Tag Archives: recognition

Since my previous recognition post was so well received,

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I think it’s appropriate that I write another one! It’s also quite relevant.

This one is dedicated to everyone’s favorite (okay maybe I’m just a bit biased) person: my mother, Shirley Horn! Yayyyyyy.

Here’s the backstory on why I’m writing about her today: Bryce left this afternoon around 1 pm (after cleaning the apartment and bringing me lunch, what a sweetie) and I sat around in bed for the next six hours. My body ached. Maria, the RN I have been emailing at Dr. Festekjian’s office, told me that I should rest my upper body this weekend. But the lack of movement is making everything hurt! I feel like the way I felt three days out of surgery. Meh.

The drain site on my left is also looking really infected. It’s an angry red and it’s oozing. I think it might have just gotten too loose, and so excess fluid (that should be suctioned through the drain tube) is now exiting on the outside of the tube. When I move, it hurts; it feels like the tube is stabbing me.

I lost it about half an hour ago and just started crying. I felt lonely and angry and I was in pain and I wanted to eat something but I didn’t want to get out of bed because it would hurt. I wanted to go on my computer but my eyes hurt from watching movies and being online so much these past few days. My roommate Danielle is away this weekend, and Bryce couldn’t come back over since he has to watch his dog. So I decided to text my mom.

I begged her to come over and told her she could bring Madeline (the doggy) and said that I wanted her to go with me to see Dr. Festekjian tomorrow afternoon. I was so scared she would say no, she can’t come over. I knew she was making a really nice dinner for my dad and was probably tired from the past few days (we had house guests visiting).

Imagine how happy I was when she texted me back and said “Absolutely. We’ll leave in fifteen minutes.” But then I stepped back for a minute–was I really that surprised that she agreed to come take care of me?

I know she’s supposed to be there for me because she’s my mom, but she always goes above and beyond. Last April when I had to go to the emergency room, she drove all the way down from San Francisco to be with me–even though by the time she arrived, I was already out of the hospital!

When I had my prophylactic mastectomy on March 13th, she volunteered to sleep at the hospital overnight with me. It had never even occurred to me during her surgery in November that someone should stay overnight with her at the hospital. I ended up telling her not to sleepover because I felt well enough and had good nurses who responded quickly to me, but it was still a thoughtful gesture.

The two of us before Mom’s surgery on November 9th!

After I left the hospital and returned home, she had transformed my bedroom into the perfect healing unit, moving her pillows and bedside table in so I wouldn’t have to reach far for anything. She constantly kept my water refreshed and brought me snacks in bed. Every time I showered, she helped me deal with the dressings on my drain site before and after. It’s a yucky job, but she’s always up to it!

This all coincides, you know, with her helping to take care of my dad and the blind diabetic dog! Whether she’s changing dressings on my drain sites, changing the dressings on my dad’s foot wounds, or giving Madeline insulin shots, it seems she has earned the title of Dr. Horn.

Dad has always wanted a doctor in the family–it seems that, without even realizing it, he got one!!! And she’s the best one around. She probably couldn’t have performed Dad’s cardiac surgery last February or improvised as Dr. Karam or Dr. Festekjian during my prophylactic mastectomy, but the fact that she can provide emotional support as well as medical help should make up for that. Dr. Shirley Horn is the best!

Mom and Maddy, out for a bike ride in Redondo Beach last summer. Maddy the Blind Diabetic Dog is lucky to have such a fun person!

 

Sometimes all I need is a little TLC,

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and I want to recognize the people who give that to me.

Let me preface this by saying that I have been a mess these past few days. On Thursday I finally felt brave enough to show my face in the classroom. Things went well there (nothing happened with my drains) so I decided to attend a close friend’s birthday dinner. Well, my drains started acting up. They popped out at least five times. Embarrassing, but since I was sitting down it wasn’t that noticable.

The next morning I couldn’t go anywhere because the drain wouldn’t stop popping out. Every time I moved, it moved, too. POP. Fluid. Gross. I called Maria, one of the nurses working in Dr. Festekjian’s office. I basically just sobbed to her on the phone about how my drains were embarrassing me and making me miserable. I told her that they NEED to come out. She said she would consult with Dr. Festekjian and let me know.

