Moving Forward

The sudden, unexpected, untimely loss of your life partner is something that you cannot comprehend unless you have experienced it.  My entire life has been upended.  Therefore, I made the decision in January to pause my BRCA journey and my blog.

I did this for a variety of reasons. 

First, my entire support system—driving me to and from the hospital, holding my hand before and after surgery, taking care of me those first few weeks, meal prep, dog care, driving me around, food shopping, and general recovery—all of that was going to be handled directly, or if not directly, at least managed and coordinated, by Evan.  Now it’s up to me to coordinate everything for myself.  There was no way I was in any condition to pull all those details together for a March surgery.

Second, family members asked me to postpone.  In particular my sister in law Abby, who, along with her husband Rick, have been a primary emotional support for me, had a vacation planned during the originally scheduled surgery.  They asked me to reschedule so they would be home.  My kids asked me to postpone as well, as they recognized before I did that none of us would be ready to deal with this surgery that soon.

Third, this surgery is a marathon.  That means I need to be in good shape, physically, mentally, emotionally, to get through it.  Grief is physical, mental, and emotional.  It takes time to come back from that, and there was no way I’d be ready to undergo that type of assault on my body after the trauma I had just experienced.

So I postponed.

That said—I am more determined than ever to get this surgery.  Why?  My children now only have one living parent.  They will not lose a second parent to cancer prematurely.  I will do whatever it takes to lower my risk.

I called my team at Memorial Sloan Kettering in April.  Within 2 days, everything was scheduled—follow ups for consent with both the breast surgeon and the plastic surgeon, as well as all the presurgical testing.  My surgery is now scheduled for Monday, July 17.

I have 3 months to prepare.  Much of that will be focused on getting back into shape physically.  Too many bagels, babkas, and corned beef sandwiches are not good for the body.  I also need to restart my exercise routine.  I’ve done very little over the past 3 months.  I’m hitting the parks and sidewalks again.  The surgery and recovery will be much smoother if I’m in better condition.

My biggest concern is that I will need help.  All those things that I listed above will still need to get done, but I don’t have a partner I can count on to do them.  Many of you have offered to help.  I will need it.  As the surgery approaches, I’ll start to organize what I need and when, and all of you who have said you can help, well, that will be your time.  Whether cooking, driving, walking the dogs, or just keeping me company during my recovery, if you’re around in July and August I hope you can step up and help.

Finally, I’m in the process of planning a weekend with two childhood friends for just before the surgery.  As I said to them in a text last week—you were there when I got boobs, it’s only fitting that you’re there with me to say goodbye.  I am SO looking forward to that weekend.

Stay tuned.