In Which I Discuss Breast MRIs and Saving Nipples

Gentle readers, for this entry, I'm going to back track a little and discuss the breast MRI. You, like I, may be wondering "but, what makes this so different from a regular MRI?" Never fear, for I will explain. First, photos. The stark, plain one is a photo of what I referred to as the rig, the second is an example of how I (and other patients) are positioned for the scan. In my case, my arms were more extended, more like Supergirl or something, and I had an IV in my right hand. (And a 'panic button' bulb in my left.) 

The patient is naked from the waist up and, see those rectangular holes? That's where the breasts go. And then something was moved inwards to rest right next to them - unsure if it was to help with placement or to help direct the 'waves,' but it was fucking weird. I walked into the room in my gown & scrub pants and started giggling. Pretty sure the technicians thought I was crazy, but they ended up agreeing that yeah it is "unusual" looking. The people at Valley Radiology's breast center did their best to make it, um, comfortable, but my hands were going pins & needles by the end. (It was roughly 25 minutes long.) This procedure sucked ass. But, it did conclusively show that there was only cancer in my left breast. Side note: had I opted for a lumpectomy, because of my genetic mutation, I would have had to do this as well as the diagnostic mammogram & ultrasound every 6 months. 

Now, on to the discussion of nipples. Namely, mine. During the to keep or not to keep my breasts, I brought up the possibility of keeping some of the outer parts. Keep in mind, Jason & I had found out the evening before and had spent a little time researching how this works. Dr. O'Neill (my surgeon) said there were different types of mastectomies - including skin sparing and nipple sparing. She thought I should speak to a plastic surgeon, so I went. You see, and this may be TMI for some people, I wanted to keep as much of the original me as possible. Particularly my nipples, for reasons of sexy times. Mentioning this to one of my good friends, Amarise, resulted in this exchange:

Amarise: "Nipple conservation sounds like something people would pass out pamphlets about."

Me: "YES! HAHA! 'Save the nipples!  

Amarise: “Every year more and more nipples are disappearing. How will you stop it?”

Me: "Won't you please help?"

sad music in the background

Amarise: Cue Sara McLaughlin

So you can see I tried to keep a sense of humor about all this. The plastic surgeon advised that due to the size & shape of my breasts, nipple sparing surgery would not be a good plan. When rebuilt, my nipples would end up pointing down, which...ew. I did not want that. I later found online something about procedure called free nipple grafting. Where, during the mastectomy surgery, the nipple and part of the areola are removed & grafted to another part of the body. I was excited about this option and my plastic surgeon was game to try it, so that's what we did during the mastectomy. 

Getting the surgery scheduled was a pain in the ass. Two surgeons were involved which meant getting both schedules to align. And it would have been easier if the plastic surgeon's assistant hadn't sat on a VM I left for an entire week. There was a lot of back & forth prior to this, but then yeah. She sat on it for a week, then informed me my surgery was on 5/15 and I said "no," asking for it to be rescheduled because Phoenix Comic Fest (or whatever they call themselves currently) was the following week.

Now look, I know many of you reading probably think I'm crazy. That's fine. But the fact is, it was a small tumor, caught very early, I was expected at con as a panelist, and dammit, I was going to have some fun before this all got super serious. After a little more back & forth, they were able to acquiesce to my request and scheduled me for surgery on 5/30. Everything leading up to a surgery date felt like a runaway train, despite medical professionals saying things like "you're in control" and "whatever you want." I saw making them schedule when I wanted as a way to take back control - besides, I hate it when doctors schedule appointments & then tell you when to show up instead of asking. So, I got to meet comic writers I love, be Black Widow, and Osgood.

Me with some Bombshell Batwoman
cosplayers

Comics writer James Tynion IV

           

  

Marguerite Bennett, comics
writer, cat lover, Hufflepuff

                                  

Star Wars & Me

If I had a relationship status with Star Wars, it would be "it's complicated."

The first Star Wars movie I remember seeing is Return of the Jedi. My mom took me to see it in the theatre & I was hooked. I wanted to hang out with Ewoks & celebrate the downfall of the Empire. I saw the others later on cable & at the time really didn't appreciate Empire enough.

Fast forward to getting super excited for The Phantom Menace. They were going to start at the beginning! That (opening) Thursday, I accepted an invitation from a friend to hit up the midnight showing, long line & all - we had such a good time. But the movie... was lackluster. I felt the same way about the next two prequels. A little later, a friend pressed a copy of the novelization of Revenge of the Sith into my hands and said "read this." It was amazing. Why couldn't they have filmed THAT?! (Tor.com goes further.)

Me with purple lightsaber.

Basically, the prequels soured me on Star Wars. I liked the franchise, but wasn't what I considered a fan. When news broke that Disney had acquired Star Wars, Lucasfilm, the whole shebang, I got cautiously excited, especially when they started talking making more movies.

Flash forward to 2015. It was going to happen, Episode VII. Then, the teaser dropped.

"Chewy, we're home"

I cried. Lord help me, I cried at my desk where I really shouldn't have been watching but did anyway. Then when a friend came by, we watched it together on his phone. After talking animatedly about it, we moved our nerdfest to another friend's cube. Later that year, I helped transform our unit at work into a Star Wars-themed area and it was super fun, even if I'm still a little bitter we lost.

I still have a TIE fighter. And Han in carbonite all printed out.

There he was hanging on a wall,
now, he lives in our dining room.

They had me again at that teaser. Then when I watched the full trailer, tears streaming down my face, I whispered to the universe "please don't suck." And it didn't. Ok, that one part was heartbreaking, but the movie didn't suck. Then came Rogue One. Which also didn't suck. In fact, it was fucking amazing. My faith has been restored.

