist is encouraging me to get things out. This happens to be a more amicable method for me to use than penciling something on a piece of paper then burning it.

First, let me start with diagnosis. This is the most terrifying experience (next to labor) that I can think of. Keep in mind that I've never been a trauma patient (unless you count that whole hit with a car thing...yeah, D-Day was worse). God, please keep in mind that this is not an invocation to introduce me to something more terrifying that a cancer diagnosis. I am clearly at my breaking point, and I my little red wagon is full, full, full. 

Diagnosis to treatment is fast and furious. You know how a movie makes it look like a place gets bombed one day and the next day there is a war? Well, this is how cancer is. It gives you little time to process what is really happening to you. Treatment breaks you down. Take every good thing you have in your life, and file it into a mental drawer. Then imagine that someone comes into your mental file and rearranges everything in there. Everything that happens over the next year goes into that discombobulated file, mixed in among mismatched memories and current realities. Suddenly you feel like an Alzheimer's patient, scared of what might come out of your mouth and scared that memories may be lost forever; wondering if you can ever recover the words you can't remember or meanings you can't match up. You wonder what else you will forget, and whether or not people notice. You get frustrated when people bring it to your attention because so much of your energy goes into hiding it. You decide how treatment will affect the way you look at yourself – literally the way your “self” looks. You rock the scarf, or you try to keep your life as normal as possible by wearing a wig, only to find either choice hot, sweaty and unnatural. Treatment breaks you down - not just your cancer, but your strength, your memory, your emotional balance, your drive. 

And then you realize that chemo was the easy part. But you are broken down, and you are wondering how you are going to get through the surgical experience. As if 4 1/2 months of chemo isn't enough to get to you, it's time to undergo a 6-8 hour surgery, which will render you nipple-less and breast-less alike. You wonder if your husband will ever find you attractive again. Suddenly it becomes pointless for a random person from a gas station or grocery store to give you a look of lust...those people can't see what's underneath your clothes, and they never will. There's only one person who matters, and whose "luscious look" matters moving forward. You wonder if your kids will ever catch you after a shower or while you are dressing and mistake you for a disfigured monster that they dream about hiding in the closet. You fear the next time you are asked, "Do you have a tattoo?" And the only response you can think of is, "Yes, my nipples." That's not edgy. So the surgery is over, and you are in pain...all the time. Except where you can't feel anything – nerve damage is unmistakably irritating. You don’t know how permanent the effects are, and it is surprising when you start feeling pain where you were just numb yesterday. The pain is sometimes startling…sharp, as numbness ebbs and tides.

You recover. You are sad when you hear about others who are sharing in your experience, because you feel like no one should have to endure all of this. Not the girl who stole your boyfriend in college, or the neighbor who didn’t want you to build a fence. Not the guy who cut you off on the way to work, or the teacher you hated the most in high school. No one should know this terror, this sadness, this strength. 1 in 8 women. 1:8 women is diagnosed with breast cancer. Anger, meet Pissed Off.

Tissue expansion is its own blog, and I won’t go into the PITAs, except to say that the process is extremely painful for about 6 days, and then just subsiding pain for the next 8 days…only to start over again. Pain does horrible things to you. It makes stress less easy to cope with, your fuse shorter, and your bang banger. You are unpleasant to be around, and you know it. It makes you want to crawl into a hole for 2 whole days just to save your loved ones from your eager wrath.

And don’t even get me started on the hormone medication. You know when you are pregnant, and you have little to no control over your temper? Yeah, cutting off your hormones at 32 years old after the hardest year of your life intensifies that feeling. Think pregnancy on steroids. That is what menopause is like. Only just like pregnancy, you can’t explain to someone who’s never been through it what it is like. Am I right? You can’t truly put words to the hot flashes and the anxiety (borderline paranoia), and the sheer embarrassment that comes along with them. As if the feeling and internal struggle of the hot flash isn’t bad enough, you have an incomprehensible physical symptom for all the world to see…like a big old scarlet letter tattooed on your chest. But you coast through yet another hardship and continuation of this disease we call “breast” cancer. Let me just tell you…calling something “breast” cancer when it affects your whole life is ridiculously unfair. Oh, you are Pissed Off? Nice to meet you, I’m Tina. They call me Bean.

