08.01.09
Nick/Tuck 2
I have gotten a couple comments about yesterday’s post regarding Nick Starr’s (http://www.nickstarr.com). Some of them concerning his mental health were very enlightening. The more I think about what I’ve been told, the more I become convinced that supporting Nick is the right thing to do.
Granted I don’t know the full story. I have been told that he was arrested for threatening to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge in June. I was also told that he has threatened suicide on Twitter multiple times. I have not personally witnessed any of this so right now it is all second hand information.
When I was going through the worse of my problems, I called suicide hotline. Even after, when we weren’t sure if we could find a way to pay for my reconstruction surgery, I had a plan in place for how to kill myself. I was so thoroughly convinced that I was nothing more than a mangled, sub-human thing that if I had to wait another three years or more for reconstruction surgery, I was just going to end it because while I was in that head space, my life was already over no matter what my friends, my husband or my family said.
Having been that totally desperate, I understand why Nick feels the way he does. People who have not been in the position of hating their bodies so thoroughly that they just wanted to end it, really cannot fathom why he would go to such extremes measures.
Many of you are probably thinking that his situation is different. He didn’t lose intimate parts of his body to necrosis and an inept surgeon. Very true. But he *does* hate his body for reasons he has explained in his blog.
I *would* like to see him get some counseling though. Surgery is not an instant fix. There is an emotional adjustment period and he’ll probably need some help making that adjustment.
07.06.09
Pieces
A few days ago I was talking to my best friend. Ninety-Nine percent of the time she’s right about what she says. I value her advice because she IS right so often. So those very few times when we disagree I find it very disconcerting. This is one of those times when I’m still trying to figure out if she is right yet again.
During our talk she went to great lengths to tell me something. She stressed that even when I was in the midst of the very worst and the necrosis was slowly eating my breasts away, or the sutures were tearing open and I had two tennis ball sized gaping wounds where I once had breasts, I was still whole. That no matter what happened to my body, in essence I was still me.
To some extent this is true. Even when I felt like a mangled, worthless subhuman thing, I was still Maria. I still had the basic make-up that makes me who I am.
There IS a point I have problems agreeing, however. If a situation, no matter what it is, breaks your spirit, if your mettle is pushed beyond the breaking point and you shatter under the weight of the situation, are you REALLY still whole?
Here is where I have to say No. Those pieces have to be put back together again. In many cases, those shards come together to create something stronger than before. Mettle isn’t tested unless it’s been through the forge.
Once in a while, for some people, those pieces don’t quite mend right. Mental illness can develop from extreme stress. When someone endures long periods of high stress levels, that saturation of adrenaline, etc can actually cause changes in brain chemistry. I’ve talked about post traumatic stress disorder before. Panic disorders, anxiety and depression are other issues that can develop. All of these mental issues can become life threatening. Depression can lead to suicide. Panic attacks and anxiety can lead to high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack.
Of course modern pharmacology can supply you with a pill to alleviate the symptoms of those mental illnesses. But the underlying cause still remains, possibly for years. This raises the question: Are you really whole if you don’t FEEL whole?
My friend’s premise is that our essence or soul cannot be affected by what happens to our bodies. That essence remains whole and perfect. That’s all well and good, but if the MIND, that mental spark that makes us who we are, is damaged, are we still whole?
In THIS regard, I have to disagree. Once something is broken it can never truly be made whole again. I will NEVER be the same again. I don’t just mean physically, either. Perhaps I am ‘whole’ but I am changed and I will never be the same.
That is not to say that I am not still ‘Maria’. I am. I have been changed by what has happened though. Who wouldn’t be? In some ways I am stronger. In others, I am weaker. Those aspects may eventually change. Right now, only Time will tell.
05.03.09
Infection – Part 6
This afternoon after taking a shower some of the tape came up on my left breast. I found a small 1/4 inch spot of infection that had separated. On further investigation, there are two more spots on my back that are infected with very slight separations. I’m guessing that means this infection is systemic.
I am, of course, freaking out. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I have the taste of bile in the back of my throat. My family keeps trying to reassure me that these are only tiny areas and it’s been caught and is being addressed. Unfortunately, much like other survivors of trauma, I’m having flashbacks to when the sutures ripped open and I had the gigantic open wounds in my chest.
