I met Colleen, aka Classy Mommy, at Camp Baby earlier this month. As women are wont to do, we were talking about our kids and somehow the topic shifted to boobs. Always the boobs with moms!

Like me, Colleen had a breast cancer scare last year. Her daughter was only 9 weeks old. She ended up having a lumpectomy, just like I did last fall, and thankfully found out that she, too, was cancer free. We both talked about how frightening the experience was and how lucky we are to have our health. Once you’ve gone through any type of cancer scare, you realize how fragile life can be. My mother-in-law is a breast cancer survivor as is Miss C’s soccer coach. Every day I notice the familiar “pink ribbon” of someone battling or who has battled breast cancer.

Colleen has put together an amazing prize package for a mom who has or is battling breast cancer as part of a special giveaway in honor of Mother’s Day. The items range from a boutique diaper bag to a Kate Spade purse to toys to CDs to bath and body products and have a total retail value of more than $1,200! She’s accepting nominations via e-mail to giveaways@classymommy.com through May 11 (Mother’s Day).

Visit the Classy Mommy blog for full details about what to include in your nomination e-mail.

This is a wonderful opportunity to help a breast cancer patient, and mom, and make their Mother’s Day a little brighter. I know Colleen would appreciate it if you helped spread the word!

…and I got ‘em!

I went to my surgeon’s office today for a followup to my recent lumpectomy and I have no cancer, just good ole rubbery, normal, boring, common bumpy fibrocystic tissue!

I was about 95 percent sure I was fine, but that annoying doubtful worrisome 5 percent was making me nuts.

I’ll go back in June for a six-month followup and mammogram, but I believe my days of complicated mammogram films and general angst over my boobs is over. This started a year ago when I first felt that new pea-size lump.

My mother-in-law starts radiation next week so please continue to send positive thoughts and prayers her way.

Thanks ya’ll. No more booby talk from me. We’re still potty training Miss A and she’s on a strike right now, though, so the poop talk will continue…only the best on my blog.

Also the nurse practitioner told me it looked like I had no volume loss and we know what that means. Wonderbras would be a bonus, but not a necessity, in my Christmas stocking. I’m so glad I have good booby genes.

So I am currently obsessed with boobs.

This runs the gamut from what they are supposed to look like to what they are supposed to feel like. I don’t think I will ever know for sure what a “normal” breast feels like, as I am apparently a woman who has the nutty variety.

Yesterday at work I was overcome with the feeling of, “Oh my God this itches, itches, itches!” and tried desperately not to scratch my incision. Up until this morning I had a plastic wrap looking type adhesive over the area to protect the bandage and steri strips. I am not in any pain or real discomfort. But the random itching. Ugh! It’s hit me at the most inconvenient moments, like when standing in line at the grocery or walking into the break room at work.

The girls keep asking to see my boo boo and I am glad to oblige, lifting up my shirt so they can see my bandage and I can assure them that mama is just fine.

“They cut you mommy? They cut it out? I see your boo boo?” Miss A asks, before she moves on to more pressing matters like watching Diego on Nick Jr. asking for chocolate milk, “NOT WHITE MILK MOMMY!” for the bazillionth time.

This all gives new meaning to the expression, “Show us your t*ts!”

p.s. All kidding aside, thank you for the prayers and concern. It is amazing to me how people I don’t really know in real life have offered up prayers for me. I am a big baby, I’ll wholeheartedly admit it, and I will be relieved to hear definitively from the surgeon that I only have fibrocystic disease. I know you’ll be glad to stop reading about my boobs, too, now won’t you?

Yesterday morning I had a date with a boob man.

I had a surgical biopsy on my right breast, which really turned out to be more of a lumpectomy as the surgeon removed two walnut-size masses that he said were severe fibrocystic disease. I’ll go back December 10 for the definitive lab results, but I feel pretty confident that I am OK. I’m sure I’d ever have a “normal” mammogram until the fibrocystic area in question was taken out, so I’m glad to have almost all of this behind me and out of me. I keep reminding myself to be thankful the radiologists were proactive in suggesting I go ahead and have surgery.

When they started prepping me the nurse wrote in big black letters the word “yes” on my right boob. You know, just in case they couldn’t figure that out from my charts. I also got a kick of eavesdropping on the little old Southern old lady next door in the prep area. When the anesthesiologist asked her if she’d ever had surgery she replied, “Which one? I can tell you about the time I swallered a corsage pin.”

This was an outpatient procedure and yesterday evening the girls were yes ma’aming and no ma’aming me and I love you mommying me and, if that wasn’t enough to throughly kiss this mama’s booty and make me envision the girls bringing me Bon Bons and pushing me around in a wheelchair when I’m 90, Miss A willingly peed in the potty all by herself! The hubby has also been most awesome and my mother watched Miss C yesterday because she was running a fever and could not go to school. We just won’t talk about the fact that I gave her cold and cough medicine on an empty stomach and not once, but twice, on the way to my mom’s the hubby had to stop the car so Miss C could throw up. The hubby and I had to laugh when a nurse asked if we had had a pleasant drive in to the hospital. Actually by then I considered just checking myself in to the hospital so I could get a little peace and quiet, not to mention room service.

I felt pretty out of it yesterday and tried to get up around 5 while the hubby was out with the girls and got knocked down with a wave of major nausea, due to the anesthesia I presume. I am feeling good today, though, just sore.

