Post surgery update

Sorry, I have not updated this blog throughout this process.  I have been doing most of it on facebook . . . but this site is really important as it serves as a historical record of this journey.

Jill had surgery last Thursday at St. V's.  She had both breasts reconstructed and a total hysterectomy.  The surgery was a bit over 5 hours and went very well.  It was performed by two surgeons.
Jill stayed at the hospital until Saturday.  Overall she did fairly well, but had a fever the entire time that was worrisome.  She came home on Saturday and did fairly well.  Later Sunday she started to feel worse.  Headache, pain, nausea and her fever went up.  And oh yeah, I was starting a new job the next day.  I know, but leave it be.  We talked to doctor and they were not too concerned.  The next day my mother was over and really pushed Jill to drink.  After a while, that seemed to make all the difference.  By Tuesday she was nearly herself.  Now Thursday she is really amazing.  She went to the doc today to look at her breasts.  Someone drove her, but she did great.

Today we got the results of the biopsies from all her removed parts.  Totally negative!!

She will be slowed down over the next month or two, but we think the future looks great.

Jill's surgery update and request for meals

All,
Jill has surgery on Thursday June 7th.  This should be the last step as far as treating cancer.  She is having her breast implants put in (she currently has tissue expanders in).  She is also having a total hysterectomy as a preventative measure as her BRCA1 gene mutation puts her at a much higher risk of ovarian cancer.

I will be posting updates via facebook as the primary means during the day of surgery.  I will try to remember to update this as well.

As part of her recovery, we are again asking for meals.  Here is the link to the calendar to be used for scheduling.  We are looking at 3 days a week for two weeks.  We might add a 3rd week, we shall see.
http://www.carecalendar.org/logon/101858

    CALENDAR ID      :  101858
    SECURITY CODE :  7292
If you use the link above, you will not have to enter the Calendar ID.  


As a more general update - Jill has been doing great.  She has been working and being a mom and wife as normal for quite some time.  She is decidedly not ready to be slowed down again.  I have been doing well too.  The kids are very good.  Lauren has remained in therapy during this and it really has helped her with the anxiety this all brought on.  We are fortunate to all be doing so well, and to have the support system in place to really keep us all healthy mentally during this.  
I am off this week as I am in between jobs (by my choice) and will be starting a new job in Monday the 11th.  Back at Riverview hospital where I worked from 2003-2010.  Yeah, maybe not the best time to switch jobs on a quick glance . . . but I am going back to a job that I will be able to get back up to speed in very short time and I will be trading a 50-60 minute commute (each way) with a 12 minute one.  I will instantly get back family time.


So that is it for now.

Things are better most every day

Sorry . . . I do not blog here much any more.  Mostly it is because things are somewhat quiet on the Jill cancer battle front and I suppose part of it is that coming here and writing always gives me mixed emotions.  Sometimes I want to reflect and think about where we have been.  Sometimes I just want to be in the now or the future.
Jill will be going back to work this week in some fashion.  Maybe four half days.
Her incisions are all healing very well.  She is gaining strength every day.
She has had one fill so far and will probably get filled very week or two until is at desired size.

One small note . . . on the side that had cancer, she had a back flap procedure.  They take healthy muscle and skin from the back and move it to the front to go over the breast implant.  The reason for this is due to the fact that heavily radiated skin will not stretch very well.  At any rate a few interesting items:  First, the area of back skin that now lives on the front is football shaped.  The interesting thing is that you can see the incision on the back and you can see the scars on the front . . . but they do not connect.  This means that the football shaped part had to be tucked under some skin below her armpit and then pulled back out.  The other odd thing is that now if I touch that breast in the middle part, her mind tells her that I am touching her back.  How crazy?  I mean it makes sense and all, but still.  Therefore, I am now going to assume when she says her back itches or she wants me to scratch her back it is code that she wants to be intimate.

Another step

Jill had her first fill yesterday.  This is the adding of fluid to tissue expanders that are in her breasts.  She was in a decent amount of pain last night, which is not ideal, but this morning she already feels less pain.  Still tight, but not as sore.
She will get small fills every week or two until she is the size she wants.  Fortunately, we are in agreement with size . . . we both seem to be done with really big boobs.

