Preparations in Here Be Dust

Thanks for the good vibes, wishes, and prayers, everyone! <3 <3 <3

These past few days I've been in a combination of prep mode and decompression mode. From the prep end:

1. Made my consult appointment. I see the surgeon (got my first choice!) Wednesday afternoon. Surgery date TBD. I think that means I'll also get to attend the breast cancer support group meeting two days later, which I've been hoping to do. (Fortunately I get my taxes done two days before the consult!)

2. Spoke with a staffer from the American Cancer Society resource center, who spent a good chunk of time answering my questions. He also emailed me two ACS publications -- a 12-page document of post-surgical exercises to help with healing and a whopping 133-page guide to breast cancer. I'm still reading the latter and am about halfway through it -- it's given me more questions to ask the surgeon (18 questions and counting).

3. Spoke with my insurer so that I have a ballpark figure of what to expect vis a vis costs.

4. Long phone conversation with M's sister. Right now my main wish is that M's siblings reach out to her more. She doesn't reach out to them, but she has now said more than once that she was very happy her sister had called the other day. I emailed the sister links to some of my caregiving blog entries the day before our private conversation. We'll see where it goes from there.

5. Contacted clients to give them a heads-up that I'll be out of commission for a while. One is a breast cancer survivor herself and has offered to be a resource. I'm currently working on a small job and will let that client know what's up when I make delivery over the weekend.

6. Found and viewed a couple of YouTube videos related to invasive colloid carcinoma (the species of cancer that I've got). Still to do: view videos on post-surgical drains, because I'm pretty sure I'll get one of those and I need to get over my squeamishness about them.

In combination prep and decompression mode, I've been gathering inspirational stuff that will come in handy on my more challenging days. Like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

I also want to put together a playlist with the kind of kickass music I need.

I'm punting on today's 5K event, but I've been continuing my workouts at home. I'm holding at four minutes for the basic plank and have been building up my side planks -- am about to go from 35 to 40 seconds for those. Plus cardio on the mini-bike. That will all screech to a halt come surgery and will stay halted until further notice. Instead, I'll be concentrating on stretches so as to discourage things like frozen shoulder and lymphedema,pending surgeon's instructions.

I've been a little sore ever since my diagnostic mammo and ultrasound on the 19th and especially since my biopsy on the 27th; this is normal. I also know that it's a small taste of what lies ahead. One day at a time.