Gingerbread Guts

Jan

A few days later, I made another follow up call – now with the intent of achieving those newfound boobie goals – to ensure my surgery date was solid. Mustering the strength to call Brick Wall was a feat in itself. Thankfully, I got her voice mail.

A day or two later, Private Caller showed up on my call display.

Private caller always sent my heart rate speeding. Blood pressure as race car – 0 to 160 in 2 seconds. Ninety-eight percent of the time it was a hospital staff member calling. It always felt like bad news even when it wasn’t.

“Hello, is this Kelly?”

Smooth. Melodious. Voice. Calm. Warm. Grounded. Assured. Caring.

“I’m returning your call from the plastic surgeon’s office.”

I was sure my ears were full of wax. She must have the wrong patient.

Where is Brick Wall? Why are you so nice?

“I’m calling to confirm that your surgery is scheduled for November 13 and that everything is on track. You will receive a call for a pre-op appointment where they will go through all the particular things you need to know for your surgery.”

“Uh. Thanks. Uh. You’re not the same person I’ve been dealing with.”

“No, I’m the plastic surgeon’s new assistant. You’ll be working with me from now on.”

I clung to the phone in disbelief. This woman had the voice of an angel. She sounded strong in that gentle kind of way. She had complete control of herself. She sounded like she really, truly cared about me and what I was going through.

The knot of stress I’d been carrying around inside, waiting for my next encounter with Brick Wall, totally dissolved. I could breathe again.

And then, I couldn’t resist commenting on the previous assistant.

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear your voice,” I said. “The other woman – she was so stressed out it was brutal dealing with her. I am so glad she left that job because it was obviously too much for her and it had to be affecting everybody around her.”

“Oh,” she said in that purring voice, “She’s moved on to another position.” A pause. “That’s very insightful of you to notice how she was feeling.”

“Uh, no,” I said. “There was nothing hidden about how she was feeling. A two year old would have told you she was very unhappy and unsuited to her job.”

A week or so later, I returned to the plastic surgeon’s office. Angel Voice – his new assistant – turned out to be the very friendly woman I had met on the paddling dock four months earlier.

I shook my head in disbelief. What were the odds?

For the first time, in a very long time, I felt like everything was going to be okay.

Jan

Boobie Goals!

Kelly

November 13, 2008 loomed. The date. I felt like I was getting ready to scale Mount McKinley, one of the 11 most difficult mountains in the world to climb.

I decided on one breast. If the plastic surgeon completely botched it, at least I’d have another breast still functioning practically and aesthetically. Although I wasn’t sure what good one breast would be. That lopsided thing was the whole reason I was about to subject myself to surgery.

Eight hours of it.

One of my friends was really concerned about the length of this surgery. We walked and jogged regularly in our favourite park during the cancer year. She was wondering if I had any other options?

“Yes and no,” I said. “There are lots of options. Too many options. And most of them seem to involve temporary fixes.”

You have to be careful with conversations with loved ones. Their fear, wrapped in love, falls upon your shoulders like an 18th century cloak, weighing you down.

Fear, wrapped in love, is the most deadly combination in the world for clear decision-making.

Back to Husband I went again for clarity.

“Kelly, it’s not like they’re touching any organs or anything. It’s all surface work.” Described like a true layman. Oversimplification? Definitely. And exactly what I needed to carry on.

Another friend who happens to be a life coach also listened patiently to me for months as we walked our way through hundreds of conversations. She suggested I needed ‘boobie goals’.

Boobie goals?

“Yes!” She said. “It seems to me that you could use some goals to keep you focused on why this surgery is the right thing for you to do.” She opened a space for me to fill in the blanks. I looked into my mind. I couldn’t even begin to fill the blanks.

“Help me,” I said.

“Well,” she said, slowing mulling the possibilities. “I think there are three goals around this surgery.” Only a life coach can think of three goals around breasts in the space of 30 seconds. “First, to completely remove the cancer. Second, to prevent recurrence and third,” … a pause … “To have nice boobies.”

I laughed so hard! Nice boobies! Seemed like a dream after all the angst the current models had caused.

“Oh,” she said, “and I think there is an overarching goal – to have a long, happy and healthful life.”

