"your heart needs a rest Londy..."

That's what I heard today, "your heart needs a rest...". Yes I agree, my heart has been through a lot in the past 6 years or so... times of complete joy, times of total grief... yeah, it is tired.

But that's not what he meant. My recent MUGA scan showed that my heart is starting to not work as well as before. Most likely due to the herceptin of course. Herceptin can cause heart damage and symptoms like congestive heart failure. So after today's infusion I will be off herceptin for a couple of months.

Damn. Yes I know how important heart function is, but it also scares the crap out of me to go off it. I voiced my fears to Dr. Johnson "I'm afraid I'll start growing cancers again..." and he pointed out that I was "still on Tamoxifen right?" and that is very good at prevention. Then he added in that serious no-nonsense tone "but if you notice anything call me right away".
I also finally remembered to ask him what everyone asks me all the time... "how long do you take this drug?" He said he considers herceptin a "maintenance" drug... so in therory I could be on it all my life. Except for this heart thing of course.. I guess with periodic rests and if my heart recovers during those rests....hopefully I can be on it for a long, long time.

Naturally as soon as I could I googled it and found that I do have several of the indications of a herceptin heart reaction. Some of them I've passed off as part of my surgery recovery or lung problem or perhaps even my recent sinus infection.... I guess we shall see what problems disappear during the next couple of months.

I also had crazy-high blood pressure. I've had it nearly every time I've gone in for my chemo and my infusions without chemo. But I've also not had it when I had it checked at my OBGYN.... hmmm... curious.

I asked Susan, the chemo-nurse dynamo, (whom I realized today I now like more than my friends.. but that's a different blog...) if it could be a result of the heart problem and she said that the heart problem usually causes low blood pressure.

She mentioned some other causes such as gaining weight, stress and then she said "it might just be how you are now...this could be how you will be..." Hmmmm... okay. Both her and Dr. Johnson suggested monitoring it at times other than my treatment visits. Dr. Johnson said with a chuckle; that "most people's blood pressure goes up when the come to see the cancer doctor." Point taken.

So the next couple of months will be an interesting time. I'm going to monitor the blood pressure, keep track of changes in how I feel and in my body. I'm going to try the low-sodium diet thing and as for lowering my stress.. well... uh...sure...where do I even start?

There used to be a British comedy on the PBS station here. I don't remember what it was called but in it a couple buys a farm and tries to become "self sufficient". I used to fantasize about that. They live on food they grow on the land, heat with a fire burning heater, barter for services, bake their own bread and so on... and of course they have disapproving upper crust neighbors much like the Clampets did on Beverly Hillbillies. Much comedy follows... and it seemed so fun to me at times. I would think "yeah, I could do that..". So if you see me ditching my appliances for wood burning stoves and I start hang drying my laundry outside you'll know why....

Happy New Year!

He invented "snow swimming"

Christmas ain't what it used to be...

Christmas used to be a big deal. It used to mean a large family gathering at my parents house with a turkey dinner and all the trimmings. Sure my big sister would get bored a few hours into it all and need to go shopping or something.. anywhere... Dad would fuss over the dinner cooking and the cleaning up and make everyone feel like they weren't doing enough. There was some drinking and few outside smokers...a grandkid or two here and there. It was heaven. It may not have been appreciated by all of us at the time... or perhaps just not appreciated enough.

A few hours after dinner eveyone had to go somewhere; other families, drop in's for dessert, whatever. There was often a feeling of "oh we just have sooo much to do...". There wasn't enough enjoyment of the moment and now it's gone.

My parents are gone... there is no "home" to go home to "go home for Christmas" anymore. I suppose that happens in all families. Once the parent generation is gone it all changes. Everyone has their own "families" or somewhere else to be.

That is what I am still struggling to do; make Christmas for my family. My family of me, my son and our two cats. It's just us. It seems wrong; like I'm cheating my son out of the big joyus Christmas that you see in all the TV shows. I wish there was one kid's TV show with a single Mom. They either have suspiciously absent parents or some cozy bear family that lives in a tree.

This year had extra complications. It takes all the energy I've got to get through a normal day; forget fighting crowds and shopping. A lot of the traditions I had tried to build were just impossible for me to do; I couldn't put lights up outside or bake the endless cookies I did the last couple of years. Plus how do you buy for Santa when your child is with you? There was no way. At least I got my child's Father to put up the tree...

Then on about the 22nd I realized I had no gifts for my child... none. I had to do something fast or we would not get a visit from Santa.
In tears of desperation I called my big Brother Lee who jumped to the rescue. He braved a blizzard... really.. you should see the snow here...and went shopping at midnight. He then wrapped and organized all the gifts and in the wee hours of the snowy morning when most people are still sleeping; snuck them into the back of my truck.

I braved a new foot of snow at about 7a.m. to get them from the truck and sneak them into the garage so they could go under the tree that night. Without Lee we would have had no Christmas.

As I was sneaking the gifts into the house after my son finally went to sleep around 1am I realized that I forgot to mention to him to get something from Santa for me and the cats. So my stocking had a few odd things in it; batteries and a head-strap flashlight.. lol. And well.. I had to convince my son that the cats woke up early and ate all their gifts because Santa brought them such yummy treats. I'm not sure he believes me.

Some day when he is older I'll tell him about Lee and how Christmas came about this year. And I have a new appreciation for my Mom who used to stock away odd gifts "just in case". She kept a shelf of things that you could go to and find something for someone at any time. She was one smart lady.

A whole year?

I've had a few people drop me emails and tell me to "keep writing"... lol. I guess I haven't posted to my blog as much lately. I intend to continue, it's just been a busy time for me. Especially now that we are again nanny-less. I don't get a lot of spare time.
I had a MUGA scan last Friday. That's to check my heart for problems that can be caused by herceptin. I left my son with his Father for a couple of hours while I went to have it done. I asked him to put up our Christmas tree because I didn't think I could manage it. We have an 8 foot tall, pretty, fake thing that came from my Father's cabin. It's heavy and tricky to put together. So I left the task to the two boys.
When I got home my son was running around excitedly putting decorations here and there; his Father was plopped in a chair - exhausted. Seriously, he looked like he was going to pass out. lol. A few hours of decorating and he looks like I do after a full day...
He was worried about the tree because my son had placed about 100 ornaments at his eye level of about 3-4 feet. He thought I might be mad about that because the tree didn't look "perfect". It made me smile. I told him "that happened last year too...to me it is perfect" and then I realized that I have been sick for an entire year.
Last year I had pneumonia at this time and entrusted the tree task to an employee. Who also was worried about the kid's eye level ornaments. Damn.. a whole year. A year of my life has been sucked up and derailed by cancer.
I often feel bad about that.. not for what I have missed out on, but what my son has missed. In the last year we made it to the park once, he didn't get to do karate or boxing or swimming like I promised. And playdates have been non-existant because of germ fears. There are so many places he wants to go and things he wants to do that I'm not quite strong enough for yet; it breaks my heart.
At my last infusion a week ago, I got some antibiotics for a sinus infection. That seems to have helped my energy level a lot. I must have been fighting an energy zapping infection. But I'm still not what I used to be... I wonder how much of it is me. By that I mean that I know I used to push myself, and do more than "normal" people. I've always been sort of crazy that way... worked 2 jobs, owned businesses, taught dance classes and gone to University all at the same time.. that sort of thing.
For me a normal day just a few years ago used to be working from 9-5 at Jungle Roses, then teaching 2 hour long dance classes and then perhaps working on my own choreography for another hour or so. I was extremely strong and could easily sustain 45 minutes of hard aerobic activity and still be able to carry on a conversation, not to mention flexibility and muscle strength. Those days are gone... I try to do a couple of moves now and then and my body backfires...
But there is a part of me that somehow even if it is irrational thinks I can do that again.. right now! It kind of makes me crazy... or well crazier..
Expecting less of myself is an interesting concept. Is it right to expect less of yourself? I have adjusted my expectations of other people, but not myself.
It brings up the whole "what's important in life..." lesson. Yes, I know that being with the people I love is the most important thing. But I also refuse to live in poverty or give up and just sit in an easy chair and tell my son to play by himself.
I've adjusted to some things though. Like right now; there is 6 inches of snow on my driveway and sidewalk. In past years I would be out there shoveling it... guess what? It ain't happenin today... lol.
But I feel like I should be out there doing it...

What's happening to my fingernails?? Yikes!

Gee; I was so proud. Thinking I had avoided yet another chemotherapy side effect... nope. I guess I just was able to stop chemo so quickly that it hadn't had time to surface yet. Now that my finger and toe nails are growing out and the parts that had been damaged by the chemo are reaching about mid-way point.. holy crap! I lost one nail just below the half way down point... painful and frustrating. I tried nail-glueing it; that worked for a couple of days. I have been faithfully using the super nail hardener... sort of helps. But as of today I can see splits and cracks about half way down on 4 fingernails and 2 toes. wow.

I can work okay, but typing is a little sting here and there. When I work with the roses I just put floral tape on them and I can do just fine; although it looks a little funny. Bandaids fall off when they get soggy; the floral tape doesn't. But if any of my clients get a mysterious looking wad of floral tape in their box of roses...um.... it'd be from me. Just kidding... I'm really careful, that won't happen. I'm sure florists have millions of uses for floral tape, and viola' I have found a new one!

I can even see rings on my nails; like you count on a tree to determine age. One ring for each chemo treatment.

So you don't think I'm addicted to Lortab then?... Can I have some more??

Yesterday I had my what is now my every 3 weeks routine; an infusion of anti-cancer drugs. I was looking forward to talking to Dr. Johnson. For the past couple of weeks I have been in pain... a strange type of pain I haven't felt before. It would wake me at night, stop me during the day and make me really crabby. It is like a throbbing, flu type ache in my legs and sometimes my arms too. If upon waking in the morning my Lortab had worn off and I was in pain it was difficult to walk. I was baffled and frightened.

