A Celebration!

          I wanted to give an update that there is much to celebrate!

I found out that I do not need to have any radiation!  This was a huge weight that has now been lifted off our shoulders.  The radiation specialist explained that with certain types of cancers radiation can help reduce the risk that the cancer will begin to re-grow on the chest wall.  It turns out that with my specific type of cancer radiation would neither help nor hurt my chances of the cancer coming back, so it would be needless treatment for me.  I guess in one way I could have hoped to learn that radiation would reduce my risk of a recurrence, but I am honestly just happy to know it would have no effect and to cut it out altogether.  In one appointment we avoided six additional weeks of treatment, pain, discomfort, fatigue, daily appointments and some very serious internal and external permanent side effects.  When the doctor gave his decision, I literally exclaimed, clapped and almost started crying I was so relieved!

Today is my last day of steroids!  While I have developed an intense love/hate relationship with steroids I am excited to see them go.  I am thankful that they have allowed me to manage this chemotherapy with more ease.  Taking them has offered me some good days over the past three months that I otherwise would not have experienced.  But I will not miss the sleepless nights.  I will not miss the wild food cravings.  I will not miss the frantic steroid energy that cannot be calmed.  I will not miss the swelling.  It takes six months for steroids to work out of your system, but slowly the side effects should start to fade.  My oncologist says the swelling will go down over the next four to six weeks and the other side effects will wan as time passes.

Yesterday was my last chemo treatment!  I’m not sure the knowledge of this has actually hit me yet.  I think I will be able to grasp it more firmly once I come through the side effects of this batch, but I am so very excited to know that next Thursday morning Adam and I will not be driving to the cancer center.  Next Thursday morning I will not be drawing blood.  Next Thursday I will not be hooked up to any poisonous chemicals.  Wow.  All I can say is wow.  It’s been since April 1^st that I could say, “I have no chemotherapy in my known future.”  It feels both of yesterday and years ago. 

It was a sweet and exciting appointment with also a hint of sadness.  Everyone was so happy for us.  The nurses signed a card and brought me cookies.  The patients that traditionally share our Thursday morning appointment remembered that it was my last day and offered their warmest congratulations and well wishes.  I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my chemo nurse, and I have a nurse friend who works for an oncologist in the same building so I will miss seeing them on Thursdays, but I think I could find a better situation in which to share their company.

Really, the hardest part was saying goodbye to another particular patient and only because I could not find the right words and so I left things feeling less than settled.  She is a woman who had breast cancer and now is going through cancer all over again.  Her diagnosis is that she will not beat the cancer and she is taking chemotherapy to buy her some more time.  It was an awkward interaction at best despite the genuine feelings of warmth, care and compassion we have for each other’s situation.  Her wishing me the rest of my life to be cancer free, and me knowing the she will never again have the same experience of walking out of that room with treatments done and hope for a future.  I will not be able to describe this experience well enough here and now.  I think perhaps it touches on too many feelings and thoughts that have not fully processed, so I’m going to leave it at that. 

But in the end, as I signed my chemo nurses “completed chemo” book and walked down the long hallway I felt as if I was graduating.  In a way I was.  I have finished something that has brought me more knowledge and education and truth than any classroom has.

I still need to have my ovaries removed and my port-a-cath removed.  These are two things I should be finding more out about on my next oncologist appointment on the 10th, but I’m hoping to get those completed as soon as possible…and then?  Then we celebrate some more. 

Thank you all so much for everything you have done to help us get this far.  And thank you for celebrating these milestones with us!

Marbles

                I had a dream, if a dream is what it can be called.  It was more of a memory or a feeling of a time both not long past and a lifetime gone.  There was no story other than the glimpses from a time already told, not even a full year in the passing.

                It was autumn.

                I stood in the kitchen of our last apartment, preparing dinner and talking to Adam as he played with Maggie at the island.  It was simple, and loving and autumn.

                I talked on the phone to my brother, and we laughed at our own personal goblins when laughing was still enough to ease the anger.  It was healing, and fun and autumn.

                I smiled at Adam as we stood outside in the cold night air, surrounded by friends and drinks and stories.  It was exciting, and belonging and autumn.

                I battled orcs and drakes with Adam until three in the morning while sitting at the table in our sunroom.  It was playful, and comfortable and autumn.

                I drove down the road with my windows down, not because the air was cool, but because it was slightly too cool.  It was invigorating, and refreshing and autumn.

                I laughed as Adam, Steve and I spilt a case and delved into solving the problems of life, work and the world itself.  It was comforting, and entertaining and autumn.

                There were so many memories.  Brief glimpses of small yet significant time filled with family, friends and life. 

                I had gone to bed feeling sad, although I could not name what was weighing on me.  I felt like I was missing something when nothing seemed to be missing.  A shadow of nostalgia when no memories came to mind.  Maybe it had been the slight chill in last night’s air.  Maybe it was because I had stood outside staring at the moon thinking on the season to come…whatever it was, it awakened an unnamed sadness until I dreamed a dream that would name it.

