Sadly, I took one picture during the entire time we were in LA, and it is of my girlfriend Irene and her man Peter:
[How cute! And how Irene!]
But I try to see the busted camera as a challenge. The point-and-shoot method with the arm sticking way out in front of me is a game of "how many shots can I take that will turn out decent?" And then the fun of it is that I have no immediate judgement--I have to wait until I download the pics onto my computer before I see how they turn out. So here's me trying to capture my new hair:
I've been told how hip, artsy, cute, and pixie I look. My hair also attracts attention, which in turn makes people pay more attention to my various accoutrements, such as my tattoos and my glasses. It's pretty cool and boosts my self-esteem, which is something that I've been in serious lack of in recent months. Alas, there are still moments when I'm called "Sir" or "Senor," but whatever. There's a certain sexiness to being androgynous.
As the day for the surgery draws near, Dude and I have random discussions about it, which signify to me that even though we're trying not to freak out about it, we think about it all the time. A couple nights ago, we wondered if in fact I could get have a normal pregnancy again, should we choose to have a third child. Right now, we're not even sure if my reproductive system will heal from the chemo, as I haven't even had a period since I started chemo. We were told that early menopause could be a side effect. In any case, should I be able to have children again someday, would I be able to carry a child, given that my abdominal muscles will no longer be there, and in their place, I will have a wire mesh to hold in my innards? So we looked this up online, and indeed, few women have ever carried their babies to term after having this surgery, and fewer still had the exact surgery I'm having. Most women are beyond childbearing age when they have the TRAM-flap surgery done, and those who have had it done and had children only had one breast removed and reconstructed. I found exactly ONE woman online who had a bilateral mastectomy and TRAM-flap reconstruction who got pregnant, but I don't know how it ended up for her, as she didn't make any more posts on the forum that she posted on. It's a question that my plastic surgeon didn't bring up, probably because she's not accustomed to discussing such issues with her patients.
In any case, we are moving along as planned. And we will deal with these issues in the future, if we must. The problem with our lives right now is that there is so much that is uncertain--big ticket items--but there's nothing we can do about that uncertainty. We can only move forward the best way we know how.
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