Z is for Zeeeee End! :o

April 30, 2011 11 comments

Ok, so titling this Zeeeee End, was a bit of cheat to use the letter Z. So while I was being silly, it really is The End. I made it alive through the A to Z blogging challenge – all the way to Z!

Besides coming to the end of the blogging challenge today’s blog entry also marks my last entry here at

Teri’s Blip in the Universe.

I never in a million years guessed this blog would turn into what it did – nor did I think I’d ever have any readers outside of a few relatives or friends that I pestered to read it! I certainly didn’t think that it’d end up being a resource for people all over the world – in the beginning I simply needed a place to vent and get my thoughts and feelings out of my head and into print to try to make some sense of them.

I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve done with Teri’s Blip in the Universe! It’s heartwarming to know so many people have been touched or helped by what I’ve done. It’s really quite astounding when I think about the whole thing. If I’ve learned anything through my blogging experience it’s that, yes, one person can make a big difference! You don’t need to be rich, live in a big city, have a college degree, or know someone famous. You just have to care. Plain and simple, you just have to reach out and care about people, and share, openly and honestly. People can feel that sincerity and enthusiasm, and I do believe that’s what’s made this blog, and other BRCA related things that I’ve done become so successful.

I plan to keep this blog online as it’s still a great resource for others who are in my shoes. While I won’t be putting up any new posts here, I will still be active on the BRCA Sisterhood on Facebook, and I will still gladly respond to any comments or questions that are left here. You’re also always welcome to email me at terisblip@verizon.net, if you prefer to keep your comments private, and I will get back to you.

If you’ve been a follower of my blog, I want to say thank you, so much for being here with me through my journey, my struggles, my triumphs. Your support of me has been more than I could have hoped for!

If you came here searching for answers, there is a tab at the top of the page labeled “BRCA Informational Posts“  and there is also a search feature on the top right of the page that can help you find what you’re looking for. There are also many other BRCA blogs, which you can see over there in my blogroll. —->

A few other BRCA resources:

BRCA Sisterhood on Facebook

Facing our Risk of Cancer Empowered (FORCE)

Previvors and Survivors

Bright Pink

Previve

Bye now, and thank you so much!!!

Y is for this Year in Review

April 29, 2011 4 comments

Okay, so we’re not anywhere near a year into 2011, but with only two blog posts to go in the A to Z challenge, and for this blog, a little bit of this year in review seems like a fun way to use the letter Y today.

Some Interesting (to me anyway!) things about Teri’s Blip this year:

  • As of April 28th I’ve had 13,991 visits to my blog. I’m not sure how many hits other people get, but this seems decent to me! :)
  • Since March 2009 when I started this blog I’ve had a total of 72,220 visits here.
  • Considering that I’ve had only 3,498 comments left compared to 72,220 visitors, it’s obvious that most of my readers are lurkers rather than talkers. ;) Oh, that total is not counting the 1,572 spam comments that Askimet has caught for me.
  • Not everyone who comes to my blog shows up looking for BRCA information. WordPress has a fun feature that shows me what words people are using to in their search engine to get here. Sometimes what I see here skeeves me out totally, and other times it just makes me laugh. Some non-BRCA searches have been:

* Kind of gross, but the number one, most searched for phrase is “breasts not covered” – so I guess it’s people looking for soft porn or something. It’s not that kind of website, people!

* The second most searched for word is “libra” – a long while ago I wrote a post called The Zodiac and Wolves. I included a picture of a naked painted woman with the balancing scales. It brought in a crazy amount of views (in fact, I wrote that back in 11-2009 and it still ranks #2 of the amount of traffic that came to my site from it!) Once I figured out that the only reason for the increased views was because of that picture (and not anything else I had to say) I removed it and replaced it with a different photo. I didn’t want hits that I didn’t deserve. Yes, I’m weird like that.

* I get a lot of hits from people searching for other people (most on my Facebook friends list) – I guess they wind up here because those people have left a comment on my blog at some time or another. Sort of stalker-y..

* “Guttural sound”. Yes, more than one person has typed this into Google and ended up at my blog. M’kay!

* “Dr. DellaCroce’s wife”. This one is a bit creepy – Dr. D is my plastic surgeon at NOLA, not sure why someone is trying to find info on his wife. Again, a bit stalker-y!

