Cancer Journey       &n bsp Daily Journal       &n bsp Midwife Stories
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"You haven't a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." ~ C.S. Lewis
the point is: you never know when your number's gonna be called, when you're finished here on earth. so value each day as if it is your last. and think about what really matters and how you want to be remembered. all your achievements, your talents, your belongings, won't be going with you when you go. and what you leave behind is your own legacy. so think about what happens to you after you're done, because you are an eternal being, whether you believe so, or not.
i'm sorry to have to remind you of your own mortality, of your short residency here on earth. i'm not a morbid person, really. it's just that i never really thought about the inevitability of dying, even in my suicidal desperations. but then, at the still young age of 30, i was diagnosed with Stage IIIc Inflammatory Breast Cancer cancer, with an 80% chance of not ever being rid of it, a 50% chance it would take my life within 5 years, and *sigh*, a 95% chance of being dead within 10 years. if i was a gambler, i don't think i'd take those odds with my life on the line. but sometimes we have no choices, and my oncologist encourages me that i'm not just a statistic. a wise man once said: "it doesn't matter if the survival statistics are 1% or 100%; when you survive, you survive 100%."
so 2 years of cancer treatment which involved six surgeries, 9 multi-drug chemotherapy treatments, 35 radiation treatments, and then numerous weekly monoclonal antibody drips (8 months worth), and there i was, 100% surviving. i began healing, searching to grasp onto this "new normal" they talk about in the survivor community. but 17 months into my post-treatment life, just after a promotion at work, i was devastated to learn that my cancer had outgrown my immune system once again. now it meant metastatic disease. terminal. no cure. palliative care. so another radical surgery, dozens more CT scans, PET scans, MRIs, and 8 more aggressive chemo-cocktails. are you counting? that's 9 surgeries in total, 17 aggressive chemotherapy treatments, several hospitalizations, a few very serious complications, and over 30 scans in a 4 year period. it took all that to get to an NED status (no evidence of disease). but being NED doesn't mean i'm cancer-free. the fact that my cancer "came back" after all that aggressive treatment proves that this cancer's allusive and aggressive. so i'm what they call a "lifer"- i'll remain in chemotherapy for the rest of my life, or until they find a cure. that mostly entails going to the cancer center on a regular basis and getting "plugged in" for my liquid infusion. i also go for PET/CT scans every 6 months and echocardiograms every 3 months.
if you look at my photos you'll see my bald head. he he. i didn't shave it. it fell out. three times, actually. but thank God i have a nice head shape. we (my husband and kids) had fun decorating it with henna several times during the course of my baldness. and yes, every hair falls out- eventually even the lashes and brows shake loose too. that's when you're so deep in the trenches that you lose the chicness of the style and start to get that real nice embryo look. the good side is showering is a 5 minute endeavor (because, believe me, with that much chemo your body even stops sweating) and traveling becomes a heck of a lot easier- no razors, no shampoo, no hair brush!
this cancer thing's been hard. i won't lie and try to divert the pain and loss with lots of fluff about what cancer can't take, or how i'm going to "fight like a girl" and all that. i mean, that has it's place some days and for some people. but cancer sucks. it's taken a hell of a lot from me. loss. lots of it. i've lost many sisters to this disease, and their families have lost wives, daughters, mothers. i've gone through the valleys. anger. sadness. loss. paralyzing fear. sadness. loss. loss. sadness. let me tell you, learning to live while learning to die is a challenging way of being. i cry alot. i laugh alot. i'm scared to death and full of faith. i love deeper, but a lot less freely. i curse God and i thank Him. i'm definitely a sinner, saved by grace.
anyway, i decided that rather than go through skin stretching and the insertion of two saline-filled sacs to make pretend i have breasts, i'd just get a tattoo. i can't pretend this never happened to me. and cleavage is not how i have learned to define my sexuality. in fact, i think losing two breasts has made me less of a girl and more of woman. but losing the ovaries has been a little harder in those respects.
while i'm not a cheerleader for the cancer experience, i'm not totally morose either. believe me, i am grateful to tears to be alive to see my children grow into adulthood. six years into this cancer journey and i am amazed that i am even here to provide the support to my children. there was a time when i didn't think i'd even live long enough to see my oldest graduate from high school. i just hope that some day my children can look back and see that everything i endured i did for them. they have been my motivation. and i savor every rich morsel of life i can spend with them. so living in this shadow of death has given me a zen mind. it's given me some other things too.
i do blog my more intimate thoughts, but not here on this trashy little place called 'myspace'. i only joined myspace because there are just too many bands here now that i want to plug (and a few real life friends). i'm a writer by talent, so if you poke around long enough, you might find some of my stuff.
happy browsing! (and may you find everything/everyone you're looking for at myspace)
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AL
my soulmate
JUSTIN
the first born
AMANDA
my special daughter
BRITTANY
my favorite DIL
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