Well, of course the answer was no. And I understand it, I really do. If the drains are taken out too early, fluid can build up into a hematoma (or something else but I can’t remember the name), and removing that fluid with a needle could cause infection. An infection, in turn, would jeopardize my tissue expanders and might mean I would have to start the entire process over again. That sounds awful. No way I want that.

She told me that I should stop doing so much upper body movement. Well, okay, really? I’m not lifting weights. I haven’t gone kayaking. I haven’t even tried spinning (even though I reallllly want to get back into it asap!) What was I supposed to do? Dr. Festekjian encouraged me to exercise, so I’ve been walking! With my legs. Not on my hands.

So Maria said I should consider just “hunkering down” for the weekend. Ugh. GREAT. That’s just what I want to do…stay inside and do nothing. But you know what, why not try it? If hanging out at home in bed being a lazy bum for an entire weekend means that my drains might come out sooner, I might as well try it.

It’s still making me pretty emotional, however. I hate being still and I hate being bored. Just a few minutes ago I was crying because my drain site hurt so much. It’s kind of swollen and the drain tube jabs at me every time I move. My dear boyfriend Bryce applied Neosporin onto my drain site, covered it with gauze and taped it up. After he did that I excused myself to the bathroom (where I’m typing this now!) because I needed to write this for him. What he did for me, as gross as it was, made me realize that there are people in my life who have made it all so much easier. I want to recognize the people who have helped me throughout this entire journey, and Bryce deserves to be recognized first.

Here we are last March, singing karaoke…he was so scared to get up on stage, but he did it for me and he did GREAT!

My boyfriend Bryce has been incredible throughout our entire relationship. When we first started dating last January, my dad was going through some serious heart problems. He was in the hospital at UCSF for quite a long time, and we had a few serious scares. Bryce supported me through that, letting me talk if I wanted to talk, cry if I wanted to cry, and yell if I wanted to yell.

When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer again in September, I didn’t want to talk about it with Bryce…at all. But he wouldn’t stand for that because he doesn’t like to be isolated–he wants to help me. So he made me talk to him about it, and slowly but surely, I did.

When I found out about my BRCA test results, he was there beside me. He didn’t know what to say–no one knows what to say when someone gets that kind of news–but he let me know he was there for me. Later that week, he went with me to a presentation by Lindsay Avner, the founder of Bright Pink. He was the only man there, but he did great, and he learned a lot about what the BRCA gene meant and what my options were.

After we went to the presentation by Lindsay Avner, we went out in Hollywood for Halloween! Can you guess who we are?

In the weeks leading up to my mastectomy, I was very moody, and Bryce was so tolerant of it. Really, I was a bitch to him a lot of the time, but he never said anything to make me upset. After my surgery on March 13th he was waiting for me in the recovery room. He’d been waiting at the hospital since about 10 am, and when I woke up it was 2 pm. He hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Bryce, mind you, is 6’6 and eats everything in sight: the fact that he had skipped lunch just so I wouldn’t be alone when I woke up is a HUGE deal. Seriously.

Since then, he’s continued to be amazing. He drove out to Redondo Beach almost every night (which is an hour drive) to see me. He brought me movies so I wouldn’t be bored. When the flowers he brought me at the hospital died, he bought me another beautiful bouquet to replace them.

He lets me cry to him. He’s not afraid of my scars. He helped me take pictures of my questionable nipple to send to my plastic surgeon to review. Last night he changed the sheets on my bed so I wouldn’t have to sleep on dirty shirts.

When I tell him I just want to be alone and I don’t want to see anyone, he doesn’t listen. He’s persistent and he annoys me and continues to call me and then he eventually just shows up at my house…with more movies and snacks sometimes, too. And then he’s there and although I’m still sad and my drains still hurt and I look really ugly because I’m wearing a poncho and boxers and no makeup, I feel better.

April 10th is his 23rd birthday. Sometimes, when he’s playing dumb games on his phone or when he’s freaking out about a basketball game, I think he’s an eleven year old boy. But then there are times like these, when he’s just changed the icky dressing on my wound, that I realize he has a very mature side. He is a great caregiver and I’m so thankful to have him in my life. I don’t want to imagine how I’d feel now if I didn’t have him sitting on the futon (which he converted into a fluffy bed of awesomeness so we can watch movies on the big screen in the living room), about to put on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

I’m so lucky to have him!