I was inspired! Boobie goals! Problem was – thanks to chemo and stress – my short-term memory was shot. I had to ask her to repeat those goals three times within minutes and then, I ran right inside from our walk and wrote them down for safekeeping.

Life affirming boobie goals.

For the first time in months, there seemed to be purpose. Hope.

A future.

Dec

When Assistants Go Bad

Kelly

I could almost touch my goal – mastectomy with immediate reconstruction.

I was crawling. Slowly. To. Surgery.

Except for the red Brick Wall in my way. Looming. Omigod. What the hell is this doing here at this late stage? I scanned it. Its mortar seemed well set. There were no small ledges to jam toe edges on. No holes through which to force fingers. No open doorway. Not even a ditch to dig under. Damn. It was high, too.

Who knew when this woman, the plastic surgeon’s assistant, had become so inpenetrable? She was wound tighter than a Swiss watch. Curt. Crisp. Concise. Cutting. She seemed to be missing more of those critical ‘C’ health care words. Like, Compassionate. And Caring.

I’d called to check on the amount of time I had with the plastic surgeon in our first meeting. Her answer was good enough. “You’ll have all the time you need.” But the tone? It said, “You’ll take my whole effing day off course.” You could tell she lived in a very stretched world and it had worn her thin. Big time.

At first I thought I could stickhandle her. Pour out the usual charm. Win her over. Thank her to death. Crack her veneer with my wit.

No such luck.

Rock Star had inquired of the plastic surgeon when I might get a surgery date. He advised her it would be November 13, a little over five weeks away. Frigging time is ticking.

Turns out Rock Star had another patient already scheduled for a DIEP flap on October 30. This patient was post-mastectomy – meaning her cancer had been removed some time earlier (like, 18 months or more). Her surgery was now classified as elective – you know, nice, but not necessary. I wonder how long she’s waited for this date? I felt a twinge. I was about to muck up her schedule and she couldn’t do a thing about it.

The result? Rock Star called Brick Wall and advised her to change our two dates. I would have surgery on October 30, the other woman on November 13.

Rock Star called me at home that evening on her own time to walk me through the options again. Just a mastectomy? Mastectomy with immediate reconstruction? One breast? Two? If I opted for just the mastectomy, I would be thrown on the two-year wait list. (“Although, if you are missing one breast and not two, they seem to have more sympathy for getting you back in.”) At the end of that hour, I was second-guessing myself. Frozen in indecision.

Rock Star’s assessment of my cancer helped. She said it seemed to have been a slower growth type.

“Knowing what I know about you through our discussions,” she said, “I would not shoot myself in the foot for the sake of a few weeks and give up this opportunity for reconstruction the same day.” A pause. “Unless, of course, your gut is telling you to get back on the table right away. If it is, we listen to that.”

I became very still and mentally went inside myself, to the core. There is a simple process my pastor friend taught me when making decisions – particularly when making difficult ones. “Close your eyes,” she’d instruct, “and imagine the decision you are making. How do you feel inside? One of those decisions brings peace. One does not.” At that moment I knew deep within that waiting for the mastectomy with reconstruction the same day was the right decision.

I began aligning the home front for the massive surgery ahead of me.

About a week before my date, late on a Friday, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard a ‘peep’ from the hospital. Aren’t I supposed to go through some kind of pre-surgery stuff? My PR training kicked in (again) and I left a voice message with Brick Wall to advise her I was missing information while confirming the October 30 date.

The following Monday, Brick Wall left a very brisk message.

“Your surgery date has been moved to November 13. Your surgeon did not call me back when she received the paperwork, so I booked that date with someone else.” Pardon me? Excuse me? My surgeon had a direct conversation with you about switching the dates of her own two patients and because she didn’t call back when you sent paperwork confirming what you had already agreed to – you just moved on? A most serious tra-la-la if I had ever seen one.

Worse, the woman who lost her October 30 date to me, got drop-kicked to the very end of November. A completely new person was slotted into October 30.

Brick Wall, in my assessment at that moment, had totally lost respect for who the real bosses were – the surgeons. Whether they were any good or not was, to me, irrelevant. She had lost whatever regard she might have had for their positional leadership – and it was affecting patients’ lives in the worst possible way. She was messing with our minds at one of the most stressful times of our lives.