                At first I thought I missed these specific memories.  Last fall was a beautiful season filled with so many wonderful times.  But then I realized that none of these times were things that could not be done again this year.  No, it is not the events that I missed, as much as I had loved them, it is the feelings they gave me as they occurred.  It is the simple, the loving, the healing, the fun, the exciting, the belonging, the playful…all of them wrapped up in one autumn that I never thought would end. 

                But, no, even that was not quite right.

                Those feelings are not what is missing.  They are still here, but something is different.  And when I really push myself to find what is no longer here, the best way I can describe it is innocence.  An innocence that I did not know I had, until it was already gone.  The events have not changed.  The feelings have not changed.  I have.

                The change is not all for the worse.  I have gained.  I have learned.  I have grown.  But I have also lost.  And even when I am thankful for the things this past year has brought me, there are still those nights where I feel the cool breeze of the upcoming fall and I stop and remember.  There are still those nights where I miss how it used to be so much it is hard to breathe.  There are still those nights where I remember a life that feels both familiar and foreign, and I wish I could go back just one more time, to feel the way I felt before I changed, and the world seemed to change with me.

Jack-in-the-Box

                Sometimes I feel like I am six again.

                I remember the jack-in-the-box.  It was fairly beaten up and abused, but the paint that remained suggested some flowing pattern of reds, blues and yellows.  Swirls and dots.  Maybe birds and flowers.  A happy box with a little crank and a sweet tune.      

“All around the mulberry bush…”

I would smile.  I would giggle.

“the monkey chased the weasel.”

I would happily sway to the calm rhythm of the lullaby.

“The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun.”

Everything would be fun.  Everything would be okay.  Everything would be alright.

“Pop! goes the weasel!”

                And in that moment when the clown would come shooting out of the latched hid, all that contentment and all that peace and all of that happiness would be brought to a quick and shuddering halt.  I would be jarred out of the sleepy and twinkling tune to find the clown’s abrasive smile bobbing up and down as my heart thudded and my palms sweat…How could that monkey forget about a popping weasel?

                Sometimes I feel like cancer is that jack-in-the-box.

                I find myself forgetting sometimes that I have cancer.  When you first get diagnosed your whole world becomes centered on the disease.  It is all you can think about.  It is all you can plan for.  You crave normalcy, but your mind will not let it happen.  My husband said it perfectly about a week after the diagnosis,

“When everyone is talking to me about it, I want them to change the subject.  But as soon as they do, I can’t figure out how they could possibly talk about anything else.”

Maybe it is the fact that we have been dealing with this for five full months now, and cancer has just become a part of accepted life.  Perhaps it is the fact that I am so preoccupied lately with over-due projects or preparing to fully re-enter the work force next month.  It could be that I have tried to put myself out in the world more and in the company of those I love.  Maybe it is because I have finally stopped fighting the side effects of the chemo and I just flow with it now…but sometimes I can forget.

Sometimes I feel like it is good to forget.

                We are such happy monkeys as we chase our weasels around the mulberry bush.  We get caught up in the fun and we allow ourselves to be lulled into the security of the sweet tunes of a life we live, but only in pieces. 

I do not pretend to know if this is good or bad.  It is easier to forget for a time.  Life is not cancer, after all.  Life is why you fight cancer.  But then you forget and things seem to slip.  You do not do everything as you should.  You forget to sit down.  You forget to take it a little slower.  You forget the things you should not be doing.  You forget to stand up.  You forget to move a little quicker.  You forget the things you should be doing.

                Sometimes I feel like it is good to remember.

                But I can only hope that there is enough balance in between the forgetting and the remembering, because I am always reminded in the end.  The lyrics have changed, but the tune is still the same.

“All around the reality bush…”

I am sitting in a room playing a game with friends and feeling so happy and content.

“The girl chased the fantasy.”

Adam and I are curled up on the couch together talking of life and love and feeling safe.

“The girl thought all could be normal”

I am running errands.  I am working.  I am laughing.  I am living.

“Pop! goes the cancer.”

                And in that moment there is fierce chest pain.  There is a nose bleed.  There is a weakened knee.  There is a phone call from a doctor.  There is exhaustion.  There is a concerned question.  There is a person staring at me.  There is a person judging me.  There is a scar.  There is a sudden sadness.  There is a sudden anger.  There is a sudden desire to fight.  There is a confused mind.  There is dizziness.  There is a hot flash.  There is any one of the thousand little things that say, “Hey.  You have cancer,” and once again I am that little girl whose heart was thudding and palms were sweating.

                But in those moments Adam and I look at each other and we say, “Finding the new normal.”  And when Adam is not by my side I chant it in my head, “Finding the new normal.  Finding the new normal.  Finding the new normal.”  And I remember, and I forget.  And I remember, and I forget.

                Sometimes I feel like life is never knowing if one is better than the other and hoping for both.