An Unbelievable Show of Love and Appreciation

This week I had the most incredible experience. My school "family" welcomed me back to work by holding a flash mob in my honor.

It all started during my medical leave. One day I checked my work email from home and came across an email a dear friend in my department, Chris, sent out to all of the faculty at my school. Well, being one of the faculty, the email came to me, too. It said that she was planning a surprise for me upon my return and wanted to get as many faculty and students involved as possible. I told Beni about it, but otherwise, pretended I knew nothing.

On Monday, March 5th I returned to work and got many "Welcome back"s and hugs from both colleagues and students. I really felt I had been missed. I began to suspect something was going to happen on Wednesday, when Chris asked me on Tuesday if I'd be around Wednesday after school. Sure enough, Wednesday during the last period of the day, Chris was walking around with her camera. My team teacher for the last class of the day, Kathy, who usually leaves right after work, stuck around the classroom much longer than usual making excuses for having to look for student work in the class folder. When she offered to rearrange books in my classroom library, I knew something was going on for sure!

So, I kind of braced myself. I thought maybe a small group of students and staff would come into my room and do a cute song and dance number. Little did I know . . .

A couple of girls with pink hats walked by my classroom and started to sing Bette Midler's "Wing Beneath My Wings". I went into the hallway to see what was going on. Chris met me at my door and told me she'd just come from the office and that there was a delivery for me and I should go and see what it was. I played along and she said she'd come with me. We headed down the stairs and a small group of students were putting on a skit on the first landing. One was dressed in black and was being beaten by three brightly colored, masked "good guys". I didn't realize it at the time, but they were the "good guys" beating the "bad guy" (cancer). In fact, I thought they were fighting at first.

We continued down the stairs and at the bottom was the school's GSA club, which I helped start years ago but just stepped down from this year, cheering for me and holding up signs. I started to cry at that point, but there were far more tears to come. Outside of the stair well was my fellow teacher, dressed in Renaissance regalia. He crowned me with a tiara and escorted me down the hallway. Other teachers and students began to follow us down the hall, all singing "Wind Beneath My Wings".

When we got to the school's main hallway, I was blown away. The hall was lined with students, teachers, counselors, and secretaries all cheering for me and holding signs of support and welcome. More tears. I had to keep telling myself not to "ugly cry". I was handed a beautiful bouquet of roses. Members of the school's Operation Snowball club hung a gigantic "warm fuzzy", which is a big pom pom made of yarn, around my neck. (You use your strands of yarn to tie on others' "warm fuzzies" when you pay them a compliment and vice versa.) Then we walked into the auditorium lobby where the dance team and cheerleaders - along with anyone who wanted to join them, danced to "Survivor" by Destiny's Child. Then they did a cheer in my honor, holding up the letters of my name.

Needless to say, I was moved beyond words. Never in my wildest imaginings did I think so many people would turn up to welcome me back. I felt like a celebrity. There were many hugs and photos taken and I went home that night feeling high on love. Actually, I think I'm going to be on this high for quite a long time.

Here's a four minute, edited, highlight clip from the 20+ minute experience:

And now, like a celebrity, there are many people that I need to thank.

Heartfelt thanks go out to:

Christina Boyles, for organizing this amazing event and being the sweetest soul I know

Stacey Welton, for leading the students in song

Kyle Welton for his choreography and his darling girlfriend, whose name I forget, for videotaping

Jake Stewart, for holding me up when my legs were weak

Heather Curry and GSA

Operation Snowball

Sheila Conrad, the best principal I've ever worked with

Clayton Muhammad, EA's very own paparazzi

The Dance Team

The Cheerleaders

All of the teachers and staff who attended, especially those in my department and those who participated in the flashmob

All of the students who came to show their support - many of whom I don't even know

This was an experience I will NEVER EVER forget! I love my EA Family!

Back by Popular Demand

I can't tell you how flattering it is to hear that people out there are waiting for the lastest update to my blog. (K.M. this one is dedicated to you!) It has been a long time and I have no excuse since I have been sitting at home relaxing. The good news is that I have A LOT to write about this time!

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who sent cards and gifts to us as I recovered. Your thoughtfulness is so appreciated. We enjoyed four Edible Arrangements, a Harry & David fruit and nut basket, roses, a plant, Shari's Berries, a yummy casserole, and many generous gift cards.

It seems like it took forever, but I am finally drain-free. I started off after surgery with four drains coming out of my sides - two on each side right under my armpit. On my one week post-op visit, two drains came out. After two weeks, the doctor gave me the go ahead to take showers again. I was so thankful to be able to shower that the nuisance of having to string my drains around my neck on a shoestring to do so was welcomed! It wasn't until three weeks after that the third was removed and four weeks after that the last one came out. That was this past Monday and I cannot tell you what a difference it has made! Not having that unsightly lump under my clothes has been liberating and I feel like I can go out in public again and, in fact, have.

