BC Awareness -- In Conclusion

When Dorothy said "There's no place like home," she wasn't kidding.

When I got home from the hospital, it was like I was seeing the world anew. Santa Clarita looked like Heaven on Earth! My husband had made a cute "bed" for me on the sofa, as I had to sleep sitting up on my back. We also registered our daughter for summer camp, which was the smartest thing we ever did. While I rested during the day, our sweet pea was swimming, playing, making arts and crafts, and going on field trips. My husband was off for his summer vacation (he is an educator), so he could drive her back and forth, etc.

So the chaos and stress of the past weeks turned into quiet summer days. I read, I slept, I took little baby walks in the neighborhood hanging onto my husband's arm. Some mornings we would go to Starbucks for iced tea -- that was a big treat for me! This recovery, however, was unlike anything I've ever endured. I was weak, tired and in pain for over a month. I'd lie in bed some nights and feel as if I were having a heart attack. The biggest pain was in my sternum area. At my first post-op appointment I asked Doc PS about it and he said the pain was normal and would go away. Yeah, right, I would think to myself. Apparently, during the mastectomies the surgeon removed some tissue from my ribs (there's breast tissue there, too!). It felt as if I'd been "kicked in the chest by a cow," as a friend of mine so aptly described it -- she had grown up on a farm! I read a book about another woman's experience with BRCA 1 and breast reconstruction, called "Beauty is What Changes" by Stephanie Queller, and she said the pain was as if "an elephant were sitting on my chest."

I did have major pain killers -- the stuff that drug dealers would have loved to get their slimy hands on. But I was trying to wean myself off of the meds, knowing that I had to be "clean" of the hard drugs in order to drive. My husband only had a couple of weeks off with me, and when he went back to work, I would have to drive my daughter to camp. Some serious anti-drug motivation here! I did get some help from my general doctor, however, who worked out a narcotics-free plan of alternating Tylenol and Motrin. It helped me enough to get back in the driver's seat within my time frame. But I only drove my daughter to camp and back. That was my limit.

Weeks passed. Suddenly, around weeks six or seven, I realized that I felt better. My new breasts, at first hard and swollen, were softening and looking like the real McCoy. By weeks eight and nine, I started to feel AMAZING. My energy suddenly came back with a vengeance, and I was taking my power walks in the neighborhood, driving, shopping and living a normal life once again.

During this time in my life, too, my son also left home for the first time to go to college up north. I was sad that I couldn't help him move (though I did give him money and that accounts for something). When I hit the two month recovery mark, I went up to visit him and his new place. What a victory trip that was!

Paradoxically, an offshoot to this whole experience was a heightened sense of spirituality and appreciation for my Jewish heritage. I learned that the BRCA gene mutations so common among women like me began centuries ago when the Jews left what was then Palestine (around the third or fourth century) and migrated through Europe. For a couple of hundred of years, these Jews lived primarily in Italy (NOW I know why I love pasta!) and intermarried for hundreds of years. Yuck, I know, and marrying cousins is what created the genetic mutation. Eventually, my ancestors moved onwards to Russia (I also like Vodka!). My grandparents had been Orthodox Jews -- strict observers of the law -- and my parents had rebelled against that religious rigidity and raised me with little Jewish education. The tides would turn.

The summer camp we sent our daughter to was a Jewish one -- and both my husband and I felt a kinship with the rabbi and his wife who ran the camp (they are with Chabad -an orthodox religious organization, but you don't have to be orthodox to participate in their events and programs). We decided to send our sweet pea to Hebrew school (run by the same rabbi and wife) and our family began to attend some services. Listening to the rabbi as he recited Hebrew prayers, I felt a deep, healing connection to my ancestors.

On another spiritual level, I will end my saga with this story. Way back in February, before any of this happened, my husband gave me a silver necklace for Valentine's Day. It was a "Hamsa" which is symbolic in Jewish folklore for the hand of G-d. The Hamsa is an amulet that supposedly offers magical protection from the evil eye -- it symbolizes the Creator's protective hand. I wore my Hamsa every day from the moment my husband gave it to me, and as it had a long chain, it fell right over my breasts. Yes, I think that Hamsa offered me protection against the breast cancer that my mother had when she was my age.

After my mastectomies, my breast tissue was sent to the lab to be analyzed. Sure enough, the report came back that the lab had discovered pre-cancerous tissue. Without a doubt, I had done the right thing.