Right now the tentative schedule for the next (and hopefully final) steps of her plan are in place.  Some more fills, then some time for her body to recover.  Then in late May or Early June she will have surgery to remove the expanders and put in implants.  This will also be the hysterectomy / oophorectomy.  Then she will be laid up for a while from all this.  Once recovered, she should be back to normal.  Well, normal for a cancer survivor with fake boobs and who is in menopause before the age of 40.  :).

All this is again an interesting process for her, me and our family.  Our lives were turned upside down.  Then we found a new normal.  Then life become very normal again.  Then a surgery.  Then an extended cold and the fear of what if it was lung cancer.  Then a slow return to normal, but with a somewhat slowed down Jill - but a Jill that was home every day (her not being able to do as much around the house like dishes or laundry - but was always home to get the girls ready for school, etc - so there was upside and downsides).  Normal will return even more next week with her doing some limited time at work.  Then she will be back to work 4 days a week (which is her normal).  Then another surgery and we do it all again.
We all agree this process is much better than the alternative.  

Follow up to CT - all clear

Jill had a sustained cough for more than a month so the docs wanted to get a look at her lungs to rule out spread of cancer.  The CT scan was yesterday and today we got the results that all is well.

BTW, her cough has basically gone away . . . she is much better now.

A week later

Most of you follow Jill on facebook, so this is not really news.  But Jill is doing better every day.  She is more active and feeling better all the time.  Tomorrow she goes to see the plastic surgeon to see how she is doing.  Well, the doctor wants to see how Jill is doing, not the other way around, if that was ambiguous.
I suspect one drain will be out for sure.  Maybe two drains?  We can hope.

And as the meals end tomorrow - we want to thank everyone who has helped us.  Really makes a difference.  

Mixed bag on day two

Jill is still not in all that much pain, which is good.  But she is limited in movement (had to wake me up to help her out of bed) and as of midday she has become nauseous and has puked a few times.  When I was picking up Lauren from Kindergarten I got the call - I puked and I cannot get up (from chair).  Luckily she had a puke thingy from the hospital.
She is now on a med to help with that and we are going to adjust the pain meds some.

She is in decent spirits and is thankful for all the well-wishing.

Jill is home

Jill is home, has eaten and is feeling really decent.  It is amazing to see the results - as far as how good the incisions look when you realize that they did.  For those who are curious:
She had her left breast removed (mastectomy) and a tissue expander inserted.
On the right side, which is where the she had a mastectomy last spring, she had a flap procedure.     A football shaped part of her back was cut out including skin, muscle, and veins and it is moved around to where a breast would be.  It is put on top of the pec muscle.  A tissue expander was put below that.  The reason for this procedure is that after radiation, which she had on that side, skin is never really able to be stretched out again.  The flap is healthy tissue and can take expanders and then later an implant.
She has three drains, which are necessary but suck.  The front two should last a week or two and the back one probably three or so weeks.

What is next? (all this planned and as such 'best case' and subject to delays and changes)
Short term:  Recover.
Mid term: (weeks and a few months) fill the expanders with fluid until desired breast size (DDDDD) is achieved.  Kidding on the size ;)  We both have had enough of big killer boobies.
Longer term:  3-4 months from now she will have the exanders removed and implants put in.  During that surgery she will have ovaries removed too, the last part of the prophylactic measures suggested as she is BRCA1 positive.

then hopefully a long ass life putting up with me.

All is well

We are with Jill.   She feels good.   Everything is great.

Surgery done

All is said to have gone great.   Jill is in recovery now.   We will see her in 60-90 minutes

Update 1

Breast surgeon done.  Said it went great.   Should be a while before next update.

In surgery

Jill has gone back into surgery.   Estimated 5 hours.   Should get first update in an hour or so when breast surgeon finishes

Pre op

Jill is back getting prepped for surgery.   We should be called back in 15 minutes or so.

She got marked up this morning at plastic surgeon's office.   Kind of scary seeing all that gets cut.  