I also noticed that my Lortab didn't last as long as before. It used to be that I only had to lick a Lortab and my pain would go away... okay maybe not quite that. But a year ago 1/4 of a Lortab 10 would have me pain free. Even free of that February 13th, 4 p.m. kind of pain that only a florist knows. While I was on chemo my need jumped from that to first 1/2 and then a whole pill to rid me of the pain. Then when I was in the hospital it jumped to 2 whole pills with supplementation for breakthrough pain...

After my surgery I was on 2 Lortab 10 every 6 hours. When I tried to taper off to 1 pill every 6 hours the problem began. I figured it's been over a month since the surgery now; I should be able to do without painkillers. My rationalization was backed up by the fact that I had exhausted my perscription from Dr. Goff weeks ago. I was using some from an early prescription from another Doctor. So you see... I started to think I was a Lortab addict.

I knew it wasn't cancer pain; and it wasn't localized... wtf? I also knew I was miserable and yesterday morning at 5 a.m. I took my last Lortab on a no longer refillable prescription. Slight panic set in...okay more than slight.. kind of huge panic.. Naturally I searched the 'net for withdrawl symptoms etc. I'm starting to think I'm going down the Rush Limbaugh path....

So I ask Dr. Johnson about all this and describe my pain. He says "I think you are just trying to wean off it too fast". whew. So then I ask if I can "have another presciption?" Oh so you don't think I'm addicted? Great! Can I have some more??? Sort of funny... but I was very relieved when he said "yes". He also suggested another non-narcotic pain killer to slowly change over to that I can take for a longer period of time if necessary. And so far it's all working well.

My tumor markers remain in the normal range and the dead tumor in my breast is shrinking! And I have learned that pain killers are not such a bad thing if you use them correctly... I'm not so afraid of them anymore Ahhhh.. only 2 more hours and I can take another......

Poets

Jungle Roses often gets orders from "famous" people; actors, athletes, and the occasional rock star. We fill an unusual niche' in the marketplace.

But recently an order came through that really got my attention. We received an order from Maya Angelou. We had sent roses to her in the past from a few of our famous clients, but this was the first time she had ordered herself. She sent them to someone else notable; but the fact that she ordered herself really got me.

I gleefully mentioned it to a few people and got met with a blank stare... they could not remember who she was or why she was a big deal. I explained, "poet, author, Bill Clinton, amazing woman..." (insert the sound of crickets chirping). One of my business associates admitted to googling her to see who she was.. "oh yeah..., that's cool".. was the reply. I said, "Look even her message card is a beautiful phrase of poetry!"

I suppose maybe you have to be a bookish nerd like me and my friends to be overwhelmed by such a thing. I recall a story about someone in our circle of friends who was working at a UPS shipping facility a few years ago. She got assigned the task of packing and shipping an antique parking meter to Dr. Angelou. She was so excited that before she packed it she slipped a coin of her own in the meter so that something that was once hers would now be in Dr. Angelou's garden, or house or wherever the meter was destined for... she also had some explaining to do about why her package was "ticking" as it waited for pick up.

So I wish to give a big thank you to Dr. Angelou for making my day. There is a group of women here in Utah that you have inspired. I'm honored to have served you.

I think it's about time for another President to pick a poet Laureate. Are you listening President Elect Obama? I read that she is already writing one... but in true humble form doesn't expect to be asked. I think it would be great if she was..

Happy Halloween!

After taking my son on our version of "trick or treating" Halloween night; I took him out to dinner. We left a bowl of candy on the doorstep and slipped away at about the time the visits from neighborhood kids were winding down. My son refuses to go trick or treating in the neighborhood because he hates dogs. I think every house in our neighborhood except us has a dog that is about eye level with him and most are not all that well trained. You can be guaranteed a greeting of vicious barking in your face upon knocking on any door around here. Instead we visited a local store that offered trick or treating throughout. That was fun.

As we were eating dinner I have to admit looking at him and thinking "geez; I amost wasn't here for this Halloween... what if I'm not here for the next one?" That's truly frightening. I hope that eventually those kind of thoughts go away.. that next year I'll not even think it, and the year after that and after that... it's a sobering thought. I'm looking forward to that day when I will forget that I had cancer. I wonder if that ever happens?

For some unknown reason my son has started talking about us "becoming angels at the same time". I have no idea why he suddenly started this line of conversation. Out of the blue he started telling me and a few other people; that "Mom and I will become angels at the same time and we will go to the same place together..." Whoa. I know my being in the hospital was scary for him. He definitely associates hospital stays with death. Perhaps this is some way for him to comfort himself that he won't be here alone? I don't know, but it's hard to hear and even harder to respond to...??? I hope that goes away soon too.

On a brighter note; my public blog is getting good response. We sold our first "Pink in the Jungle" package. And I formed a "partnership" with the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. All of my profits from the Pink in the Jungle Package will go to them and will be directed to breast cancer research. They are sending me brochures I can include in the packages if I want and also letting me put their logo on our website. That's cool. I'm looking for more ways to promote it. Due to a few technical glitches I sort of missed out on the October breast cancer month blitz. Ah well.... next year we will be well positioned.

Check out the Halloween photo. Here is a first glimpse of my post-chemo hair! It's been about 3 months now I think.... it came in a lot, lot grayer and it seems to be a lot straighter too. I'm getting used to it. I still wear hats a lot because my ears get cold... and my neck. I'll be buying turtle necks and scarves this winter!

"I'm through with you Londy.."

I had my post surgery follow up with Dr. Goff on Monday. It took a lot of effort. He only takes early morning appointments. The nurses on the surgical floor gossiped to me that this was because he "was a Mormon Bishop and worked early in the morning so he could attend to church duties later.." I had to rise before the sun was up, shower, drive to the hospital, find a parking place and get an x-ray several hours before I normally rise. He wanted an x-ray right before he saw me. Okay.. the radiology department and his office are on opposite ends of the hospital... a long walk early in the morning. Great.

I got the required x-ray; no problem...and I managed to time it just right so that I arrived in Dr. Goff's waiting room moments before my appointment time. I was exhausted. Since I was driving myself I didn't take any lortab before I left, so make that exhausted, sleep deprived, hurting and somewhat impatient. After waiting for half an hour I inquired of the receptionist "how much longer?" She said it could be an hour. He hadn't returned from his hospital rounds yet and eventhough I was his first appointment that morning, two people arrived before me so she put them in exam rooms and I had to wait until they were seen. I told her I felt sick; like I may vomit and that I was afraid to re-schedule because I thought I had an infection. Her eyes got wide... "oh...." she says. I lied about the vomit part.. I was just in pain; but I have learned that vomit scares people. She offered to put me in an exam room and make me the first patient the doctor sees when he gets there. Fine.

I get in the exam room and I can overhear the doctor talking on the phone to an obviously distraught family member.... I forgave him. Gotta give him credit for talking time when he is behind and at the start of an incredibly busy day to help someone who is having a bad time. That and the dedication to his religious duties make me think the is a pretty unselfish guy. I decide to let him off easy.

I was serious about the infection thing though. One of my tube-holes is in a most unfortunate place; right where my bra sits on the side under my breast. What my sister Joan would refer to as "the pencil holder.." We once heard somewhere that the test to determine if you could go bra-less was to stick a pencil under your boob. If the pencil fell out you can go without a bra. This was so absurd to us because well.... we could put a whole office supply store under there without any droppage.

So this hole I believe, is infected. It hurts and starting the day before my appointment, was oozing crud. (Hope you are not reading this while eating lunch.) I also have tightness in my chest that is only relieved with a maximum dose of mucinex and periodic inhalation of my rescue asthma inhaler. I also from time to time nearly lose my voice or it sounds like I have a cold. The voice thing has been going on for a long time; since I started chemo. The other stuff started in the hospital.

The doc finally breezes into my room with an apology. He quickly brings my xray up and does a quick comparison with an xray taken in July. I have to admit my lungs now look amazing in comparison. Just a small spot down on the very left side that is blocked. He says by some fluid, maybe 100-200 cc's. Not much and that it may go away in time by itself. He pronounces this a huge sucess.

I tell him that I wasn't experiencing the instant relief I expected. He for the most part brushes that aside. Says that it takes awhile to "feel" like the new breathing is normal because there is soreness and it hurts, but the more active I become and the more I use the incentive spirometer the better it will get... um okay. What about the mucinex? He says just to keep taking it if I need it. What about the voice? this he doesn't know, but offers the explanation of "mucus getting stuck on my vocal cords from time to time".. yeah that could be... okay. He says to ask Dr. Johnson about it and if I can't get any resolution on it he would be happy to "refer you to a nose/throat guy who can stick a scope down there and.... " oh yuck... I'm so over "scopes". Maybe once I get breathing easier whatever is bugging me there will get coughed up or resolve itself. He concurs.

He then looks at the holes in my side; apologizes for the unfortunate placement of the one. He thinks if the gets the stiches out of them they will be fine. He pulls them, bandages me up and says "I think I'm through with you Londy. There's no reason for me to have to see you again."

So at this point in my life I have graduated pulmonology. I hope I never have to come back.

It's been a couple of days since that appointment and he was right. Things are healing better without the stiches. I still need the mucinex and from time to time my voice gets gravely. But I'm now up to between 2500 and 3000 on the spirometer. A huge gain from 1500 pre-surgery. And yesterday I actually made it all the way through a shopping trip at the grocery store. That's new. Before I had to send the nanny and my son while I waited in the car because I would get about 1/3 of the way through and nearly collapse. Yesterday I walked all the way through the store, shopped and loaded the car and I could breathe without huffing and puffing. Awesome!

