Can This Chest Surgery Come With A Boob Job?

We've decided. We feel so much better when we've decided. After our Around the World in 80 Days tour of cancer doctors, we're landing in the Center of the World - New York City.

I'm scheduled for chest surgery Tuesday, April 30th at Sloan Kettering. They say "April Showers bring May Flowers." I'm saying "April Surgeries bring May Margaritas!" Actually it was a Cosmo-looking Contrast that helped find the cancer spots in my lungs. I had to drink this liquid before the CAT Scan so the doctors can read the scan more completely. It used to be a thick, chalky liquid, but now it's thinner and more palatable and red! Not as palatable as a Cosmo - but it sure looked like one. If only I had packed one of my 76 martini glasses!

Back to the surgery: it's called a VATS procedure - Video Assisted Thoroscopy. Let's talk about the positives: they don't crack your check open - that's a plus! Three small incisions in my side. You only have to be in the hospital for one night - bonus! God knows I have enough cute PJ's to be in for a month. They give you a pain pump - bingo! When I was in the hospital in 2009 for 14 days they gave me the pain pump full of morphine. I was allowed to push the button every 8 minutes. I was so desperate for the juice I asked the nurses for a digital clock so as soon as the number flipped to the 8th minute I could hit the button. (Drug seeking behavior perhaps?) Looking forward to a reprise of that!

The downsides: it's another surgery - haven't I been cut enough? Wasn't my uterus enough of a sacrifice? Now I have to give up part of my lung. Did I mention I'm being inducted into the Smithtown High School Athletic Hall of Fame next month?? Hysterical, right? They must let everyone in. I mean, I did have 2 school records in Track and Field and was award Athlete of the Year in 1998 (which I had to share with a softball player who is probably a lesbian now). But still, what a silly, fun honor. So the induction ceremony is in a month (at 8:30am - can someone say Mimosa?!?). I told the surgeon I really wanted to be there. He said I could probably still go two weeks post-op. I just think it's ironic, they'll be inducting me for running. After the surgery, I'll be about 60 pounds heavier than high school, bald, stitched up and missing some lung. Not the picture of an elite athlete - that's for sure!

This is a good picture from the Archives though:

The other major downside: I can't play tennis for most of the summer tennis season. I've missed 2 of 4 seasons already due to cancer. I was feeling good enough to hit the ball around on the newly resurfaced Cooke Court. It would have been fun to be competitive this year. Instead, I think I'll just cheer and drink in the stands. I'll probably wear my tennis skirts just for fun!

The final downside: silicone implants are extra. I thought while they had my side open they could just stick some fakies in there. But it turns out the cancer ward won't do that. Bitches. But with 40 extra pounds on, I've been lucky that about 10 of that went to my chest. So word to the wise: don't pay for boobs, just eat non-stop and you'll get them (and a gut and cellulite).

Mommy is flying up to be with me. Thank goodness for Mommies. Chris takes his Boards again next week. Every 10 years you need to re-certify by passing the Boards. So he's been studying like crazy. We have so much big stuff going on all at the same time - if we ever get out of "crisis mode" we'll be bored.

The group at Sloan Kettering does more than 500 of these VATS surgeries a year. They say there is a superb success rate. The doctor feels very confident about the surgery. They'll biopsy the pieces they take out. Cross your fingers there's cancer inside and that these are the spots that keep my hCG up. So by taking them out, I'll be cancer-free. There's always a chance they are just hard dead tissue with no cancer. Then we keep hunting. But there's a chance I could be cancer-free by May 1st. Let's pray for that.

xoxo

Work Worry

I've decided to call my now year-long work stoppage my "sabbatical." I never wanted to be a professor but was always interested in the idea of a sabbatical, when you could take off a semester or even a year and still have a job when you come back. I think professors need to write a book or do a research paper or something during their time off. I hope to make Cosmos and Chemo a best selling book when I'm finally done, so that might justify my time off. Of course, if I do write a hit book, I'll then have to take another "sabbatical" to sell my book. (I really want to sit next to Matt Lauer on the Today Show and flirt with him like Chelsea Handler does whenever she's selling one of her best selling books!)

I've been out of work for more than a year ... it's more like 14 months. I could have birthed one and a half babies in this time. Sadly, I won't be birthing any babies. This is kind of like my maternity leave. It just isn't coming to an end and I don't have a baby at the end.

I'm so anxious to go back to work. I still watch TV and yell at the television when reporters use poor grammar (not on WGAL of course, but the other stations need a few copies of Strunk and White.) Some of my greatest friends at News 8 have moved on and taken other jobs since I've been out. I can't believe I won't share the newsroom with Matt Belanger and Tom Knier again. It will be a different feel when I go back. I'm so afraid one of the new people will ask me who I am and when I started and treat me like a new employee. I'm sure no one will be rude, but I have fights with new employees in my head - "Who am I?? Who the fuck are you?? I'm goddamn Meredith Jorgensen and I've worked here for a decade." (I will leave out the technicality that this year will be my 10th year at News 8, even though I've only actually worked 9 of them.) No, I would never say that anyone, but that's where my anxiety leads me.

I also had a little anxiety when I got this letter in the mail. It's from Hearst - our parent company. It said "Open Immediately." I panicked. I was afraid it was a pink slip. It was a thin letter, I envisioned just one sheet of paper that said, "Thanks but no thanks. You're out."

 

 

 

Imagine my relief when I opened it up and saw this:

 

 

 

Simply a letter fishing for business. Met Life wanting to sell some Life Insurance. If only they knew how sick I was they would never actually want to sell me life insurance - I'm a bad bet. Plus, my brother-in-law, AJ, works for Met Life - if I needed insurance, I'd go to him, not answer a random letter.

Bottom line, it seems I'm on edge. Anxious to get back to work, nervous that people in the newsroom might think I'm milking this cancer thing, worried that I will lose my competitive edge when I get back on the beat, sad that I'm missing my friends and all the fun newsroom banter. But my goals are clear. First, get better, get cancer-free. Then, and only then, jump back in with both feet, so I can tell other people's story instead of boring you all with mine.