Tag Archives: breast cancer

Part 36: Blogging for Breast Cancer: It’s Complicated

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It has been twenty years since my first bout with breast cancer. At the nineteen year mark, thinking I had a lifetime pass for paying my dues, I was shocked and freaked out by cancer’s recurrence, in the remaining breast. This time it wasn’t DCIS, where a bunch of microcalcifications were seen on a mammogram. In 2004, the oncologist spoke to his cronies at Memorial Sloan Kettering who told him that because I had had a mastectomy I didn’t need chemo or radiation. Philosophies change over the years. Had I had that “ductal carcinoma in situ,” now, I might have … Continue reading →

Part 35: Blogging for Breast Cancer: The Conundrum

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When you have a health issue there is just so much information that can fit in your head. I’ve sat here in front of a screen for hours, over many days trying to put words together, trying to string moments together like beads on a necklace but nothing felt right or fit.   On July 18, I found myself in a small hospital on the North Shore of Long Island, it’s where the plastic surgeon works to revise previous initial reconstruction surgeries. When I tell people that I had another surgery, they are shocked: People think that after a breast … Continue reading →

Part 34: Blogging for Breast Cancer: Facing Another Surgery

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  I have been unable to sit and stare down a blank blog page for quite a while. The healing process wore me out, I suppose. There is usually an idea that hits me, calls to me, but for weeks, nothing. Then Facebook popped up a “memory” and I decided to use it as my sign from the Universe that it would be appropriate to re-visit. The “memory” was from two summers ago, during a heatwave. July, 2021. It was several seasons after a very difficult time of loss: first my mother, then my husband, who remains in a nursing … Continue reading →

Part 290. Husband Journey: 47th Anniversary in a Nursing Home

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      I had not seen Robert in-person in months. Possibly not since last summer? Last fall? There were surgeries. A wedding. Fear of Covid. Life changes. We visited more via FaceTime where I could show him around the house and hope to tweak his memory. And then on March 2, 2023 after months of stress and worry, I had a mastectomy. Another mastectomy; after nineteen years. I am still recovering from complications three months later. I was determined to visit in person on our anniversary. It was forty-seven years ago that we married. We worked. We had a … Continue reading →

Part 33: Blogging For Breast Cancer: While Waiting for The Visiting Nurse: Vulnerability

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  Monday, May 8, 2023 12:25 PM I have a wonderful visiting nurse who used to make me her first stop; she’d be here close to 9:00 am and then I could finally shower after she’d remove my bandages, and then put me back together. She was so wonderful that she received a promotion and is now working in an “office” doing training. Though she was kind enough to keep me on as a patient in the field, I have to wait much longer for her to arrive. Hours longer. And, after weekends, when she has bandaged me up on … Continue reading →

Part 32. Blogging For Breast Cancer: What I Thought I Knew

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What I thought I knew was that the surgery for the benign condition, the removal of another papilloma, where a tiny, invasive, lobular carcinoma was found, was the end of it. It wasn’t. I had a mastectomy. There were complications. The issues were corrected while I was still out. I had a transfusion. I stayed in the hospital for five days. I came home on March 7th and have had a 24/7 aide with me since. The TUG flap, back of thigh incision to harvest fat for a breast reconstruction, split open. The wound was the size of a baseball. … Continue reading →

Part 289. Husband Journey & (Part 29. Cancer) I Heard it Through The Grapevine

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  The confluence of events continues: It is the countdown to a big surgery. I am not going to announce the date but it is coming up and my head just keeps spinning. In fact, I even had two lousy days of bed-ridden vertigo; it’s been a long time since I was on that ride and I was glad to get off. But stress, ahhh, good old stress will get you any which way it can. So let’s catch-up. My appointments are in order, I’ve had pre-surgery testing by the hospital. I’ve booked an agency for a 24/7 aide for … Continue reading →

(Part 27. Cancer), (Part 286. →Husband Journey) A Confluence: Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

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  As we enter a New Year and look back, the passage of time is inconceivable. I hope we all get through the new year  content and ununscathed, or as content and unscathed as possible. As for happy, what does that mean? Here it is: I am stuck at the crossroads of words and life. Of Robert’s  (The “Husband Journey” which began with The Mother-Daughter Journey) and my own health (Blogging for Breast Cancer). Let me try to sort it all out here. I recently had the wonderful distraction of having family stay over for a couple of days. It … Continue reading →

Part 26. Cancer: The Grinch That Stole Christmas

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“It came without ribbons, it came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags.” — The Grinch   Well, folks, it has been a strange week of angst and, probably, over-thinking. Here it is Christmas Day, 2022. A new year is coming, There is a movie playing of me in my multi-plex. In Theater One we have, “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.” In Theater Two there is a movie about my Christmases while growing up in Stuyvesant Town, in New York City. Technically, we didn’t celebrate Christmas but my mother played into the Santa Claus phenomenon. We had no chimney, … Continue reading →

24. The Nipplemania Newsletter, 2022 Edition (Blogging for Breast Cancer): Sneaky

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  It’s October. For years I have been fundraising for the American Cancer Society. It’s all about breast cancer and awareness. Each year I post links to my story. Lately it feels like the main core of the story is in the past and that the story has been evolving. Let me just fill you in.   In February, I had a followup to the lumpectomy and removal of a papilloma which was diagnosed in Spring of 2021 and surgically removed in August. Everything was fine. On to six months later, in August: am MRI revealed something “suspicious.” Then a … Continue reading →