As for what's bugging my lungs? I don't know. Corey the chiropractor says "fungus" and prescribed an immune building formula. I'm taking it. The Native American medicine man said I need "mare's milk". What? huh? you mean milk from a horse? yep that is what he means. I haven't taken that too seriously because of the yuck factor and a few other reasons. But Linda did. She has been visiting horse farms in the area in seach of a nursing horse that wouldn't mind giving me some milk. Linda is just cool like that. Imagine having the balls to stop at a strange horse farm, walk in, tell this story and ask if they have any milk? Only Linda can do that. BTW horse farms here are a huge zillion dollar business. So these aren't just little nearby farms she is visiting. These are huge operations. I've decided that if she really gets some I will only drink it after I see her do it and she is carefully observed for several days and we get a full medical history of the donating horse... lol.

20 days... shouldn't I be better now?

It's now been about 20 days since my surgery. Not the instant relief I expected. I still feel like I am working very hard to breathe. I'm not sure why. I know there is progress. When I first went to respitory therapy before my surgery they said I was operating at 63% of my lung capacity. They showed me where this was on the "incentive spirometer". It was a mark of 1500 upon inhaling. I can now on occasion get it up to almost 2500, but it's hard work and everything has to be just right. Dr. Goff told me that I could be "doing aerobics the day I was released"...ummmm not exactly.. lol. I have my follow up appointment with him next Monday.
I have days where I feel really good and then my ambition gets the better of me and I fly around working like crazy.. only to wake up the next day exhausted and hurting all over. I think that is partly the painkillers; they make you feel better than you are and then it is easy to do stupid things.
I feel bad that Dr. Goff told Lee and Linda that I might only have a "couple of years"... oh man. That was right after surgery and he thought my scar tissue was some sort of cancer. He proclaimed to have "gotten most of it; and may have given her a couple of years..." He was positive it was cancer and had all sorts of hows and whys for them. They went through a weekend of hell. I had no idea. I can see though that this type of thing will could possibly come up in the future; any time I have a spot or bump or pimple... the first conclusion a doctor will come to is "cancer". I'm going to have to be tough to face that and fight for proper treatments etc. I'm rather peeved at all the times they tapped the fluid and didn't test it because "we have to assume that it is...".. it wasn't.

Our Day

My son thinks it is time for me to update my blog and tell everyone how I am doing now that I'm home from the hospital.

First, he wants me to tell you about our wonderful nanny. She would like a new boyfriend. He must be tall, dark and handsome, with qualities like Prince William. I told him I wanted a new boyfriend too and he replied, "that's what you have me for Mom, I'm your boyfriend." So true; but if the universe wants to send a new tall, dark and handsome prince my way, that'd be okay.

Today was back to business. Thanks to Linda and my son's help we got Jungle Roses orders out without to much difficulty. I'm looking forward to the fall season and planning our holiday offerings. I'm also working on my "Pink in the Jungle" package with profits going to the Huntsman Cancer Center and am hoping to launch it within the next couple of weeks for breast cancer awareness month.

My son thinks everyone is updated now... lol. He wants to work on his science projects. I bought him a polymer lab from the discovery website. He mixed slime yesterday and today he wants to mix "goo." This should be fun. I love doing home school with him. It's amazing how much "school" can be fit into ordinary activities.

Hospital Photos

He loved the cake; and the big construction machines that are adding onto the building.

Scar tissue? It’s just scar tissue???

All of the tests came back. Nothing Dr. Goff biopsied was cancerous. It is just scar tissue. Just scar tissue!!!! Ha! I knew it, probably left there from my many episodes of pneumonia earlier this year. I'm so happy.

Dr. Goff read the report for the first time in front of me and one of my nurses. We all had tears in our eyes. Of course I wanted to run and jump and yell... but I have this damn tube poking out of my chest; it really restricts jumps for joy.

Soon word spread throughout the floor and a few hours later the nursing staff brought me a huge pink cake so I could have a celebration with my son when he gets here later on... that made me cry. They are all planning to come in when he gets here because they want to see his reaction to the cake; they even got his favorite kind. We decided to tell him it is just a party for Mom because "she is so special," since he doesn't know I am fighting cancer... I think that is fine.

I called Linda and asked her to bring up my camera so I can take pictures and post them later.

Never have surgery on a Friday

I have decided to never have surgery on a Friday again; and that I will always ask my surgeon if he has vacation scheduled or any days off in the days following my procedure. When Dr. Goff finally showed up yesterday morning, all my problems got solved with one wave of his magic wand... duh. I feel stupid.

Yes, in just a brief moment he was able to solve my pain problems. I'm now on 2 Lortab 10s every 4 -6 hours. That was the magic formula. Why someone kept me on morphine shots every 2 hours all weekend is unknown and nobody will own up to it now. lol... and I have to admit that my mind is working much better now too.

What was actually in my pleural space is still a mystery. We won't know until we get all the reports back. He said "it is not what I would expect to find in this situation." which I understand as an intellectual way to say "I dunno... I've never seen this before." I speak that way; so I understand it. Language manipulators... you gotta watch out for us. He mentioned that we have to "assume" that it is cancer and maybe it just looks different because it has already been treated... I can tell he is curious; he wants to know. I suspect that he usually doesn't get patients post-chemo, so I think that explanation is very possible.

He said maybe today or tomorrow before they would pull the tubes. He wants to get the most lung expansion possible; and I soooo agree. Even though I can't wait to get home and be with my son, it would be a drag to go through all this and not get the total benefit... it's been too miserable.

Although, in a way I'm glad I'm sitting here zoned out on painkillers while watching the economic bloodbath... it's very scary for me. Seasonal businesses and luxury items like Jungle Roses will be really affected. While some financial problems don't touch my regular customers that much; a falling stock market does. I need to get strong and get back to work. I've already been walking a fine line with all that has been going on... I remember what our business was like after 9/11's stock market crash... that along with my health issues... whew... it's going to be a real challenge.

My first sponge bath...

Nope, I've never had one before. It felt strangely good. A woman from the Ukraine did it. It was funny... just the accent alone made it amusing. If you can picture it, "you vant me do vash the back now yes?" They finally have my pain under control but I'm still coughing and it sounds like I have a Harley on my chest when I breathe.

Funny things are coming back to me now. Without knowing; I caused trouble for my surgeon. The OR nurse asked if I had been marked; you know how they mark you with an X with a sharpie to make sure they do the right side? So I said "yes, a girl in his office did it." Unbeknownst to me, that is against the hospital rules and the surgeon must mark you personally. This nurse was so pissed off that she made my surgeon come out of the OR to mark me himself. He was mad. He strode over to me with one of those mad fast walks, threw back the top of my gown on the shoulder and then with a ball point pen he roughly drew a small X in the same spot as the sharpie X. He then said, "I marked her myself, happy now?" Then he turned away and walked out in a huff. The nurse had a huge grin of satisfaction; I had a pissed off surgeon. Good thing I didn't tell her that I interrupted their lunch and a girl marked me in the hallway while holding a plate of Chinese food.

This left everyone in the pre-op room with gaping mouths and a tad bit nervous. Especially the 2 guys that were wheeling me in... so what happens? As they take off with me they get wrapped up in the TV cord and start to pull it off the wall. It doesn't come all the way off though; but that's because the weight of the gurney and me managed to sever the cord before the fall could happen. So we destroyed a hospital TV.

As I was waking up in recovery I was having dream in which my son was showing me something, the details are sketchy. But it was some new idea he had come up with that made us millions... I'm going to start paying attention to all his ideas... lol.

My recovery nurse is a breast cancer survivor. And we spent my recovery time sharing chemo stories. She was really sweet. It's mind boggling. I have met so many people who have either had cancer or know someone close that has... it's a disease that affects so many people. In some cases people refer to it like it's a root canal or something... you know by saying, "well when my grandmother had her breast cancer...” Odd.

This is so freakin’ miserable...

They haven't been able to control my pain... I'm so miserable. Yesterday they got it controlled but my nurse got in trouble because he had overdosed me on Tylenol. Rats. So now they have me on Percalone, which I had never heard of; it's a Percaset minus the Tylenol. But that hasn't been working so they are giving me shots of morphine every two hours. And on top of that I'm nauseated and keep coughing. Every time I cough it hurts like hell.

I still haven't seen my surgeon, Dr Goff. Everyone here says my chest tube is ready to come out—except my surgeon's partner, who is on call for Dr. Goff, who obviously doesn't want to get his hands dirty over the weekend and said "no," that we had to wait until Dr. Goff came back on Monday. He came in, read the number on the unit that the fluid collects in and he read it wrong; the nurse even pointed this out to him and he brushed her off and said "oh this takes 3 or 4 days." I wanted to punch him.

So maybe tomorrow... I hope so; I can't stand much more of this. Sorry to be so negative; but pain sends a positive attitude out the window fast.

Sorry I stepped on that hose going to your lungs Mom...

Here I am. I made it through the surgery and I'm now recovering. It's been quite a journey. I have not yet met with my surgeon; but he told Lee and Linda that things went well. He found some "patches" that he is going to biopsy; although all the tests they have done so far on it are "inconclusive." He has ordered some more testing but the results won't be back for a week or so.

There is pain; but it's tolerable. The really cool thing is that the hospital now has "room service." No kidding. You get a full scale restaurant menu to pick from. It's so nice... until you get the food and you realize… ohhhh yeah; it's still hospital food... lol. But it's okay.

My respiratory therapy is going well. I'm already up to what my function was before the surgery. And I seem to be draining well... I'm hoping to go home Monday or Tuesday.

My son visited this afternoon and checked everything out. He is very curious about everything; all the equipment and what my blood pressure is... so cute. It's hard for me to be away from him. I can't begin to explain how much I miss him.

I have actually spent the day reading and watching TV. Something I haven't done in years. I even watched the debate tonight. It's boring. I miss watching Noggin... lol.

