My math mind is full of numbers. It is full of lots of things actually, and sometimes I wish I could get a few of them out… quite a few.

I am pretty good – although not perfect- with dates.

Today marks three months since my father died. Flying free with the angels I am sure, yet I miss him. A lot. A blink of an eye, and an eternity.

Tomorrow is my nephew’s birthday. He will be 6.

I remember his 4th birthday quite clearly, although I didn’t see him that day either.

On March 5th in 2012 I had the “prophylactic” bilateral mastectomy. The one that ended up being stage 1 DCIS. Quite the surprise party.

And while I don’t even miss my old boobs, the new ones get scrutinized a lot more than the old ones. Well meaning surgeons, they say things like “that kind of volume falling away is normal,” or “we can even that out whenever you want.” The thought of someone coming near me again with a scalpel right now makes me ill. They will have their chance – years from now when these girls have to be replaced. Maybe then I will have time to care more.

The last 2 years have been a whirlwind. Well…maybe even before that. The scope of the changes in our lives in recent years require more than I can muster in a 10 PM post. But, being a numbers person…

Between Meghan and I we have had 5 surgeries in the last 2 years. She has me beat 3 to 2. But, I have lost more body parts. I am down 2 breasts, a uterus and 2 ovaries. She lost her thyroid, and a vascular cyst in her hand.

I am still crossing my fingers about my spleen. That one’s up for MRI in April. Hoping the 4 tumors there are behaving.

There comes a point where you have to laugh I guess. People think “Oh no! A mastectomy!!”

I think – “Whatever it takes…” But then again I had a pretty good teacher. (XO MOM)

I guess it’s all about perspective.

Meghan is really into identity, and figuring out where she belongs. This week I bought her a “Previvor” T shirt. She was thrilled to wear it to school today. She takes the opportunity to explain genetic cancer risks whenever she can. While I am happy she is confident I shudder at reality.

This is only stage 1 in her life as a previvor, staying one step ahead of genetic cancer risks looming large. This is only the beginning.

We run from doctor to doctor. We alternate surgeries. We try to laugh in between as we deal with the rest of life. Time is very difficult to balance. The constant running to doctors and the anxiety of waiting for them to find “something” can literally make you insane.

If you let them.

And I think that’s probably the key. And the message.

I am overwhelmed this week. Really fried. Having a tough time keeping it all together.

Then I think…

I was ahead of thyroid cancer 20 years ago before I knew the depth of the risk.

I am 2 years beyond the threat of breast cancer.

My girl is weeks past the looming thyroid cancer that threatened her.

Two years. New boobs. No sagging on this 40 something gal.

Plus I am a HELL of a lot better off than I was two years ago at this time!

Ash Wednesday. Never raised to “give up” for Lent. Rather to use it as a time for focus.

Time to get out of this funk. Forget November. Time to be thankful is right now.

And today I am thankful for this little girl whose diagnosis saved my life.

My body may be 40, but my boobs are only 2!

Thankful to God and this little chick!

This kid is clearly a "FORCE" to be reckoned with! — This kid is clearly a “FORCE” to be reckoned with!

The phone rang at about 7 PM. It’s Friday night. I did not expect the call to be from the nurse practitioner at the endocrinology office that manages Meghan’s care.

Wednesday we went in for a surgical follow up appointment. The incision is healing nicely. She is still sore but cleared to return to school Monday… and swimming too. While were there, they asked for some lab tests to be rerun.

Calcium levels which were botched Friday before discharge needed to be looked at again. And the parathyroid hormone to make sure it was still functional.

Before we left the facility, we received word that the calcium levels were actually high. No need for me to even start ranting again.

We were advised to keep her on the current supplementation level for 4 weeks, then wean her off and revisit the surgeon in 8 weeks. We would also see the endocrinologist at that time. Although, endocrinology would be ordering lots of labs in the mean time. All of this I understand.

Except, when the nurse told me she was calling, at 7 on Friday night (when the results from Weds. labs were in the system on Weds) to tell me to keep Meghan on her baseline calcium (the Isagneix Calcium she has taken for almost a year) and lower the supplemental pills they gave from three to two.

Seems logical. EXCEPT when we were discharged in that debacle Friday night they altered the script from 3 to 2 already. So so we go down to one?

The nurse stuttered, confused. I still don’t think anyone understands what a mess they made out of her care on Friday. No, she said. We will rerun the calcium in a week. Anyone want to wager that it will be too high?

As she went to hang up I asked about the pathology I had been waiting on pins and needles for. Almost as an afterthought, she said she didn’t think it was in. Then, “Oh, it’s right here… want me to send it to you?”

Um, YES.

“Everything seems ok, do you have a fax?”

YES!

And that was the end of the conversation. Left to read the pathology report on my own I pored over it as best I could. Confused that it was date stamped 6PM on Weds…. and I found out it was in by accident. But, whatever…

So without the aid of a doctor, and with my somewhat well developed medical vocabulary, everything looks to be

BENIGN!!!!

There are things about it I don’t like, of course. Like that some of the “lumps” are referred to as nodules, while the three problematic ones are called “tumors.” The largest of these tumors measured 2.4 x 1.3 x 1.3 cm, and the others were not that small either. No wonder this kid was choking! There is “hyperplasia” all over the place too. But it seems like the bottom line is, we got in in time.

Cowden’s we BEAT YOU to it!

Of course there is no crystal ball. There is no way to say for sure that it WOULD HAVE become cancerous, although I think we all know the reality. There is no way to know if it could have stayed in a little longer, but I like to think eliminating the anxiety over the constant FNAs, which incidentally had caused quite a mess of scar tissue according to the surgeon (THANK YOU COWDENS!) will be the better choice in the end.

It is ~~easy~~ easier, to make decisions about prophylactic organ removal when it is your own body. You just do what you have to do and move on. But my husband and I had to make the conscious decision to remove something from our child’s body. Can she live without it? Absolutely. But just because you CAN live without something doesn’t always mean you should, and it doesn’t mean that removing it is without consequence or effect.

As a new mastectomy patient I read lots of stories of brave young women who had decided not to spend their lives waiting for cancer to get them. They had taken steps, usually to get ahead of BRCA1 or BRCA2. I immediately admired each of them. They somewhere along the line coined the term “PREVIVOR.”

https://www.facingourrisk.org/FORCE_community/previvors.php

Primarily used to deal with the risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, I think the term has a broader reach. My girl does not need to be a thyroid cancer survivor. She is a PREVIVOR. She got there first.