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.