Well ALOT unfortunately.

If you follow me on Twitter then you know that my mother is in the hospital. She's ok but it appears that she has an infection associated with 1 of her implants that were inserted after her reconstructive surgery. For those of you that don't know, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, luckily we caught it at Stage 1 but due to our family history she chose to have a double mastectomy. This past Thanksgiving she had her reconstructive surgery from the mastectomy.

She had the exploratory surgery today and they removed the implant. She is doing okay and will hopefully be released tomorrow afternoon.

Luckily, the Jetplanes were planning on going back to Illinois this weekend to visit Mr's family and head on up to Chicago for a friends wedding. So I will get to drive down to my parents and hang out with my mama on Friday.

So in the meantime....I'll be taking a lil break. So unfortunately, there won't be a Pug Friday. Sorry guys...too busy, but I'll be back with vengeance :)

About these new guidelines for mammograms?


I'm in the high risk group so I believe that these 'new' guidelines don't apply to me. That being said, my mother was proactive and found her our breast cancer from a self exam. She located a very small growth (Stage 1) and is now cancer free. She is only 49 and falls into the age group they are focusing in on.

My mother is having her reconstructive surgery from her double mastectomy* next Monday in St. Louis at the Siteman Center. I'm going to make it a point to ask for their opinions on these new guidelines and I'll let you all know.

*That may seem like a bold step due to Stage 1 however, breast cancer runs in our family and the type of cancer she has an extremely strong chance of reoccurring in the other breast. After the operation and the pathology on the tissue, they did find that cells in the other breast where starting to form, so it was the best option for her.

So what our your thoughts on the new guidelines??

The Jetplanes had a great weekend but unfortunately it started on a rather sad note.

Friday afternoon we attended a memorial service for the 29 yr old wife of one of Mr. Jetplane's former instructors in his training wing. Mr. Jetplane and said instructor have been working together closely since he came back from Texas. Mr.'s stash job is sort of the IT guy for the training wing, and the two of them are to keep all the computers up and running.

It was a beautiful and heartbreaking service. I had never met this young woman but I felt the pain and grief that was radiating from everyone. Her friends had beautiful things to say about their friend, a young mother with 2 small boys. And two of her friends even held it together to sing two very moving songs. Her husband stood before the large gathering of military officers dressed in the uniforms of their branches, be that Navy, Marines, and Air Force and spoke from his heart about his wife and his gratitude for all his family and friends.

You see, the Jetplanes are stationed on a Navy base, so there isn't a large population of USAF on the base, but I'm pretty sure all of them affiliated with the flight program showed up. But to make it even better, the NC base (where most of the people who finished are located and where we will be soon enough) brought two planes over filled with the instructor's past students. It was such a wonderful gesture.

I cried like a baby, I always do. I felt for this young family and made me think about our young family how we need to appreciate everything we have.

After the service we met up with Mr.'s friends in town for the wedding... I'll do a post about this hopefully later tonight.

P.S. Thank you all for the lovely comments on our family photo shoot. I ordered the pictures and hopefully they will be soon so I can get them in the mail to our mamas.... They may get an IOU card for Mother's Day.

P.S.S. We have decided how to celebrate our 1 yr anniversary and Mrs. Jetplane will be blogging somewhere else as well... news to come...

XOXO

And since it's Friday, Mrs. Jetplane has to give you some puggie lovin. I have no idea where this picture came from, I saved it a long time ago, so apologies, but I adore it. My puggie, loves, loves, loves, to take baths, and has been known on occasion to jump in the shower with you.

He did it all the time when he was a puppy. He just likes to stand in the shower with his head down letting the water hit him. Its very cute, but sometimes annoying.

Thank you for the wonderful comments on the portrait in the post below, I cannot wait to mail up to my parents next week. If you are seriously interested in a portrait email and we can talk about. Since my blog is on the DL, and I don't want anyone from work knowing about it, we have be kinda sneaky...

The artist is taking orders, however I believe I got a pretty good deal due to the fact that we're friends. I've recommended to her to start up an etsy store, she's interested in doing that but hasn't set it up yet. Right now, she has quite a bit of business and has a wait list.

Oh and I also bought a set of t-shirt sheets in lime green. The master bedroom is navy, white, and hints of lime green. Mr. Jetplane has t-shirt sheets on his bed in Texas and says he wanted them at home. So we'll see how it goes, if I don't like them, well they'll get put to use on the air mattress.

I'm kinda a sheet snob, and I require them to be really soft. I personally enjoy an all white bed, but soon learned after we moved in together, that wouldn't be in the plan for us. You see Mr. Jetplane's body emits some weird stuff in his sleep and he literally stains the sheets. My beautiful high thread count white sheets, I bleach the crap out of them but it got to be really annoying. My mom said it was metals and impurities in his skin, I don't know what it was other than totally disgusting.

So I'll give you the update on the t-shirt sheets. I have to admit, while they do keep me warm, they remind me of shacking up with my old college boyfriend, he had jersey sheets.

So there... My shopping is all out in the open. But I promise to be good the rest of the month....

Yeah... I leave this afternoon for Illinois. I'm trying to get out of work early today to hit the road early, we'll see how that works out for me.

So I wanted to leave you all with a couple of things.

