Surgery was June 28 and my birthday was the end of July
I wasn't tip-top, back to normal on my birthday, but I did have most of my strength back. I could manage a full-day at work without feeling like I was 90+ years old at the end of the day. I had gotten up to a 1 mile walk (before I felt weak and my insides started feeling pulled and tight). I still could not do ab workouts and I had to be careful with the yoga and certain positions were off limits.
So, basically I was doing pretty well and I was able to go out and celebrate my birthday!
What I didn't plan on was looking pregnant for a few weeks and not having any clothes that fit. I had not gained weight from eating, but I was still holding fluid from the surgery. It seemed that my ab area had become a canteen and my body thought I was in the desert. My ob/gyn said that the fluid should have been absorbed (dealt with) by my body by the time I saw her for post-surgery check up two weeks later; however, par for my course, that was not the case. She did give me a prescription diuretic. I took one pill that night and was practically a new person the next day.
My pants were no longer squeezing the breath out of me, leaving marks and the pressure and discomfort in my ab area was greatly reduced. Now, I really was feeling better.
I did have a great birthday - one that I won't forget. I went on a first date. I met someone a few months earlier and we had been talking and texting almost daily, but had not yet been on a date (oh, I should clarify - he lived out of town, so we couldn't see each other without advanced planning).
He decided that he wanted our first date to be on my birthday. I thought it was a bold move and I liked the fact that he was up for the "challenge" of my birthday and first date happening simultaneously.
Highlights: good restaurant, bourbon tasting, talked for hours, stayed in the restaurant for about three to four hours and had no idea we'd been there that long, great kisser.
You can't predict how or when you tell someone that you've had breast cancer surgery and a surgery where you lost one ovary and both fallopian tubes. You don't know how they'll respond or what their reaction will be to this information. It's not like I run around with a billboard that screams "I had cancer and two surgeries". I have told very few people (yeah, I realize how odd that may seem when blog about my cancer experience) and I don't tell unless there is a really good reason to share.
If there is a possibility of an intimate situation occurring with someone, I have to tell - can't hide it. And, I have shared the news ahead of time and not waited until some awkward pause in the "heat of the moment" so to speak. For those of you keeping track, the guy I mentioned in the April 2013 entry, Extra Extra: Good News, had gone to "friend only" status. After several months it was pretty clear that it wasn't going to work out between us - moving on.....
The "birthday first date guy" and I continued to see each other and things seemed to be going well.
November brought the end of that relationship, emotional and stress eating, very busy time at work and the year mark for my mammogram.
Things start and some things stop and some things are a cycle............
