Now in book format

Now in Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cockeyed%20nipple

My wonderful husband pulled the blogs together. He wrote about the blog/book "D-L Nelson's friends will tell you she is incredibly strong-willed with an infectiously positive attitude toward life, and she needed every bit of that spirit when she learned she had breast cancer. This book represents her day-by-day diary of the cancer experience, adapted from a blog she wrote as one means of coping with the crisis. If you have been through a similar trauma, or know someone who has, you'll appreciate the moments of fear, fortitude, humor, and hubris. American born, living in Switzerland, Nelson represents women worldwide in emphasizing the importance of regular physical checkups and mammogram"

He's working on a Nook version.

And for those that have breast cancer, I had noted I didn't want reconstructive surgery. If a man couldn't accept me with my eyebrow scar and tilted nipple, then I wouldn't want him. Rick back into my life after my surgery and loves me with the scar.

Anyone who reads this and hasn't had a mammogram please do.

All proceeds from this book will go to funding mammograms. I don't need the money. I have something better  -- My life.

WHEW

Two years ago at this time I was busy with radiation after having a cancer removed from my right breast. It was encapsulated and had not spread to the lymph nodes. I was lucky. People gape when I say the experience was fun sometimes. It was also emotionally strengthening, scarey, rewarding, and a number of other adjectives.

Any hypochondria tendencies I have and there are many are are not about the cancer, but I will admit when the doctor who did the X-rays for my asthma mentioned something wasn't looking right with my breast, there was a major gulp. She thought it was probably to do with scaring but recommended a mammogram.

It did not cause a great deal of worry on my part. I decided to say nothing to my daughter, housemate or fiancé because the chances of it being serious were minimal but I made the appointment for a mammo anyway.

My gynie can do mammograms because he has a colleague, a doctor from Paris who comes to Switzerland to work in my gynie's clinic a couple of times a week. He told me with a smile as I was taking of my bra, that he does not like the name Nelson as a Frenchman, but I told him the origin was Swedish and had nothing to do with Admirals and Trafalgar Square.

Both he and my gynie looked at the results and decided it was scaring --nothing more.

WHEW

Still to all women, get those mammograms.  They can save your life.

When I told my housemate, I suggested that we make the house a cancer-free zone not just for us but for all our friends and family member. Enough is enough.

(The reason I chronicled the entire breast cancer experience is in the hope that those that might go through the procedure might remove a bit of the anxiety.)

Mammorgram

The see-your breath temperature is a pleasure after the too hot summer as I wait for the pre-dawn bus to take me into the city. When it comes it is filled with a few businessmen trying to beat colleagues into the office and high school kids on their way to the Lycée founded by Jean Calvin 500+ years ago.

The curriculum is modernized from the old Latin, Greek, Bible and Hebrew of Calvin’s time. One sun-bleached blond teenager sits in the aisle, her notebook on her lap finishing her math homework by copying answers from long exercises onto a single sheet. I’m always impressed by the notebook system of French schools and how neat the work is.

The lake is changing colour from dark gray to light gray as the bus passes it. The Jet d’Eau is not on yet.

I’ve allowed time to try a Pumpkin Spice Latté and pumpkin muffin at Starbucks before my appointment. I read the Tribune de Genève, finding the plans to substitute train service in some areas with buses and the story of a robber who dressed as a bank employee complete with badge allowing him code access, interesting.

“24 juillet 1942” I tell the receptionist at La Maternité. I know the drill. I’m a birthdate more than a patient.

“Follow the yellow line, first floor.” She hands me a sheet of labels coded with my medical history.

I don’t have long to wait. 

“Pourquoi six mois?” The technician asks after telling me to strip to the waist.

I tell her that I’m not taking the after-cancer medication, which is why I allow my breasts to be pressed into rectangles twice a year as a compromise. I don’t regret my decision. My joints no longer ache and morning sicknesses at my age was unwelcomed. The survival stats with my type of cancer, my stage, my treatment were not that different for those that followed the plan and those that did not.

The pressing over the doctor tells me I’m clean. Although I had a thermographie last month telling me the same thing, I’m relieved. A routine worry niggles at strange times.

On the way home I get off a couple of stops before mine to walk by the vineyards and watch the pickers with their metal baskets on their backs. The vendage is far from completed with many of the vines still heavy with grapes. A truck heaped to the brim with purple fruit is parked to the side and one of the pickers adds his bounty to the pile.

The lake is now in full colour. The leaves are yellowing, not the brilliant colours of my native New England but beautiful.

It is 10:45 and each moment of my morning has been filled with tiny delights and I’m so grateful for the Swiss medical system. I’m so grateful for being alive and able to be surrounded by so many sensations.

I made the decision as of February 1 not to take the medication they told me to take for five years. Early mornings were like being newly pregnant, my joints ached and I was losing my hair. Dr. Tran had shown me the stats for women with my type of cancer at my age with my treatment and the difference in survival rates were not huge. People in my age group are dying of all sorts of things including being in my age group. The alternative she said was Avastin. I wasn't sure. I have a great disregard for medicine in general and wish doctors would look more into the tests before prescribing including the parameters of the tests and who would pay for them. For new drugs it is impossible to know the long term effects, but at 69 and 3/4s I'm not worried about what the drug will do 30 years from now. I took the prescription and didn't fill it. It was great feeling normal again. I'm no fan of the FDA. Afterall they are funded by the companies whose products they test which is a major conflict of interest. Last November they stopped recommending Avastin for breast cancer.

The waiting room at la materinité

This is the waiting room at HUG, La Maternité where my oncologist is. She said I was doing well, gave me nine PT treatments, and said she'd see me in February. I then saw Dr. L. my radiologist who said I didn't need to see him again unless I needed him. I then went off to Zurich and my belly dancing lesson.

Breast brushings and other parts of my day

“Es it haf you eated or eaten?” The woman about to draw my blood wanted an English lesion along with the blood. She gave the best needle I’ve ever had… “Regardez-vous les montains. Take a breath, let it out.” I never felt the needle go in. When I told her how good she was, she pumped her arms and said “Oui.” Her brother-in-law is from “Breeten.” We both loved each others accents.

Back to the waiting room, where an elderly Greek woman, raised in Alexandria and now living in Geneva and I chatted.S he’d worked at the hospital for 36 years and was there to check her markers for ovarian cancer. We both agreed how lucky we were to be treated there.
Then Dr. Klug appeared. He was the one who had shocked me with and without my left hand in ice water for a pain test. He had a follow up survey and needed to do a brief exam which involved running first a tiny paint brush and the point of a safety pin over my cancer scar. Sounds kinda perverted doesn’t it. He was surprised I remembered his Van Gogh (and I made sure I said it Gawk no Go) poster and mouse pad.

I asked him how the study was going and he said the data was way off all the literature. The patients were experiencing very little pain and now they needed to know why.
Finally I got to see De El H, for the last time because she’s returning to Morocco. All was normal in all tests and the anti cancer pill has caused no side effects.

I’m doctor free inshallah until Nov. 7 for a control.

I've started

It has been a week that I've been taking the anti-hormone medication prescribed for the next five years to discourage any cells that might think a hormone is yummy and want to become a renegade.

I wasn't happy about taking another medication. I don't trust any pharmaceutical company, but my doctor did know the studies and did know that other countries has approved it beside the corrupt FDA. My gynie also liked it and he goes natural whenever he can. As he said, try it and see.

I can happily report my arms have not fallen off yet, I'm not hiding under my bed with depression. So far so good.