I have about 2-3 more visits to the Filling Station before I get my new boobs. I swear every time I’m in there, Dr. Quintero tells me that I have 2-3 times to go, but as he says, “It’s not rocket science!”  I’ve put myself on a realistically strict diet to lose ten pounds before I will allow myself to go through with my surgery. As if my body image isn’t suffering enough, I have to talk myself into dieting. This really isn’t a bad thing since I’m supposed to be eating “right” and exercising for the rest of my life anyway to reduce my chance of a recurrence. So I put a reward on it – my new ta-tas. I can’t have them until I lose the 10 pounds. This is the thing with a reconstructive breast surgery. I don’t have breast tissue, or padding over the implants. So the actual implants have to be larger than the typical implant because I have no padding (hence the multiple “fills”). Because I have no breast tissue, my breasts won’t grow and shrink as I grow and shrink, as we naturally do. So when I do have my surgery, it is ideal to be at a goal weight so that Dr. Quintero and I are setting the expectation. The drugs that counterbalance the side effects of chemo inevitably make it easy for your body to gain weight, which is exactly what happened in my case. And I can’t exactly count the 4 pounds that Bess and Gretchen took with them! It’s about fit, not about pounds…yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell it to my self-image.

So yes, I’ve met Pissed Off. I hung out with her for a while. I took her out on Mama, who was on the undeserving end of my tirade. While our perceptions of what was said are very different, I shouldn’t have said the things that I did say. All she has done over the last 8 months is be there for me forevery chemo session, hold my children when I couldn’t, keep my family fed in Paula Deen style, and love me and my family. I shouldn’t be posting this before I have an opportunity to talk to her, but I’ve attempted, and I can’t stop my creative mind from rambling once I sit down at the computer. So however unfair that may be, sometimes I am better at an apology on paper than in person. That doesn't make me a coward; it just makes it easier for me to express my thoughts.

Hey Anger, I met your friend Pissed Off. She’s a bitch. In fact, you both are, and Mama always said you are who you hang out with. Why don’t you take a hike so that I can surround myself with positive energy and get my Pollyanna attitude back?

Bean

PS I do have some amazing physical attributes to be grateful for...like hair and eyelashes!!

High Maintenance

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2012 8:15 PM, EST

High Maintenance

When I first met Nathan, I was "dating" Jackson. Mind you, he was in Alabama, and I was in Wisconsin. I was living with Mama, and there were rules. But I was twenty-one, and there wasn't a rule that said that I had to stay at home all the time. One month into school, and I was dying to go out and meet some people my own age. Several of my classmates and I were on Dan (aka, Tugboat) Call's boat in the middle of Lake Mendota the first time Nathan asked me out. It wasn't so much asking me out as it was letting me tag along with him and his 4 roommates on State Street. I knew that Mama wasn't going to be wild about the idea of me pulling an all-nighter with 5 guys I had never met, so I asked classmate Mary Ann to tag along. She agreed, and then she asked me who my plastic surgeon was. Those were the days, when Bess and Gretchen were high and mighty. I knew I liked her.

Mary Ann bailed on me that night, but I was already dressed, and I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to explore the whole new world of college life in Madison, Wisconsin. So I called the next best thing to a girl in my class...I called Travis. Travis seemed like the perfect guy to stand by me all night so that I wasn't left alone with some strange young men...I was pretty sure that he was gay. As it turns out, Travis wasnot gay, nor was he interested in hanging out with me all night. In fact, he was a strapping young guy on a mission to hit on every girl on State Street that night, and I was left to fend for myself. Nathan and I connected right away...we talked about school, he laughed about my accent, and his friends were respectful. We decided that we should study together, and that was it. 

We spent many a night on State Street, which is a non-drivable route connecting the University of Wisconsin campus to the state Capitol. It is beautiful at all times of year, no matter the weather. State street is lined with bars, unique boutiques, gift shop treasures, a popcornery, fabulous restaurants, and more bars. In 12 inches of snow, the street is lined with glistening white lights trimming the trees. In the Spring, protesters line the street, marching to any cause. On Halloween, the State Street party rivals a New Orleans Mardi Gras. And in any given season, the street is lined with college kids and Peter Pans alike. Each crowd has its own niche - we spent many a night at Mondays, The Pub (aka, The Pube), State Street Brats, Paul's Club, or Bullfeather's (which was a little "off State"). 