This is a test of the Jill broadcast system

Jill is a go for surgery on Tuesday.  She had been sick for a while so there was a little doubt, but the doctors have cleared her.
This post is mainly a test - I am trying to make sure Blogger updates facebook with updates.  Shockingly, blogger/blogspot does not have this feature built in.
Also, this site can be subscribed too, just like its former home.  But I cannot automatically move previous users over.

Look for updates starting Tuesday.
Greg

Want to help us? We could use meals again

 Jill has surgery this Tuesday and we are now looking for some help with meals for a week or two
We are looking for a meal a night, Sunday - Thursday only from Wed 08-Feb through Thursday 16-Feb.  We will update the blog and the site if we need it longer than that.
We will eat leftovers on Fridays and Saturday and or Greg will make something.  


Just like last time, this is such a help and really makes thing easier on Jill and Greg, which then also helps the kids.

Please keep 'treats' to just enough for the evening of the meal if possible.  Last time we had enough cookies and treats for a month after about 3 meals.  

Here is the care calendar information:
To access Jill Golightly's personal CareCalendar site, 
visit http://www.carecalendar.org/logon/101858 and enter 
the following information in the appropriate spaces:

    CALENDAR ID      :  101858
    SECURITY CODE :  7292

 

Getting ready for surgery

Surgery is now less than 2 weeks away.  Unfortunately, Jill has been struggling with a cough for a month.  Last week she got a chest x-ray to see if anything looked abnormal.  As you can imagine, now no test or the wait for results will be worry free.  Jill did not hear until today that the x-ray was clear.
Her doc is putting her on an inhaler to try to get this cleared up so that she can have the surgery as planned.

More info soon.
Greg

A new blog home - just in time

All
If you either were re-directed here from our old link or if you received the update email, welcome to the new home of Jill's blog.  In a nutshell, I did a poor job of maintaining a well updated and patched blog using wordpress and it allowed some malware to get involved.  Instead of working to get it clean once and for all, I moved the blog. 

This is now on blogger / blogspot, a google run service.  Now I have to do nothing but post.  :)

Jill is 2 weeks away from surgery as of today.  We will update as the time comes. 

Thanks
Greg

Wanted to share something . . .

Below is a cut and paste email from a friend of mine, Jenny D ERRR, Jenny Gerow. I wanted to not just to call her out (I did not even ask her) but to give you an idea of our perspective in all this as seen through those who care about us. This is one of many, but it was one today and it hit me hard. Also, by no means do I mean to exclude all the others who have said, emailed, mailed, and in-person let us know they care. What it shows is that so many are are there for us. That this impacts them too.
This is a quick but sincere thanks to all that have helped us. To our family. To our friends. To our co-workers. To Holly's travel soccer team (we miss you guys so much). To neighbors. To strangers.

To give you a quick background, last year at Breakfast for Santa at Forest Park (which was this morning) Jill and I attended for the kids. It was the weekend of unknown for us. We new Jill had cancer, but not how bad it was or what the treatments would be. At the time, our family knew but the kids did not. It was a challenge, clearly, to do that morning. But even then we wanted to show that life goes on no matter what.



Dear Greg and Jill:

This morning at Breakfast with Santa, all I could think about was that one year ago today, you were sitting in the same room, at the same activity, trying to act as if everything was normal. When, in actuality, your entire world had just turned upside down.

I felt this huge sense of wonderment, that it was a year later, that you had made it through so much, and ended up at the exact same place 12 months later. I can only imagine the difference in your thoughts and feelings today.

It affected me profoundly, so I am sure the moment was not lost of you either. I felt such a sense of relief and happiness for all of you. You still have obstacles and unknowns ahead of you. But you have made it so far and with such an air of positivity and humor. To, me it it seemed like a million years instead of just one. So it had to be infinitely more for you guys.

I remember sitting at this computer and reading the email. Calling Amy Crispin, and crying together with her. It had never hit so close to home for me, and it was a stunning shock. I will never forget the moment. But, what I remember most is the grace and humility you have both shown thoughout all of this. I hope if such a thing occurs to any other loved ones or myself, I can put up such a brave face. I respect both of you, and am very happy to have you in our lives.

