Success!!!!!!!

My son is completely CANCER FREE! As I expected, he is just lumpy. Lumpy, lumpy lymph nodes and that's IT!

Now maybe life can get back to normal, whatever that is. If anybody needs me I'll just be laying in an exhausted puddle on the floor.

Son's Post Op

My son with street cred and I are just heading off to his one week post op appointment. Hopefully he'll be allowed to be more active now and all his guts won't pour out of his neck. That's not my fear, that's his. I guess I might be paranoid too if I had a nearly three inch long incision on my neck.

My Son the Cyborg

Super Son, At the Hospital

There is a fancy dancy parent room at the paediatric unit where I can post this. His surgery went well, but they removed 2 lymph nodes instead of just one. He has a drainage tube running out of his neck and he looks a little like a cyborg. Where they cut into him is huge. Much larger than I expected. Poor guy. He's 14 and so concious about his looks. He is coming in and out of consciousness. I think it's the morphine that's knocking him out.

All in all things look good and we will get the pathology results back in 10 days to 2 weeks. Hopefully he'll be released tomorrow.

Onward and upward.

Thanks for everyone's support.

Lymph Node Removal

I haven't been able to move since the wedding on Friday. My body and mind are just too exhausted to function. I spent 2 days out of town and thought that I'd be ok because I've been on the upswing.

While getting ready for my brothers big day I've been taking my son to doctors for ultrasounds and biopsies of a lymph node on his neck. It's enlarged and they decided it must be removed as soon as possible. They surgeon was willing to come in from his holidays to do it. They made a tentative appointment for Sept 11 but were scrambling for something immediate.

I called to the office to check what was happening and there was a little bit of urgency in the receptionists voice. They were trying their best to get him in. I took my son for his pr-op appointment with our GP.

The morning of the wedding I received a phone call from the hospital that they would be doing the operation on Wed. He needs to stay over night and it will be a week of no activity for him. His summer is suddenly done.

I'm used to terrible things happening to me but when it is your child it is a whole other thing. I try and live my life normally, because that's what you do. Yet here I lay in my bed not being able to move.

My son has so many questions. Will it hurt long term, will his neck look different, will he be kept from doing anything he loves? Will the slight chance of damaging nerves that will effect his smile his speech or his arm happen?

We're scared.

I left him for a few days with his grandparents, who let him run a little wild and camp on a nearby island with his friends. I'm about to go pick him up and bring him home. We will arrive at the hospital at 6:40 in the morning.

That little fucker of a lymph node better be benign.

Biopsy Results

So my sons lymph node biopsy came back inconclusive. They found it's a little larger than when he had the first ultrasound which was only a few weeks ago. It went from 2.6cm to 3cm.

So they want to take it out. I thought something like that would be a simple enough procedure but it turns out he'll need to spend the night in the hospital after and do nothing for a week. If he's back to school when they do it, then he will miss that week. Every time we see a doctor, the ante gets upped a little. I keep thinking it will all be fine and then the next step comes.

So, we are waiting for the surgery date, living life as usual.

It's been raining ever since I went dress shopping. We haven't had rain for ages and people weren't really prepared for it. Downtown I saw this cute couple that was trying to stay dry waiting for the walk signal.

Violators

I've renamed my dialators, the "Violators".


If all this cancer shit wasn't enough to deal with, the humiliation is like the cherry on top.

I've named the smallest one on the left, Pinocchio, and the BIG one on the right, Shaft. I'm really not sure that Shaft and I are going to get together EVER. Just so you know, objects in the box are much LARGER than they appear.

Tripping

I'm in my studio. I am sore and feel somewhat violated even though the surgery was for the greater good. I've just come down here to get away from my bed. I've spent too much time in my bed these last two years. Even though I hurt, I feel so physically relieved.

I've just tidied up the space on my studio floor where I sat the last three months crippled in pain and painting in what I called my nest. I was in too much pain to even sit in a chair at my easel. I had a show scheduled, so I painted. I've always seemed to keep going no matter how harsh my circumstances. But now as I sit here looking at my newly clear floor that was so recently my nest, I see how ridiculous I must be.

Vagina Rising

Vagina Letter

This is an experpt from a letter sent to my vagina today, from a friend who knows my weird sense of humour and how to make me laugh.

dear baldylocks' vagina,

now i know you have been through a hell of alot, as has the rest of baldylocks, but you really took one for the team with the host versus graft, it was painful beyond what you ever thought would be possible and for so so long. as if the pain wasn't enough, there was that time at the c bay pharmacy when the pharmacist was so embarrassed about your situation that he made you feel humiliated for wanting a more humane and narrower cream dispenser. then, after going through so much your hope was simply to return to your former shape, size and self, but no, that was not to be.

i am sorry. it really sucks. i know that you will do what you have to do to be the best vagina baldylocks could ever have. you will even surrender yourself to a practical stranger in an operating room. you are the ultimate trooper. thank you. thank you for all of your healing up hard work. thank you for trusting the surgeon to restore you to a healthier self that can fit in a penis and support a cervix and uterus. you will get well again, i mean really well. well enough to possibly enjoy the pleasure of a penis with a scottish or australian accent one day. great things are ahead for you. vagina you are loved and appreciated. i am sorry that you have to go thru more crap. i wish it was over already, but i promise that this is your best path to healing. be brave tomorrow vagina. you have a destiny, you are precious, and you are loved.


Everybody do the happy vagina dance for me!

Melting

So the crunch time is now. My son is graduating this week and I am having my vagina surgery this week.

Monday -fly to Vancouver for an unexpected anaesthesiologist appointment
Tuesday -take son #2 to Dr because he thinks he has a cracked rib.
Wednesday- Have to clean the houe, cook turkey and have my sons grandparents, my sons dad, sons girlfriend and her parents. The we go to the walk up.
Thursday- drive to Vancouver for surgery, stay overnight at the Cancer lodge.
Friday -first thing in the morning have my surgery
Come back Friday
Saturday- sons prom where he will be dressed up in his tux.

I can' believe this is happening. My sons grad is supposed to be about HIM. Not my fucking surgery.

I also don't have any money. As in no money for rent. No money for a grad present. I have a credit card for the dinner and then I'm done financially. I'm not sure what will happen next.

I refuse to give up being productive some way which pays monetarily. I need money. The costs of my medications are just not on the budget.

Gyno Post

So, the gynaecologist is really a gyno-oncologist which makes me feel a whole lot better about sticking to this route for surgery. Staying out of the emergency ward, and travelling to Vancouver is a good thing. They are the top of the top specialists in Canada and the world.

That being said, I fear for my vagina. I was less composed than usual and the Dr. could see the upset. I couldn't really hold it back. She did an internal exam which hurt despite her having, "the smallest fingers in the office". Believe me, as weird as that sounds, I was glaaaad to hear it.

The graft/vs/host from my bone marrow transplant is scarring my vagina and closing over my cervix. Yum.

They have set a date for surgery in one month. I am so happy to have it! YAY!

After they take care of it, then my medications, including the prednisone, can be tapered off and I will be feeling like a million bucks!

Right?