Gabrielle Ryan Minsker

HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY PRINCESS GABS!! I can not even believe that my little princess is 5 today. She has grown up way too fast. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in my arms and rocking her to sleep, where does the time go? Gabby is the most amazingly sweet, caring, compassionate little girl I have seen. She wears her heart on her sleeve and she would do anything for someone at the age of 5. She never ceases to amaze me.

Gabrielle was one wanted little girl, it took us 2 years, lots of fertility meds, a million tears, and finally a miracle to get her. We were given a due date of October 29, 2006, when this date came and went I knew she was going to be a little girl who did things when she was ready and not when someone tells her. I woke up at 4:15 am on October 30th and I remember the cramps in my stomach were unlike anything I had ever experienced. My stomach would get rock hard and cramp up and then loosen again, I knew these were contractions, I laid there until 5:00am when they were coming every 5 minutes. I woke up Ryan and told him that I think Gabby was ready to join us. I showered and we were off to the hospital. When I arrived at labor and delivery they said I was having contractions but I was only dialated 2 cm's, they wanted me to walk for 2 hours and come back, ok. Ryan and I went for a nice stroll around the hospital and about 1 hour into our walk I said we had to go back, I could barely stand up the pain was gettting so intense. We made our way back to the delivery ward and the nurse "checked me", I remember her looking at me and saying "looks like you are staying, you are now 4 centimeters, you are having a baby today". I wanted to throw up, I looked at Ryan and said I wanted to go home, I was not ready to have her. The nurse told me it was too late for that and next thing I knew I was getting an IV and being wheeled upstairs. When I got to my labor room the anesthelogist was waiting outside the room to give me an epidural, he gave the meds and as soon as I layed back down my water had broke. The nurse informed us that Gabby gone to the bathroom and that she more than likely swallowed it, disgusting! They had to keep a close eye on her. I was laying there about 20 minutes later and I heard an alarm go off and over the intercom system they announced "Pediatric cardiology to labor and delivery 4 STAT", I remember thinking that was sad and then it hit me that I was in labor and delivery 4! Nurses and doctors came rushing in because Gabby's heart rate dropped from 156 to 60, she was asleep and they could not get her to wake up, they kept telling me that if she did not respond and her heart rate did increase I would need an emergency C-section and they would get her out in 10 minutes. I was a trying to stay calm for her and finally her heart rate went back to 150. I moved onto my left side and she seemed to stabalize so for the next 13 hours I did not move from my left side.

At 5:27pm after 1 hour and 42 minutes of pushing Gabrielle Ryan was born. She weighed in at 7lbs 7oz. Now, originally she was going to be Gabrielle Sofia but when she was born she looked SO much like Ryan it was scary. We changed her to Gabrielle Ryan. Gabby's birth was not "magical" as soon as she was born they took her away, they could not get her to breathe and they were jamming a metal tube down her throat to clear out all the baby poop she ate, the seconds felt like minutes and the minutes felt like hours. I remember looking at Ryan's face and it was pure terror, one of the pediatric doctors working on her said that if she did not cry in the next few seconds she needed to get to the NICU, and Ms. Gabby starting whaling! It was the most amazing sound I had ever heard.
                                         

Gabby gave us a nice little scare when she was born but she turned out to be a perfectly healthy baby girl.

Gabrielle, words could not ever express how much you mean to us. You are such an incredible gift and an amazing little girl. You have the charm, wit, looks, personality and brains to bring the world to its knees. Every single day you amaze us with something new that you have learned and give us a million reasons to be proud of you. HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my beautiful Princess Gabrielle. We love you more than we can ever tell you.

