Perception

Things that have changed from my perception since diagnosis:

- Support
- Achievement
- The concept of time
- Success
- Life's "big picture"
- Science
- Survival
- Death
- Who I am
- What my life will be like
- The future

When You Least Expect

I'm not the most selfless person - I frequently get overwhelmed with life and thoughts (even pre-diagnosis) and as a result, I'm not the most thoughtful person either. I get distracted.

A byproduct of a cancer diagnosis is suddenly having to deal with all the communication surrounding the patient (me). People say that when times get rough, you see who your real friends are. I'm not experiencing that type of distinction. Right now, my times are tough - really tough, and instead, I'm getting to see how amazing my friends, colleagues, and family are.

Not to brag - but I just can't let amazing deeds go unpunished, so here goes: a handful of my coworkers (whom I'd told first) got together and bought me a ridiculously expensive blender. The type of blender that one lusts after, but cannot justify the cost of. The gesture was truly staggering. Friends that I have known for less than a year stepping up to help me feel better. I always considered them real friends - no confusion there. This experience has given me an real opportunity to reflect and appreciate how great the people in my life are. Cards, flowers, emails, texts, offers to help (which I take seriously - I will call you)...none expected - and none unappreciated.

Thank you all.

Calling Off the Goalie

I have a really darling friend who refers to going off birth control as "calling off the goalie". Very clever.

As of last Thursday, I have "called off the goalie".

If you had told me six months ago that in October, I went off birth control, my excitement would have been hard to contain. My husband and I have been waiting for the "right time" to start trying. Lots of talk about my working, our finances, raising children, schools, those hilarious arguments about which of us will successfully be the disciplinarian.

"Let's do this the right way...make sure we're ready...bring a baby into the ideal environment."

Instead, it's October 2013. I'm 28 years old. I just finished grad school. And I have breast cancer.

I'm off birth control to limit the hormones in my body. Biological children may be off the table forever. I'm currently experiencing the worst period I've had in about 9 years. Gather 'round everyone: behold this face of bitterness.

Scare Tactics

One of the worst things about breast cancer (so far......) is how scary every. single. thing. is.
Food, drinks, work, stress, treatment, and just about anything - scary. I started googling causes of breast cancer, I can't help but think of all the things I did wrong in my life to this date that must have caused this. I drank too much wine, I ate too much meat, there was the time when I decided to be a casual cigarette smoker for a year, I ate too much bacon, I ate Lunchables Pizza a lot.....

Our medical center is amazing, God bless them. My primary care physician (PCP) called me to check in on me and ask if I needed a referral for a surgeon or an oncologist. Our nurse navigator had already helped me get the earliest appointment possible for a surgeon, but I do need an oncologist. I asked about a woman oncologist I found via Google. Ha! I have an appointment for next Tuesday. Tomorrow, I meet with the surgeon - he will have my MRI results. We will find out if the cancer is anywhere beyond my left breast and lymph node area. Hopefully, we'll find out what stage I'm in. It's not stage I.

People keep telling us to get a second opinion. I don't yet understand the reason. I have cancer - that doesn't seem to need confirmation. I suppose it's for treatment options.

Today, the ultimate scary idea occurred to me: I may never be able to have biological children. If I have to do chemotherapy, my fertility may never return. I can't reconcile not giving my husband children of his own. Will he be able to reconcile this?

The First Day of October

This morning my husband and I went to the doctor to results from a breast biopsy I had last Friday. When I felt the lump, I was completely unimpressed. Under 30 years of age and no history of breast cancer - what I am worried about? Worst case scenario - it's a cyst and I have surgery.
When the doctor came into the room with the nurse, I was still stupidly unaffected. Imagine my surprise when I was handed the pathology results, clearly showing that I have cancer.

"How bad is it?" I asked shakily.
"Pretty bad..." says the doctor. 

It's not that my world stopped - it shattered. Very quickly I find out that the tumor is too large for a lumpectomy. A mastectomy is probably my only option.
I opted to go to work, where I was wildly emotional, though not entirely unproductive. Thanks to a very assertive nurse navigator at the Women's Wellness Center, I get a phone call within an hour asking me if I can come in today for an MRI. I say yes. I am injected with dye and lay face down in the machine for an hour. I go home to my husband, we get In N Out, we go home, we eat.

Let's Just Pretend...

...like I haven't been gone for FOREVER! Things are different now!

1. I became a Zumba instructor, and it's awesome!

2. I finished my B.A. and started my M.A.

3. I got married!

What?

I know right?

Fab Fridays!

So...Fridays have been really awesome for me lately! Two Fridays ago, I ran 6 miles! In a row! Crazy right?  Maybe not for some people, but seriously, when I was a kid, I never ran even one mile straight.  When we did fitness tests, I would walk/jog out of pure laziness.  I've really taken to running lately, which is awesome!
This past Friday's fabulosity included another 6 mile run.  That, by itself, is awesome, but I was also able to shorten my overall run time by 3 minutes. This is all, btw, on a treadmill...so yeah, I know, it will be harder outdoors. The furthest distance I've run outdoors is just under 5 miles.  Did those in just under 50 minutes with mah man.


