2 year anniversary

I am now a two year, two time cancer survivor. It was about this time two years ago that I had that phone call I will never forget..."you have really bad cancer Londy". Nothing in my life had ever made me feel that frightened and that alone.

I've learned so much in these two years. I've learned about this disease that is so common and yet takes so many lives. I've come to appreciate the older people that I run into in the treatment rooms who always seem happier than most people I know. I've come to appreciate what is really important in life. Things that used to really get me steamed, I really don't give a damn about anymore.

Recently an old friend who is going through marital problems told me that she thought when her husband got cancer it would make him come back to the family. While I empathize with her; I also know that cancer makes you take stock of your life. At first I was in shock, then I started to think about time. Time. Suddenly I didn't want to waste any of it. Didn't want to be with people I don't like, do anything I don't like etc. And for a moment I understood her husband.

Two years have passed and I'm still the same way. I've ended a few relationships and renewed some that were important to me. I used to fantasize about contacting old boyfriends and other people that I am still holding onto anger about and telling them what jerks they were... lol. I thought that might make a funny movie; a woman getting cancer and knowing her time is limited she stalks all her old flames and causes chaos in their lives. Sandra Bullock could play her...

I'm excited to see what the next two years bring. My son is about to turn 7. This alone awes me. 7? Where did those years go? One thing, now I love every day and every moment I get to spend with him. I am grateful.

Retiring??? noooooooo......

I had my herceptin infusion on Monday. Nothing unusual. But I found out that Super Nurse Susan is retiring next month. Yikes! She is so amazing, I've never encountered a nurse like her. Her vast amount of knowlege and experience meant so much to me. Without her I would have been much more insecure while going through treatments.

Don't get me wrong; I think anybody that can afford to retire should do it and enjoy life. She said she plans to enjoy her new Grandbaby and do some outdoors things like kiaking down the river. I don't blame her. I'm sure she has witnessed what is ultimately important in life...and it isn't the paycheck.

She was the person who gently explained what was going to happen to you the first time you got chemo. Honest, reassuring, empathic. I heard her do this many times and each time she showed the same concern and respect for the patient. I can't quite imagine who will fill that role now.

Meanwhile... I am feeling so good. I still get tired at times, but I have more energy and way less pain than I did just a few months ago. My hair still hasn't grown all the way in since radiation. Still a bald circle on the top of my head. But I don't care. I've become fond of hats.

I'm focusing on getting my life caught back up to normal. Hey; I even finished my taxes..ha! and..um..in case your reading this IRS..it was my pleasure to finally get them done for you...forgive me?

A clean mind...

I've been having a bout of headaches recently. Bad enough to scare me. I thought.. "oh no...more tumors". I had a follow up head MRI already scheduled so I waited and took painkillers. They were so intense I would have to take 2 Lortab 10's in order to get relief.

After having to re-schedule the appointment a couple times because of a lack of transportation. I have to take valium to get through a head MRI and thus I need a driver to take me to and from this procedure. Finally the day came. After dozing through the noisy MRI I was to meet with Dr. Whipple.

I went through the usual weight, blood pressure routine. And waited for him to come in for the appointment. We talked for a minute and then he ran out to look at the results of my test.

He returned looking like someone that had just won a small jackpot in vegas or something; you know that kind of happy smirk. He first said that it was the fastest test result he had ever gotten back. Then he said there was "nothing there". Which of course gets some giggles, like you have an empty head... But the important thing is MY CANCER DISAPPEARED! My head is "clean".

Yes! I knew it would. There is no way I was meant to have brain tumors. It's been a long haul. It was harder than I thought it would be and I think I am still recovering. But let me tell you; it is an amazing feeling. My hair is trying to grow back. I still have bald spots. But I can wear hats forever!

Now for those headaches.... I think it is stress and jaw problem. But they don't scare me anymore :-)

The tale of the two tomatoes

My son picked out a huge tomato plant this last spring. With the help of his Uncle Lee and Aunt Linda it got planted along with a few other vegetables. After much patient anticipation the first few green tomatoes started to turn red. Soon we were picking 3 or 4 per day from this plant. They were delicious.

One day my son and I were doing our picking when I found a large tomato that some bugs had gotten to before we did. I picked it off the plant and tossed it on the ground. This greatly upset my son. He really wanted me to keep it. Then I found one more that was undesirable and also tossed it. I explained that we couldn’t eat buggy tomatoes and it was good just to leave them there on the ground and let go. An argument went on for awhile. Him explaining that he wanted to use “every” tomato his plant grew, no matter what, and me explaining why we couldn’t use the bad ones. Finally he reluctantly gave in and we went inside with our harvest.