"Did they git it awl?"

I just finished our home school for today. One of the greatest things I think about home schooling is that you can do it when the mood strikes... or in my case when Mom wakes up from the Benadryl she got in her cancer infusion. I'm so happy my son is beginning to read again. At the age of 3 he was reading at a beginning 1st grade level, but felt severely abnormal because the other kids could not, so after a poor school experience, he stopped reading and pretended he couldn't. I knew he was. I would see him do it and holy crap he zips around the internet like a whiz... finally now, at age 5 ½, he isn't pretending anymore and has picked up where he left off and progressing quickly. He is now entertaining himself with a video... I don't know how long that will last so this may be a short update.

Since I have been off chemo for many weeks now I have started to venture out into the community a little more. And I'm finding it hard to explain. I know people are trying to be nice, and trying to make themselves feel better... but man, I am so tired of the question "Did they git it awl?" or the sometimes more positively expressed, "they got it all and everything’s fine right?" I don't know what to say. I know people are used to that idea that you get surgery and they "git it all" and then you get chemo just in case "they didn't git it awl" and then radiation "fer certain." I try to explain, "Well... um... we killed it all... I have a dead tumor in my breast." This of course, results in a slow blink of the eyes followed by a glance at my breast as if they can see it... that's kinda funny.

That gets follow up with "are they going to take it out?" and I say "no." "It's fine to have a dead tumor in your body, no big deal." I've been asked if it will come back to life..."no, once a cell is dead, it's dead." That kind of thing only happens in the bible. I don't say that bible thing; but ohhhh I want to say it. Then I get "so you aren't having radiation or surgery or anything?" Nope. But then I am having that lung thing done, and I have to continue the fight to make sure I never get it back, but… oh hell... at that point I just don't want to explain anymore.

I know part of it is that people want some reassurance that, even though they don't think this could ever happen to them, if it did; it's fixable. And hearing that from me takes some of that fear away and reassures them. Yeah, I get that... cancer is freakin' scary. It's made my most horrible nightmares very real.

And to be honest there are days I don't quite understand it either. I have had this conversation in many places, the bank, the store, here and there. It's very hard to have it in front of my son. So I have decided just to say, "Yes. They got it aaaawwwllll." And in my mind I know that we killed it all. And when they say, "you don't have to have surgery or radiation?" I'm saying "no, I'm a miracle of modern medicine."

I often describe, with much affection, one of my older sisters this way when people would ask why we didn't look alike. I would say "she's a miracle of modern medicine." It would take a minute and then they would laugh as they realized the secret to her physical perfection... so touche'. Now we are both modern medical miracles!

My son is over his video now. He just brought me a book he is studying on volcanoes and we read how a volcano will have it's most violet eruptions right before and during a full moon. I don't know who is more fascinated with this fact... me or him?

Sunday Update

Ahhhh… Sunday mornings, my time to catch up on blogs and contemplate life. It's also one of the rare times I have alone. Our nanny goes to church (yes, really) and my son sleeps a little late. It's just me and the cats, by ourselves for a little while.

I had yet another thorocentesis this week. Yep, the needle in the back. Another liter and half of beer-looking fluid. At least this time it took 3 times longer to accumulate. And wow... this was the most painful recovery from it to date. I'm still sore. When I breathe in fully it hurts and still makes that crackly sound.

I scheduled the talc pleurodesis for the 26th. I'm hoping for a short, 3 day hospital stay; but I know I have to prepare for longer. So the next couple of weeks will be a lot of work for me. And yes it's true; I will be continuing the tradition as a member of the Child family hospitalized at the end of September.

I also blew my knees out last weekend. I have off and on had problems with mild arthritis over the past 10 years or so. Last weekend I was thrilled to feel somewhat functional and I spent the two days playing with my son. We played soccer, tag and continuing with his entrepreneurial enthusiasm, he offered to wash the car—for a small fee of course; a job that required a lot of my help. He was thrilled to have his old Mom back.

When I woke up Monday me knees were swollen up to the appearance of a medium ripe cantaloupe. I hobbled around all week. I iced and elevated when I could. Today they are much better. During this problem I recalled what I used to do before to "fix" it; a lot of ibuprofen.

Being cautious I searched and found that ibuprofen isn't recommended with my medications. During that search I found a wonderful article on Zometa. Something I hadn't read before. An Austrailian test found that use of Zometa, in the same protocol that I am on, reduced the reoccurrence of metasitic breast cancer in pre-menopausal women (got all that...that's me!) by 2/3rds. 2/3rds!!!! Now that is a statistic I can get behind. Awesome.

Forks are Extra

I now believe my son to be an economic genius. I think he will rival Bill Gates one day in shrewd business savvy. I knew he had a gift for math, but now I can't wait to start teaching him more economic and financial things. It should be fun; I'm glad I got so much education in those areas myself. Now I have someone to teach it all to.

Here's what happened; about 2 hours after he moved into his new "apartment" it dawned on him that his plan had one big flaw. He didn't have a fridge and thus no place to store food. So he came back down and proposed a swap. Still not giving up, he suggested that he would move downstairs and make the kitchen/dining/family area his apartment and I could live upstairs in the bedrooms. He then embraced this idea with much enthusiasm as he also realized that gave him access to the TV and internet... lol.

After much discussion I got him to understand that these areas are "family" areas and belong to everyone and if he wanted to use them he had to agree to become part of the family again. He thought about it for a long time though, so I told him that maybe when he was older—like 10 or so—I would build him a bedroom downstairs and he could live there and my bedroom could be upstairs. His eyes danced with glee. I had planned to do that anyway. His room upstairs is tiny and right next to mine; eventually he will need more space. That was the deal closer, he agreed to be part of the family again.

Then I gave it some thought and decided that it might be a good time to do some more educating about money and how it all works. So I suggested to him that he could "earn" enough money to buy the ball he wanted. He was perplexed at first and asked "can you find a job for a 5 year old Mom?" I explained that since the next day was the nanny's day off he could do some of her work and I would pay him for it. He loved the idea. The next day he loaded the dishwasher himself, swept the floor, helped me with some Jungle Roses things and even made me lunch all by himself... and yes, it was not only edible, it was tasty. He got enough money to buy 2 balls he wanted.

We went back to the store and he picked out the balls, but noticed that they now had the Halloween decorations on display. We both love Halloween and he had to "check them out." I didn't see it, but they had strung a wire across the top of the isle that had a motion controlled ghostly thing that slid across it when someone walked down the isle. Yep, you know it. It brushed against my now bare neck in the back and I let out a blood boiling scream. Much to my son's delight; he thought that was the coolest thing ever!

When we got back home he added the balls to the collection he already has and explained that he "needed" those because they were a different color and questioned me with a "now do you understand Mom?" I said "okay" …sigh. He then told me that he wanted to keep working so he could make enough money to go back and buy the ghost that had scared me so much. He even showed me where he plans to hang it on the front porch. Sounds good to me, I can use the help too.

He made a list of jobs to do the next day. Included, of course, was making me lunch. He is quite the little Wolf Gang Puck. He loves to cook. And I found he especially likes to make things for me that he thinks are yucky, like salad. That day he made me a huge salad; even tossed it with dressing for me and the works. It looked wonderful. He brought it to me with water and curiously… a tiny spoon. I walked back into the kitchen and said "I need a fork." He blocked the silverware drawer with his stepstool and thus I needed him to move in order to get one. He said, "Mom, forks are 2 dollars." "What?" I said with surprise and a little bit of awe. He says "spoons are free, forks are 2 dollars." I about fell over. My 5 year old son somehow instinctively figured out the economic principle of scarcity and demand all on his own... I'm thrilled... lol

I paid the 2 extra dollars and ate my wonderful salad. By 10 I'm hoping to make him Vice President of Jungle Roses... he's bound to want his own office though and, no doubt, his own fridge.

We all must pay the rent somehow... right?

My son is mad at me. We fought over a ball in a store. I believe he has plenty of balls... no pun intended... he thought he needed one more. When we got home he announced to me that he was moving into his room, that is it now to be considered his "apartment" and we live separately. He is moving things in there now that he thinks he will need. I could not resist; I asked him how he plans to pay his rent. He didn't know what rent was, so I explained. He thought that apartments were where people went who could not pay for houses. The rent idea disappointed him for a minute. He had to think hard about it. Then he brightened and said that he plans on creating his own roses and his own packages to send to people... and with that he continued moving things into his room. Did I mention he is 5? What is he going to do when he is 16?

Things are progressing with my treatments. So far so good... my tumor marker has stayed at 19, anything under 40 is considered "normal." Though I don't think even knowing what your tumor marker is should be considered anything remotely "normal." So, we proceeded this week with the Herceptin and Zometa. Unfortunately, I found that the new combination makes me feel like I have the flu for a few days—nothing near as bad as the Taxol—but still flu-ish. Plus, I lose a couple of days because of the heavy Benadryl they have to give you for the Herceptin. It knocks me out and makes it hard for me to concentrate. On Thursday I had to reset my password 3 different times because I could not remember it from minute to minute.

I also met with the lung specialist to go over having the procedure done to remedy my fluid problem. At first he didn't recognize me from our initial meeting. I refreshed his memory by saying, "oh, the last time you saw me I had hair and cancer." He laughed… and remembered. I could tell he was taken back a bit by the fact that I was doing so well. Just a look and one of those extra-effort , long slow, blinks of the eyes people do... then a slight turning away from my gaze as he said with a slight grin, "yes, I remember you now... wow... I'm glad it's worked so well for you."

