A Biopsy is Next...

I had my ultrasound on Friday and it did not go as well as I had hoped. It wasn't a fluid filled cyst. It wasn't scar tissue. It's a mass that the Radiologist feels I need to have a biopsy done on soon. In his words, "I can't say its breast cancer but I can't tell you that it's not". That is a sentence that I've wasn't here typing then I might have thought my heart stopped beating at that very moment. I couldn't even speak when he asked me if I had any questions. Questions, how can you have questions when someone looks at you and says something that shakes you to the core. I don't know how I got off the table and put my clothes back on. How I walked thru the waiting room. If Angela and Brandi had not been there then I feel for sure that I couldn't have. To say that I lost it in the parking lot would be an understatement. I've always felt I could handle anything God threw at me but I feel like my world is now crumbling and will continue to do so until I know what the biopsy says.

I'm trying to remain positive and keep repeating in my head "It's nothing, It's nothing, It's nothing.". Some moments it works, some it doesn't.

Please pray that I will have peace no matter what happens. If this is the road God wants me to go down then I'm going to and I'm going to beat it. If it comes back as nothing then I will never be able to express how grateful and blessed I am.

Jordan

Prayers are Greatly Appreciated!

Yesterday was a day of doctors for me. My first was to the gynecologist. I already knew that I possibly had a cyst just b/c I had been experiencing some pain and that my endometriosis was starting to grow at a rapid pace b/c of my extremely painful periods. Fine, no big deal. I'll go on a hormone therapy for 3 months that will put me into menopause for 2 years which in turn stops my hormones and stops the growth. Problem solved.

Then came the breast exam which I wasn't looking forward to because I'm still somewhat tender from my surgery and ecspecially more so on my left side. She checked the right, all is good, she moved to the left and uh-oh. Not what you want to hear. She felt something, more like 2 somethings. 2 Cyst to be exact. One of them I knew about because about a week after my surgery when I was redoing my dressing I felt what felt like a golfball size rock on the left side. I called my doctor immediatly and he said not to worry about it that it was probably scar tissue which I found hard to believe. Yet at my next 2 follow-ups he said it was nothing to worry about that it sometimes happened and if they got bothersome to come back which to me translated as "your being paranoid".

I keep telling myself over and over that everything is fine that it will be nothing but then there's the other side of me that is thinking that maybe God made this surgery happen for me so that I would know the cyst were there and I could get it taken care of before it got worse.

I'm scared and I don't think there is anything that can be done to make that fear go away until they look at me and say everything is fine. I have a new felt sympathy and understanding for those who have gone thru this. I've always prided myself on being to handle and adjust to anything the doctors throw at me but this is just not one of those things!

Please say a prayer for me for peace and understanding.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." ~ John 14:27

Jordan

New Links...Adoption...

Something I've really grown passionate about lately for some reason is adoption. I don't know if my biological clocking has started ticking but it just breaks my heart to read about what children in other country's are going thru. I've always said that I want one biological child of my own but would like to adopt a household of children that would be born into my heart.

If you have a moment, click on the links to the left. There just some of the blogs I've followed of families and missionaries from here in Nashville. They are doing amazing work and have really great t-shirts, bracelets, etc to support their cause.

Jordan

Accountability...

Accountability: The obligation to demonstrate and take responsibility for performance in light of agreed expectations. There is a difference between responsibility and accountability: responsibility is the obligation to act; accountability is the obligation to answer for an action.

This is a word in the area of my diet that I've been very lax on lately. After I had my surgery, I lost my appetite for a few weeks so I was losing weight pretty easily. Then my appetite came back and I discovered I was allergic to the peanut/tree nut family and I still continued to do pretty well until lately. You see, after my surgery I gave up all things carbonation and cut my sweet tea back to one glass a day or none at all. Crystal Light Lemonade was all I wanted until I went back to work. Because I don't drink coffee or Diet Coke's except on a rare occasion, I've taken to drinking a Rt 44 Sweet Tea cut in half from Sonic. NOT GOOD!!!!! What this does is keep me from drinking water at all because I drink on that all day! I've also gotten more relaxed on things such as chips and salsa, hamburgers, etc. Well that is no more!

Tomorrow is the first day of October and the first day of the NEW me (as if I didn't already do that 9 weeks ago) and new, healthy habits! My attitude and confidence changed a lot with my surgery and the compliments I continue to get are helping. I mean when someone says "Jordan, how much weight have you lost, you look great!", who am I to say I haven't really, I just lost my chest so I appear much thinner, so I say thanks and go on. No more! If someone compliments me for weight loss it's going to be because I'm working my butt off to lose it! I've gone off all med's (compliments of my surgery) including the Fibromyalgia one that made me start gaining. NO MORE EXCUSES! I will be walking everyday whether it be outside or inside on my treadmill. I will find some form of pilates or aerobics to do. I will be holding myself accountable on here and I ask that you do to. If you see me ask not how I am but am I holding true to the no tea or junk food (which honestly is not that big of a problem).

Also note that I'm not so much doing this to lose weight but to be healthier. I've never been one to be extremely self-conscious about my weight. It's almost become a part of me that makes me me. I'm too comfortable in my own skin I think to lose weight and draw attention to myself. I still cross my hands over my chest when I see people I haven't seen. I also am really going to hate to have to give up some of my wardrobe when I lose the weight I want too. I've already had to do some of that though and to be honest it was very hard but when it went to someone who really needed the clothes and I was told how much she loved them it made it even more worthwhile!

“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

When It Rains it Pours....