Between now and my follow up appointment I’ll keep busy to keep my mind off my boob– probably Christmas shopping (I got matched up with the awesome Miss Debunot herself in her Christmas gift exchange) and consuming copious amounts of chocolate and spiked eggnog. Tonight the girls are staying with my inlaws so hubby and I can have a little break.

I kind of wish my surgeon could have helped make things, I don’t know, perkier, while he was in there. Otherwise I think Santa will be filling mama’s stocking with Wonderbras.

I was really surprised yesterday after my mammogram when I was told that the radiologist wants me to have a surgical biopsy on my right breast.

“But I just had a biopsy in March.”

“I know, but he is recommending that you have that area biopsied again.”

I started getting that sinking feeling again as I sat in a waiting area with several older “ladies in waiting” in gowns and everyone was getting released but me.

I am waiting to hear back from the surgeon’s office about scheduling the biopsy. It sounds like it’s an easy outpatient procedure, but I’d really like to get all this boob exploratory stuff over with. The nurse at the breast center says they are just being cautious and she can’t really see any kind of definitive mass or lump. It’s just a cloudy area that is very dense. My breast tissue is very dense and I have a fibrocystic mass in that right breast that they just keep looking at. And the tissue has changed since my biopsy (to which I say, of course it has…I just had a biopsy!) I know most biopsies have benign results and I know they are just being cautious and that’s a good thing.

Who knew that 2007 would be the Year of the Breast?

Sigh…

Yesterday was an incredibly crummy day. My brother’s German Shepherd had a baseball size tumor removed from his spleen. He’s doing OK, but he’s nine years old and I’m not sure how his recovery will go. He’s my brother’s “baby” and dog cousin to our dogs.

Also someone I work, and not very closely I might add, pointed to her stomach yesterday and pointed to mine and then asked me if I was having “another one.” I quickly told her no and that that was pretty much impossible any way at this point. And then she mentioned an e-mail that had gone out and she thought it mentioned something about me having a baby. (There are two Jamie’s at my office and the other Jamie is pregnant and due in December.)

Nope, I’m not kidding.

I had on a parka and I do have a little baby belly leftover flab, but come on people. I am not pregnant.

What a day!

Secure in his Masculinity, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Single ladies take note.

If you can imagine your boyfriend allowing his little girls to play daddy makeover during prime NFL Sunday TV time, then he’s husband material.

If he also cooks and makes an awesome margarita? I hear they have drive thru weddings in Vegas.

Today is boob Friday for me, oh joy! I have a mammogram and a follow-up appointment at the Nashville Breast Center. I’m actually looking forward to having time to sit down and read this awesome book.

p.s. I have on my porn star mom tight jeans today (but no spike heeled boots or crazy fur pimp hat) partly because they were the only clean pair. Time to do laundry or lose five pounds.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and while many of these type things blip right by my mental radar, this year it’s personal, and not just because I have boobs.

During my annual pap smear early this year I told my OBGYN about a pea size lump I had found in my right breast. He surprised me by immediately sending me to see a breast surgeon. Now while I would love to tell you that I was strong and unwavering in my faith, I was filled with doubt and anxiety after I was then sent for a routine mammogram and the radiologist seemed gravely concerned and told me I needed both an MRI and a biopsy. I didn’t tell my family about any of the tests because it was all so uncertain. I am blessed with great health, as well as great health insurance, and fortunate in that I’ve never had to go through any type of medical testing. There is no history of breast cancer in my family.

Thankfully the results from the core biopsy I had on my right breast as well as a lymph node back in March showed that I had nothing to worry about. The pea size lump disappeared and turned out to be nothing but fatty tissue and the larger fibrocystic mass that the radiologist I had seen (after the breast surgeon I’d seen had said everything looked fine) was concerned about turned out to be benign. I sported one scary looking bruised Frankenboob for a month or so, but it was a small price to pay for knowing I was healthy.

I did a lot of research while waiting for all my test results. I read about breast cancer risk factors and was surprised to find out that having your first child after age 30, as I did, is a risk factor, as well as is taking oral contraceptives.

I have a six-month follow up mammogram this month. Am I looking forward to it? Not really, but getting felt up by a total stranger is worth knowing that I am in the clear and that I will be here for a long time to drive my family crazy, not to mention love them like crazy.

I’ve added a button to my blog sidebar with a pink ribbon. By simply clicking on it you’ll help make it possible for someone to receive a mammogram who might not otherwise afford it.

Help spread the word about breast cancer awareness. Early detection is key (and eight out of ten breast lumps are benign!) Who knows, you might even help save a life.

Some facts and links:

From the Breast Cancer Site: If detected early, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer exceeds 95%. Mammograms are among the best early detection methods, yet 13 million U.S. women 40 years of age or older have never had a mammogram.

Check out Think Before You Pink or this great USA Today article for information on how you can shop for a cause!

Horchow’s website features fun think pink kitchen items so you can cook and entertain for a cause.

Coldwater Creek has several “In the Pink” benefit items.

Design-Her-Gals has also launched the first ever virtual walk to raise money to help those diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer (with a minimum donation of just $3.)

Snapfish has custom photo cards, with 30% of proceeds going to the Young Survival Coalition.

PC Layers (a new digital scrapbooking site I just found) has a free breast cancer survivors’ kit to download.