Reconstruct This...

I’ve been gone. I took a break from my blog to tend to my kids, my job, my man, my house, my health, my spirit. I’ve also been tending to my sobriety. I quit drinking five months ago. Not a long time in recovery circles, but long enough to know that this has been a life-changing decision for me. On December 23, I came home from work. I opened a bottle of chardonnay and poured a glass while I cooked dinner. Such a civil way to end the day, to take the edge off. I stirred the spaghetti sauce and poured another glass. An hour later, I went out to the garage to put the empty green wine bottle in the recycling bin with the other empty green wine bottles. There have been times in my life when I took my recycling down to The Recyclery so that my empty green wine bottles wouldn’t be exposed out there in the bin on the curb, clearly visible to my neighbors. Fourteen wine bottles in the recycling bin looks like you had a party. Unless you have fourteen wine bottles in your recycling bin every tw...

What gets my goat? My hair. But since you all are sick to death of self-absorbed stories about my hair, I have decided to move on. Besides, this morning I cracked the code on styling exceptionally frizzy hair and transformed my Don King fro into a cute Hillary Clinton bob. Typically, looking like Hill is not a good thing, but it is a radical improvement over looking like Don. Even better news: Knowing how to do my hair is going to free me up--emotionally, spiritually, physically--and allow me to explore exciting new topics. Old topic: my hair. New topic: my boobs, whoo hoo! I know, it sounds like a tired, old topic, even when packaged so smartly, but continue reading because you’ll see that I’ve got a whole new groove. A whole new boob groove. Honest. Quick boob update: I had my reconstruction in July of this year. It was deeply disappointing and threw me into a total funk for about four months. Until today. This morning, I made an appointment to see Dr. Loren Eskenazi, the San Franci...

Being a girl who loves a project, I got kind of excited when I found out I had breast cancer. Wow, I thought to myself, I’ll be able to conduct some kick-ass research, consider weighty options, make life-altering decisions, and bask in the afterglow of my ability to handle adversity with grace and intelligence. I also thought I’d be hanging with a couple nice-sized “girls.” Having breast-fed two children until they both got incisors left me with a couple girls that I could sometimes tuck into a “nearly-A” bra-lette from the junior department. The only problem was most juniors are small elsewhere, too, which made it difficult to find a 36 nearly-A with cups that were located at least two inches apart and straps that suspended the cups lower than the clavicle. Other than swimsuit shopping, nothing could send me into a complete and total funk like scouring the mall for a well-fitting bra. (Note the lack of a plural; I was happy to find one bra every five years and buy 10 of the same style...

It never rains in California. And that’s a drag because what I could use right now is a cold chardonnay, a depressing Neil Young CD, and a rockin’ good thunderstorm. What’s my problem? I’m done. I just had my reconstruction, which marks the end of my cancer road. No more side trips to the oncologists for chemo or radiation, to the cardiologist for EKGs, to the plastic surgeon for expander fill-ups, to the physical therapist for myo-fascial release, to my primary for Wellbutrin refills. I’m done with all that. So why am I sad, scared and more than a little pissed off, when instead I should be happy, relieved and grateful? After I was diagnosed in May 2006, the wheels started turning, and they turned fast. I motored through a double mastectomy, five chemos, 28 radiations, and the related side effects of all three: complete hair loss, the inability to construct a thought, abrupt menopause, severely limited range of motion, fatigue, weight gain. I also had just gone back to work after rais...