The procedure sounds easy enough. A small scope, small incision; they look around some, pick off anything that looks like it could be cancerous and then blow some sort of magic powder into the space that seals it up. The only bad thing is that it can require anywhere from a 3 to 10+ day hospital stay. It all depends on how fast the lungs stop draining fluid. Some people stop in 3 days; some stop in 10 and anywhere in between. Some people it doesn't work at all. He thinks I'm a good candidate though and that it would work for me. I'm terrified to pick up and leave everything here for a potential 10 day hospital stay. Especially with my son taking his own apartment... lol.

Kidding aside; that makes it hard. It means potentially that long away from my business whose survival right now is shaky. My illness, the seasonal summer slow down and economy, which seems to now be causing even my customers to buy more conservatively, are taking a toll. We are starting to have our usual fall upsurge in business; but it feels like the wrong time to take off. Plus, I have never been away from my son for a night. Actually before this he had never even had a babysitter. That's my fault. I never found anyone or anything that I wanted to do more than be with him. In his first 2 years I had a nanny and on occasion I would leave him with her while I ran errands; that's about it. I haven't dated, He hasn't spent the weekends with Dad or anything like that. It's been me and him. He's never been away from home for the night without me, never had me gone for the night. And until recently he had never woke in the morning without me here. Things change. It scares me. I don't want it to be scary for him.

Linda can run things for me. But that is a lot of pressure to put on her especially with her own physical problems going on now. And I can tell the thought of it frightens the new nanny. Though she is handling things so well... I can't blame her. Being "in charge" and alone that long would be a challenge. So I'm putting it on hold for just a couple of weeks while I can hopefully stabilize the situation some.

The lung doctor also finally explained some things to me that had been puzzling me. I didn't understand how I could be still accumulating fluid. He said that our bodies create a lot of fluid all the time, and that our lymphatic system takes care of it. But if some of our lymph nodes get blocked up with cancer; the fluid has to go somewhere. And in my case it went to the pleural space. The pleural space is the space between your lung and the case that the lungs rest in; there is probably a better way to explain it, but I can't think of it. It sounds like a sneaky space for fluid to creep into if things aren't right. So I questioned why they never found cancer in that fluid and he said that there may indeed be no cancer there; just fluid that had no where else to go.

I have noticed a great slow down in the accumulation now. My lymph glands must be working. It's been more than 6 weeks since I last had the fluid drained and Dr. Johnson said he doesn't think I have much accumulated there. But I have had some breathing difficulties. It may be uncontrolled asthma or something else. Bottom line is I need to have the procedure done to prevent the problem, should I the cancer come back again. Ugh... there are lots of things now that I will be doing "just in case." I'm planning on getting my teeth overhauled, getting my body in the best physical condition I can, my diet healthy, all those things you are supposed to do to prevent cancer, I have to do with ferocity.

My son has now moved nearly everything he could drag from our living room up the stairs to his bedroom. He stopped long enough to inform me that he plans on staying in his room for the next 5000 days. I said "okay." He keeps picking things up hoping I will notice. He took my purse. It's so hard not to laugh. Oh man, what do I do now? Hmmm? Will somebody tell me that? Do I wait for him to eventually come out of his room? Send him a bill for rent?

I am getting a little stronger day by day. I'm up to about 8 minutes on my elliptical. That's not a lot; but considering not too long ago I could barely stand for more than a few moments... I'm thrilled. I found 2 books that finally made sense to me. One is called Healing Cancer through Nutrition and isn't so radical that you have to give up western medicine to follow their guidelines. It mostly goes into a low glycemic plan that is very doable for me. I have even managed to lose my 1 pound per week! And I also found a book called Cancer Fitness, which gives great advice on getting strong again during and after treatments. It is written by an oncology nurse, who is a breast cancer survivor herself. She has been studying and developing programs for people that are cancer survivors who want to remain physically strong. I found it very encouraging.

My hair is growing back. And wow… does it itch. Crazy. The hair on my head is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long now. It is 50/50 white and black I'd say. When I look at myself in the mirror now I think I've aged through all this. I look like one of those "great looking for 50-something" women. I'm 46. I think I've aged 10 years. I almost have eyebrows back too!

Eventually my son is going to get tired of this right? He's carried several books up there now and even some boxes of things I was going to eBay... he just came down and said he will be done moving things in a couple of hours. Then he grabbed my grocery list and a clean shirt and headed back up. On his way he announced back to me that "I took your purse Mom, so I'll have plenty of money." Oh... I'm sooo in trouble. Help me.

For entertainment purposes only.

Here are some odd things I have not yet put in my blogs... for entertainment purposes only:

* Shortly after I was diagnosed I had a blessing from a Native American Medicine Man. In this blessing he said, among other things, that I would have many Elders showing from spirit to help me get well the next night. And when they did I was supposed to show them out and give them tobacco. I sort of forgot about it. The next night our lights started dimming and going bright over and over again, so much so, it scared my son. After a minute I though "oh... it's them..." and so when the lights would dim I would go open the door and say "here's some tobacco for you." I felt sort of stupid because I had no tobacco. One time I was sort of laughing at myself and said "here's the door and I really don't have any tobacco." I swear I heard a voice say, "We know, we brought our own." This continued through the night. There was quite a crowd on my front lawn. My son still sleeps with a flashlight by his bed.

* While waiting for my diagnosis I consulted 2 psychics that I know, and consider friends. Both said I did not have cancer and that they thought it was some sort of infection. I recently read that they are now exploring research approaching cancer as an infection.

* Once, while giving my son a bath, he said, out of the blue, "Mom will we ever be the same?" I didn't know what he meant. So I said "do you mean will we both be grown-ups? Or will we both be boys? What do you mean?" He says "I mean like we used to be when you were not sick and you could run and play with me... and our house was clean."

* None of my doctors are cute enough to be crush worthy. This makes me feel cheated somehow.

* My son used to be a big geography buff. For a long time I had a map of North America on the bathroom wall to entertain him while he took a bath. I used to sometimes catch a glimpse of it in the mirror backwards... and I often thought it said Cancer instead of Canada. Freaky.

* In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer. He guaranteed the American people a cure in 5 years. For some reason, this fact makes me laugh.

* I get this magazine called Family Fun. It has a "Mother of the Month" in it every month. I want to be nominated for the sole purpose of being able to answer the question, "What is your time saving tip for busy Moms?" with "I save about 45 minutes per day by not having hair." Then on the question, "What is your money saving tip?" I want to answer, "See that hair thing..."

* Shortly after my first chemo treatment my father came to me in a dream. In the dream I was very upset and my father had come to comfort me. I asked him what was going to happen and he said, "don't worry, it might give you some trouble for 4 or 5 years and then you will be okay." He then took me in his arms and I cried for a long time while he held me. When I woke up, I remembered the dream. I was very comforted by it; but at first I was upset about that 4 or 5 year thing... it seemed like such a long time. But then I got over it and realized that I can put up with 4 or 5 years and then be fine. I was actually quite happy about it. Interestingly I was on chemo for 4 or 5 months...

* When it became clear that I was going to have to spend some time lying in bed recuperating, I asked Linda to buy one of those big pillows that makes you sit up in bed. You know the ones with the arms on the side and a backrest. She came back with a giant dog bed—because she's cool like that. She said she couldn't find anything like I was talking about so she hoped the big dog bed would work. It did, as long as I folded it in half and then propped some more pillows on it. It actually worked quite well... then she finally appeared with the appropriate pillow a few weeks ago with a triumphant "look what I found!" She would like the dog bed to give to her dog now. I'm thinking of sending it to John Edwards. What do you think?

An up to date article on stage IV breast cancer survivors.

http://www.curetoday.com/currentissue/features/feature1/index.html

While this article focuses on 3 women who had a "recurrence" that put them at stage 4, I still found it a great read. If you care to learn more about my disease and have the inclination; it's a fairly entertaining, short and uplifting article. I'm one of the 5% that had the initial diagnosis at stage 4; that makes me one of about 7500. That's pretty rare eh? Damn. I bet I'm a statistic in someone’s study somewhere and probably don't even know it. Ah well... that's okay... because it's working.

I really liked the last quote about making sure the last check bounces. It made me laugh and at first I was like "yeah, yeah..." but then I remembered; oh noooo... I need to leave something behind for my son... unless of course he reaches his economic potential before my demise... wow... that's the new prayer. To the universe and powers that be -> "I intend to live a life of abundance and live long enough to support my son until he is able to on his own." Whew... that's heavy.

"Let me be clear Londy, it’s still there..."

I had my first "chemo" today without chemo. I know that doesn't make sense but I'm so used to calling it that and I don't know what else to call it. Anti-Cancer drug infusion is just too long...

I received Herceptin and a new one call Zometa. The Zometa is preventative, to make sure I have strong bones. I don’t have any bone problems now; it is to help ensure I don't have them down the road.

And speaking of down the road, sigh, I had an appointment with the lung specialist a week ago. He was running 2 hours behind. So I rescheduled for next week. I also had another painful thorocentisis. And after the pain and effects wore off I only had a couple of days where I was breathing well before I felt the fluid coming back again.

This puzzled me. "If it's the cancer that's causing it, and the cancer is dead; why is it coming back?" ...was the question I posed to Dr. Johnson. I could tell this sort of threw him for a minute. Maybe he was surprised by the question; maybe he was fearful that I wouldn't go as aggressively after treatment... I don't know. But his answer, and the seriousness with which he said it, knocked me down several rungs on the happiness ladder. As he turned, adjusted his glasses and gave me a stern look, much like the high-school principal explaining to me how "everyone has to follow the rules," he says, "Let me be clear Londy, it's still there." Feel the air going out of the balloon... deflating... ah... shit. Oh yeah... I know.

So in my usual debater mode I say, "oh yeah I know, but it's not active. It's not seeking residence in other areas of my body, so how come?" He says, "yes, you are right, it stands to reason that it would not create fluid there again, but I think you should still have the procedure done to prevent it... we are giving you the best drugs there are, to give you the longest and best quality of life we can, but it's still there." Deflate, deflate. Shit. It feels like that time I was told the attendance policy applied to me like it did everyone else, and even though I had straight A's, I still had to go to class.

