Letting Go

Hi Everyone,
So most of you know that I am waiting around for my new boobs. After chemo, after my double mastectomy, after being expanded every week for what seemed like eternity (but was really just a month and a half), they tell me they can't do my final surgery until October which really pissed me off. My plastic surgeon is the head of the department and therefore in high demand and there are ladies out there in desperate need of bigger and perkier boobs and this took precedence over the need to rid my body of these stone hard lumps. Seriously. This is what I found out while in the hospital a few weeks ago.

See soon there will be a new and improved silicone implant out on the market. They have been coined the Gummy Bear because of their soft pliable material, like a warm gummy bear. They are improved because technically the current silicone implants have a shelf life of around ten to fifteen years. They aren't indestructible. They can leak, pop, explode, something like that. And the new implant doesn't have any liquid at all, but instead is sort of solid, like a Gummy bear and so if it does rupture, nothing leaks. It's like the memory foam of breast implants.

This is the gummy. See how it can be sliced with no leaks.


However, the Gummy Bear has not been FDA approved. It was thought to get the all clear some time this month, but the FDA are dragging their feet as usual (they have already been in use in Europe for ten years). Woman all over the Bay Area booked my surgeon solid in the hopes they would be getting their gummy bears and have now cancelled their appointments and are waiting until they are approved. I would like to think I have the patience to wait as well. But I am not just your everyday flat chested woman looking for something to fill out a bikini. I am in pain. I need these expander things out. Maybe one day I will swap mine for the gummys, until then, I am going with silicone and please nobody comment in with horror stories you may have heard about woman whose implants have leaked silicone in to their bodies and now they are in constant pain. I have to believe my doctors here that everything will be OK. Naive? Maybe. Hopeful? Definitely.

So all of this is leading up to this. Because of the slow moving FDA, my surgeon has some time on and his hands. I got a call from Tony, Dr. Foster's poor assistant. I say poor because every time I was at the breast care center, I whined and bitched and moaned at him begging for an earlier surgery date and then I stalked him by phone leaving messages every day. The best ones were when Sadie was screaming in the background and I imagined this somehow lit a bigger fire under his butt to get me an earlier surgery date. There is nothing like the crying of a baby to get some pity, right? So Tony calls me and tells me I have a date. And this date is this Friday. I have to report to the breast care center at 6 AM. It's happening. Soon this whole breast cancer saga will all be over with, my only reminders being a short hair cut I did not ask for and perfectly round perky boobs. There will be nothing on the horizon that has to do with breast cancer at all. And this is what is weird. I am sort of sad about it. To let this time go. To move on from this.

Photo by Susanna Frohman

Ok, hear me out. This has been an incredible journey. Life changing. I have gone through all this crazy breast cancer stuff. It's consumed me for almost eight months. In a way, defined me. It's been my purpose, my story. It's the answer to every 'How have you been?' question. And now, I have to go back to my old life. Of course, I always knew this. I can't be cancer recovering woman forever. My God, no, I would never want that. But I am scared. How do I go back to who I was after going through something like this? How do I just slip on those old clothes and walk around in them as if nothing has changed? As if I am not a completely different person. Or am I? Did I change? I don't know. I won't know until I go back to my old routine. Which is what exactly? And really, if I think about it, I can't go back. I am a mom now. I have a baby. I can't throw a small tantrum in the mornings anymore when I can't find my matching shoe. I have Sadie to change, dress and feed. I can't sleep in, pressing snooze on my alarm and leave the house at the last minute, no breakfast, hot tea in hand. I will be carrying a baby. It's all just unknown. My life is now daycare and bath time and nutritious dinners at a reasonable hour instead of after work trips to the Anthropologie just to see what's on sale, movies and take out.

Guess where this was taken?

As all this comes to an end I worry I didn't get mad enough about having cancer. I didn't get scared enough. I didn't cry enough. I had Sadie and she distracted me in such a wonderful way, the cancer part, the chemo, the pain, it all feels like a weird dream.



But mostly I am scared about being a working mom. I was a working non-mom and I have witnessed first hand the struggle working moms go through. The guilt for having to leave an important meeting early to pick up a child from daycare. The frustration that meetings are scheduled after 4 PM at all. The sadness in realizing your child spends more time without you than with. Which is such a crazy notion that I don't think it really sinks in until you have already given birth, otherwise why do it? I mean why have a kid if you're never going to see it? And I know I am being dramatic here. I know lots of kids whose mom's and dad's work full time and they are great kids, well adjusted, happy, love their parents, all that. It's not really Sadie I am worried about, but me. And it's not that I even want to be a stay at home mom. I love my job. I like working. I just don't want anyone taking care of her but me. Nobody else loves her the way I do. Nobody else gets such heart filling joy when she smiles and laughs, but me (and Greg). Nobody watches every new little trick, like moving a toy from one hand to another or banging a toy to hear a new sound and bouncing up and down to music like I do, rapt and in awe like everything she does is a miracle, a totally blissful amazing come here and look at Sadie miracle.

Uncle Dan's hat and Sadie

I have been in hyperdrive researching daycare centers and none of them make me happy. Hell, even Mary Poppins at my front door every morning at 7 AM free of charge wouldn't make me happy. I know this will pass. I know something will feel right. I know that I will fall in to a new routine with my daughter and my husband and it will work and life will go on. I have seen it done. I know I am not venturing on anything new here, yet I am still more scared about the next few weeks than I was when I first heard the words breast cancer. That puts it in to perspective and I guess that is what I am trying to say here. It's not that I would choose to have chemo again, just to be with her, but I am grateful for the extra time cancer has given me to be with my daughter and therefore I am looking back and having a hard time letting go.
Love,
Rosalie


Some more photos....


Mommas and Babies

The Baby Whisperer

Uncle Dan gives me a break.

Some good friends. Amber and Ruby, Mollee and Johannah. Sadie is discovering hair. Ruby is just about to get a tug.

At Tacubaya

Nina and Sadie at Tacubaya (Sadie tried some beans).

We took Sadie to Petaluma to look at some Antique shops.


She was mainly pretty bored.

But was a perfect angel while we had lunch.

Sadie and Amara learning to share toys...hopefully.