Then and there, I decided I had to cut her some slack. She was drowning in her job. The tsunami of work, paper, patients, cutbacks, perhaps the surgeon she served, had completely overwhelmed her. She was so angry she could slice you in two with her eyes – and I had never seen her.

Cutting her some slack was a little easier than you might expect. I was rather relieved that the date was pushed off. Hallowe’en was coming and my nine-year-old had been bummed that I wouldn’t be around to help out with her costume. This delay gave me two more weeks to finish the Christmas shopping. Enjoy the weather. Tra-La-La!

Husband, on the other hand, was not so okay. Cancer and time were playing head games with him. His concern startled me. I am such a denial queen. So, at his urging, I called the Rocket and played my trump card.

A word.

“Rocket,” I said into his voice mailbox, “it’s me, Kelly. I need help. My surgery date was randomly bumped another two weeks. We’re worried the next surgery date might be moved the same way. Can you call the plastic surgeon and make sure this doesn’t happen again in two weeks?” And then, I used it. “Will you be my champion?”

Champion. Best frigging word in the whole world. Who wants a hospital navigator who can point you without influence if you can have someone on his white horse ride in and defend you? Champion. A word that calls to the core of our innate greatness to help one another – especially in times of need.

The Rocket rose to the occasion.

And I protected my waning emotional resources for the next time I would have to encounter Brick Wall to ensure my date didn’t slip again.

Nov

Beds. Who needs ‘em?

Kelly

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

I spent the better half of the morning paralyzed by the choices facing me. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. I wandered around the house, mind on the loose. This would have gone on all day till Husband returned except the phone rang midday.

‘Private Caller.’ Words sent my hair on edge. Damn. Some medical person. Lately they had been bringing me nothing but bad news. Turns out it was Rock Star.

“How did your meeting with the plastic surgeon go?”

I’d run the name of the plastic surgeon by her as soon as I learned of it. At the time, she had informed me that he was “technically brilliant. He does wonderful work. It’s just that his bedside manner is inconsistent. He can be really blunt and sometimes that is really hard on women.”

As soon as she said that, I decided I didn’t need to be coddled. What other choice did I have? It wasn’t like I was going to go plastic surgeon shopping and pick another one off the shelf if I didn’t like this model.

“He’s wonky,” I said. “But I like him. I think he liked the idea of working on me – the results will show. I think it even looked like it would be fun for him. And guess what?”

“What?”

“He said he doesn’t like working on radiated tissue. He’d rather work on me before radiation.” Bit of a nah nah there for sure.

“Go figure,” she said. She was gracious enough to accept this criticism of her original comments (if she even recalled that conversation) that prevented me from having immediate reconstruction nine months earlier.

“I have some other news,” she said. “Next week, if you go ahead with just the mastectomy, I don’t have a bed for you.”

“You don’t have a bed for me. What, exactly, does that mean?”

“It means I would perform the mastectomy and then send you home.”

Imagine. You amputate a body part and go home the same day. Drive-through surgery.

The truth? A mastectomy is a very simple and easy surgery to perform. Nothing terribly complicated about taking a breast off a body and sewing the space up. Emotionally? Probably one of the worst.

I saw it as a sign.

All things happen for a reason.

I don’t have a bed because I’m not meant to have just a mastectomy.

“When can the plastic surgeon get you in?”

“Not for six to eight weeks.” She knew I was worried. “We’re already past the safe post-chemo time frame and my first surgery, and no one really knows how much more risk I am taking by waiting even longer and by changing the order of treatment again,” I said.

“Do you want me to call the plastic surgeon to see what I can do?”

“Yes. Yes, please! You’re on the inside. You have influence.” She and the plastic surgeon were peers. She could be my champion, plead my case for an earlier surgery date.

“Just don’t let your assistant make the call. She is no match for his assistant.” I was worried his assistant would summarily dismiss Rock Star’s assistant. And I was worried Rock Star’s assistant might not decide to make the calls until her acrylic nails were filled – in two months’ time. I wasn’t prepared for Rock Star’s response.

“Kelly, I’m no match for his assistant.”

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