Bummer. I know that. Okay... will do. On the upside; he told me I am free to diet now as long as I only lose about a pound a week. And exercise is okay; but he doesn't want me to do anything too aerobic until the lung issue is properly addressed. All good. BTW; he listened to my lungs and said it sounded like maybe a tiny diminishment of capacity on my one lung, but actually, rather good. Maybe I'm not used to using my full capacity? It will all be for the lung specialist to address next week.

My infusion only took an hour. But it left me very, very sleepy and unable to concentrate. I tried to do some things after I got home and it was just a comedy. Before I had the steroids to pump me up before the treatment and then they would give me Benadryl during it. One counteracted the other. This time I only got the huge dose of Benadryl... wow... like being drunk. but not any fun. It felt weird. But as I was told; Herceptin has few, if any, side effects. So once the Benadryl wears off I should be doing good.

We picked up the new nanny last night. She is so far—amazing. I think this is going to work. My son really likes her and she has clicked in with his mind and playfulness... it's perfect. Hopefully with her help I can get things more back to "normal." Whatever "normal" is going to be for us now.

Yeah... normal. Sounds good eh?

I fell into a big bucket this time...

I haven't blogged much lately. There seems to be problems with the blog system. I've written a couple of blogs only to have them disappear into a black hole.

Things have been very interesting since I received my good news. Much like the unexpected responses I received from people around me when I was diagnosed—I received unexpected responses to the good news too. I think that until you have lived through something like this; you just have no idea what it's like. I realize that some people just got their mind wrapped around the "stage 4, she could die" reality; only to be hit with a "the cancer is dead... she's gonna live" reality.

I had good response to the medicine, and it was fast. I could tell even my oncologist was a little surprised. Happy, pleased, proud... and just a little surprised. I was surprised too. I expected good results and I knew I was responding. I expected some sort of "half-gone... it's working, a few more taxol... surgery... blah, blah, blah." The completely clean PET scan brought tears of joy to my eyes. I can understand why it might cause some disbelief and "wft?" in people who are not around day to day and perhaps don't share my belief in miracles, the power of intention and magical red twizzlers.

I had some questions from people upon hearing the good news, along the lines of "well then the original diagnosis must be wrong." Nope. No mistakes there. And a few "did I misunderstand, didn't you have..." Yes. I did. And no, you didn't misunderstand. Along with a few "well you were very determined," as if I somehow killed the cancer myself through sheer tenacity and stubbornness. There were also a few comments that left me with a feeling of "gee are they upset I had good news?" Like I had committed some crime and got off too easy... um... okay. Yes, I am lucky. I know I am lucky. I once had one of my former bosses tell me that I had the "uncanny ability to fall into a bucket of shit and come out smelling like a rose." Yep. That's me. Ironic I sell roses now, eh? I just wish I would quit falling into that damn bucket of shit.

Here's the thing; I feel like the big battle was won, but the war isn't exactly over. I still have cancer in my body—dead cancer. That, in time, will diminish and go away. There is still medicine to be taken and I will be on anti-cancer medications for, most likely, the rest of my life. I will still be making trips to the hospital for Herceptin, which has to be taken intravenously for months to come. I still need to have my lung fixed so the fluid stops accumulating. I still need to get my strength back. I've got a long road ahead. I've stopped the freight train that was speeding at me; now I have to continue the hike up the mountain.

And speaking of mountains; I still have that mountain of medical bills to figure out...holy crap! Chemo ain't cheap. Nearest I can tell each treatment I had was in the 12K range. PET/CT scans run about 6K, I also have had many, many x-rays, procedures... wow... it's mind boggling. The stack of bills has grown beyond control and I'm already being called by collection agencies for some of the first procedures. Yikes! And it's going to be never ending. I have 80/20 insurance. I have to start selling a lot of roses—fast.

There is still a possibility that cancer will pop up somewhere else in my body and I will be constantly monitored for just that occurrence. That is what stage 4 is; it's not curable. It's manageable. And until something comes along that is a valid "cure" I will remain stage 4—incurable. There are a lot of people out there just me like; incurable—waiting for the cure. I'm going to be happily, joyfully, gleefully and thankfully smelling like a rose while I wait.

Negative? Whachyamean negative?

I wrote this amazing blog today while I was getting chemo. I tried to add a picture and whamo... error. It would not post and it lost my entire blog somewhere.

So I'm going to do a fast update in hopes that it is found sometime soon because I know a few of you are waiting for this news.

I got the results of my CT/PET scan today. And for the first time I can even remember, someone said I was "negative." Not a word that gets used around me very often. Usually I'm the optimist or just unrealistic. Today I was "negative."

My PET scan showed nothing. It was NEGATIVE!!!! In that good way. My cancer had no response to the test. It's still there in structure, but it is not growing, not active, pretty much dead. The CT scan showed the structures there but greatly diminished.

So today was my last chemo. I no longer will have the Taxol. The Taxol is the one that causes all the side effects. So no more drop in white blood cells and high risk of infection. I can go to the dentist, maybe get that lung problem fixed, the yeast in my eyes will go away, the sore throats will go away, the aches will go away and my hair will come back. I can diet off the weight I've gained during chemo, exercise to get my strength back. TahDah!

I will continue on Herceptin for awhile and start on anti-estrogen drugs. No surgery, no radiation. Dr. Johnson wants to see how much we can shrink and sees no need for anything like that for now. If something changes and it wakes up again and gets active that may change. For now we want to see how much more we can eliminate with the drugs. I asked him if it ever goes completely away with just the drugs and he said "yes, but not very often." I told him I intend to be one of those people. He smiled and said "okay."

I asked about that word we are used to hearing, "remission," and he explained that there are two types of remission. Complete remission and partial remission. Complete remission is when there is no cancer left to see on a CT scan; like it never happened. Partial is when you have the structure there, but no activity. So I'm in partial remission. I could also tell he didn't like to use the word remission too much.

So now what I need to do is concentrate on getting the dormant cancer to leave my body. I'm not sure how that happens. The body must take the dead cancer cells away and get rid of them... I'll do whatever it takes.

And like my sister, who surprised us with a short, drive by visit the other day said, "I guess I'll be seeing you around then Lon..." Yes, you will, you most definitely will.

Happy normal 4th of July!

Hope you all had a happy 4th! We enjoyed Linda's version of my dad's famous ribs. They were awesome. Smokey played in his custom, built by Uncle Lee, top of the line, sandbox. We tried lighting some fireworks but that didn't go so well...

I haven't had much chance to blog this last week. I can't imagine how my life got so busy. Oh yeah, duh. I have cancer... or had???

Before my last chemo treatment I had a blood draw to determine CBD and also a tumor marker report. And... my tumor marker is normal. Yes, normal. Lee was with me and he said something like "wow, normal isn't a word used to describe you very often." This comment got a bigger grin from Dr. Johnson than I would have expected.

My marker came in with a score of 38. Below 40 is considered normal. Oh sure, I know you are going to ask "what did it start out at?" And guess what? I don't know. Lol. There is no beginning marker recorded in my chart at the oncologist’s office. I don't know why. Susan the nurse sort of explained that by saying that "it didn't matter much what it started at and besides it is only one of many factors they look at." But she said that a normal marker was "good" and that I may only need a couple more chemo treatments. Yahoo.

As a result of this great news Dr. Johnson scheduled me for a CT/PET scan next Thursday to see just what has occurred to this point. I get to go back for another ride in the 3.5 million dollar trailer.

I have to tell you that they were very cautious not to let my reaction to the good news get the best of me and it was down-played a lot... understandably. They don't want to get hopes up and/or make me think that it has all disappeared when there is probably still some there to worry about. But I don't care. Good news is good news.

I'm also now looking for a nanny... again. This will be nanny number 9. If anyone knows someone who might want the job... email me. I arrived at the nanny idea yet again after the demise of my cleaning girl and Linda maybe having to have surgery on her neck soon. Linda needs less to do and I already need more help—with her being out for awhile, it could get ugly. So it's easier to find a nanny to help entertain my son and do housework instead of finding someone to run the Jungle; at least I think... I've been through fewer nannies than employees over the years, so at least statistics are on my side.

We go through nannies as fast as we go through cookies because my son is such a high-energy kid. And he is always by far smarter than them... it takes a toll. I wish I could find a Lego-expert, geek that can also do the dishes and play tag. That's what I'm hoping for—someone that knows a Bionicle from a Jedi Knight, who can also load a dishwasher and run a little... that can't be that hard, right? Oh yeah, they also have to be germ free and not afraid of a woman with no hair...

Happy 4th!

Round 4—Catch Up

Hi all, I'm here getting number 4 chemo. I think today while I have computer time would be a good time for a catch up. Lots of things have been happening in the last few weeks.

First of all, oh man, I have to tell you about the demise of my cleaning helper. Remember I hired her a few weeks back? Yes, she is already no longer in my employ. Wow, was she something. Of course it makes me question why I often hire people with such exocentric behavior... there must be something, because her problems really are not that much of a surprise if you know many of my employees past.

I had such high hopes for her. But, from the first day she showed up, I started to get worried. I really wanted to give her an honest chance though. She had a lot about her that was really likeable. She showed up about 15 minutes late the first day... well I figure something may have happened; traffic, she got lost... something. But being late on your first day isn't so good.

Once she arrived, I showed her the schedule of what I wanted her to do each day and got her going. No excuse for the lateness, I let it slide. Shortly after she had started cleaning, when no one else was around, she asked about the cool little beanie hat I was wearing. They are cool check out www.cjhats.com. They are handmade by a woman who survived inflammatory breast cancer and went a year with no hair. She now makes a living selling hand made head coverings on eBay and on her website. How's that for a big F-U to cancer? And they are wonderful.

