The Book Babe’s Blog

You would think that with all this free time I have, I would blog more but turns out, not so much. I am still recovering at my friend Shannon and Bill’s. They are super awesome and I totally love them. They have this awesome dog named Jersey, she is an English bulldog and she is very adorable. Shannon takes very good care of me and only lets me do so much. She is very motherly and has only had to yell at me twice for doing and lifting things I am not supposed to. I still have limited arm movement, not as bad as last week though in which I had the arm movement of a t-rex. I have more range of motion on my right side and less pain too. However, I have more pain on my left side so I think it just moved. Stupid pain. Grrrr.

This weekend I had lunch with my friends Jon and Shannon, I had a blast as I always do with those two boys. I heard all about their new projects and was highly entertained. Those two crack me up! I just love them!

I had my week check up with my surgeon llama on Thursday. He was pretty happy with how things were healing. Except it turns out that some of the lymph nodes they removed still had cancer so he is a bit concerned. There was also more scar tissue than they surgeon had expected, which means that I also have more pain that expected. Super fun. Because some of the nodes still have cancer, I may have to have another type of medication after chemo and radiation. Which is big and dumb. It is not a definite yet, he wants to talk to my oncologist first. Keeping my fingers crossed that they decide that the next chemo treatments will be enough.

When I became gluten free many years ago, the hardest thing to give up was pizza. I am huge fan of pizza, always have been so it was very difficult watching others eat it when I could not. When my awesome friend Audie (also gf) and I discovered there was a pizza place in town that served gluten-free pizza we totally freaked out! Picazzos is the place and at the time, it was the only place in town with gf pizza. There are other restaurants that now have gf pizza but Picazzo’s is still the best. I hear that their gluten filled pizza is also good. It is not your typical crappy cheap Dominos or Pizza Hut, it is amazingly good.

I have recently decided to see if their pizza had healing qualities so have been trying to eat there on a fairly regular basis. And then I found out that they donate to breast cancer research and am now convinced that Picazzo’s really is the best pizza place in the world. How great is that, they care about people with breast cancer and celiac disease. I just love them. Seriously, they are super fabulous. You should eat there. So. Freakin. Good! Also, the gf flour they use was created by Bethany’s (Book Babe #2) grandpa’s friend. Tee hee hee

The few hours I was not sleeping this weekend I spent watching movies from the 80’s that I missed. Footloose, Who’s That Girl, Loverboy, Outsiders and Dirty Dancing. I am not sure I was actually missing anything now that I have seen them. I do realize that had I watched them while in the throes of teen angst, I would have liked them more than I did. That being said, the fact that I watched them while hopped up on vicodin was probably for the best. On the other hand, I can now say that I have seen them, this will make my friends happy. It was fun to see hot shirtless Patrick Swayze in both Outsiders and Dirty Dancing, that was nice for me. So pretty…

I just have to say that having one’s breasts removed = not fun. I hurt everywhere. Still. This sucks big time. As soon as I am well enough, I am going to take up archery. Now that I no longer have the hindrance of a large chest, I want to become a super strong amazon woman. Yay for archery. Soon I will be a force to be reckoned with. Or something like that….

I am just going to let the deliciousness of that wash over you. I just finished having some for breakfast thanks to my fabulous friend Sarah Morris who made the chocolate waffles last night.

It has been a few days since the girls were so rudely taken from me. Good thing the surgeon was a llama, otherwise I would be even more cranky about it than I already am. I suppose the crankiness was inevitable, I did just undergo major surgery. Anyway, I am still at Shannon and Bill’s, they are still amazing and want me to stay here as long as I want. I was originally going to only stay the weekend but since I still can’t really function all that well, I am going to stay and let Shannon take care of me. Hopefully I am not too high maintenance…. I am actually very proud of myself that I am letting someone take care of me. I am so used to doing everything myself, it is weird to have someone cook for me and do normal every day things for me.

Brandi, my super awesome friend who took over my book buying job, brought me a bunch of arc’s last night so there should be some reviews up this week. Assuming that they are good. I have been a bit disappointed in what I have been reading lately.  As a result, I have been reading some of my favorites from when I was growing up. Most recently Dune by Frank Herbert, quite possibly the best sci-fi book of all time. I so love it!

