Sunday, April 22, 2012

I’m Still Here, just busy!!


Sorry for not writing in a while; just want to let you know that I’m alright. Things have been crazy. I’ll update you with what’s going on with my boobs first. Men, if you’re squeamish about reading about my boobs, I’ve sectioned off that part so you can skip over it. OK?

Lots of boring boob talk – men, feel free to skip:

When I last wrote, I told you that the saline implant in ol’ lefty doesn’t match my new bionic, baby, Barbie boob (also known as ol’ righty). One of Dr. Topham’s interns actually asked me, with a straight face, if I’d prefer to have them reduce the size of the new Barbie boob rather than try to increase the left one. I almost slapped him.

Here’s the thing; I’ve gone through life with medium sized boobs (also known as a B cup). After having one removed and half of the other taken, I was bound and determined to know what a C cup looked like – on me. So when Skippy dropped that ridiculous bomb shell, I actually laughed out loud. And then I realized that he was serious. Thoughts of tackling him came to mind, but instead, I managed to compose myself. I figured I’d show my petulance in prose (awesome sentence right? Took me about half hour using the thesaurus and the dictionary to come up with that one!).

I explained, through gritted teeth, that there was NO WAY I was going to have my brand new perky Barbie boob that was even bigger than a C cup, reduced. In fact, the only way that a scalpel was coming anywhere near Barbie was if, like its predecessor, it tried to kill me. So, now I’m going to have another surgery – hopefully, my last.

The thing is, the implant on ol’ lefty seems to have traveled – to under my arm. So now the nipple is not only looking down, it’s looking to the left. It’s a very sad thing to see and I try to give it a pep talk every now and then to cheer it up. And I meant, literally hoping it would perk up – vertically. Sadly, it still hangs its head in shame.

Soooooo, up next, appointment with Dr. Topham. Now, going to be honest here. LOVE Barbie boob, kind of annoyed that I have to have surgery once again to try to even the two girls out. If things don’t go well – again – then I think my next move will be to go see my original booby daddy, Dr. Morrissey. Bonus, he’s just a 20 minute drive away as opposed to the hour & a half it takes to get to Philly. Here's a reminder about what he looks like:



My appointment is this Friday, April 27th. I’ll let you know when the next surgery is scheduled for! Keep your fingers crossed.

Boob talk over men, you may resume reading!


The miracle that is my son, Dakota:

The reason I had to reschedule my appointment with Dr. Topham was that Dakota was at Children’s Hospital – for the third time in 6 months. That sucks, but the good part about it is that he’s alive. He was born with a very rare, severe birth defect called, “Pentalogy of Cantrell”. It’s comprised of 5 defects – holes in the heart, missing the outer covering of the heart (pericardium), cleft sternum, holes in his diaphragm, and a large omphaloceale (stomach doesn’t close – intestines & part of his liver grew outside his body). It’s almost always a death sentence. In fact, Matt & I have only located 15 other survivors. He was stabilized at St. Luke’s in Bethlehem, then taken to St. Christopher’s Hospital for children where the diagnosis was made.

It’s the omphaloceale that keeps sending him to the hospital with bowel obstructions. When he was three, we went thru the “summer from Hell”, where he had three bowel obstructions resulting in one surgery for the obstructions and it was also determined that he had a hernia. He had another surgery that summer.

The thing is, we never knew that bowel obstructions were common after omphaloceales. The first time it happened, I just thought he had a stomach flu. We rushed him to his pediatrician, who sent us to Grand View. That’s where he was air lifted to Children’s Hospital. Before they left with him the nurse told me to kiss him goodbye. I don’t remember exactly how she put it, but she basically made no promises that he’d survive the flight. Scary stuff.

If we hadn’t lived in the Philadelphia area and had not one, but two of the best children’s hospitals in the world, Dakota would not be alive. Period.


Writing news.

My latest that’s running in Patch is about not having a clue about abbreviations used in texting. Here's the link:




Next up, I’m going to post an article that was written by someone who is disillusioned with Susan G. Komen. It’s very eye opening. Look for that in the next few days!

Before I let you go, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read about me, keeping up with what’s been going on, and for your prayers. I love the emails as well. I’m very, very lucky to have people, many who I don’t know, check in on my progress.

Thank you so much.
 
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