The next morning around 5 a.m.; I heard a noise that woke me from a sound slumber. I got my eyes open just in time to see from my bed my son putting something on the floor by the door to his room. Then he vanished as quiet as a mouse. Perplexed, I got up and looked in his room. There I saw the two buggy tomatoes behind his dresser. Egads! What do I do now?

I went down the hallway and looked over the stairs to see where he was. I couldn’t see him. So I went down to look and as I approached our family room a very cheerful “hello Mommy” greeted me from our recliner. The TV was on and he managed to look like he had been watching NickJr for hours. He had taken his jacket off….how at 5 a.m. he had the calm mind while pulling off such a caper to put on a jacket and shoes is mind blowing to me.

I asked if he was okay and he said “yes, just wanted to get up early and watch some TV”. Being exhausted myself I said “okay” and told him that I was going to go back to bed for a little while. He said that was fine and he would just stay there and watch TV. On the way back up the stairs I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a couple of zip-lock bags. It was way too early in the morning for me to deal with the situation so I thought best to contain it and figure things out later.

I snuck in his room; crawled down and reached behind the dresser to get the tomatoes. Ugh, gross… I sealed each one in a bag and then put them back behind the dresser. Still mystified why he would do such a thing; I rationalized that it was probably a little way to feel like he was in control when our situation has been so out of our control. It’s scary when your Mom is sick. He’s a tough kid, but he still gets upset when he hears me cough or something, and he gets nervous when I have to get my infusions each month. I think he is afraid I’ll have to stay in the hospital again. So; I think a few buggy tomatoes; no big deal. I figured I would just talk to him later. And with that thought I went back to bed.

Now here we are almost the end of October. Yes, I completely forgot about the tomatoes. I am walking down our hallway and suddenly get hit with a strong smell that to me smells like cat pee. I have 2 indoor cats and neither of which have ever done their business anywhere other than were they are supposed to. I start to worry about the oldest one that I had for about 12 years because I know going out of the box is a sign of illness. I start looking for the source of the smell. I kept coming back to my son’s room. That was where the smell was the strongest.

So I called him and our nanny upstairs to ask if they could identify where the smell was coming from and help me find it. Still thinking it was a cat thing, I looked all over for anything that looked like it… nothing. Just a smell. I bought a large air freshener that afternoon and hoped that if it was the cat I would see her in the act and could take her to the vet.

That evening my son in the midst of playing a game with me says “Mom, I know where the smell is coming from and it’s not cat pee”. What? I’m confused. He continues to tell me that it is something he hid in his room. Then my memory comes back to me…the tomatoes! He was being candid and so sweet I let him tell me about as if I didn’t know.

He concluded saying that he still didn’t want to give up the tomatoes and asked me to help him think of something to do to save them. After brainstorming for a few minutes I tell him he can freeze them. He is a little concerned that someone would see them in the freezer and freak out. So we concoct a plan to wrap them in white freezer paper that I happened to have on hand, write that it belongs to him on the outside and place it in a spot on our freezer that is sort of hard to access and see if you don’t know it’s there. This thrills him.

We gather our supplies and approach the toxic tomato area. He grabs his gardening gloves to wear so he doesn’t have to touch them. It’s hard not to laugh seeing him in all black clothes, he was trying on his Halloween costume earlier, and his garden gloves; like a spy ready to unearth some hidden biological weapon.

He reaches in and brings out the first bag. Ohhh my. You do not want to see a buggy tomato that has been in a zip lock bag in a warm room for 4 months…trust me. He says the bag is leaking and we hurry and put it in another bag. The second one comes out and it looks even more horrid than the first. I ask him if he is sure he wants to keep them and he very firmly says “yes”.

I wrap them up in the freezer paper and he writes his name and “private” on the outside. We take it down to the deep freeze and put it in the secret spot. Which is where they will stay until he gets married. And then I plan to give the package to his bride along with a copy of this blog.

Later I asked him why he did it? He said he really just wanted to keep the tomatoes and he wanted to see what would happen to them. I asked him if he had anything else in his room that could turn out badly and he said he had a few secret things hidden but nothing that would go moldy or rotten and start to stink.

I’m relieved that it wasn’t a dead mouse or something…..

"Mom, there is a rainbow, you just don't see it"

wow... I really haven't blogged for awhile have I? I think about it but I've been so busy doing other things I haven't had the opportunity. Partly it's because my son loves the computer and he spends several hours per day researching his favorite topics; which for now is meteorology and geography. He taught himself how to use google maps and he spends hours looking up monuments and different counties that intrigue him. It's fun to watch him.

