A Kick-Ass Fairy: A Memoir by Linda Zercoe

Author:Linda Zercoe [Zercoe, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Cancer, Nonfiction, Retail
ISBN: 9780989581554
Publisher: Hidden Oak Press
Published: 2013-11-24T05:00:00+00:00

Thanksgiving came and went, and, yes, we certainly had many things for which to be thankful. Hopefully, my health, our marriage, our lives were on the road to recovery. In the midst of the flurry, Kim’s cutting classes reached a crescendo when, while sitting in the line of cars waiting to pick kids up at the end of the day, I saw a couple of teens making out on the hill above me. I remember thinking, How would the parents of these two feel, knowing that all the parents waiting in their cars were observing this spectacle in full view?

Then I saw that it was in fact my daughter on the grass with some boy, and that she was cutting class for this interlude.

When Kim got into the car and I confronted her, she excused her behavior by saying she missed her biological father and her boyfriend was helping her to deal with all that was going on. How manipulative, I thought. That might have worked in middle school, but no more. I told her to knock it off and grounded her.

On December 4, I had the surgery to place the expander implant in my left breast, surgery number ten. It required an overnight stay in the hospital, and if everything went well, the doctor would continue to inflate the expander with saline at regular intervals to stretch the skin. Another surgery would be required eventually, to replace the expander with a regular implant. At least it would ultimately fill a bra, they assured me. I would no longer have to use the breast prosthesis, which was hot, heavy, and cumbersome. In some small measure, I would finally be somewhat physically “whole” again.

The Christmas season was full of festive activities. We saw the San Francisco Symphony and Choir for the performance of Handel’s Messiah. We went to the Christmas pageant at church, Kim’s holiday choral concert and various holiday parties. I had my breast expander topped off.

I also had the first of three appointments with a genetic risk counselor. I thought maybe there was a genetic reason these things had happened to me. I was concerned that my ovaries and not my breasts were the real ticking bomb.

Recently, my mother’s brother, who was in his sixties and already had been diagnosed with early-stage colon cancer, had also been diagnosed with prostate cancer. My mother had had three precancerous polyps removed from her colon in 1990. Most frightening was my cousin Anthony, a first cousin, the oldest child of my mother’s oldest sister, who at age 49 was diagnosed recently with lung adenocarcinoma, which had metastasized to the lymph nodes in his left armpit. His tumors were large, and he died within a few months.

I wanted to be certain that I was doing everything I should be doing as well as taking advantage of all the medical information that was currently available. The genetic counselor discussed the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 gene mutations at length, and she thought I would be a good candidate for this testing.

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