Fab Friday part dos included this:

Mmmmm....mysterious!

What's inside?  We'll just have to wait and see!

Let me make it up to you!

Oh blog, I feel terrible for abandoning you this weekend, though I promised not to this time. Let me post again today and make up for it!  You accept?  Yay!
So...I started today off with a green smoothie!  Spinach, a peeled tangelo, half a frozen banana, frozen mango, water and ice.  It was awesome!  Then I had some cereal and almond milk.  I have been OBSESSED with this lately:

It's so good!  I used to always buy the Twigs, Flakes & Clusters cereal at Trader Joe's, but I like this plain fiber cereal much better.  It has a graham cracker-y taste and is not as grainy as the Twigs, Flakes & Clusters.  And you know....the fiber...girl's gotta eat! I lost a bunch of weight a few years ago doing the low-carb thang and can still be kind of cautious with carbohydrates.  But, if a carb is complex (in personality...not just structure) and high in fiber, I'll dig it.


After that I ate a badass salad for lunch...at mah desk-

Spinach, corn, black beans, roasted asparagus, sun dried tomato, goat cheese, balsamic.

All together! With a string cheese!

It made my wildest dreams come true. 

And that's a fact. 

I didn't have any meat that I could add to the salad, besides, that string cheese had been waiting for his time to shine.  I had to oblige.

This morning, before work, I headed to Target.  I kind of go there a lot.  Like, a lot, a lot.  I told myself this weekend, after I killed the bag o' Dark Chocolate M&M's in the freezer that I wouldn't replace them.  Unfortunately, in that lecture to myself, I was overly specific and said "Dark Chocolate M&M's", thereby creating leeway for these purchases:

From left to right: useful, yummy, new-to-me yummy and totally unnecessary at this point.

I can justify anything...one of my most useful and most annoying skills. 


I had to buy those Goody headbands because for some reason I am down to two.  One useful stretchy headband (kept in my car for working out) and one stretched out...totally useless headband (kept in my bathroom where a solid, but feeble, attempt is put forward every night to utilize it).  In the same vein, I am missing a whole crapload of ponytail rubberbands.  I don't understand how I lose so many of those things.  I put them on my wrist every morning and they either go on my head or stay on my wrist until I arrive home.  It's not as if I fling them about as I walk down the street.  Why/how do they disappear?  I don't get it.

By tomorrow....

...I totally meant 3 days later. A substantial amount of schoolwork was thrust upon me, kind of last minute too.  So...guess what I've doing! Aside from that, there hasn't been too much interesting stuff.  I butchered my first rack of ribs! Go me! And some other stuff happened too! I've got pictures from this weekend, so let's just take a look...

On Thursday, I packed...

Shrimp Salad with celery and grape tomatoes!

Roasted broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, banana peppers, chicken and goat cheese!

Stringy cheese!

And I kept it all cold with one of the coolest things I've ever scored for $1 at Target!

This is by far one of the more useful $1 items I've purchased.  A Disney princess ice pack!  True Love, indeed! LOL!  

On Friday, I decided to man up and butcher the ribs I bought.  Funnily enough, I had no idea I needed to cut this up until I found a random article describing how to do it!  Here we go:

Hanging out in the sink.

Post-cutting.

Leftover pieces, I slow roasted these with the ribs.

So....don't have pictures after that! Someday, I'll get the hang of this, I swear!  But here's what I did:

*Keep in mind that this takes a while, I had all afternoon at home to do this!

Totally Awesome Spicy Ribs:

Ingredients:

-1 rack of ribs (plus the riblets and skirt if ya got em!)

-5 cloves garlic minced

-Lawry's seasoning (or similar seasoning blend)

-1 cup barbecue sauce

-Sriracha

Directions:

(Remember, if you're cooking the riblets too, treat them exactly the same as the ribs)

Preheat oven to 250F.

Sprinkle the riblets and the meaty side of the ribs lightly with Lawry's seasoning.  Sprinkle the bone side of the ribs with Lawry's as well, I'm more generous with the salt on this side.  Don't go overboard though.  

Rub minced garlic into the meat side of the ribs and then place on a foil lined baking sheet.  Cover entire tray with foil and put in preheated oven.

After 2 hours, take tray out of the oven, uncover drain some of the liquid.  

Spread barbecue sauce over the ribs. You can coat the entire rack (top and bottom), but it really isn't necessary.  At this point, the ribs will be fork tender so trying to flip will be...difficult.  :D  If you'd like heat, add Sriracha to the barbecue sauce before you spread.  It really was delicious!  Start with a little, and taste before you spread it on.  All together, I probably added about 2-3 tsp. for the whole thing.  I am not, unfortunately, that hardcore.

After the sauce is on, cover the pan again and return to oven for another 3-4 hours, this time at 200F.  

All in all, I had the ribs in from 3:30pm-9:30pm.