23. The Nipplemania Newsletter, 2021 Edition (Blogging for Breast Cancer)#3: The Yin and Yang of “Benign”

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Yom Kippur, 2021 May we be inscribed in the book of life for another year. And may we, dear lord, be healthy. How do I say this, let me count the ways. My husband is failing, in a nursing home. My son announced his engagement and the happy couple are searching for an unusual venue: I am trying to be happy. I hide from Covid and from myself on a daily basis. I live in a body that I don’t know how to make sense of. Day by day. Yesterday morning I went back to sleep after being up for … Continue reading →

255.→Husband Journey: On Loss, Dreams, and Old Fashioned Moments

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Well, friends, it has been a while. My words went silent and sunk into feelings. Drowning in feelings. There is Robert to think about and those thoughts are now competing with other thoughts that are filled with anxiety about my upcoming surgery. I remind myself, between episodes of heart palpitations, that people who surround me have been flooding me with offers of escorting me back and forth, that I should not worry, that things will fall into place, that people care and they have formed a loving village. That calms me for a few minutes and then the fear ramps … Continue reading →

The Nipplemania Newsletter, 2021 Edition (Blogging for Breast Cancer)

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Folks, it’s the return of your favorite publication!     Here we are again blogging for breast cancer, making an informational blog about all the stuff women, and sometimes men, can be faced with. Let me fill you in about what has been going on over the last few months. I will reconstruct the timeline. My insurance pays for a breast MRI every three years; it is part of the breast cancer protocol and for years nothing has shown up. We women get mammograms, sonograms and each view they produce can reveal something new. With smartphones and apps we are … Continue reading →

Blogging For Breast Cancer, 2020 →… Index to Series (2021 Update)

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updated to add posts for 2021     On October 1, 2004 I had a right mastectomy. This is my story. I am a survivor. The series was originally posted in 2007, and has been expanded, since. I run it annually. Please invite all your friends to read my story. Awareness is very important. If I can help one person I will be very happy.   Hope starts with me.   Part 1. Spinning at 45 rpm’s: Wake Up Little Susie My journey starts here, as a child, visiting Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY Part 2. Spinning at 45 rpm’s: Bye, Bye … Continue reading →

Thoughts on Breast Cancer: A Mere Trip to Italy (a re-post)

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This morning as I was dressing, I chose jewelry that I hadn’t worn in a while. I am partial to dichroic glass, I love its depth and variety of color and “inner” texture and the smoothness of its surface is calming. As I put on the pin, and earrings you see above, I realized that my mind had been working in its own subconscious right. After fastening the pin, my mind traveled back to the day I bought it. Sunday September 19, 2004. It was brilliantly clear as it is today; the sky was blue, there was a touch of … Continue reading →

Blogging for Breast Cancer: Part 19: “I have no insurance but, I have faith” -Leslie Helene Elder (repost)

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This is an annual re-post of a blog from my series, “Blogging for Breast Cancer.” I feel it is imperative to share it every year in memory of my High School friend, Leslie Elder. This is why we need health insurance that is affordable and comprehensive. This is what could happen if without such it. It is not a luxury, it is a human right.   Dedicated to the Elder family.   Here I sit on a beautiful afternoon. Shadows of trees cross my neighbor’s window. For some strange reason, birds sing like it’s spring in defiance of the calendar. … Continue reading →

Blogging for Breast Cancer: Index to Series

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On October 1, 2004 I had a right mastectomy. This is my story. I am a survivor. The series was originally posted in 2007, and has been expanded, since. I run it annually. Please invite all your friends to read my story. Awareness is very important. If I can help one person I will be very happy.     Part 1. Spinning at 45 rpm’s: Wake Up Little Susie My journey starts here, as a child, visiting Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY Part 2. Spinning at 45 rpm’s: Bye, Bye Love The summer of 1959, the ride is beginning. Part 3. … Continue reading →

Part 20. Thoughts on Breast Cancer: A Mere Trip to Italy

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This morning as I was dressing, I chose jewelry that I hadn’t worn in a while. I am partial to dichroic glass, I love its depth and variety of color and “inner” texture and the smoothness of its surface is calming. As I put on the pin and earrings you see above I realized that my mind had been working in its own subconscious right. After fastening the pin, my mind traveled back to the day I bought it. Sunday September 19, 2004. It was brilliantly clear as it is today; the sky was blue, there was a touch of … Continue reading →

2013 Blogging for Breast Cancer: Index to Series

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It is October 1, 2013. On October 1, 2004 I had a right mastectomy. This is my story. I am a nine year breast cancer survivor. The series was originally posted in 2007, and has been expanded. I run it annually. Please invite all your friends to read my story. Awareness is very important. If I can help one person I will be very happy.   10/1~ 63. Part 1. Spinning at 45 rpm’s: Wake Up Little Susie My journey starts here, as a child, visiting Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, NY 10/2~ 64. Part 2. Spinning at 45 rpm’s: Bye, Bye … Continue reading →