I let my little girl play with the junk mail because she loves the pictures, and the bold, eye-catching fonts are great for learning letter recognition.
But I didn’t expect her to fill out a credit card application.
Some day soon, I’m afraid our junk mail games will have to include a conversation about usurious interest rates, and the weight of debt. But for today, I’m just going to marvel at her form completion skills. This is an important life skill; it’s practice for the SATs, right?
They say people learn a lot about themselves when they have to cope with a life threatening disease like cancer. Some discover vast reserves of strength, courage, and resilience. I discovered my brain was probed by aliens. 😉
When chemo took my hair, my newly denuded scalp revealed more than just skin. It showed off a set of scars for which I could recall no viable cause. I racked my brain for minutes on end, and then I called my mom and asked her if I’d had any injuries or surgeries that would cause a scar like that. She couldn’t think of anything either.
It must have been an alien brain probe. There is really no other explanation.
A few days later Mom remembered that I totaled my car in high school and ended up in the hospital for a week. I even lost a few days memory in that wreck. But neither of us remember any extensive stitches or bandages that ventured beyond the hairline, and I’m quite fond of the alien brain probe theory.
Perhaps the aliens caused the wreck to cover abducting me, probed my brain, stole my memory, and then returned me in time for the ambulance to take me to the hospital. That would also absolve me of responsibility for that car accident, and explain my weird sense of humor.
One of the frustrations I’ve had to deal with because of this breast cancer is my lopsidedness. Getting dressed in the morning takes quite a bit more thought and planning than ever before. I wasn’t small breasted to start with, but thanks to my mastectomy I have a bouncy D-Cup that swings a little lower since breastfeeding, and a rock hard, absurdly high, almost A-cup.
To make matters a little more interesting, the mastectomy side is augmented by a saline implant called an expander. I periodically go in for expansions, which means they inject more saline into the implant. This is in preparation for reconstruction after I complete the cancer treatment, but the expansions have to be complete before I start radiation. As a result, the size and shape of my mastectomy side “breast” changes to frequently. I’ll wait till the size and shape stabilizes to invest in a prosthesis, in the meantime I’m stuffing my bra with socks.
Yeah, you read that right. I’m stuffing my bra with socks. How very seventh grade. But at least in junior high they were both the same size, I wasn’t trying to make different sizes match each other. No matter how many socks I stuff into this bra, they will never bounce quite like my real breast.
The Stuffed Bra that Wont Stay Stuffed
These socks were made for wandering, and they do like to tour my chest wall as I’m moving about. They really like to get around while I’m running on the treadmill. Before I know it, they’ve worked their way under my armpit and each pump of my arm jams them a little further back under my arm, or even more frequently, they pile up right in the center of my chest. Excuse me a moment while I reach in and readjust my “girls” while running, and hopefully not stumbling, on the treadmill. Graceful, no? I find myself pushing my socks back into place as I walk around town. The boob is gone, it doesn’t feel like a boob anymore, so it’s easy to forget that while they’re just socks to me, to the average pedestrian it looks like I’m groping and playing with my boobs and I try to corral them back into place.
And yoga? the socks are likely to wind up just about anywhere, but I’ve mastered the art of readjustment during downward dog. People look at each other less during yoga anyways.
It’s not just while I’m exercising that the socks become an issue. A few weeks ago we sailed around Seattle on a gorgeous schooner. I disembarked the ship and my husband handed my 1 year old daughter down to me. She was a little wobbly on her feet as I set her down and knelt next to her on the deck. To catch her balance, she reached up and grabbed my shirt, and managed to grab my bra in the same handful. Out tumbled my sports socks in full sight of everyone looking down from the ship.
So if you see me out and about with a big lump under my arm, or up by my neck, or down by my abdomen, its just an errant sock trying to make a break for it. No need for concern. You might even be treated to a glimpse of my readjustment dance as I try to surreptitiously work it back into place.
Every time my husband shaves off his beard, he first shaves his facial hair into interesting and amusing shapes. What he keeps forgetting is that there is a down-side to being married to a blogger. There is a really good chance I’m going to ambush him with a camera and post the results online.
For the record, Baby thought Daddy looked pretty funny too.
I knew it wouldn’t take long for her to wrap Daddy around her little fingers. I didn’t think it would be so literal. Baby Girl likes to grab the hair that grows at the base of Daddy’s throat.
Of course when Daddy calls for Mommy to rescue him from Baby’s clutches, Mommy laughs and stops to take a picture first.
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