And it's also partly because I've been trying to catch up on the rest of my life. Cancer seemed to take over for the last couple of years. I am so behind on so many things. Like for example - my taxes. Today I finally got all of my numbers compiled and into my computer so I can get them to my accountant.

That was kind of a hard journey. I had to go back to January 2007. It made me remember things; like my Dad's passing, when I first got sick, employees I'm happy to be rid of, that stupid public relations guy I hired.... all sorts of things. It also looked like we didn't have a whole lot of fun over those 2 years. Fun is something I wish to prioritize now.

A few days ago we had a rainy day. In our house that means my son wakes up early, excited and ready to "storm chase". He was outside with Emily observing and analyzing the cloud formations. He called in to me and asked me to bring the camera out to take a picture of the rainbow. I went to the door and looked. I saw no rainbow anywhere. After a minute or two I said "there isn't a rainbow". He looked at me with exasperation and said "Mom, there is a rainbow, you just don't see it" Then he pointed to the sky and low and behold a rainbow was forming.

I thought about that statement for a long time. "There is a rainbow, you just don't see it". I think I have been in a dark cloud for awhile. I'm now ready to see all the rainbows.

Incurable vs. terminal

It's true; I have not blogged in a long time. It's the result of my long recovery from the radiation. wow. About a month ago it really knocked me down. My exhaustion is intense and I continue to have jaw pain that can bring tears to my eyes. I am taking a lortab every 4 hours to calm it down. Which makes me sleepy.... and thus adds to the exhaustion. I've also lost about 20 pounds. A result of the way the radiation effected my taste; nothing tastes good anymore; just the taste of some things make me feel like vomiting... I'm not sure I will eat tuna ever again.... add the jaw pain and a slight bout with the regular old fashioned flu and it has been an easy diet to follow.

I am awaiting results from xrays taken of my jaw. One of the medications I take, Zometa; can cause a condition known as "osteonecrosis of the jaw". Scary. Makes your teeth fall out. I don't think I have it. I think I am just clenching my jaws constantly. I catch myself doing it. But so far I can't seem to stop it. I tried one of those jaw guard things... wtf? That was worse.

But if I get rid of the jaw pain and get some energy back I'll be good!

During the past couple of weeks; I asked one of my Docs to write me a letter explaining my diagnosis that I could use in negotiating some financial things. I had gotten one about a year ago from my other Doctor but it was suggested to me that I could use an updated one.

When Dr. Johnson wrote the first one a year or so ago, kind hearted that he is; he called me first and "explained" that the language he would be using would be harsh so as to make the letter most effective and not to pay to much attention to it because there was "hope" for me. Um... okay, good.

I was glad he did because his letter did hit me a little. His phrase was "treatable, but incurable". I chewed on that for a time, but it wasn't that horrible to me. I understood. Lots of things are treatable but not curable. In a short time I was over the words and on with my "cure".

Then a year later, I get Dr. Whipple's letter. No phone call came this time... no big deal. I am a veteran now; an experienced survivor. But his definition took me back. He said I was "treatable, but ultimately considered terminal". This is the first time the word "terminal" had been stated in any form to me. It took me some time to get my mind around it.

What is the difference between incurable and terminal? Is there any? I tortured myself for days over this. I read an interview between Oprah and Elizabeth Edwards where she referred to herself as both with a slash like this "incurable/terminal". Hmmmmm....

Usually you read or hear the word terminal followed by a certain amount of time to live. I have been given no such time-line. Fact is they don't know. No one knows. It could be a year or 10 years or more.... it was when I had this thought that it hit me;

We are all terminal.

None of us knows if we have a year, 10 years or more. We just don't.

Think about that; I've thought about it a lot. Somehow it helps me ignore my cancer just a little bit. It seems like my whole life revolves around cancer. I'm tired of that. I wish for a day when I don't have an appointment, conversation, errand, or anything else that has anything to do with cancer or it's effect on my life. I want my friends to talk to me about who Jenifer Aniston is dating and my family to act like they just stopped by for the hell of it...

It worked.

I had my follow up head MRI on Monday. I received a phone call from Dr. Whipple on Tuesday afternoon. Of course I didn't answer the phone. You all know how I am.... so he left a message.

He said I had "dramatic results". Rapidly shrinking cancer. While he still is consulting with the Doctor that does the gamma knife surgery; he isn't sure there will be any need for it. He also expects the cancer to continue to shrink and probably disappear completely.

whew....

I still have a lot of pain while recovering, but now I know it's working it seems more bearable.

So happy birthday to me! Could there be a better present?