Expander fills and radiation

Just in case I have never expressed this in the past, I hate these tissue expander implants. Friday I will have my 4th "fill", it is a very weird experience to go into a doctors office and watch your chest get bigger. I have had 3 fills since surgery and have 2 maybe 3 left. I have been instructed to take Percocet prior to each fill so I am relaxed during the process and obviously to help with any after expansion pain (there is a lot of discomfort). When I go into the plastic surgeons office I change into a beautiful pink paper shirt and lay down on the table, the doc takes his stud finder and locates the access port in the implant. After he locates this area he marks me up with more purple marker, I have so many purple dots and lines on my chest I look like I have purple skin disorder, once he cleans the area he gets his magical needle and IV tube out. The first time he stuck the needle in my chest he said I may feel a sting from the insertion and then a spasm and burn as the needle goes through the muscle and into the implant, I felt nothing, everything in the area of the surgery is completely numb. However, now that the implant has been expanded out of the surgery area, I get the pleasure of feeling the needle go through my skin and muscle and into the implant, lovely.  Once the needle is in the implant he fills his big ole syringe up with saline and injects it into the IV tube which goes directly in the implant, I feel nothing as this is being done. As he fills I can slowly start to feel my chest getting tight so he fills until I say it is tight enough for now. He removes his needle and repeats this process on the other side. Once I stand up the tightness eases up a bit and then once the Percocet wears off the tightness and muscle cramps are back for about 24 hours until the muscle is stretched. Now, when I  got filled last Monday, I made the decision going into the office that I wanted to get 90cc's in each side. The first time I got filled was the day of surgery and he initially put in 240cc's (per my request, I did not want to wake up flat chested). The first out patient fill he was able to get 80cc's per side, the next fill only 60 due to it being extremely tight. I normally get filled 1 week apart, this last time I was filled on a Friday and then again on Monday. Monday I went in and had him fill 90cc's, BIG MISTAKE! I felt like an elephant was sitting on  my chest as he filled them but I was determined to get 90 in there. About an hour after that fill I was regretting that choice and wanting some taken out. My chest was so tight I could not breathe and the pain and muscle cramps were worse then after the big surgery. I was living on round the clock pain meds. I went to physical therapy almost unable to move, the therapist asked why I would have gotten 150cc's put in all in a 3 day span. Well, radiation starts November 11th and I have to be fully expanded by then. It has been a week and a half since my "big" fill and things have calmed down. I am no longer having muscle cramps and not taking any pain meds. I get filled again this Friday and I will only do 60cc's per side. I am currently at 470cc implants, with the 3 fills I have remaining if I am able to get 60 in each time I will be left with 650cc implants. How big will that make me? I am not sure, currently I am a C so we shall see what happens. The bad thing is I have to keep these implants in until February, then I can get the exchange surgery and have soft normal implants. These rocks make sleeping very difficult, I can not lay flat because I can feel the edges of the implants poking me and when I lay down it just feels like two heavy objects are places on my chest and I can not breathe or move. I am looking forward to the day these things are out of my body.

I met with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Strasser, about 2 weeks ago. We discussed when radiation is a necessary step in someones care. He explained to us that with breast cancer the patients that qualify for radiation are those whose chose to have a lumpectomy, are not going to be needing chemotherapy, those with metastatic (cancer that has spread to other parts of the body) disease, those who have more than 3 lymph nodes involved, and those whose primary tumor was bigger than 5 cms. In my case I chose to have the double mastectomy so normally I would not get radiation but because there is no way for them to determine the actual size my tumor was , I had chemo first so everything was shrunk down to a millimeter and MRI's just give an estimate, and the fact that my pathology report showed extensive lymphatic invasion, meaning the cancer cells were starting to invade the lymphatic system in my body, and one lymph node was active at time of surgery he feels I should go ahead with radiation. I was skeptical about agreeing to this, I really wanted surgery to be the end of cancer treatment but once the doc told me that right now my recurrence rate is at 30% and after radiation it will drop down to 10% I was on board. As I said previously I have to be fully expanded before I can begin radiation. With radiation your skin becomes irritated and not able to stretch, therefore I would not be able to get filled. I will go in on November 11th and have my "mapping" done. I am told I will have a CT scan and the nurse will place more purple dots (these will be permanent tattoo dots, wonder if my tattoo count now jumps up from 4?) and I will get "molded". After that every week day for the next 6 weeks I will go into the radiation department of the cancer center and lay in the exact same position and get radiation beamed into my chest, arm pit, and upper chest (heading towards my neck) area. I am told that radiation kills all the cells and tissues in that area so, my skin will likely be irritated and I have very sensitive skin. I am just really ready to get radiation started and over with. I should be done radiation the week of Christmas, I want to end all major cancer treatments in 2011, I want 2012 to have no major cancer treatments in it.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Wilmington, DE | Making Strides

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Wilmington, DE Making Strides

12 more days until we walk to end breast cancer. There is still time to donate to or join our team. Every penny donated helps to save the lives of other mothers, daughters, sisters, etc. Thanks to the research that is done with all the donated money the drug Herceptin was found and approved not to long ago. This is the "miracle" drug that made my tumor disappear. I was told by both my oncologist and my surgeon that before Herceptin was found I would not of had a very good prognosis. My cancer was considered aggressive but thanks to all the donations and support for breast cancer the drug was found and now I have one of the best cancers. Herceptin goes in your body and looks for the cancer cell and actually destroys it. I am grateful for organizations like these and for the people that donate or walk to help us stop this disease from taking anymore people.

