feeling expansive

It's funny reading my last post, because that really was a fleeting moment of negativity. As anticipated, my trip north and seeing friends and family immediately bounced my mood about a tenfold higher and lighter where it has been pretty consistently for a week. It didn't hurt that my symptoms quickly simmered down to what they feel like on the "good weeks" which are, for those of you who care about the minutiae, an eyelid twitch in my left eye, an intermittent but persistent runny nose with broken capillaries (this sounds nicer than "nosebleed" n'est-ce pas?), and about 50% less energy than "normal", causing the need for about 25% more rest and sleep than typical. While all of these symptoms are mildly annoying, they do not prohibit me from living my life quite normally, including working and engaging in other activities I like, such as hiking, yoga and, a couple weeks ago, skiing.

(again, a grateful incantation to any deity who had a hand in my physical make-up, which seems to bear the toxic glut with unusual steadfastness) 

I cannot tell you how GREAT it was to see family and some of my friends (and their offspring!) in Seattle, and I am now officially in the final stretch of living in SLC and just can't wait until July so I can see the rest of you! Really and truly, when I beat this thing, I really have to give all the credit to my incredible community. THANK YOU for all the hugs, kind words, cards, calls, skypes, emails, an amazing and inspiring assortment of gifts... ..more hats than a bald girl could ever need. Wait, I take that back. As many hats as a girl needs when she's bald...

While in Seattle, I told some of you about my recent experience of getting expanded. This is the process of hooking up my industrial grade temporary false boob to a turkey baster of saline solution through the metal port (a new reality of my body about which I was reminded going through security for the first time since surgery. Yup, there's metal in there, pat-down lady) in the front of it, gradually getting me to the size I want to be at the finish of this journey.  Even trying to reckon this "final size" puts one in the  position of trying to compare a perky, dense, insensate boob-shaped blob with a diagonal scar on one side of your body with its nearly-forty-year-old counterpart whose life experience indicates a familiarity with Newton's law. Talk about apples to oranges. (apples to saturn peaches?). Thankfully, the bras of 2012 do a good job of  addressing the inequity. 

As usual, Sawyer was able to come to my appointment (extra sweet now that they are rather prosaic and I am neither scared shitless nor particularly inclined to ask questions where I may need him to remember the answers - a prime duty of his in the more information-dense appointments) with me when I got the fill and we both decided the 60ccs of fluid in the injection tube was way too much at one go; I got 30. Sawyer said to watch it fill up was quite literal (I believe the dictionary entry would be "tumescence"), and even though neither of us had any sense that it was "baggy" before, it certainly felt exceedingly tight and pert for the next week, until my skin and muscles relaxed around the new volume.

I've been terrible about documenting my cancer experience visually but this one was so funny to both of us we got a modesty-adjusted shot of it, in action, along with the very game Vicky, one of the three full-time breast nurses at the Huntsman (all women, for those of you who want to make a joke here).

I'll leave it to you guys to come up with a cute title.