I'm a pisces, but I had cancer!

My last post was a bit of a downer, so I just wanted to do a really short guy to say that I'm a week out from surgery and I'm doing a bit better! Last night we even sat in the park (me in a chair) for hours to celebrate Alan's bday. I saw this dog wearing a rave collar and it really brought up my spirits: Sometimes it's the little things. (Seeing friends in this very isolating climate was also nice.) Love you, you small batch of readers.

Hello friends and readers, I am officially on day 5 of recovery from my exchange surgery, and I am woefully reminded that recovery sucks! I'm in a lot of discomfort in my chest (obviously) and my thighs, where they took some fat to "graft" around my implants. It's not fun. My spirits are pretty low and that will be reflected in this post. I'm frankly annoyed that my doctors made this surgery seem like it was going to be a breeze. What I've slowly learned is that in cancerland, there are varying degrees of awful. Like with the third suite of chemo that I received- sure, it was LESS awful than the literal poison, but its still made me hazy, exhausted, and dehydrated. Sure, this surgery is LESS awful than the one where they took out all of my breast tissue and my tumor, but it's still pretty terrible to have gruesome sutures across your chest and bruising all over your legs. The fact that I've been through worse does not make this any less painful now. ...

Hello friends, I have been woefully inactive on this blog, mostly because I've been fortunate enough to be able to turn away from cancer for a bit and focus on my dissertation. Of course, I've still been doing my immunotherapy infusions once every three weeks, and have had the stray rough night of tangential aches and pains here and there. But I've mostly been feeling healthy enough to direct my energy towards work and the occasional socially distant gathering. That will have to change tomorrow, though, as I turn my focus back to chugging along in cancerland. I'm writing this brief little post to update anybody out there (hello? is there anybody out there?) that tomorrow is a surgery day. It is finally my exchange surgery, where my plastic surgeon swaps out my temporary tissue expanders for more permanent* implants. The expanders are pretty tight and uncomfortable, and I hear the implants are much more comfy, so I'm relieved to be moving forward with it. The surge...