Last night was our regular Sat night card night. We had it here instead of at Daanon and Michelle’s where we usually have it. Daanon was instrumental in the planning of Project Book Babe just fyi… I had a ton of fun last night as per usual, they made me watch Footloose since I had never seen it.   decided that all high-school boys should learn to dance their anger way. It would make the world such a  fun place to live.

I think I am done with this latest vicodin induced ramble.

I do just want to wish a quick Happy Birthday to my friend Jon Lewis, co-author of the Grey Griffins series. One of my favorite fantasy series.

Stay tuned for more ramblings…

Tons of love to you all!

So…I am going on day 2 of being sans breasts and if you ever have anyone who tell you that cancer or chemo or mastectomies are fun, they should be taken and fed feet first to the nearest zombie. I am happy I made the decision to have both removed though, it sucks looking at myself and seeing the flat chest but I know it would be more traumatic for me if I had to look at myself being all lopsided.

I am staying the weekend (possibly longer) with Shannon and Bill. Rebecca, another of my super awesome friends, is here today helping take care of me. We have had a great afternoon, we played some online games, watched an episode of Castle (starring Hot Nathan Fillion) and then of course, there was the vicodin. Vicodin makes for a great afternoon. Tee hee hee.

Now I am going to take a nap.

Thank you for all your happy thoughts and good wishes. Keep them coming, I need as many as I can get right now.

I love you all!

Yesterdays surgery was a success. I decided to have the surgeon take them both about 12 hours before I went to the hospital. It was not an easy decision as I have had them since I was 10. Seriously, I was a “d” cup by the time I got to 6th grade and they just kept growing (topping out at g for giant) and causing super fun back problems. That being the main reason why I think women who pay to get theirs that big are crazy. Anyway, getting rid of something that was such a huge part of my life was a decision I did not enter into lightly. I talked to many people about it, even called my surgeon in a panic one day, and ultimately decided that taking both was the right decision. And since my family has a history of breast cancer and my sister has the breast cancer gene, the risks are just too high and I am so not doing any of this stupid *expletive* all over again.

When I got to the hospital I, of course, had to wait for too long in the waiting room but that meant I got to spend just that more time with the girls as well as my mom and my Super Awesome friends Audie (pronounced Aahh-dee not Ow-dee) and Angelique so it was fine. The nurse who took me to pre-op was named Heather and she was great! She was a sweetheart and made tons of jokes, we got along so well. I am pretty sure I giggled and clapped at one point during the paperwork. She finally got me into a bed and brought everyone back to wait with me. Hot Dr Komenaka showed up eventually and I told him I had made the decision to remove both (he had told me the week before that it was no big deal if I made the decision last minute). He took it all in stride and we talked about doing this thing called a Sentinel Node Biopsy, a procedure in which they inject the breast with a radioactive isotope and blue dye (which makes my pee turn green) and then see which lymph nodes the fluids drain into. The nodes that have the fluids are then removed and checked to see if they are cancerous. This was optional but he recommended it because of my family history and the aggressiveness of the cancer. At this point, I trust him so I agreed which meant the surgery was delayed by a few hours while we waited for the radioactive dye to arrive and then for it to do its magic dyeing thing. The only actual downside was the fact that I was not allowed to eat or drink anything including water. Grrr. Eventually, I was taken back for surgery. I woke up a few hours later in recovery, waited some more, got to see my Dad (my mom totally guilt-ed the nurse into letting him see me in the recovery room) and was then taken to my room. By the time I got there, it was after eight. I was really hungry which made me pretty darn cranky. But, two more of my Super Awesome Friends, Rebecca and Brandi were there so that made me less cranky. We had a fun time until they had to go and then around midnight I finally got wheeled down to the cafeteria for food.

Side-note rant: I am on a Gluten-Free diet (was GF before it became so popular) and would have thought a hospital of all places would understand what that meant, that was so not the case! There was only one of the cooks that knew what gluten was and even then he did not know that soy sauce has wheat in it. He was very apologetic about the lack of GF food though so that made me feel better. Which basically meant that my dinner consisted of pickles, a bit of lunch meat, a salad (actually very good) and over-steamed vegetables.