My life has felt a little bit like the weather lately. On August 25th, I suffered a severe allergic attack at work that was a borderline anaphylactic attack and would have been if I didn't think along with the hives and swelling face that I was having an asthma attack and used my inhaler. It took several shots to get all the swelling down.

The prognosis: Peanut Allergy.

I have since been to the allergist and had all the testing to find out that it is not only peanuts and peanut oil that it is also tree nuts(pecans, walnuts, almonds, etc). Needless to say it has limited my diet and I now carry an extra accessory at all times, the Epi-Pen.

My hope thru being very careful is that this will not happen again, fingers and toes crossed, becaue the attack that brought all of this on scared me witless.

In addition to all of that my grandfather was in the hospital for about a week and a half in August for pnuemonia as well as his disease which Progressive Nuclear Disorder, a degenerative brain disease. Luckily he came home and continued physical therapy at home and has done well with the exception of 2 falls. Well he had a really good day yesterday but in the middle of the night he went to get up but was too weak. My grandmother called an ambulance because in the past when he's gotten like this he has generally fallen, well my dad tore his hamstring Sunday playing flag football and she knew he wouldn't be able to come over and help get him up. The EMT's got there and helped him to the bathroom and took his tempature and he had one so as a precaution they took him on to Skyline. At this point we hope it's just dehydration but they are running more test to rule on pneumonia since he recently had it. I ask that you please keep him in your prayers. We take it day by day with him and are really not ready to put him in a nursing home just yet.

Jordan

9 Weeks Out...

It's hard to believe but I'm now 9 weeks post-op and am feeling much better. I do still have some pain and some numbness still but I was told that can last up to a year. I'm very happy with the results. A little more scarring than I expected but it's not like it's visible to anyone but me. Reflecting back now, I would like to say 100% I would do it over but I can't. It was a lot of pain and my body and hormones are still out of whack. I did get to see my pre-op pic's though on my last visit and it reminded me why I did do it and grateful for non-aching shoulders, back, and kneck.

Thanks again for all the support thru this major journey in my life.

Jordan

Post-Op Update

Sorry but there will be no pictures! It would make grown adults run screaming so I will spare you that. So it will be 2 weeks since surgery this Tuesday and I'm finally feeling like a normal person again just 4 pounds lighter on the top (plus an extra 10 lbs thats disappeared, I think it has to do with the fact that I'm still not eating). I would love to say that I would do it again and give me a couple of weeks and I might be saying that but there have definitly been some moments in the last couple of days that I've thought I was absolutly out of my mind. I guess I thought I would bounce right back and be on my feet and going within 3 or 4 days ( I believe those were my exact words to my colleagues). I found out how wrong I was on about Thursday when the morphine had completly worked out of my system.

As for the hospital experience, I can't leave that out. It started out well. Myself and my old bra got into a hospital gown at 6:00 got rolled back to pre-0p (me balling for some reason and my bra hanging out on the pillow beside me) to greet anethesia. As I knew beforehand I don't have good veins in fact the nurse the week before who pre-registered me reminded me of that very fact. It took 2 nurses and the anthesiologist (told you I would get my money out of everyone), plus about 4 pokes to finally get a "good" vein. Little did they know that the little vein that was so good beforehand would let me know at 1:00 am the next day! After that ordeal, my wonderful plastic surgeon came in, verified we had the old bra, and then used me as a drawing board. Now you ask why he needed the old bra??? He apparently puts it back on instead of wrapping you in ace bandages to try and keep the pressure and swelling down. My grandmother thought it was because he had a weird fetish and he hung them on his walls!

My surgery began at 8:00 and I was done and out by 10:30 and in my room by Noon, drains, new boobs, and all! All I really remember was someone asking how I felt and my reply was "when are they going to move the mack truck off of me". The rest of the day went well because I had a trust little friend called the morphine pump. He lit up for me every 10 minutes so that I could be a happier more comfortable person. About 10:00 though it was decided that my anthesia from surgery was wearing off and the morphine was only taking the edge off my pain so the time was decreased from 10 minutes to 6 minutes. I got to enjoy that for 3 hours until I went to push it and my arm starting burning. I then noticed it was a little puffy around my IV site so I call the nurse whom doesn't come till about 1:30 (good thing I wasn't dying) . It was decided that my IV had blown and needed to be moved but no one on the floor wanted to do it so they called the head nurse on duty in to try and administer a new IV. After 3 unsuccesful attempts, 2 really ugly bruises that look like I shoot up, no IV was inserted and I went on oral pain meds and antibiotics. That would have still been great had the nursed adminstered it in a timely manner. Instead of getting my meds every 4 hours I went from 5:00-8:00 am with no pain meds at which time the doc comes into remove my drains. TWO WORDS: MAJOR PAIN! I could have handled the drain removal with trusty little morphine pump but with no meds I was a big wimp and almost passed out and screamed and cried uncontrollably. He figured out what was going on and assured me that a nurse would be right down with my meds. I think they double dosed me to calm me down and I slept for 3 hours straight before I went home with 3 diffrent pain meds, an antibiotic, sleeping pill, anti-nausea meds, and lots of neosporin and gauze.

All in all it's not been horrible but again I still look like Frankenstein slightly under my shirt. THE BIG PLUS: I've been able to wear nothing but cami's, no bra. I thought he was joking when he said I would be able to go braless but people I really can, it's AWESOME!!!!

Sorry if I rambled but hopefully you get the picture (but not really)! Thanks again for all the prayers and support. Everyone has been great. I was well fed for several days and had lots of visitors (whoever brought me the stomach bug I was not so appreciative of but glad you visited).

Love ya.

Jordan