Life in the Bottle has a couple of observations.

The breast cancer journey is not all crisis and panic. Occasionally, there is cause for laughter; in fact, I have recently realized that I have a rather sick sense of humor when it comes to my breast cancer experiences. The first glimmer of humor I found in the whole situation was actually the day of my mastectomy at the hospital. Prior to surgery, I was required to go down to the Nuclear Medicine Department at Florida Hospital. There they were to inject the biopsy site with a radioactive material enabling the surgeon during surgery to more effectively locate the Sentinel Node. As I sat in a wheel chair being rolled into the bowels of the hospital, I could hear very loud construction type noises ahead. I kept thinking that the orderly pushing my chair would veer in another direction, soon, to go away from all the noise and chaos. Instead, on we went, closer and closer to the huge black plastic curtain and the din of a jackhammer. When I knew that we were absolutely not going to veer away from the jackhammer from beyond the River Styx, I thought, "Oh, my! They're really pulling out the big guns down in nuclear medicine!". At the very last minute, the orderly turned the chair to the left, followed the black plastic curtain, then wheeled me into a waiting elevator. Whew! That was a close one! Fortunately, in this day of modern medicine, the implementation of surgical jackhammers appears to be passe.

Life in the bottle can be amusing.

This year (2008) has to date scored fairly high on the ick-o-meter of life. However, situations do crop up when you just have to laugh. For example, I had to schedule a diagnostic mammogram for the remaining "mammo", and I wanted to ask them if I would get a 50% discount. That's when you realize that you have developed a very sick sense of humor! I did finally get enough nerve to ask that question and was told there is a discounted rate for those of us who only need half as much torture. (I once tried to explain the experience of a mammogram to my husband by saying, "You take your favorite body part, and stand on your tiptoes to put it on a piece of very cold glass. Then a total stranger arranges said body part just so on the still icy glass. There is also another plate of glass that is lowered so carefully over the now nicely arranged body part. About the time you think, okay, I can stand it, the total stranger cranks the top glass plate down and the bottom glass plate up with your very sensitive body part caught smack-dab in the middle! Then she says, "Hold your breath and don't move"...like it's possible at that point!)

I am still under construction, and until last week was going regularly to the plastic surgeon's office for saline injections to fill the expander. I am finished with those now, but as I wait for surgery in July to replace the expander with a permanent prosthetic implant, I am faced with a rather embarrassing dilemma. I will be noticeably uneven until after the July surgery. Because I have to be seen in public places until that time, I have started using an insert for the smaller side. The other day at work we were doing a bit of late Spring cleaning- lifting, dusting, throwing trash in the dumpster. As I returned from "dumpster duty", I kept thinking something was a little off, but I couldn't put my finger on the problem. I continued on into the office. Some more time elapsed before I realized that now instead of 2 fairly even bumps in my shirt, I now sported 3! That pesky ole' insert had wriggled its way free during our cleaning frenzy. I just had to laugh- there's been so little to laugh about regarding the cancer. What a blessing to find some humor in this rather sobering situation!