My thoughts are, of course, a chaotic jumble ranging anywhere from unreasonably blaming Ken for this to thinking that maybe this is some sort of punishment for being an Atheist. Like I said, I’ve basically lost my mind. I spent so much time waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it didn’t, I relaxed and started to believe that everything was actually going to be okay. This is what I get. I KNEW there was another shoe. There’s ALWAYS another shoe.
Ken took photos and I emailed them directly to Dr. Elliott. I’m planning on going to see his associate here in town first thing in the morning.
04.02.09
To Be Human Again…
I know I’ve neglected this space for far too long. There has been a great deal going on while I’ve been away from here.
My surgery has been rescheduled for April 16th. I had an important event that was supposedly coming up at the same time as my surgery. I’ve since found out that the conference isn’t going to happen after all. So I suppose this is for the best really. This way I get it done and over with and I can start getting on with my life rather than being in this perpetual holding pattern I’ve been in for the last two years.
It’s been really scary since my last post though. With the stock market crash, our radical decrease in business and our inability to sell our house, our finances have been in a tail spin. We were actually planning to buy a cheap house for cash, rent out the place we’re living in now and Ken would get a job at Disney like he’s always wanted to do.
Unfortunately we’ve lost out on three houses, one being a termite breeding ground that we let go and the others we were outbid on. So we gave up that idea after three months of trying. Those three houses were only the ones in Orlando, too. That doesn’t even begin to touch on the four in Atlanta we lost out on after about 8 months of trying on and off there.
During that three months I was looking at not having the surgery because we couldn’t afford to do both. I was in a severe depression and really I still am though not quite as badly. The depression has been so severe that I planned my suicide. Ken kept saying that it’s not like I would never have the surgery. We would just have to wait until the investments began paying off. Those, however, won’t start paying out well for about two to three years. At that point I would have been looking at a total of 4-5 years of being this mangled, deformed, sub-human thing that I am right now.
Have you ever noticed how, when you tell someone close to you that you had been contemplating suicide, it suddenly becomes all about them?? “How could you do this to me?” “Do I really mean that little to you?” “Why would you hurt ME like that?”?? What the HELL??
Anyway… I’ve talked to the PA at my surgeon’s office repeatedly to have questions answered about the Latissimus Flap procedure ( posted a link in a previous entry). It’s the safest one for a woman of my size. It will have the best blood flow to the tissues. There is a less than 1% chance of necrosis and even if it does occur it will only be, at most, a quarter-sized piece at the end of the flap where there is the least amount of blood flow. In the 24 years Dr. Elliott has been doing this procedure he has only lost one flap. So I feel pretty confident that things will be okay.
On the other hand I’m still terrified that something bad is going to happen. I’ll be waiting for that other shoe to drop. I PROBABLY won’t relax until about 2 months after the surgery. And THEN I’ve got nipple reconstruction. I’m still contemplating whether or not I’m going to have that done. I MAY just go with prosthetic nipples. Or I may wait for a while. Although nipple reconstruction is done in the clinic and it’s and in and out sort of thing. BUT it’s more surgery.
I think maybe I’ll wait and see how I feel once everything is finished with the reconstruction.
While I’m relieved that I’ll be having the surgery I can’t help but feel like something of a burden. Finances will be really, really tight for a while. I feel selfish on one hand, but on the other, I just can’t live like this. No matter what people say, *I* still have to live in this body and I hate the way I feel.
I wear a training-style bra all the time now so that I don’t have to look at the wreckage that is my chest. I can’t remember the last time I looked in the mirror and thought something positive about myself, other than my hair, which has been a saving grace.
It will be a relief when this is all over and I feel human again.
10.23.08
Interview
While I’m at Dr. Elliott’s office I’m going to be doing an interview with him about the process. I’m also going to be asking about the reality of complications, how frequently they really happen and what really causes them. Once RoyallMedia.com has the new site up next month I’ll be posting that interview. it will also be in one of the future episodes of BoobCast.
I’ll let you all know how it goes 
PS: After a brief conversation with Hubby, I feel a bit better. I’m still overwhelmed, but as long as I remember that we’re taking it one step at a time, it’s easier to handle.
That, and remembering to take deep breaths when I start to freak out… Also a major helper. Oxygen: it’s a GOOD thing!
Terrified
Thursday morning at 11 am I have second appointment with Dr. Elliott. We’ll talk more about the Bilateral Tram Flap reconstruction process, take pictures and do whatever needs to be done for preliminaries.
I’m nauseous.
On the up side I used to be nauseous and shaking. That last part seems to have abated, so that’s a good thing.
