Welcome to breastcancer.org

Isn't that a weird welcome message? I just signed up for a login at breastcancer.org, and that's the subject line of the e-mail they send you.

How long do you think they worked on that? I can just imagine it now... "So, how are we going to make the women feel welcomed by breast cancer[.org]?"

I have a sense of humor, so I would prefer something like this: "Hey, at least it's not lungcancer.org"

I'm not trying to be mean. I would think having lung cancer would be much worse.

I stayed home from work today because I was pretty tired when the alarm clock rang. I had a big weekend - there was the bridal shower for my dear friend, Vicki (I think she looked waaaaay too good for us to even pretend that it was a surprise), and then there were the Mother's Day festivities involving lots of family time and trying to eat as much as my tummy would accept. It was a good weekend, but it did tire me out.

So, today I spent most of the day on the couch with my laptop and the Food Network, working from home. It was a very quiet day where I had some time to myself, which gave me the opportunity to think about things that I can't think about when I'm not alone. Thinking doesn't bother me. I can replay things in my mind a thousand different times, picking up something slightly different each time. It makes me feel like I'm "working on" a problem when I think about it.

I did a little investigating about reconstruction and found some pictures that weren't totally horrifying. That was helpful. I can see 10 pictures that totally scare the crap out of me, and just 1 picture of someone with decent-looking reconstructed boobs and think "that will be me". Or that can be me. I just need to know it's possible and then the rest will take care of itself. So that was good. (If anyone is curious, you can see what one young woman went through months before her wedding to try to put her body back together after a double mastectomy. I don't blame you if you don't want to, though. I don't think I'd be interested if it wasn't something I'd have to do eventually.)

I also ended up at breastcancer.org to read the message boards (hence, the welcome message). I think for the first time I've started to realize that I'm not the only one who has ever had to go through this. I tell myself that I'm unique because I'm young and I get a free pass to feel like the world is ending. But then I read about women who have 5 cm tumors (OMG - how do they go undetected for so long?) and a 26 year-old who has tumors in her liver and cancer in her bones and another one whose husband left her. Whew.

It was very interesting to read about other people. Some people are scared about chemo. It's funny - I wasn't even remotely afraid of chemo. I was looking forward to starting it. Then other people talk about having an AND like it's no big deal - so inconsequential that they call it "and", almost like "&". (AND means Axillary Node Dissection, which is when they take out your lymph nodes. To me, that's really scary for a lot of reasons I'll talk about some other time).

So, it was pretty weird to start reading posts of other people who are going through similar things. Similar, yet quite different. Welcome to breastcancer.org.