In the next few months, please let me know if there is anything I can do. It helps me not feel so helpless while you struggle though your difficulties. I am so happy you are sitting looking from the other side of the battle. I never had a doubt you would beat it, but you scared the shit out of us. :)
Love,

Putting things in correct perspective (one year later)

This morning I had the girls. By that I mean it is a day when Jill leaves early and I get the kids ready and on the bus. As is not uncommon, this is full of various issues that pop up. Breakfast selection issues, clothing issues, school bag location issues. On top of that are the holiday additions (opening the Advent house, playing the Christmas thing of the day countdown thingy). On top of that are the variables - Jill calling to say Lauren is going to ride home with someone else and there is a note that needs to be put in her folder and birthday party gifts she has to take with her. Ugh. All of this goes fairly well, but it is so easy to get caught up in the ‘why does this have to be so hard?’ (TWSS) and the normal ‘I wish things were easier’ thoughts.

A year ago today, later in the morning I got to see my wife walk out of the back of the doctor’s office and tell me that we need to go into the conference room. I could see it in her eyes right at that moment that life would never be the same. That the lump in her breast was not the harmless cyst that we were expecting (I was there just in case). At the moment everything else meant f**k-all. Things like who was going to get the kids on the bus did not matter. They were just details of life. My wife being there a year later to even have the option of getting them on the bus was my concern.

As I have said before, there are two sides of this. First, I am thankful that Jill is currently doing so well that we can get stressed about such daily minutia. But on the other side, it sickens me at times that we can lose perspective so damn fast. Jill’s illness is going to be front and center again come Feb as she starts her surgeries. Then after that her going into menopause at 37 years old. And this is all the best case, which it looks like we are lucky enough to be going through.

Today is, as you might imagine, a very emotional day. Sad that it did not hit me until I was walking into work - that it was 12/2. Our date of learning of cancer. Lance Armstrong has 10/2 and that is Livestrong day. Everyone knows the day they learned. Right now the fears and pain are re-opened. I remember going to Lyndsay’s house to tell her. Calling my mom who saw my car at the Hospital and knew something was up. Going to lunch at O’charlies and realizing how we coast through things like answering the waiter’s question of ‘how are you two doing today’? And how awful that weekend as as we waited for official word (we more or less knew based on ultrasound) which was required to know how bad and what the next steps would be. So this weekend when the normal stress of a holiday weekend comes into play compounded with out of town family on site I will try to remember that at its worst it is exponentially better than this weekend last year. Every day is a gift and everything can change in a second. It really can.

and so it begins . . . the 1 year later days

Today, based on flows of the calendar - as in the Thursday before Thanksgiving (not actual same date), marks the one year mark of Jill finding the lump. We flew out to NYC that morning for a 4 day weekend that included seeing Notre Dame play in Yankee Stadium. We had to get up very early and by the time we were able to actually check in that afternoon, it was time for showers. Jill showered first and came out in her towel and told me to feel her breast. Mind you, in 20 years together it was the first time she told me do so. ;) There was quite obviously something. Of course the unimaginable diagnosis of cancer went quickly through our minds . . . you could see it in both our eyes. But we assumed it to be harmless and it really had only a small impact on our weekend. It barely came up in conversation between us outside of coordinating an appointment once we were back home. But I know we both thought about it.
It is odd how our brains work. In a place like NYC on a 4 day fall weekend, it is much easier to keep fears in the back of our minds. But during conversations or walks or whatever those 4 days, it of course popped in our minds. Had we been home it would have been probably all we thought about. I am thankful that we still had a great time in the big apple. We shopped. We ate. We saw shows. We had a great time. We assumed the lump was harmless and I would never change that. Us being more anxious that weekend would have done NOTHING to prevent or treat what was growing in Jill. In reality, having fun was the best thing we could be doing if we were not already getting treatment.

Today, a year later we had an appointment with the plastic surgeon. Just a prep type meeting that had little importance . . . but a reminder of where we have been and where we still are. That second part is something that is too easy to forget, which is both good and bad. I am thankful for every normal day when we are more stressed about who is getting girls on bus or traffic than cancer.

I will save more of the feelings and emotions for the anniversaries of the other stuff (semi official diagnosis, official diagnosis, first appt, etc).