You're the first CHEK2 person I've met aside from my friend Debra. A few years ago, Debra went in for surgery for abdominal pain that everyone thought was an ovarian cyst and they found fucking appendix cancer. You have never heard of it because it is not a thing - it's literally "1 in a million" rare. When she told her doctors "Oh yeah, my uncle was diagnosed with appendix cancer, too", the surgeon told her to run, not walk, to a medical geneticist. Surprise, CHEK2 mutation! It explained why breast and ovarian cancer run in her family, but everyone had tested negative for the common BRCA1/2 mutations.

I took all the raw photos with my phone. The final image was stacked together by a Python script, and then was edited in Photoshop.

Sorry you’re going through this. A friend had triple positive breast cancer about a decade ago and had a similar timeline. Knowing the timeline helped her know what to expect, and when and what was next.

They all say different things, and also, why are there multiple columns with matching colors in them then?

Wow. Really brings into perspective all the treatments a cancer patient has to endure. Thanks for sharing.

Cumberland-MD-WV what does that even mean? Cumberland is in MD, list the town in WV if that's also a statistic

Failed in

🍑

Georgia

So have you!!

That makes total sense. The length of the surgery is hard on anyone, and you shouldn't go through a recovery like that if you ultimately don't care as much.

I very very much get that "Idgaf I just wanna be done with it" feeling. Shit has been so rough I wanna keep my plastic surgeon as my emergency contact 🤣🤣. I don't even wanna have a gallbladder removed without him in the room

Counties do different things in different states (and sometimes different things even within the same state, depending on the county)

In Georgia, cities often take on a lot of the tasks of a county, and counties provide a lot of city services in unincorporated areas that in some states just wouldn't have those services. It all tends to balance out

My blood disorder is unknown. I've had high factor VIII and protein S, high RBC and high hemoglobin. My cbc and coagulation workup is literally different every time. Until they have a better idea, my treatment plan is lovonax after surgery.

Number 1 in poverty though. Unless you throw in Puerto Rico.

What’s up with MN?

Out of curiosity, what's your blood disorder? I have FVL and MTHFR, which is why I chose implant-based reconstruction rather than autologous reconstruction.

It honestly blows my mind that that many people are able to get banks up and rolling to begin with... I had an old boss who tried to open up a bank with 3 friends of his friends a while back. They had all moved to Jackson Hole or something and apparently saw a need for one... He'd been founder and CEO of a large Venture Capital firm for 25 years, and 2 of the other 3 had similar backgrounds. And I'd guess that between the 4 of them they had a net worth of $500 million or more... Last I heard they were 6 years in and still didn't have a light at the end of the tunnel... Then I hear about places like this where there is basically a new bank on every corner and wonder how on earth so many people are able to make that happen when those guys weren't.

Wow! What a fucking battle! I had no idea. Hope you’re doing well!

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Mississippi has the lowest rate of homelessness in the United States.

May want to see doc for that appendage, something awful is happening in FL

It’s funny that I actually know of Decatur and Peroria, thank you Sufjan Stevens

“I’m going to take you to the bank Senator Trent. The blood bank.”

You've really had a string of terrible luck!

My surgeon said I'm not a candidate for diep due to being to small and I have pretty bad asthma and can't be under anesthesia for the length of time they'd need. I think that was his explanation. This was in 2019 and I was more concerned with the cancer and treatment and just kind of accepted what my team was telling me the plan was. At this point I'd honestly be happy to be flat. I was never very attached to my breasts, and I won't be able to get feeling back either way, so it's just kind of moot. At the end of the day though, I'm probably going to avoid extra surgeries so it's probably going to be just whatever they say I need to replace the current implants and just do it at the same time.

Good luck with your treatment and recovery!

Im pretty sure Bozeman MT is like at a 20/21

That I dislike when I have to visit that backwater

I had the mastectomy and clotted twice in surgery, which led to a huge necrotic wound that took 3 months to heal. That led to a blood disorder diagnosis. In revision surgery, I got a staph infection, my incision ruptured, and I needed IV antibiotics. The CT scan found an enlarged heart. And this is all WITHOUT cancer. Yet. Oophorectomy was ok, but I struggled for a bit when I had to get off the estrogen due to the blood disorder.

Have you considered a DIEP reconstruction? Even with all the problems I have, my boobs/figure look pretty great, I feel somewhat like myself again (loss of sensation is hard) even though I lost a nipple due to necrosis. It'll get reconstructed. I'm really happy with how realistic everything looks and feels. It was a really rough recovery the first 2 weeks and I just had to move really really slow, but I was back to myself 6-8 weeks later aside from strenuous exercise