My mother had a bilateral mastectomy on Monday and I've just got back from visiting her tonight and she's talking about coming home on Thursday!
Almost exactly 5 years ago she had a lumpectomy to remove a a cancerous tumour in her left breast and they removed several lymph nodes at the same time, three of which turned out to be cancerous which meant that it was chemo on top of radio and drug therapy. About 6 weeks ago she had a routine mammogram and was recalled for further tests at the specialist ward, and she realised from the tone of the letter that this time it was serious, and my sister and I prepared for the worst. It turned out to be a calciferous lump in the left breast; a pre-cancerous lump. We celebrated, if that doesn't sound too odd a thing to say - we thought that was it, the end was nigh, but we were encouraged as this meant that the cancer was back but that it had been caught before it had developed into a 'serious' cancer. Mum had resigned herself to the fact that the left breast would be removed when the recall letter arrived, and she couldn't see the point in hanging on to the right one as her boobs have always been on the larger than large side and she couldn't imagine a prosthetic to match the right one and she'd constantly be living on a knife edge waiting for the right breast to become diseased too.
She had the surgery on Monday afternoon, performed by the same kind and gentle surgeon who removed the lump the first time. (Apparently he specialises in tits and thyroids and was the same surgeon that performed my father's thyroidectomy in 2002, but that's by the by.) She now has drains protruding from under her nightie and she looks very strange with a concave chest as all my sister and I have ever known are ample DD mammories that fed two healthy babies and made comfy cushions, but that prevented her from doing a lot of the thing she wanted to do like running and wearing sexy strappy vests.
We joked that she went into theatre on Monday weighing 12 stones and would come out weighing 10 stones! Ever since she was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2001 we have tried to look on the lighter side of things. That autumn was bloody miserable. At the same time as planes were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York and several other buildings across North America, mum was totally bald and being sick into a bucket when she could make it, onto the carpet when she couldn't make it that far. Mum and me watched the Last Night of the Proms on September 16th 2001 and we cried and cried because we thought it was truly the end of the world. To this day we can't listen to Adagio for Strings without seeing those planes crashing into the Twin Towers. One amusing thing that happened shortly after that was on Hallow'een when she was still totally bald. She was having hot flushes and always removed her wig as soon as she came indoors. Two boys aged around 10-11 rang the front doorbell for 'trick or treat' and mum instinctively opened the side door as that was the one with the key. She stuck her bald head out of the door and said hello and these two boys took one look at this bald woman and couldn't run away fast enough! We laughed so much! Well, you have to laugh or else you'd cry, but we certainly saw the amusing side of being bald on Hallow'een.
Mum survived. She's still here, fighting fit in spite of the surgery and drains. Hopefully she won't need chemo this time and the third degree burns that constitute radiotherapy won't be required as there's nothing left to microwave.
When she came home last time it was the day after she'd had surgery and I'd been up all night cleaning the house from top to bottom, nothing untouched, or so I thought. The first thing she did when she came home was get a duster and clean the damn piano, the only bloody thing I missed! I'm wondering what she's going to pick up on this time?! I'll know she's ok when the first thing she does is go to the cupboard under the sink and take out a J-cloth!
(I'm sorry this is such a long post, though it's more like a blog than a message board post. I just need to ramble tonight - please don't hold it against me)