Cole William Minsker

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY COLE-BUG!!! This blog has nothing to do with cancer and everything to do with my amazing, smart, funny, adorable 4 year old little boy.

On October 4, 2007 at 3:30am I got a call from Christiana Hospital stating that I needed to be at Labor and Delivery by 5:00am. With Cole I was being induced a week early because I was so uncomfortable ( I had been pregnant since Feb. of 2006 with only an 8 week break) and because Cole was measuring big. My OB decided that October 4th was a good day since it was his parents anniversary. I got up and got a shower, packed up a diaper bag for Gabby (she was only 11 months old) and got her ready to go to Grammy's. Ryan and I dropped Gabby off and headed to meet my sister at Christiana Hospital. I arrived at 5:00am and went upstairs to the waiting area to be called. I was so nervous, and now that I look back on everything I have been through I would love to be sitting in a waiting room preparing to have a baby then everything I prepare for now.

A nurse finally came and got us, and I remember her so well she was NOT a morning person. She took us to our labor and delivery room and looked at my chart, she asked if I really just had a baby 11 months ago. I told her yes and she said wow 2 babies in one calendar year, I know. I remember being so nervous about having Cole, I was not the same nervous as I was with Gabby. With her it was nervous about labor, nervous about becoming a mommy, and just no clue what I was in for. With Cole I knew he wasn't "ready" to be born yet, he was so high still but I was so tired of being pregnant that I wanted him out. I was nervous because during Gabby's birth there were "complications" (more on that in 3 weeks) I just wanted everything to go smooth. The nurse hooked me up to Pitocin and told me to let her know when I wanted an epidural, I figured I had plenty of time, I was not having any contractions yet and as soon as I said I wanted an epidural last time the anesthesiologist was there in less than 2 minutes.

The morning seemed to be dragging by, I was all hooked up and having small contractions by 6:00am, at 8:00am my doctor arrived, with a big gulp and his cell phone, to break my water. He told me that once he does this the contractions will really start to pick up, boy was he right. The contractions were so bad in  my lower back that I could not even breathe when I was having them, I asked for the epidural and was told the one and only anesthesiologist just went into a c-section and he would be about 45 mins. Are you kidding me! These were the worst pains I have ever felt in my life. Once I finally got the epidural it really didn't seem to help, I was so aggravated and not friendly at this point. Just my luck the Phillies were playing in a playoff game that was on at 1:00pm, so my husband and doctor were very preoccupied with watching the tv. After 10 hours of labor my doctor informed me that it was time to start pushing and that Cole was "sunny side up" meaning he was facing up instead of down, so that explained why the contractions hurt so bad and my back was killing me. 2 hours after I started pushing I still did not have a baby, the doctor told me that Cole was still very high and that they were going to get the O.R. ready for a c-section. I got very angry and told him that he induced me so he better figure out a way to get Cole out without a c-section. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER anger the doctor that this delivering your child. He told me ok and hooked a "vacuum" device to Cole's head and braced himself with one foot up against the wall and the other leg up against the bed and then he started to pull, all his veins were showing in his head , I was sure he was going to deliver just a head with no body attached. He was pulling with everything he had and just like that out came a very chunky and angry looking little boy. Cole's cord was wrapped around his neck and the doctor quickly grabbed it and ripped it over Cole's head. He weighed in at 8lbs 1oz and of course he looked exactly like Ryan too. It is crazy because you don't realize how much you can love another person until you are looking at your newborn child.

Cole was such a good baby the first day and night of his life. The next morning Cole started crying a lot and did not stop for the next 11 months. When he was 3 weeks old we took him to the emergency room at AI because he had cried for 25 straight hours!! He was diagnosed with colic and acid reflux, being around newborn Cole was a joy. After he outgrew his reflux and colic Cole grew into a silly, loving, compassionate, outgoing, and LOUD little boy. Cole has a great personality and everyday he makes us laugh, whether it is with a funny dance, a knock knock joke, or him just simply being Cole. He was definitely a surprise addition to our family but I could not and do not want to picture life without him.

Cole, you have made us so proud of the little boy you have grown into. We love everything about you and can not wait to see what type of man you grow up to be. 4 years ago you completed our family and you remind us daily to just be silly and not take things too seriously. You have been a rock for mommy during all this cancer crap and I can not believe that it has been 4 years since you joined us. WE LOVE YOU SOO MUCH!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUBBA!!!!!!!