1. THANK YOU ALL so much for all the love and support you have given me the past few days. Hugs and kisses to you all.

2. Thank you to Mrs. Stilettos for the lovely award. I hope to blog about it soon.

3. Did anyone watch the reunion show for Housewives of ATL, that was ridiculous and amazing all at the same time. I also watch the premiere of the OC ones as well. I think I saw Gretchen and her hubby on an episode of some show on HGTV. They redid their backyard. I never forget a face, and since I do recall noticing the age difference, I'm pretty sure I'm right. I'm assuming its before he was diagnosed b/c he wasn't as thin.

4. The Mr. is a new lover of Black Friday. He went to Circuit City last year and got us GPS systems for our cars. This year he wants to go to Best Buy, we'll see if he wants to get up.

5. The Mr. and I are going to see Twilight on Friday afternoon. I got him to read all the books. We both don't think the movie looks all that good, so we're going in with lower expectations, hopefully those are met.

6. I am craving mini, bite size pecan pies that are bought to our house by my mom's cousin.

7. My crazy mother, is still having Thanksgiving at our house with all our family. My step dad called everyone before her surgery and said we weren't having it. My mom called and bitched everyone out and said she'd be pissed if everyone didn't come. Luckily, they are all bringing 80% of the stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm going to have a scheduled post on Friday for all you Puggie Lovers out there.

My mom's surgery is scheduled for November 19th. I'm scared and nervous, but so ready to have her get the surgery over and done with. We're trying to figure out if I can meet them in STL or wait till Thanksgiving because I was planning on taking time off to head home...

Its times like these, I just wish the Mr. was around to lean on, physically that is. I miss him.

My mom had her appointment at the Siteman Center yesterday. It was an all day affair but well worth it. She got to meet with her surgeon, her plastic surgeon, got all of her blood work, etc. taken care of.

Her surgeon said that there is a good chance that this cancer is still at a Stage 1 phase, however we won't know for sure until the surgery. Based upon the type of cancer she has the likelihood of it coming back and appearing in the other breast is high, so he was very happy that my mom had already decided she would be having a double mascetomy. The only issue that concerns him is that there are some very small clusters of cancerous cells in that same breast, but since she is having mascetomy it shouldn't cause too much of an issue.

She felt that the staff was excellent. They talked with her at length about her cancer, the surgery, what they can offer her, etc. etc. She feels so much better about the situation now. It looks like they have her scheduled for surgery in 2 to 3 weeks, since they have to schedule the surgeons together. After the surgery she'll have spacers implanted in her breasts and regularly go and they will inject them with saline solution to inflate them.

FYI- My mother does have breast implants, but that in no way was the cause of her cancer. Ironically enough, having never been happy with her breasts and getting implants over 10 years ago, has allowed her to deal with the mascetomy much better.

I want to say thank you to everyone for their kinds words. And thank you to Kayte whomever you are and wherever you are, I appreciated your kinds words and thoughts on the Siteman Center. I pray for your mother as well.

Ok. I haven't written about my mom in a while. As you may recall, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer several weeks ago. My frustration level with service that she has been receiving from a Dr close to home is at an all time high.

My mom was referred to this female doctor from a cousin whom had recently been treated with her, so my mom took that referral very highly. Well needless to say, that Dr, in my own humble opinion, is a POS. She has totally dropped the ball, and my mom has suffered from it.

#1 this is cancer people, you shouldn't have to explain that to a doctor. This process of her getting a mastectomy should have already been completed, she shouldn't have to repeatedly call to get results, find out referrals, etc. If she went into the DR with a broken arm, it would be treated right away, why can't this be... Ok, let me explain a little.

1. Up until a complete of weeks ago, she didn't even know what stage the cancer was. They had never cared to tell her.
2. They referred her to a hospital in the central part of the state that didn't accept her health insurance.
3. They didn't even figure that out, my mom called and spoke to several people at the hospital. They finally said we'll take you but you have to process your own claims to the insurance company... WTF are you kidding me... do I want to go bankrupt.
4. They had never given her a copy of any of her records.
5. My mom asked to go to St Louis, and the Dr said that wouldn't be possible.
6. Finally, my mom called to get all her records to take them to a new Dr she found in STL, at a top notch cancer institute, that takes her insurance, and you know what the Dr's cancer nurse said to her.... "Well we're gonna need you to come in and do another biopsy...
"Excuse me, she's getting a freaking mastectomy. I know its cancer, we've determined that weeks ago. She wants it the hell out of her why do we need to take another look...

So today, my mom has her appointment at the Sitman Cancer Center, a great cancer center associated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Wash U Medical School. Her appointment is with the Dept Head. I very excited for her, I mean as excited as you can be in this situation.

Its a wonderful, teaching hospital and there she will be able to participate the new procedures, clinical trials, and see some of the Midwest finest Doctors. I have a close friend that is an oncology rep for a drug manufacturer and she says that outside of Mayo, Sitman is the best cancer institute in the Midwest.

She should leave today with a plan of action, an idea of next steps, and hopefully a date for the surgery. Which is more than her other Dr ever did for her.

I'm so proud of her for taking control of the situation, and not settling for the BS that the Dr was giving her.

FYI - her original DR referred her to a State University Hospital located at the capital city of our state. My step-father is an elected official and has state health insurance. The Medical School which is funded by the state would not accept my mother's health insurance. What kind of crap is that.

For now, I'm letting the bad thoughts exit my body and only letting good energy in....

Do you know who this woman is? Well you should, we all should!