We partied hard, but we had work to do. It was time to hit the books, and school was not easy. So we started studying, I broke up with Jackson, and then Nathan and I started dating. After about 3 months, I told Nathan that I was offering him an "easy out." I told him I was high maintenance, to which he replied, "I can handle that." It was so grounded and nonchalant - like, "No biggie. I got this." I furrowed my brow, and I ducked my chin, and I said, "I don't think you understand. You're going to be stuck with me, and I'm giving you an 'out.' You should really take it...because I am really high maintenance."

One night at Bullfeather's Nathan and I were talking one minute about how his birthday was coming. He was going to be twenty-one. I was so excited. He kept playing it cool, telling me that there was not going to be any difference in 20 and 21. And the next minute, he was gone. Vanished. And I thought, "This is it. He decided I was high maintenance." I asked his friends where he went - they told me he was in the bathroom, then motioned behind me. I turned to find that the cops were raiding the bar, checking IDs. After the coast was clear, and Nathan was back by my side, I (with raised eyebrows) said, "That's how it's going to be different when you are 21." And suddenly I wondered if he wasn't the high maintenance one! 

Here we are, a little over 10 years later. He is so stuck with me. And even I  couldn't have known just how high maintenance I would be! We have a down comforter that I throw onto him every night; our heater is set on 68 degrees because I can't stand the hot flashes; I still can't lift the kids, so Nathan is on carpool duty to and from daycare; I go to the filling station every other week (and complain for 3 days about the pain - and I admit that pain makes me a complete and total butt. I mean, I have no patience for anything after I get "filled."); I have no boobs, a serious pixie cut (which I am rocking, by the way!), and a big hormone surge after my monthly tic-tac shot in the belly. I am a peach to be around most days, but about 15% of the time I am a rotten peach (with a worm crawling through it). That 15% of the time, I am a spitfire with a temper and a hot flash, and I have little patience for whining or an "I can't" attitude. But then again, I never had much patience for those things to begin with.

I get filled again on Friday. I'm not looking forward to the pain, but I am sooo looking forward to the cleavage! Bring on the "breast mounds!" I think I have 2 more fills to go, and then we start planning my reconstruction. Goodbye, PITAs; Hello Shelby and Yvette!

Happy 2012!

Bean

Moonbeams have birthdays, too

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2012 9:42 PM, EST

Moonbeams Have Birthdays, Too

Dear Parker,

Who could believe that one short year ago, you came into the world? Your Daddy and I laugh (and cry) about everything we've been through in the last ten years...but nothing compares to 2011. While 2011 was the hardest year of our lives, and while cancer took many things from us, we were given so many wonderful things...beginning with you. 

And in the last year, we have seen your sensitive side - you cry when Logan goes into time-out. We have seen your humor - you find laughter in all of us because you find laughter in yourself. We have seen you grow into a 26 pound one year-old! We have seen you take your first steps, speak your first word ("Bella"), and give your first hug (to me, on Christmas Eve). We have seen you play patty cake and end "rolllll" with "tide." We have seen that you have bonded with Mama (to you "Dot Dot" in a way that Logan couldn't from Reno. We have seen you look at your brother as if he hung the moon, and although he will likely never admit it, we have seen him look at you the same way. We have seen you grow, and learn, and love, and thrive, despite the hardest year of our lives. 

You were our comic relief. You were 2011's saving grace. You were the child we may not have if we had caught this tumor one year sooner. You made my year... because you started it. Because of you, 2011 will be the hardest, as opposed to the "worst" year of my life. I will never call 2011 my worst year (and I admit that occasionally Mama has had to remind me of that).

Happy first birthday, my little Parker Dean (aka Parker Doodle, aka Moonbeam) Frey...May you always light up the night and reflect the light of day. May you always find laughter in the hardest of times, and help others to laugh with you. May you always be able to carry the world's burdens on your shoulders with such ease and grace as you have in this year...and may 2011 be the hardest year of your life, too.

Love always,

Mama