I'm a (Diet)Cokehead

My name is Alison, and I have an addiction.  I crave it everyday, and have only gone about a week without  it.  What is it, you ask?  It's evil and wonderful and bad for you and so good on your tastebuds.  It's...Diet Coke.  I love Diet Coke.  I want to drink it every single day.  I do drink it almost every single day.  If I don't have a Diet Coke in the morning, by the afternoon I am craving it so badly that I will spend as much time as it takes to justify in my mind why it's ok if I drink just one.  I always promise myself that I will stop drinking it tomorrow if I can just have one today.  But I am declaring here on my blog that today is the last day that I will drink Diet Coke!  I am counting on you to hold me accountable.  Public shaming is totally acceptable.

You may be wondering why I'm so concerned about Diet Coke.  It's not like I'm an alcoholic or use drugs, and as far as vices go, it's seems pretty harmless.  (I tell myself this every day when trying to justify an afternoon fix.)  Well, when I asked my doctor if he had any advice about how to alter my eating habits, he had two things to say.  One, model your diet after those cultures who seem to live the longest, namely Mediterranean cultures.  Lots of veggies, olive oil and fish.  Two, stop drinking Diet Coke.  It affects your nerves in the same way as certain nerve diseases.  He said he had been doing lots of research about it because he loved Diet Coke too, and had realized that it was one of the worst things you could put in your body.  Plus, I've read lots of articles about how the chemicals in Diet Coke actually preserve your fat cells.  Who wants to preserve their fat cells??  Not this girl.  I don't do Brazilian Booty Lift workouts just to have my fat cells preserved behind a Diet Coke forcefield!  So, since then, I've tried my hardest to quit.  And I can't.  It made me realize just how addicted I was/am.  I need your help with this addiction!  I wonder if there's room for me with Lindsey in the Betty Ford clinic.    

Go Ahead, Feel em'

One of my very favorite episodes from one of my very favorite shows!!!

Jolene, Jolene

The two questions I've gotten most from people after reading this blog are:
1)  What can I do to help?
2)  How big are you going?

As to the first question, my first reaction is usually to say, "Nothing, but thanks for asking."  I started thinking about it, and there are several things that I could use.  Since I'm in the mood for lists tonight, here they are, in no particular order.

1)  Book and Movie Recommendations.  I will be home for a very long time, and would like to hear from you regarding books or movies that you love.  Keep in mind that I will be reading/watching in a drug-induced haze, so keep the reading material light and the movies non-psychedelic as I will be adding the hallucinations and swirling colors on my own thanks to some strong pain meds.  I love Southern Lit and English period pieces, so generally you can't go wrong 
with any of those suggestions.  Please do not suggest that I read "The Secret" or "The Promise."  If you insist on me reading a book of this nature, please drop off a book by L. Ron Hubbard as I've always wondered just what exactly Tom Cruise thinks is going to happen when the aliens return.


2)  Take my Mom out to lunch.  If you are related to me and live in Fayetteville, yes, I'm talking to you, Russell, Liz, Sarah, Eric and Paige, please rescue my mother for at least an hour every now and then and take her to lunch or a movie.  I'm sure that she will never complain about taking care of me, but that she will probably need to escape the house, especially if I'm giving her newly-learned facts about Scientology and/or watching "The Wizard of Oz" on repeat.


3)  Pray for me, please.  And my family.  I need these most of all.  I have the most ferocious prayer warrior in Heaven right now, my great-grandma Grace, who is probably following Jesus around right now reminding Him that I'm her granddaughter and her granddaughter is special and needs special looking after down here.  However, I'm sure she would appreciate some help from all of you in the prayer department.  (She was also the self-proclaimed "prettiest woman in the county" but that's a story for another day.)  My friend Renee, a newly minted Catholic, told me that she would throw a Hail Mary out there for me with her new Catholic powers.  So, whether you be Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or simply spiritual, whether you are a silent prayer, a shouter, or a snake-handler, please send up a prayer for me.  (And if any of you really are snake-handlers, let's talk.)




Ok, as to the second question about sizes...I'll just leave you with the following image:

I think this picture speaks for itself.  :)

You Light Up My Life

"Your breasts light up.”

Having chosen a career in the legal profession, and never having danced as a Vegas showgirl, I never thought to hear those words in reference to my girls.  Unfortunately, those words from my radiologist didn’t mean that I was headed straight for an interview with Oprah or for a stint on “America’s Got Talent.”  (C’mon, you know light-up breasts could totally beat a nine-year-old opera prodigy!)  No, my light-up breasts meant something completely different, something not nearly as exciting or fun.  My light-up breasts meant that it was finally time for me to make a difficult decision regarding cancer treatment.  While dealing with this issue for a year now, my light-up breasts were the smack in the face, if you will, that I needed to have in order to make a life-changing decision.  The decision to have a double mastectomy and reconstruction.

I know many of you already know the history, but if you don’t, here it is in a shortened version:

In the fall of 2009, I found a lump, had a biopsy, and received results that indicated the presence of atypical cells.  On the advice of my doctor, I had the remaining lump tissue removed, and a few days later was the (un)proud new owner of a cancer diagnosis.  DCIS, or Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, to be exact.  Around a month later, I had another surgery to remove two lumps from the other breast, a re-excision of the intial removal site, and a sentinel node biopsy (basically just a removal of a lymph node from under my left arm).  Thankfully, all those tests came back negative for cancerous cells.  Since then, I’ve been going through test after test and meeting with doctor after doctor to determine what I should do, and what plan to follow.

 I’m 30 years old with no history of breast cancer in my family.  I tested negative for the breast cancer gene.  I’m in pretty good shape and except for all of the chips and guacamole I eat, I don’t put bad things in my body.  However, my tests keep showing lots of “white spots,” which I’ve learned means bad things on a MRI film.  So, I have several options: one includes a drug with serious side effects (more on that in a later post); another includes not doing anything and just hoping I don’t get it again, despite the warning signs in my MRI films; and another is major surgery to remove all my breast tissue so my chances of getting cancer again are very small.  I was going with the “let’s just wait it out” option for a while, and hoping that all that gym time and all those vegetables and vitamins would conquer any bad cells floating around in there, but the phrase, “Your breasts light up” changed my outlook.  My glowing knockers knocked me in the head and made me realize that I cannot sit around and hope that I don’t get it again.  I need to do something!  So, with the support of my wonderful family and friends, and on the advice of some amazing doctors, and a whole lot of prayers, I’ve made the decision to have this surgery on November 30, 2010.  

So now, after November 30, the only way my breasts will light up is if Victoria’s Secret comes out with a glow-in-the-dark bra.