Then the new girl—on her first day—whips off her wig. Yes you read that right… wig. She is nearly bald on top in an unusually uneven way. She then tells me she has that disease where people pull out their own hair. Huh? Okay, I've heard of that, but don't know much about it. She tells me how she wears hats sometimes too; but that when she first started wearing wigs some girls at school were hassling her and told her they would try to rip it off... so she took the wig off and said "now what are you going to do? I ruined your fun didn't I?" Whoa... gotta respect that don't you? That made me really want her to stick around. That sounded strong, and tough, and cool to me. But I didn't miss the irony of her mom having had chemo and no hair and then she gets this disease where she pulls out her hair??? Hmmmm...

After that shock she kept cleaning... sort of... well... um... she loaded the dishwasher. I kept saying, “Oh you need to do this or that,” while I was trying to work on some paperwork. But, it took my full attention just to tell her what to do. I guess my list of duties was too vague. To me, do the dishes also means clean out the sink after you scrape the food off and put them in the dish washer. But as Linda pointed out to me, "hey she did what you asked." So I was careful to give her more direction. The next time she was supposed to clean my bathroom and bedroom. I was very careful to give her detailed, albeit verbal instruction. I would have to say that after she had she pronounced herself done and gone home, that she had cleaned about 10% of my bathroom. I couldn't even see anything she had done in my bedroom, except maybe vacuum a 2-foot path down the front of the room... maybe… kinda… sorta… if the vacuum wasn't working very well.

The next day she called and asked if she could bring her 12-year-old sister because they didn't want to leave her alone at their house. This seemed like a red flag to me so I said "no." She didn't come that day.

The next day she came at her usual time—20 minutes late. This time she wore a tank top and she had horrible, scary looking cut marks on her arm and in her cleavage. So she does both, cuts and pulls. Oh man, oh man. This I have also heard of, but didn't know much about. But I gotta tell you that stuff is hard to look at. I never asked her about it. I was too afraid too.

This time I was determined to give her explicit directions. I walked around the room with her and gave her a verbal list. After she loaded the dishwasher and said she was "done" in the kitchen she went to start on my downstairs bathroom. I walked down with her and gave another verbal list. I pretended I was talking to someone that had never cleaned a bathroom before. I went so far as to explain that when you clean the sink; move all this to one side and clean under it with that wonder cleaner, then move it back and move all the stuff on the other side and clean under it, put the stuff back so it looks nice and clean the sink and the mirror. Then do the toilet. Clean the bowl with the brush and then clean off the seat and under the seat and so on. So far she seemed to understand it all.

So about 10 minutes later she says she is "done" again. So I go back to look at it while she is still there and about fall over. She moved the stuff on the sink to one side and cleaned under it; okay… but she didn't move the stuff back, didn't do the other side, didn't clean the mirror, hadn't cleaned the floor; but the tub and the toilet looked okay... sorta… kinda.

I pointed that all out to her and she made a few excuses about that's how she does it at her house or whatever... then she went back to finish. About ten minutes later she appears again and says "done." I go look again; no clean mirror, no clean floor and she left all her cleaning supplies out and scattered all over the room. And I mean she thought she was done enough to leave. Now I'm really worried. Finally I get her back for round 3 in the room and she still misses the mirror and leaves her cleaning supplies out.

The next day she is a no-show again. I don't remember why... does it matter? I decide to give her one more chance. I wrote down a very, very detailed check list. I'm thinking she is ADD so if she has a paper to look at it will help. And it did! She did a fantastic job that day. Everything was perfect! I even saw her down on the floor to clean behind my toilet! Yay! I was so happy. Yes this will work, right? So what if she had to leave part way through to run something mysterious to her uncle who has an office just up the street, the end result was just what I needed.

The next day... no show. Next day... no show. The reasons don't really matter... goofy stuff. Sister things, doctor appointments, weirdness. It was hard to keep up with all of them. She also consistently kept up having to leave once she got here— odd.

So she finally comes on another day while I have some friends visiting so I didn't really get to chase her around nor did I want to chase her. But she was doing rooms she did before so I thought it was okay. I was wrong; back to 10% of the job being done. She spent a long time in my room so I figured she was working hard like that one good time... well... no... that didn't happen. I can't think what she did up there all that time. Adrianne said "well you do have a lot of interesting things up there; she's probably looking around..." Hmmmm. Perplexing.

More no show days go by. She shows up again and I had to leave while she was there to go and pick up a prescription before the pharmacy closed. I grabbed my son and told her I would be back in about 20 minutes. When we got back I met her coming up the stairs from the downstairs bathroom. When she saw me she went into full Nichole Kidman mode... back of hand to forehead, "ohhhhhh... I think I have heat stroke." That did it. I told her to leave for the day.

I still gave her excuses in my mind. She told me she had been up early, little sleep, etc. So one more day—I would stay, make sure she read the list... I kept remembering that one day when it was soooo good. In retrospect, I think I kept a lot of old boyfriends around for the same reason. That one good day...

The next day she sends me a message saying, "What do you want me to do today? They think I have heat stroke." I messaged her back and told her just to come and pick up her check and that she obviously needed a job with more flexibility. A check for her has been sitting on my counter now for days. So far… no show… no show… no show.

While I'm here getting my chemo I just overheard a tiny little lady, who from the conversation I get, is in her 90's and has some sort of cancer. She went back to ask the doc about a mole on her arm that she forgot to ask about before and catches him in the hallway right outside the door of the chemo room. The doc tells her nothing to worry about and comments how well she is doing for being in her 90's. She says it's her cat. For some reason this makes me teary eyed. I love my cats. They do help. It's the love, the companionship at 2 am when you can't sleep and the fact that you know they are only around because they like you. She goes on to say she let her cat come in her room and it stays with her all the time and she thinks the constant company is making her stronger. I wipe away a tear. Geez... wow. Damn. I want to go hug her but I can't.

Yesterday I had another thorocentisis. And I have now decided that TV is bad for some doctors. These guys have obviously seen to many fun-loving docs on TV and now they think it is okay to be really unprofessional. Remember last time they caused a problem. So this time I thought they would be extra careful. And to their credit they were—really careful. But it was the circus they had going on during it that was scary.

I got the same technicians that did the last one. They knew who I was before I walked in; their demeanor was rather nervous—understandably so. The same girl that did the other one sat down with me and tried to explain it all. She said she had talked to the doctor in charge of the department and they all consulted about it. She wanted me to know that since it happened that one time there could be a little bit greater chance that it could happen again. She went on to try and explain but a lot of what she said was not making sense and she was so nervous she was kind of running on and babbling.

Finally I told her that I trusted her and please just do it. I wanted to breathe. I told her to be careful and if I felt discomfort I would tell her so she could stop, etc. So she started getting it set up, looking on the ultrasound and planning which ribs she was going to go between.

Then the doctor in charge barges in the room. No knock and peek… just opens the door and hands the girl getting ready to poke the giant needle in my back her cell phone. He says, "I just sent your husband a mean text message from you; I told you not to leave your phone on my desk again." She gasps. "What did you say, what did you say?" Has a mini freak out but needs to finish what she was doing before she could look. She introduces the doctor and he talks to me for a minute to help.

Only problem is they discussed another patient that also had a poked lung and he confuses us. The other patient is much worse than I am... or was. So he starts telling me a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with me, but is alarming. Like lung damage I don't have, may not be able to get the fluid if it is trapped and this goes on and on... meanwhile he is anxious to see the technician’s response to his text so he is glancing back at her, talking to me... he asks her if she looked yet...

I say, "Look I don't care what your thing is with her, I don't want to hear it, I don't care if you are having an affair or whatever. I don't want to hear it, just get me done first." He takes me so non-seriously. Which I can understand, I joke a lot. But I was serious. So she stops and looks at the message. It says "I am so sick of you." She shrieks. OMG, OMG. That is the message he sent her husband as if it was coming from her. The doc laughs and laughs. Then he leaves.

She now explains to me that he was confused with another patient and there is no damage and she can go in just fine. Then the expected phone rings while she is putting the needle in. And yes—you guessed it—it was answered. At least she had the good idea to have the other tech assisting her answer it. She is freaking out and tells the girl to tell her husband that she is busy in a procedure and will call him in 10 minutes. I know my procedure is just starting and will be at least 1/2 hour. The tech relays 15 minutes... but still... during this they do all this? Damn.

So she sort of apologizes. Explains that the doc did threaten if she left the phone again he would do this... like that makes it okay. She explains that the doc and her husband are good friends so it's not that big of deal. So I suggest sarcastically that maybe the doc is after her husband. This makes her giddy because I know she will repeat that later.

About this time the doc barges in again. A quick "how you doin'?" to me and he is just jumping with excitement to ask about the text message. By now the fluid is pouring out and I'm sitting there helpless, but nervous. They all take a break in the room with me to discuss the outcome of the message. I'm appalled. I'm starting to hurt. I think I'm going to cough... I'm pissed off.

They are giggly. "Oh I can't believe you did that... hahahah... Oh my... hahah." "Yes he called; oh look here comes a text from him... hahahah." So before the text war, that I knew would soon start, I say "hey, I'm the patient here dammit. Pay attention to me and not your stupid text message." Now they get it. I'm mad. The doc grabs my hand and says he is sorry. He didn't mean to make me feel like I wasn't being paid attention to; that he was "just trying to take my mind off it..." Not buying it. So I tell him "well it's not working." He gets a tiny bit flustered and we have a brief stare down while he determines how angry I am, then he jumps into action again.

The doc then grabbed the ultrasound and started looking. I explain my pain and he makes suggestions. By now I have filled up 1 and 1/2 liters and more is still coming. But I hurt. And I'm struggling to hold back the coughing fit. The doc suggests stopping the suction on the tube and letting me rest a bit to see if it helps. It does help some. But I still hurt.

