the World's Greatest Husband

It’s true you know I do have the world’s greatest husband. I know that when women brag on their spouses they all think that their’s is the greatest, they are wrong. Only one person can be the greatest at something and at being a husband it’s mine. Even when I get picky and grumpy he’s still the greatest husband in the world. He rubs my back when it’s sore even if he’s feeling like crap. He will get me anything any time of the day or night, even if it means he has to get up out of bed, get dressed and go get whatever it is. I am pregnant and huge, I just had a mastectomy and am less one breast and have terrible scars and he still calls me beautiul. He will never deny me anything. He treats me with more respect than any other person ever has and is sweeter than anyone I've ever known. This is not to say that my husband is my lap dog, he is not, he just loves me that much. Then again, I just love him that much. It is the most amazing relationship I have ever had. We truly are partners in life and I honestly don’t think that will ever change. We have our moments when we don’t see eye to eye, but they never last long and in the end we always come together.

Sorry, I just needed to brag.

We Have Achieved a Date!

With everything that has gone on during this pregnancy I have been a complete basket case. When we discovered the breast cancer there was concern as to when we would deliver the baby. Now we know that there will be no chemo therapy while I'm carrying the li'l guy but he will be coming early. I need to know when this baby is coming! I've already taken a month off work for the mastectomy and my employer needs to know when I'll be out again, so they're asking. My mom is trying to make flight arrangements so she is asking. My Grandfather may fly in from Florida, so he is asking. Well, and, I just wanna know. So I have been calling, and calling, and calling. After what seemed like forever and too many phone calls to count we finally have a date! Well, sort of. Because of my staph infection post mastectomy more surgery seems a bit dangerous so we'll try to induce labor. Of course inducing depends greatly on the size of the tadpole at the time. Right now he's growing at a pretty steady rate and quite a bit ahead of the game so as long as that continues we're golden. So here's the plan...We'll show up to the hospital on February 19th at 5pm to begin the process. They will try one drug first to get my body ready (this of course takes 12 hours) then the following day they will begin to actually induce labor so it will probably be the 20th or the 21st before Caleb takes his first breath outside the womb. I'll know more details tomorrow when we go to the OB, but that's what I know for now. G-d I can't wait to meet this li'l guy!

Things to Ease My Mind

Well, I heard from my girlfriend who’s planning the shower for me so that is, at least, one load off my mind. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out when the tadpole is going to be born. My doctors presented my case to the tumor board last Friday and I thought I’d hear something regarding my birth plan by Monday or Tuesday and now it’s Thursday and I still don’t know anything. Okay that’s not completely true, but I’m pregnant and prone to the dramatic. I have not heard from my OB or oncologist, but I had an appointment with my breast surgeon today that gave me some indication of what may happen and my OB’s office called me to make an appointment to go over what he talked about with my oncologist, so we’re closer if nothing else.

My breast surgeon said that the tumor board or breast cancer panel or whatever it is agrees that given my case there should be no chemo prior to my giving birth. Thank G-d! Because of the staph infection there is concern about doing another surgery so soon therefore a c-section is probably out of the question unless there are complications which means that we’ll just have to wait for my cervix to be ready and induce labor. This will probably happen at about 36 weeks. The brief conversations that I’ve had with my oncologist lead me to believe that there would be a firm date of delivery for Caleb, I guess not. So we’ll just have to wait and see like everyone else, at least to a certain degree. We know that it will be some time between the week of February 12th and February 19th. I’m certainly feeling al lot more calm about it today than I was yesterday or the day before and I’m sure my appointment with my OB will put my mind at further ease, at least I hope it will.

There are actually lots of things going on to put my mind a little more at ease. The exercises I’ve been doing have greatly helped the movement of my arm, though the scare tissue is still pretty thick and tight. My doctor has released me to go back to work on Monday. I never thought I’d be so happy to be going back to work but it will be nice to do something other than sit on my ever growing ass all day, feeling sorry for myself. And, today, for the first time since December 15th, I actually got in my car turned the key in the ignition and drove all by myself. No more asking for a ride here or there, no more being stuck in the house, aaaahhhh independence what a gift, gift that I completely underappreciated for way too long.

So Much for March 10th

So my due date has been March 10th and, I guess, it still is there is just one little fly in the ointment. Because of the cancer my doctors are talking about delivering the baby in February so that I can start my chemo. That's fine, I understand that it's necessary but we are totally unprepared to have this baby in 4 weeks. We have a crib but no hardware with which to put it together, we don't have any dipers or bottles or formula or anything but some clothes and a baby bath, not even a car seat. I know we need to have a shower and were/are planning on it but this moves up the schedule quite a bit. My girlfriend is planning one for me but we were planning with a March 10th due date in mind and she is going out of town the last week in January and we need to have the shower the first week in February. What the heck are we going to do, we certainly can't afford to buy all this baby stuff ourselves. I've called her twice now and e-mailed twice and have not received a responce. At this point I'm getting a little freaked out.

Talk about a load of crap!

So, as if to add insult to injury, I developed a staph infection less than 2 weeks after the mastectomy. Talk about a load of crap! The day before New Years Eve I noticed some discomfort around the site of my last drain. The next morning the pain was much worse and when I went to change the bandage there was some puss and the skin surrounding the drain was pulling away. I had my doctor paged and she met me at her office (yeah on a Saturday) and removed the drain. Everything looked cool, I was totally excited to have the gross goo dispenser removed and I went home and took a snooze. When I woke up I though I was in the worst pain I’d ever experienced. The pain just kept getting worse and by 9:30pm on New Years Eve I had my doctor paged again. Because everything had looked good at the office she told me to wait it out and everything would be okay. Whatever! By New Years day I was in the worst pain I’d ever been in, I couldn’t get out of bed without out help, heck I could barely move. I paged the doctor and met her at her office. We suspected that there was some fluid build up inside my chest wall and after a sonogram our suspicions were confirmed. She aspirated the area with a needle trying to remove the excess fluid but I wasn’t doing well and got nauseous and dizzy and she decided it would be best to admit me to the hospital.

They put me on a morphine drip and still no relief. They took what seemed like gallons of blood and on January 2nd we discovered that I had a staph infection, yay, more surgery. A staph infection is kind of like a boil (so super gross) it has a core, and they had to go in and physically remove the infection, drain the fluid and put in a new drain. I was put on IV antibiotics and more morphine and spent the next week in the hospital. As a matter of fact, I just came home today.

It sucked, I hate being in the hospital, but there was one thing that made the whole experience tolerable. Everyday a nurse would come in and hook me up to a fetal monitor and we got to sit and listen to our son for a half an hour each day. He is so funny that Caleb! He moves around like nobody’s business. The nurses had to chase him around; they couldn’t just leave me there on the monitor. My li’l squirmer, I shure am going to have my hands full. The first day we caught him in the middle of the hiccups, too cute. Oh, my sweet little baby sure can make even the worst experiences okay.