The Beauty of Chemo Vacation

So, at the end of May or beginning of June, after I had had my scans and markers repeated, the scans basically showed a "stable cancer" whatever that means, and a slight increase in my markers. Startlingly, my oncologist gave me a month off of chemo!! I was shocked. It's been 2 years on chemo and she felt I needed a break, rather, my body needed a break. So, at the end of June, I go for my check up and I get another month off, WOW. The drew blood and flushed the cute little bump in my chest otherwise known as my PORT, and sent me on my way.
At this point, I'm still exhausted, bones, joints, muscles still hurt quite a bit, but it can be managed. I contacted my friend Sue, she was off chemo on a vacation last year for 6 months. I wanted to know what to expect. She told me I might start feeling human again after about 3 months. She said she loved the next 3 months after that and lived like her old self. She's back on chemo now, but she said she loved the land of remission and being off chemo. God Bless Sue. She has been such a Godsend to me.
There were 3 really nice women I met at Gilda's and Sue was one, Audrey was another and Alice was the third. Audrey had been on chemo for a very long time, she was permanently disabled and was on all sorts of medications. She was a love, sweet and kind, very smart in the world and works of a cancer patient. She passed away last month. Awful..... such a tender and loving woman. Then there was Sue, very very smart Nurse Midwife. She was not working when I met her, also on permanent disability, but she decided to do a little bit of work in a women's center while I was still at Gilda's regularly. Sue continues to be in my admiration. Smiles, laughs, cries, teaches. I really love her for all she has done to help me understand this disease process although ours are very different types of cancer. Alice is the third. Quiet, timid, but very curious about what could be done for her and her very rare cancer. She would be given options but then couldn't decide whether to do them or not. She's still hanging in the last I heard.
I think one of the most powerful things I've learned lately is the impermanence of things including peoples lives. Of course every cancer patient thinks about death. It happens almost every day...... but you try to keep your eyes fastened to the horizon..... that you'll see another sunrise or sunset today.
Peace. Jeanne

The road is long and hard.

Have a friend. Just completed the following for treatment of aggressive breast cancer:
1) surgical removal of mass and lymph nodes
2) chemotherapy in 3 stages
3) radiation therapy over 6 weeks

and what do you get for your hard work you say??

A questionable lump on the surgical site which is most likely "scar tissue", however, does not give you the optimism you have been craving.

For me, this is not a problem. If I had a hang nail, I'd be asking for scans etc. I will not likely see remission or cancer free status, but I would like to know nothing is getting any worse.

But for my pal; I was really hoping for a more significant positive result from all her hard work and effort.

This disease sucks the life out of you, not only with the destruction of your physical nature from the disease it's self, not from the chemo and radiation used to destroy the cancer, but the psychological damage and destruction it leaves in it's path.

It's next to impossible to stay positive and focused on your healing. I'm in a hiding phase right now. I don't want celebrations, get togethers, fun, work.......I feel I'm struggling with depression a bit more than usual. ( Oh - Shit, just when I was thinking of getting off the antidepressants. My timing is so perfect.)

It's yet another spring, another meaningless time to "get together" to be happy and cheerful and dote on those around you.

All I see lately is the quick passage of time... another round of treatments, more smiles on my face without the oomph behind them to make them real. More nurses caring for the nurse. More doctors caring for the nurse, it just goes on and on doesn't it?

I suppose I'm just not in such a good humor lately.