I’m just so terrified that something else is going to go wrong. I’m scared beyond belief of having another severe complication like I had with the first (or second) surgery, only worse.
So why am I even doing this? I’m on the verge of tears, I’m so afraid. I don’t know if I can do this. Logically I realize that this is an unreasonable fear. Dr. Elliott is far more experienced than the motherfucker who screwed me up before. He has only had ONE instance in 22 years of a failure of the flap. He learned how do the procedure by studying under the doctor who INVENTED the damned thing.
And yet…I’m going to throw up.
I’ve said before that I’m torn. I can’t live like this. I’m mangled. My chest is a ruin. Yet I’m terrified of something going wrong. This decision is ripping me apart. I think deer in headlights have more idiomotor control than I do right now.
I’m hard headed (thick skulled?) though. I’ll find a way through the fear. I have to.
I’m going to write another installment after my appointment. So stay tuned boys and girls. Same boob time. Same boob chanel.
10.17.08
Batshit Crazy
I was hooked up to a portable V.A.C. machine (http://www.kci1.com/35.asp), from December 7th 2007 until January 24th 2008 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Except for the few hours every three days that my husband spent pulling the specialized foam from the open wounds in my chest, cutting new pieces and putting the plastic and suction tubes back on, I carried this thing around with me as it slowly healed my chest.
It uses low level vacuum pressure to close the wounds and pull out dead tissue and fluids. In all honesty I think it saved my life. Up until the point that the surgeon’s nurse suggested it, I had been packing the open wounds with saline-soaked gauze three times a day. Even though i was grateful for the machine, it still made a soft clattering sound that was a constant reminder that I had made this choice and it was my fault that this was happening to, not only myself, but my husband and my sons.
During those months, I became even more depressed than I previously was. I think that I’m still suffering from what is called “situational depression”. I don’t like going to bed because during the day and evening there are so many distractions. When I go to bed, though, the distractions are gone and I’m left alone with my thoughts. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep until 3 am. Then I sleep until 11 and the cycle perpetuates itself.
I recognize depression in myself because there was a time when I loved cruising eBay. Now, I have little to no interest. I mean, I *could* look, but what’s the point? I’m not totally depressed. I still love my work and I’m excited about BoobCast. It just seems like some of the flavor has been taken out of the world.
I’m not the type to pin happiness on a situation. Such as, I don’t say things like “I’ll be happy when I get ________________”. I think I’m making an exception though. I’ll be happier when I don’t look at my chest in the mirror and feel mangled.
In the mean time…I’m batshit crazy.
10.13.08
Scared and guilty
It was a good day today. I managed to distract myself for most of the day. Unfortunately these nagging feelings keep bleeding through. I can’t seem to shake them and I wonder if maybe I should see a therapist.
There was an afternoon in early January of this year while I was still on the V.A.C. machine when I became SO depressed that I looked for a way to kill myself. If there had been prescription narcotics in the house I would have overdosed. So instead I called Suicide Hotline. The woman on the other end saved my life. She reminded me that I could help people and that, even though I couldn’t see it right now, there was an end to all of this. She reminded me that one day in the not-so-distant future everything would be made right.
The clattering of the V.A.C. machine every 5 minutes was, for me, a constant reminder that I had brought this horiffic situation on myself. Because I HAD to have pretty breasts, I now had two holes in my chest and the healing wasn’t going the way the nurses at KCI said it would. I just wanted it all to be over with and the only way, in my extremely depressed state, that I could see that happening was to kill myself.
So there’s part of the guilt there. I still blame myself for what has happened.
And the fear? I live in terror that the same thing will happen again after the reconstruction surgery. I have found the best reconstruction surgeon in the southeast. This doctor studied under the surgeon who invented the TRAM flap breast reconstruction proceedure, which was the most safe and ingenious way to reconstruct a cancer survivor’s breast at that time. He’s world renowned and teaches world wide.
Nonetheless I am totally terrified.
On the other hand, I cannot continue to live like this. I’m not mentally ready yet, but I know that, for my own mental wellbeing, I cannot stay like this. When I look in the mirror I see a mutilated, maimed thing. Not a human chest. I can’t live like that forever.
And so I do what I can to keep myself busy. I work. I do schoolwork. I go out to various places and I do my best to keep my mind on other things.
But at night, when I’m lying in bed before I fall asleep, some nights it’s difficult.
On October 24th I have an official consultation with the reconstructive surgeon. Maybe I’ll be able to start putting the fear behind me then.
