with complete Dear Michaela blog
I took the photo above on a trip through the detour around the California wildfires last summer. It looked like even the sun was on fire. I didn't live anywhere near the fires, although I did live near enough that the Bay Area was covered with smoke that pushed air quality into hazardous ranges that... Continue Reading →
I was telling my friend a few days ago about how we sometimes wake up one day, and we are a new person. Something subtle has shifted within us, and we feel completely different than we did before. I experienced this today. If you've read this blog for awhile, you know that breast cancer has... Continue Reading →
Funny how sometimes you do something, and only afterwards realize that what you were actually doing was something totally different. I know this statement probably makes no sense. But I spent this morning roaming around Lake Chabot looking for my missing kitties. Someone on the street had recently trapped the cats on our street and... Continue Reading →
The following is from my previous blog, and was originally published in July 2017. In nine days I will have finished chemotherapy. It has not been nearly what I’d feared it would be. The side effects were subtle. The nausea was fairly easily controlled with medication. I got one mouth sore, and my fingertips cracked... Continue Reading →
Hey there and happy 4/21 everybody, particularly those of you who celebrated 4/20 in the right spirit. I used to be a regular pot smoker when I was younger, but gave it up for most of the years after I became a mom, which is almost 40 years ago now. I took it up again,... Continue Reading →
It's a little over two weeks since my surgery, and I am here to report that it was a cinch! I had a DIEP Flap Reconstruction procedure, which involves replacing the breast removed in a mastectomy with a chunk of fat from the belly. Which also involves cutting through the muscles to remove blood vessels... Continue Reading →
I am so excited! Reconstructive surgery is officially set for January 17th. I am a bit apprehensive about the procedure itself. It's no short, quick fix, it's a DIEP flap reconstruction on one side and a reduction on the other, with three surgical sites, some large and complex. It involves transplanting arteries from my abdominal... Continue Reading →
Even though I am, at this moment, cancer free, I am still trudging down this road. I have one more surgery to go, and I have just this week been accepted into the active arm of a breast cancer research study. Because, being cancer free doesn't really mean you are actually cancer free. Those little... Continue Reading →
Been up since early morning hours searching breast cancer mortality rates on the internet, because suddenly last night I got it in my head that this thing is going to kill me. Well, no, I don't think it was sudden or just last night, but it was something I'd been keeping under wraps and not... Continue Reading →
