August-September 2005

I have to admit this is when everything actually started to change....... about a week before Katrina decided to come pay a visit, I started to notice that my left nipple was a bit more sensitive and started leaking this light brown liquid. Me, never ever having any health issue ever, (well unless you count my wisdom teeth), didn't pay much attention and thought that it was a breast infection. I didn't have a gyno at the time and with school starting I really didn't have the time to take care of it. Then Katrina came to town and we were sent to College Station/Bryan, TX. As you know, Katrina just didn't come to town, she decided to stay and have this HUGE party and create havoc all over town and not just in the city of New Orleans but also in the suburbs(Metairie) where my parents live.

I know you are thinking where oh where is this going but I promise it has something to do with my breast cancer just give me a couple of moments.

So here we are, myself, my daughter and my parents in a strange town(a college town at that, ugh!) not knowing what is actually going on back home. Not knowing if we even had homes to go back to, especially me as I was living in New Orleans and 80% of it was under water. My sister was the first to get back to my parent's house in Metairie and calls them. She says that they better get back and save what they want because the mold is already 2 feet up the walls and climbing...... so we(my parents and I) decided that it would be better for my mom and I to go back since I had a huge rental car and could fit alot of stuff in it and my dad could stay back and make sure Elizabeth went to school. My mom and I left at 11pm that night and I drove all the way back on very little sleep, got to her house and proceeded to try to save as much as we could. Well, for those of you who lived through it I don't need to tell you how god awful the smell was or how dark it was in your house even with all of the windows open that first day you got back. I will never forget walking in my parent's house with white shoes and walking out with black shoes. We stayed until we couldn't stand it anymore, went to my sister's mother in law's house(she lived in Kenner and didn't get any water in her house) took a cold shower and left to go back to Texas. When we got to Baton Rouge we finally got to eat something, we hadn't really eaten anything since that early morning and we were starving. My mom tried to drive but was so tired that she nearly ran us off the road, I took over then and drove all the way back doing anything I could to stay awake. By the time we got back I had been up almost 48 hours, my body was drained and tired.

Now all this time my nipple is still draining and it is getting harder to keep a secret because it would leak through the paper towels I would put in my bra.

My parents decided to go back to Metairie and actually clean out their house, get rid of the things that they knew they couldn't salvage and pack the rest. They were there for 2 weeks, while Elizabeth and I stayed in Texas. During that time I got sick, really sick with a very serious sinus infection due to helping my mom save stuff from her house, so I went to the doctor and he put me on some really strong antibiotics(can't remember what it was though). While I was on it, the leakage from my nipple had stopped and I thought everything would be just fine...... boy was I very very wrong!