The doc asks how much they got already, and the tech says “this much,” but doesn't explain 1 and 1/2 liters. He just sees the half. He gets determined that I need more and more out because he thinks there must still be a good liter or more in there. I want to smack him. I tell him I don't think so... he looks again at the ultrasound and says he sees a lot of fluid right there... we do a little more... I'm in real pain and coughing a fit out.

Then the tech says she doesn't think there is that much more... I can't believe that I could have functioned at all if there had been 3 liters on me so I tell them to stop, I can't take it any more. So they do, take it all out. I'm still in pain and coughing but at least I know they are done. Then the "reasons" start flying. He has personally done "hundreds and hundreds" and never had a pnemonathorax. The tech that did mine has only had one... yes, me... and she has done at least 200. They don't think they did it. "Could be Dr. Abdulla, could be spontaneous and was just there from before… blah, blah, blah." I don't really care who did it. I just want to breathe and don't want another problem.

I can tell they are just itching to get that damn cell phone. Their eyes keep going to it... they can't wait. Oh fine. The doc leaves while the techs are cleaning up and I'm waiting for x-ray to come and get me. While alone the tech tells me they are a joke loving group and on April first they sent all the docs in radiology a message to call hooters and ask for some name that means "I have a large penis," but she couldn't remember the name. I couldn't think of one, can you? If you do email it to me... maybe I will call in a joke to them, haha. Okay, funny yes... I approve of joking around... but not while you have a needle in your back. Geez... at least wait until I'm out of there.

I end up having to wait a long time for x-ray. So the tech leaves, and I'm certain, ran to listen to the phone messages and clear it up with her husband. Finally x-ray comes and takes me away. I get the xray and then have to wait for the radiology doc to look it over. I get back to radiology and after a minute or two I am surrounded again by the 3 of them. They are so happy they are literally jumping around. No pnemonathorax. I'm fine, free to go. Whew.

The doc apologizes for making me feel like I wasn't being paid attention to again, I say “okay.” Then I tell them "thanks and don't take it the wrong way but I hope I don't have to see them again." The doc gets red in the face, they all giggle nervously. All I can say is... too much TV. I think he believes he is one of those cute docs that can do that because he is like that guy on Scrubs or somewhere... goofy. Bet it won't happen again!

I was in a lot of pain from it last night. But today, I can breathe! That is so nice. Man, you just don't know how great that is until it is gone.

Do it again... now!

I'm going in for another thorocentisis this afternoon. Remember the one last time, where they poked a little hole in my lung? Yea, that one. Where they stick the really long needle in your back and tap you like a maple tree full of syrup. I figure if there was 1% chance of that hole thing happening that time, then the chances of it happening twice to the same person must be slot machine odds eh? Plus, I can barely breathe... damn. So I get the big needle again today, and I'm looking forward to having it done. You just don't appreciate how nice it is to breathe freely until that gets taken away from you.

Then I have my 4th chemo treatment tomorrow. Number 4. Four down, and perhaps 4 more to go? I think I am half way through the chemo. Half way; at least according to the initial plan. They did a tumor "marker" test Friday, so I'll know more tomorrow how we are doing. It's working. I can see and feel changes.

So while you are having that bad day today—stuck in traffic or just having to be at your sucky office—breathe! And be glad you are not getting stabbed in the back like me... well... if you are in an office that is probably happening and you just don't know about it...

Star Wars cake coming at ya....

Star Wars cake coming at ya....

Here is my son enjoying some of the frosting off the cake he decorated for my birthday. He built those Legos himself, specially to put on the cake. The black one is his own design. And thanks to my sister, Connie, for naming all the kids in my 4th birthday photo... she used to baby sit them! Here is what she says;

JUST READ YOUR BLOG... NEXT TO BECKY, THE GIRL WITH THE WHITE CURLY HAIR, IS WENDY ZEIGLER AND NEXT TO HER IS HER LITTLE SISTER FRANKIE (SHE CHANGED HER NAME WHEN SHE GOT OLDER, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO). YOU ARE RIGHT ABOUT LEE AND THE GIRL WITH THE LONG HAIR, IN MIDDLE, IS NAMED GINA AND BRENDA IS THE GIRL AT THE END OF THE TOP ROW. CAN'T SEE HER VERY WELL, AS THE GIRL IN FRONT ROW IS BLOCKING HER OUT. I CAN'T REMEMBER ANY MORE.

Then later she emails again...

I THINK THE LITTLE BOYS ON THE LEFT ARE DEVIN AND DAVID SMITH!

What a memory eh? And yes she always types in caps... she's cool that way...

Thanks to everyone for all the birthday fun, gifts and good wishes.

It’s my birthday!

Today I turned 46. Someone asked me this morning how my day was going, and I said, “Well I'm happy to be turning 46... and I'll be happy to turn 47 and 48 and 49..." Yeah, it's different now. It used to be getting older was something to laughingly pretend wasn't happening, you know the "29 again?" jokes. Now I think it is a cause for celebration. I plan to live to be an old lady and proud of it.

When I was little, before my mom got sick, she used to throw huge birthday parties and invite the entire neighborhood. Then there would be a family party later that night where you would get another cake and more presents. Here are a couple of pictures from my 4th birthday.

I'm the one in the front row in the cute blue skirt with the knee socks. I don't remember any of the other kids except I can tell the girl in the front row in the pink is Becky, Kay's daughter. Which means one of those brown haired girls is Brenda but I can't tell which. And I'm pretty certain that the tall good looking guy in the back in the red and white stripes is my brother Lee.

This is the cake and family party later that day... I'm not sure why I am so dressed up; except maybe that cute dress was a present.

A year later, when I was 5, my sister Joan and Lee took a package of suckers, opened it and wrapped each one individually in boxes of all different sizes. Then they lead me into a room filled with about 30 wrapped presents and said, "look at all the birthday presents that just came for you, don't you want to open them..." After about the 4th or 5th sucker I was pissed off. I think this was mostly orchestrated by Joan, with Lee as merely an accomplice, but I could be wrong. You never know with Lee... and nope... I still haven't forgotten it. I'm still slightly wary whenever I receive a gift from either of them.

Here is a photo from my 10th birthday. Notice how stylishly I am showing off my new bracelet? The short blonde girl in the front row decided she was in love with Lee that day and literally chased him around the yard several times trying to catch him and kiss him. I later heard that she ended up joining the air force and became a lesbian.

My "C-word" Personality

I've been trying to figure out "why" I got cancer—I don't mean the biological how cells form reason—more the "why me?" reason. I think that is something you can't help but ask yourself when faced with something like this... what happened? Or the more expressive and accurate, WTF???? This morning I came upon this article on the web. It's me.

More than anything else I have read about the emotional or non-physical causes, this hit home. Here is a link if you are really interested, go read it.

http://www.alternative-cancer-care.com/The_Cancer_Personality.html

I would guess however, that a lot of people around me, but not necessarily around me on a daily basis would never say this fits me. People see me on the surface as the outgoing extrovert who always speaks her mind and has it all under control... ha! Fooled you all eh? Plus, I'm sure that for quite a few people it was more comfortable to believe this of me than take responsibility for their part of their relationship with me.

Honestly, I do have a ton of unresolved anger. I have complicated grief. I have repressed emotions since I can remember... that's what I was taught to do. "Keep the peace," was my mother's mantra. Don't express anger in the moment, but instead express it to everyone else around you when it feels safe to do so, is how I was taught to handle conflict. I have done that to a great extent. I have repressed anger at old boyfriends, old friends, old employees, old teachers... oh man, the list goes on and on... I have a lot of it. Sure, there were times and places where I let my temper fly and my anger show and it usually caused people to run in fear. But for the most part, it took a long time and a lot of anger built up to get me to that boiling point.

This worked all my life, until now. Until it became too much... until circumstances were so great and people I normally trusted to vent my anger to were not there for me; or worse used that against me. It all came tumbling down. My own shock and grief over the loss of my father and the disintegration of my family; add to that a grieving child, trying to run a business with problematic employees, and well... that's a lot of stress. I was pushing myself so hard, through exhaustion, pain, sickness, grief... something had to give. Unfortunately that something was my immune system. And yes, that all took place in approximately the last 2 years... sigh. Lesson learned; time for a big change.

In that same article you will notice a sidebar about traits cancer survivors share... I'm on it. Those sweeping life changes—ye, I've already been thinking about that for weeks now. I want to live and be here and raise my child... but it has to be different. I don't want to go back to my life the way it was... I want better.

I want people around me that actually like me, that may sound strange, but on some level you know the people who really like you and those that don't right? I've had a lot that didn't really like me but were here for some reason other than me. They are gone; or will be soon.

I want authenticity, not just from myself, but from people around me and I want them to support me in living an authentic life. I want people around me to tell me if they are angry at me and know that I will listen and work out whatever it is; or at least agree to disagree and feel safe doing so with me. And I want them in turn to do the same for me.

I want employees that care as much about their job as I do; whether they are personal employees or Jungle Roses employees. I no longer will accept being stolen from, lied to, insulted, or disrespected in any manner, by anyone that I employ.

I want people around me to respect how I choose to raise my son, and if they disagree with it don't try to talk me into "how it should be" or worse just try to change it on their own when I'm not looking... I'm doing what I believe is right and it's coming from my heart. That must be respected.

I want people around me who like me for the imperfect person I am; take it or leave it.

So there you have it—the new me. I guess that makes me changing from one "C-word" personality, to another type of "C-word" personality eh? I know it's sort of expected from all the movies and TV shows about people with cancer that the cancer patient is supposed to unselfishly forgive and love everyone around them with new understanding while sentimental music wafts through the room... well... I'm not following that script... lol.