They are totally awesome though!  And just as good on day 2!

Happy eating!

Crunch.

These next few weeks are crunch time at school.  Just a precious few more weeks of classes, then finals.  I'm currently trying to forget what lies ahead by drinking wine.  Blogging is something that I need to really decide to carve out some time for and I'm determined to do it!
I will be back tomorrow!

Typical!

I am really, really bad at checking the weather every morning.  So, in my typical fashion, I stepped out the door in a tank top and a thin cardigan.  Why?  Well, because it was warm last week, why would it get cold again, right?  Needless to say, I was freezing when it started to rain.  Luckily though, I had opted not to wear sandals today!  That would have been terrible.  
After a long day at school, I stopped at Target to pick up a few things before work.  Food today was pretty typical.  The past week, I decided to pack less food for school/work because sometimes I didn't need the snack, but I'd eat it anyway since I had packed it.  I had a green smoothie before heading to school:

I have a green smoothie almost every morning and I love it!  It has totally changed my life.  I mean, I don't dislike eating vegetables, but it gives me some wiggle room, just in case.  Here are the packed items for the rest of the day:

That's almond milk in the big tupperware, my Trader Joe's cereal in the small baggie, a grapefruit and some almonds + chocolate chips in the small tupperware.  There was also a string cheese I added for some extra protein at the last minute...which reminds me, I had some coffee that escaped the camera too!  Ugh, rookie mistake!  
I ate the cereal around 10:00am, I just dump it in the almond milk and consume!  The grapefruit was eaten around 11:30ish...and I snacked on the almonds throughout the day.  When I finally got to work (starving!), I ate this amazing concoction:

that's roasted zucchini and sweet potato, black beans, corn, chicken breast and goat cheese.  It was amazing!  Since it was so cold, I also had some green tea in my happy mug:

Excuse my messy desk...that's pretty typical too! LOL!  I don't know what's for dinner, C won't be home until around 8 and I have a lot of work to do.  


Not really looking forward to it, but oh well!  
I realized today that I use a lot of plastic forks and spoons, I should really do something about that.  

10 Pounds.

I've been craving barbecue lately.  Must be the summah, summah, summah time coming upon California.  Maybe it's because I'm obsessed with barbecue sauce and will put it on anything.  We've been on a chicken drumstick kick the past few weeks...they're cheap.  And drumsticks are the funnest, they come with a handle!  I can buy a family pack of chicken drumsticks and it will feed us for 2 meals, plus leftovers for C's lunch.  I'm crafty, I know!
But...I saw an ad in the circulars this week for cheap ribs...so my thoughts for the past few days have included getting my crafty little hands on some ribs.  It didn't help that we went to Disneyland this past Saturday, where somebody's wife mentioned their vineyards Cabernet would go great with barbecue ribs.  (P.S. Ribs also come with a handle!)  
I headed to the store after work to find that the stuff only came in the "family pack".  A family pack of ribs is not the same as chicken.  Chicken can be nicely portioned out, it's not hard to cook chicken more than one day because it can be prepared quickly.  The ribs were not practical!  Unfortunately, that did not sway me...

So...yeah....I bought ten pounds of ribs.  


And I swear it was the smallest package. 

Reincarnation?

So, a year later (and some posts removed), so much has changed.  As of this very day, I am 24, one semester away from graduation and just over year from being married.  It slays me how much can change in just a year.  I'm in a different living space and definitely a different mind space.  A year ago, I decided to move in with my fiance!  It's so awesome!  The transition was ridiculously smooth!  
I still work at the community college I used to attend, I'm still at the same Orange County university and I'm (hopefully) going to keep on at it with their graduate program next spring.  I really want to put myself out here to help me remember this time.  I love food and get a kick out of looking back at what I ate.  I'll be doing the last minute things to plan my wedding in the next year or so.  I've always sucked royally at keeping a journal and really want to make it work this time.  
With a bit of luck and some effective time management, maybe I'll pull off reincarnating this blog.

In the beginning...

I've tried many a time to start a real blog and this time I want to make it stick! More than ever I want somewhere to put my thoughts down (when I happen to have thoughts!) and be able to hash things out. This is a huge time for change in my life, good and bad. The past few years have been difficult to power through, looking back, having a blog like this would have helped. Since that is not something I can change, I'll try to pick up as soon as possible.

Ideally, I'd like this to be a way for me to:

• Put my thoughts to paper and write my thoughts out, I want a record of this everchanging thing called life!
• Remember the good times, the crazy times and the not so good times.
• Informally track the food I eat. I am sure that this will be eye opening for me, I do my best to eat healthfully. I don't count calories, but I do look at nutrition facts. Perhaps keeping a food diary will help me realize that counting and keeping track will be better.
• Finally, as the blog name indicates, I obsess about things. Think short intense bursts of passion! Anything and everything, it depends! I kind of want to document the daily obsessions I have, I am so fickle sometimes!

I'm not sure that the general public will be interested in this... but I am excited to do this for me!