* “Hospital Gown Open Boobs”. Also “sexy nude women who had a hysterectomy”. Seriously, there are a lot of pervs out there.

* “Hooter’s Girls”. Not sure how anyone ended up here with that one, but they did. Interesting!

* “Rude optical illusions”. Uhhhh?

Okay, enough of that stuff. Most of the searches are legitimately BRCA, cancer or reconstruction related, but obviously there are some that raise my eyebrows at times!

  • I’ve published 320 posts since I started blogging.
  • My top post, or the post that has gotten the most hits, this year has been “Pictures of Women after Mastectomy“
  • My number one referring site is Networked Blogs from Facebook – so most of the people coming to my blog are doing so through my blog auto-posting on Facebook. Never underestimate the power of social networking!
  • My number two referring site this year is from a friend of mine, Janine. Her blog is called “Cut the b*tches off” – that’s the power of blogrolls in action!
  • On my blogroll, the link that’s been clicked the most is The BRCA Sisterhood Reconstruction Photo Site. Cool!

Okay, so that about wraps up my Y post. Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow for my final post – Zee End! :)

Teri

Run for Her 5 K

April 28, 2011 Leave a comment

Looking for something to do on November 14, 2011? Look no further! It’s the 6th Annual Run for Her 5 K Run & Friendship walk to support ovarian cancer awareness and research. For more details and to sign up, click here and watch the short video below. Thanks!

X is for X-ray

April 28, 2011 2 comments

I’m taking a really easy way out with my X post for today – I had every intention of writing this up in my own words, but you know what they say about intentions….

Instead, because I’m short on time and motivation (and suffering from something like senioritis as my blog is coming to an end) I’m going to share a very interesting link here, about how chest x-rays may even further increase the risk of breast cancer for BRCA mutants.

Click Here —> Susan G. Komen for the Cure | Chest X-rays Might Increase Breast Cancer Risk for BRCA 1 and 2 Carriers.

W is for Wordless Wednesday

April 27, 2011 4 comments

 

V is for Victory

April 26, 2011 11 comments

Victory can pertain to many things. In today’s post I’m talking about the feeling one has after doing what very well may be the hardest thing in their lives, to beat a future enemy.

…..

Victory
1.a success or triumph over an enemy in battle or war.
This is what Previvors do when they decide to have prophylactic surgeries before any sign of breast or ovarian cancer presents itself.
…..
We put our bodies through hell to avoid a much worse hell on down the line. Many previvors wake up from their surgeries feeling victorious. I personally have been through a whole range of emotions and back again throughout my time of knowing I’m a BRCA1 mutant. Out of all of the emotions I’ve had to deal with, the feeling of victory has probably been the best!
…..
The feeling like I could climb to the top of a mountain and shout at cancer  “Screw you, buddy! I win!!!!” is a truly empowering and victorious feeling! When I think about what my body and emotional state have been through these past few years – to know that somehow I found it within to have the inner and outer strength to have my healthy breasts and reproductive organs removed, to go through the trauma and pain of all of that and come out the other end alive and above all happy is a feeling unlike any other.
…..
While I am aware I didn’t completely eliminate my predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer, I can live just fine with that remaining 2% – 5%!
…..
What sort of things leave YOU feeling victorious?
…..
When is the last time you wanted to shout your triumph to the world?
…..

U is for Uterine Cancer

April 26, 2011 2 comments

This is my U post for yesterday – A day late, but better than never!

U is for Uterine Cancer. Some studies show that BRCA mutants have an increased risk of uterine cancer (also known as edometrial cancer) and other studies show that we aren’t. This makes me a little nervous! It’s one of the reasons I elected to get rid of my uterus along with my ovaries and fallopian tubes.

Though on a slightly unrelated side note, I now can’t help but wonder if it would have been okay to have just my fallopian tubes removed and not my ovaries! After reading this study that ovarian cancer starts in the fallopian tubes, not ovaries. Though this thought was out there when I had to make my decision of exactly what to have removed, I felt it best at the time to just get rid of all of it.

I’ve known of several BRCA positive women who’ve been diagnosed with uterine cancer, so it’s hard for me to not wonder about the connection to our BRCA genes.

The good thing (if you can call anything about cancer good!) about uterine cancer is that it’s typically caught early enough to be treatable.