I've dived deep into the Wookieepedia on the history of the Jedi/Sith conflict. Discussed theories with friends, angrily dissected why someone would favor the Empire/First Order over the Rebellion/Resistance. Basically, I'm just about all in.

And when Carrie Fisher passed away in December, I sobbed openly - again, at work - because there was no other reaction I could possibly have. When I got home, I cried some more while reading tributes, talking with friends, and talking with my husband. She played my first real hero in a movie and when I learned more about her later as person, that status applied to her as well. I have been pondering a piece about her, but now, even 4 months later, it feels almost too raw to write.

Today, the teaser trailer for The Last Jedi dropped. (Go watch it, I'll wait.) So many emotions were raised, along with SO MANY QUESTIONS!! I am incredibly excited for this new film and the next step in this ever-evolving saga. It was also announced today that Captain Phasma is getting a full length novel written about her, by wonderful wordsmith, Delilah S. Dawson. I'm a Rebel to the core, but man, I need to know about Phasma! (I will note that this attachment largely stems to my love of the woman in the suit - Gwendoline Christie. AKA, Brienne of Tarth.) I've never purchased a Star Wars book before, but man, this sucker is getting pre-ordered.

So to round out, I feel a bit like I've come full circle with Star Wars. I'm a fan again, wholeheartedly, and I couldn't be happier about it. (Though the day I got an Ewok hooded scarf comes pretty damn close to the overall feeling.)

May the Force be with you.

Why yes, I *did* wear this to see TFA!

It's Ok To Be Weird

I very rarely read non-fiction. But I made an exception for Felicia Day and her book You're Never Weird on the Internet (almost). I first noticed Felicia Day in season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the character Vi: a geeky, potential slayer who ends up surviving the final battle to live on in the comic books. Now, she is most widely known in some circles as the creator of the YouTube channel Geek & Sundry and the web series, The Guild.

Get it! So good!

Her book is written in a somewhat linear fashion. It does progress through her life, but chapters/years backtrack to give more detail about a different subject. For example, a chapter discusses her love of acting and performing, starting when she was about 7 years old all the way through trying to succeed in Hollywood through small roles here & there and making herself over into someone who looked more hireable. It ends with the mention of her discovering World of Warcraft, while the next (titled 'Quirky Addiction = Still an Addiction') has an introductory blurb of “how my obssessive personality steered me into a twelve-hour-a-day gaming addiction and an alt-life as a level 60 warlock named Codex” and starts with her detailing her anal retentive tendencies from childhood.

She was homeschooled until the age of 16 when her violin teacher managed to help her gain a scholarship to the University of Texas. There she double-majored in violin and math. While at UT, she dove into her studies and worked hard to achieve a 4.0 GPA, at one point despite the advice of a professor. It was for a math course called Group Theory, which is, according to day “legendary” for its difficulty, and he felt that she grasped it well enough that her free time could be better spent experiencing life rather than trying to drill concepts she would never use again. In the end, Day disregarded his advice, getting that coveted perfect GPA. However, once she arrived in Hollywood and began trying for acting and other jobs, she discovered that the rest of the world doesn't always care about academic success, or any succes she'd had in small community theater productions. It was one thing that brought her down at first, because her academic life was one fueled by the desire for success and high performance.

Along with her own progression, the book charts the progress of computers and the Internet, waxing humorously nostalgic about the old dial-up days when one of the first service providers charged by the minute. (She & her brother once ran up a $400 phone bill trying to get tips for the online game, Ultima.) There is also a great story of when her mom took Felicia & her brother on a road trip so she could meet some of her online buddies in person when she was fifteen.

Though Joss Whedon wrote the introduction, there's no talk of what it was like to be a potential Slayer in season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or what it has been like to be part of Supernatural. She does not speak much of the mainstream projects that brought her to the public eye. Rather, she talks about her own personal struggles to achieve her own niche in the world and create her dream project, a webseries called The Guild – and later, Geek & Sundry.

She speaks openly of that she's always been anxious, has a desire for perfection, and control as well as depression, that drove her life during some of this time. Eventually, she suffered from physical problems – hair falling out, an acid reflux problem normally seen in middle-aged men, and other health issues that forced her to seek help for both mental and physical well-being. Along with that came one of the harder things that we all have to learn, being able to say no out of self-care.

There is also a chapter where she weighs in about Gamergate – the scandal/hashtag/controversy that swept through the gaming community last year. That chapter in particular is a very sobering read, as she recounts getting a text from a friend telling her to close the comments on her Tumblr account, because someone had just published her home address. The anxiety and fear that Day experienced is tangible and I truly felt for her situation. Thankfully, nothing terrible happened to Day as a result of the breech of privacy.

One of the highlights in the book is an anecdote about shopping with her dad, where he questioned what she was doing with The Guild, because at that time, nobody was making web series – hers was one of the first. As he was asking Day about her choices, an employee of the store politely asked if he could take a photo with her, saying he & his roommate were big fans. This incident illustrated to her dad that, while he might not understand what she was doing, she was obviously doing it well.

I picked up my book at a signing and while there was no talk or Q&A, she high-fived me as I came through over our mutual love of the Lumberjanes comic.

I found that I identified quite a bit with Ms. Day, particularly with regard to academic achievement and the feeling of disillusionment that comes when one realizes that most people in the non-academic world really don't care about your GPA. In the end, her message is clear – do what you love, love what you love, and it's totally okay to be weird.

Mandi & I meeting Felicia. We normally look better than this. It was
a million degrees in the store. In August.

*This piece received editing assistance from the lovely & talented Jess Standifird.