Anyway, after my wholly satisfying dinner (read sarcastically), there were numerous failed attempts at sleeping so I did Sudoku until the wee hours of the morning, finally falling asleep about 4 am. Doing Sudoku while hopped up on morphine is so very much fun. You should try it. This morning I saw Hot Dr. Komenaka again (along with another hot doctor whose name I have totally forgotten) and was told that they only removed one lymph node from the right side and it did not look cancerous so they should not have to remove the rest of the nodes on that side. YAY! They still had to remove all the lymph nodes on the left side though. He was pleased with my progress which meant that I was not forced to stay one more night. Also Yay!

I am currently staying with my friends Shannon and Bill, also of the Super Awesome variety. They will be taking care of me for the next few days as I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than a cherry. I plan on being Vicodin-ed out for quite a while as having one’s breasts removed is highly PAINFUL! Tonight, I dine on gluten-free pizza from Picazzo’s, good company and, of course, more vicodin.

Thanks to all whom have been posting such nice comments and thanks to all the wonderfully supportive people out there. Having you in my life makes dealing with all this stupid stupidness so much easier.

I love you all!

I think that is it

My surgery is less than 12 hours away and I have decided to have both the girls taken. I figured that would be easier in the long run. Also, it means I can start taking archery lessons. Not that that was the basis of my decision, merely a happy bi-product.

For all those boys who wanted to see the girls and never did……it sucks to be you.

The spot of Book Babe #2, so dubbed by James Owen, is held by my super fabulous friend Bethany. She is one of the wittiest people I have ever met and I totally love and adore her. She has been, as has everyone here, amazing throughout this whole thing. I am not sure what I would do without her. Anyway, she is graduating from ASU so some of us threw her a surprise party last Sat. She thought the party was going to be a “last time with both of Faith’s breasts” party. Tee hee hee, we fooled her. It was a ton of fun and a great distraction from the stupid surgery that looms ever closer. The decorations were the cheesiest ones we could find, complete with ribbony hat. Huge congrats to Brilliant Bethany!

As I was getting ready for the party on Sat, I checked my email only to find one from my dear friend Lori. She spent the day doing the Race for the Cure in Salt Lake, cause she is awesome like that. Lori is one of my dearest friends and yet we have never met. Curious I know. We met a few years ago when she bought some signed Twilight books from me at Changing Hands. This was back when I was in charge of all signed Twilight, thus earning me the name of “Stephenie’s pimp”. I talked to every single person who wanted to buy signed copies of the books. Lori called so many times, she must have bought enough to fill a small library (hence the Pimp of the North title) and we eventually started calling each other after work. We initially bonded over our love of Stephenie and our friendship grew from there.  Oddly enough, Stephenie has met her in person, whereas I have yet to. Oh well, we will meet eventually.

I just came back from dinner with one of my favorite people, Chris Gall. He was the only picture book author from PBB. He is a wonderful person, and an incredible artist and author. We talked about many fun things, including his new book called Dinotrux. It is about dinosaur trucks, and is seriously one of the coolest picture books ever! I totally love it! It was recently bought by Dreamworks so we will be able to see the movie in a few years. Yay! I love it when great things like that happen for my friends.

This afternoon, I was finally able to convince my oncologist’s nurse that one week was not nearly enough time to recover from surgery before having another chemo treatment. So, she moved my next chemo treatment back by three weeks. I was relieved, I was not looking forward to having chemo one week after being cut open. And now I don’t have to worry about it. Very exciting. Or something….

My surgeon, the one performing my mastectomy, is fabulous. I have been having some trouble making the decision over a single or a double mastectomy. Freaking out is the term I would use for this. So I called him today, in a fit of indecision and about two seconds away from having a compete freek fit, and he was great. He told me not to rush the decision and that if I need to move the surgery back, I can. He explained more about the genetic testing for the breast cancer gene and what that would mean. He was wonderful and I am no longer freaking out. At least as much…. I am very happy that I have a great surgeon who is not only nice but also a total llama. Much like my plastic surgeon (not actually plastic).

Have I mentioned how much this whole thing sucks? Oh well, such is life.