Uterine Cancer Symptoms (according to PubMed health):

I’ve come across a few articles that bemoan a woman’s decision to have prophylactic surgeries to lesson their breast cancer risk when drugs like Tamoxifen are available. Well, yes, this chemopreventation drug may help decrease our breast cancer risk, but a not so lovely side effect of it is uterine or endometrial cancer when used for five years or longer.

So in a way so much of what we do and decide feels like a crapshoot.

crap·shoot

1.Informal . anything unpredictable, risky, or problematical; gamble.

We make the best decisions we can based on educated guesses that we form on current scientific data. I do believe it’d be detrimental to our emotional selves to go down the regret path. “If only I’d waited XX amount of time, I could have made a better choice!” As BRCA positive women, or BRCA mutants as I fondly refer to us as, we often feel like ticking time bombs and our choices are made in an effort to get to the cancer before it gets to us. While we know for a fact we have a highly increased risk of certain types of cancer, we can’t know FOR SURE if or when it will happen. All we can do is weigh our options against what we know and make the decisions we feel are best for ourselves and our families.

I do live in hope that one day it will be easier – hopefully for our children, and very hopefully for our childrens children!

U is for Utterly out of free Time!

April 25, 2011 Leave a comment

I’m going to do my best to get a real post up later but for now my little one is resisting his nap and I just don’t have the free time to write. It may be after his bedtime, or maybe tomorrow (gasp!) but I’ll do what I can!

Have a great week, ya’ll!

T is for (almost a) Thousand

April 23, 2011 4 comments

The BRCA Sisterhood logo was made by a BRCA sister, Rachel Harrison

When my good friend and BRCA sistah, *Karen Malkin-Lazavoritz and I started up the BRCA Sisterhood on Facebook we had no idea how successful it would become! As of today we need less than 20 more members before we reach 1000 members – that’s ONE THOUSAND! In my mind that is HUGE!

While Karen and I can claim the credit for coming up with the idea of starting our group, there’s no way it would have become the success that it is without all of the wonderful, caring and supportive officers and members! The members truly are what make the sisterhood – a sisterhood!

While our name is the BRCA Sisterhood, it’s a support group for more than just those of us with BRCA mutations. It’s also for those with other mutations that cause a high breast cancer risk such as the HER mutation, Lynch Syndrome, unknown mutations or those who have a high cancer risk in their family history. We also have a few members that have joined not because of their own high-risk status, but because they want to be supportive of a friend or family member that has one. Our members also include those who’ve had prophylactic surgeries to reduce their risks, as well as those who are going with increased surveillance.

While Teri’s Blip in the Universe will soon come to an end (the blog will remain up and running, but they’ll be no new posts), the BRCA Sisterhood will continue going strong, as will my part in it.
I know many of my BRCA sisters agree, having a place of support is invaluable while dealing with the special types of problems that those of us at high-risk of hereditary cancers have. If you haven’t had a chance to check us out yet, please do!

me & Karen

Stop on by and say hello and you’ll be warmly welcomed into our fold. Another positive of joining a support group – you don’t just get it support and friendship, you give it too. Something about helping another person along in their struggles (whether it’s with advice, sharing your experiences or just lending a sympathetic ear) is a truly rewarding feeling. Sometimes when you go looking for help, you end up being the one to give it, and that, my friends, is a truly amazing thing.

* If you want to see Karen, semi-live, just check her out here in this very touching (I cried buckets!) ten minute documentary.

S is for Stats & Site Meter

April 22, 2011 6 comments

When this blog first started to really take off, I admit that I was a bit what I call ‘stat obsessed.’ I just couldn’t help myself! I’d check my stats constantly to see how many page views I was getting. I also use something called Site Meter which is a fun and free tool. It lets me see where those views are coming from. It tells me I.P. addresses, networks, entry pages, locations and more. I’ve since gotten over my stat obsession, but I still think it’s cool to open up Site Meter once in awhile and see where all of my views are coming from. It sort of floors me when I see that my blog is being read from all over the world!