This week was kind of up-in-the-air as far as work went. I felt ready enough to go back to work but couldn't go until the drain came out. The doctor was concerned about exposing the drain entrance to germs. Also, my long-term sub was wrapping up the lessons he had begun with my students, Thursday was a half day, and Friday was an in-service day, so I opted to take the week off and dedicate it to preparing myself for my return to work on Monday, March 5th. On Tuesday, I went out and did a little long-awaited shopping and got the new-growth around my eyebrows waxed. That's right! There is enough to get waxed! Hooray! On Wednesday, I got my hair colored. I guess now I can safely say that my natural color is gray, but I am not ready at 42 to be totally gray. I went back to my pre-cancer brown. It came out reddish at first, but my fabulous colorist did something to it to darken it and luckily it worked. Unfortunately, the darker color made the lack of hair above my forehead more obvious, which I am a little self-conscious about, but I am getting used to it and refusing to put my wig on again! That ship has sailed!

Thursday was a big day because in the evening I attended Parent Teacher Conferences. It seems absolutely ridiculous, but I was more nervous about going to conferences and seeing all of my colleagues - and more importantly them seeing me with my super-short hair - for the first time since taking leave. I literally felt nauseous as I dressed and then drove to school. I knew this was crazy since I had not even felt this anxious before my double mastectomy. Once there, everyone was so nice and complemented me, which made me feel so much better. I saw many of my students and they were all happy to see me and asked how I was doing and many gave me hugs. By the end of the night, I felt much less self-conscious. I'm sure there will be a couple of smart-ass students who will have something dumb to say when I return to work on Monday (most of which I expect to come from my 9th period), but the support I got Thursday night will help me brush off their immature comments.

Sleeping has also gotten so much better with the last drain out. I am now able to sleep on my sides again which has been fantastic. When I still had two drains in, I was sleeping on the living room couch, which gave me enough support to lay somewhat on my side without smashing the drains and collections bulbs. Now I am back in my bed and so glad to be there!

If you are hoping to see a picture of my new darker do, here it comes. As I uploaded the picture I was looking at some older ones and it is amazing how much my hair has grown in just the last month! Take a look:

This is soon after coming home from the hospital after surgery, sometime in the first week of February. I can tell because I can see the cumbersome surgi-bra under my shirt:

Here I am on Wednesday, February 29th before getting my hair colored:

And this is me, today, March 3rd, about one month later with dark hair again. I call it The Uber-Pixie:

Notice the eyebrows, too! Once those puppies started showing up, they grew super-fast. My eyelashes are also long enough to use a little mascara! Yay!

On Monday I will be back to work full-time and can't wait. I have missed my colleagues and my students so much and can't wait to get off my butt and back into the swing of things.

I still have a few more appointments in March with the plastic surgeon to get my expanders filled. Right now, I'd say I'm probably at about a B cup. I'd like to get up to a C at minimum and maybe even a small D if possible, but we'll see how it feels. The weird thing about expanders is that your new breasts feel like solid rocks. I am getting used to the feeling but in the beginning it is strange. You don't have the movement you'd have with real breasts or even implants. I suppose it's convenient for exercising, so there isn't a lot of flopping going on, but sleeping is strange. As I've said before, I'm a side sleeper, and was used to my breasts kind of sloping down when I turned. Not anymore. There's one rock against the mattress and another under my arm. The surgeon said this will not be the case when the permanent implants are put in later, but for now it is just a matter of getting used to them. I explained it to Beni like this: Imagine going to bed with shoulder pads on. It would be heavy and uncomfortable. Now imagine that feeling in your chest. The great thing is that since I got the last drain out I have been going bra-less! It is AWESOME! I usually wear a tank top because I find it a little naughty not to have anything between me and my shirt, but I am loving it! Don't know if I'll be able to get away with this when the implants are in, so I'm enjoying it while I can!

Once the expanders are filled I will start radiation. I met with the radiologist and she said that if we were one year in the future, I probably wouldn't have to have radiation at all since the cancer is gone, but since studies are still in progress and there is not yet a definitive study that says radiation is totally unnecessary in my case, we are going to play it safe. I am fine with that. Better safe than sorry, I say, and it seems the process will be nothing compared to chemo. The way I see it, the hard part is over. Chemo and major surgery are behind me. I'm over the hump and it will be all downhill from here!