My last 100 views (the number to the right of the location is how many miles away from me they are):

  1 
United States Los Angeles, California 113 
  2 
United States Columbia, South Carolina 2,072 
  3 
Unknown ? 
  4 
United States 1,154 
  5 
United States 1,154 
  6 
United States Omaha, Nebraska 1,231 
  7 
United States Los Angeles, California 113 
  8 
Israel Or Yehuda, Tel Aviv 7,432 
  9 
Belgium Mechelen, Antwerpen 5,497 
 10 
United States Columbus, Ohio 1,906 
 11 
United States 1,154 
 12 
United States Roanoke, Virginia 2,086 
 13 
Germany Friedberg, Hessen 5,660 
 14 
Finland 5,272 
 15 
United Kingdom Brighton, East Sussex 5,362 
 16 
United States 1,154 
 17 
United States Lake Mary, Florida 2,164 
 18 
Unknown ? 
 19 
United States Savannah, Georgia 2,101 
 20 
Israel Kefar Shemaryahu, Tel Aviv 7,422 
 21 
Iran, Islamic Republic of 7,723 
 22 
Unknown ? 
 23 
United States Germantown, Maryland 2,213 
 24 
United States Mchenry, Illinois 1,638 
 25 
United States Rochester, Minnesota 1,452 
 26 
Australia Paddington, Western Australia 9,045 
 27 
China Beijing 6,183 
 28 
Unknown ? 
 29 
United States Brownsville, Tennessee 1,589 
 30 
United States Port Penn, Delaware 2,301 
 31 
United States Port Penn, Delaware 2,301 
 32 
Unknown ? 
 33 
United States Smithfield, Virginia 2,268 
 34 
Canada 1,965 
 35 
United States Fort Worth, Texas 1,178 
 36 
United States 1,154 
 37 
United States 1,154 
 38 
United States Silver Spring, Maryland 2,228 
 39 
United Kingdom Blackburn, Blackburn with Darwen 5,155 
 40 
United States Wabash, Indiana 1,758 
 41 
United States 1,154 
 42 
United States Kalamazoo, Michigan 1,774 
 43 
Philippines Taytay, Rizal 7,259 
 44 
United States Mountain View, California 272 
 45 
United States Mountain View, California 272 
 46 
United Kingdom Brighton, East Sussex 5,362 
 47 
United Kingdom Brighton, East Sussex 5,362 
 48 
Unknown ? 
 49 
Canada Sherwood Park, Alberta 1,255 
 50 
United States Luther, Oklahoma 1,149 
 51 
United States Portland, Oregon 732 
 52 
Unknown ? 
 53 
United States Denver, Colorado 750 
 54 
United States Lansdale, Pennsylvania 2,310 
 55 
United States Salt Lake City, Utah 474 
 56 
United States 1,154 
 57 
Unknown ? 
 58 
United States Beaverton, Oregon 733 
 59 
United States Phoenix, Arizona 350 
 60 
United States North Andover, Massachusetts 2,511 
 61 
New Zealand Auckland 6,614 
 62 
United States Nampa, Idaho 553 
 63 
Unknown ? 
 64 
United States Durham, North Carolina 2,159 
 65 
United States Los Angeles, California 113 
 66 
United States Tampa, Florida 2,117 
 67 
United States Port Saint Lucie, Florida 2,258 
 68 
Unknown ? 
 69 
Canada Kingston, Ontario 2,237 
 70 
United States Corvallis, Oregon 685 
 71 
United States 1,154 
 72 
United States Minot, North Dakota 1,202 
 73 
United States Roanoke, Virginia 2,086 
 74 
United States Mc Veytown, Pennsylvania 2,178 
 75 
United States Urbandale, Iowa 1,351 
 76 
Unknown ? 
 77 
Unknown ? 
 78 
United States Anaheim, California 122 
 79 
Canada Essex, Ontario 1,915 
 80 
United States Mchenry, Illinois 1,638 
 81 
United States 1,154 
 82 
United States Mountain Top, Pennsylvania 2,269 
 83 
Unknown ? 
 84 
United States Eugene, Oregon 650 
 85 
Unknown ? 
 86 
Unknown ? 
 87 
Canada Brampton, Ontario 2,073 
 88 
United States 1,154 
 89 
Unknown ? 
 90 
United States 1,154 
 91 
United States Anaheim, California 122 
 92 
United States Omaha, Nebraska 1,231 
 93 
United States Collierville, Tennessee 1,575 
 94 
United States Worton, Maryland 2,275 
 95 
United States Wenatchee, Washington 824 
 96 
United States Cushing, Oklahoma 1,171 
 97 
United States Colorado Springs, Colorado 746 
 98 
United States East Machias, Maine 2,682 
 99 
United States Pensacola, Florida 1,790 
 100 
United States Los Angeles, California 113 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 84 other followers