cancer is like the roach of illnesses

Just when you think you've gotten to a good point in your own personal journey with cancer, you hear about other people, who's illness grabs them from the loving arms of life and pulls them into eternity.
Just yesterday, a friend of mine told me her daughter's boy friend's father had died from some crazy, liver, bile duct some kind of f-ing cancer. He had only become sick three months ago. A live, 55 year old healthy man. Dead. Same illness as my friend Maureen King who's memory will live tattooed to my brain for the rest of my life. A kind, loving, beautiful and healthy woman of 47, grabbed the same way as this healthy man, dead within 3 months of becoming ill. There has to be something globally responsible here. This cancer that has killed my friend Maureen, my friend Walter, my friend Cathy's husband Frank, was only prominent in Asia until recently. What's happening. Are we importing Cancer now along with all the other things, stuff and possessions that we have to fill our houses, our bellies and our lives with? Lots and lots of stuff....... to fill our lives?
I'm tearing up now, because another friend's husband lies near death from another, unrelated but strange cancer. Who knows how or why he is subject to this hostile takeover of his body.
We give it our best shot in this life, but sometimes it's not enough to keep us here on this plain. For some reason, something is pulling us to jump up or to jump down. Karma is coming after us. It wants us to graduate or to flunk.
My personal journey goes on...... I go get chemo, I go to work, I come home and spend wonderful times with my husband, son's, family and friends. I try and make all of my moments good ones, to do good things for the people who surround me, to do good deeds and help other's less fortunate than me, but cancer just stays there, hidden away in the shadows of my life.
Truly, I know life is not just fun and love and joy and happiness. Heartache, work, pain are always somewhere nearby.... I'm not Polly Anna about life. But I do wish, some of this shit would just hit the road and never come back. When will science catch up and take care of us?
Perhaps cancer is like the roach of illnesses. We've been trying forever to resolve the infestation of roaches.... but they seem to get stronger and more difficult to control. Kinda like this disease...................................................................................

an f-ing huge headache

I really didn't think there was a bigger headache than my cancer. Turns out I was wrong. What with all the diagnoses, changes is status, medical and surgical treatments, treatments that don't work or cause side effects, doctors who come to you with all kinds of news, good or bad, waiting times, scheduling times, meeting other people who's diagnoses and treatment is either way worse or way better than you, people who get into clinical trials that you aren't a candidate for, even though you were hopeful to be in the trial, awful hospital parking lots, side effects from chemo, changes in taste buds, gaining weight, loosing weight, exhaustion from chemo, speed from steroids, staying away from germs, trying to eat out without crowds, trying to see movies without crowds, trying to use the new Wii you got from your family, but your too tired to stand up and work with it, having your husband do most of the cooking and housework cause you're too tired, driving a long commute and feeling like you could fall asleep at the wheel, bad weather and watching the snow flakes fall while toxic meds creep through the IV tube into your port, nurses who are afraid of your port because it tilts towards your left breast, the nurses faces when they're afraid but they don't want you to know about it, watching blood and plasma dripping into your chair mates arms while they smilingly talk to you during your treatment, being offered hospital Jello as a kind gesture during your treatment (yuck), having to wait even longer to schedule tests and even longer to get the tests done, not being able to sleep because of anxiety, taking your sleeping meds too late because you think you can sleep only to find you're wide awake at 1:30 and need to be on the road in 5 hours, to late to take something now~!!, nose running, nose bleeding, sore nose, peeling hands, peeling feet, swollen feet, swollen fingers, aches, pains, sensitive nerve endings in your scalp, in your fingers, freezing cold one minute, boiling hot and beet red the next.......... the list goes on and on and on and on......
Turns out, the worse things in life are still with interpersonal issues. You can take the rest on with a smile on your face, but when those close to you hurt you, it hurts you to your soul. It makes you angry and insecure and you feel guilty when you want to spurt out all that you are feeling.
My human spirit is so strong, yet so tender, make sure your care for yourself..... be strong when you must and cry when you need to. Always remember..... you and you're healing are the most important thing. It's your job and responsibility to get as well as possible, do the best you can. Try not to let others, bring you down, even when it's harder than you think possible.
Peace

bummer

Today's note will be short. I'm doing really well in chemo. Seems to be working. But it's the little things that are the most challenging to deal with. The perpetual running nose. The sensitivity of my sinuses, non-stop. The bleeding nose that happens whenever I sneeze or blow.
Today's little nonsense was that my hemoglobin (HGB) went from 10+ (normal for women is 12 - 14) down to 8.7. That's not a good thing. Maybe it's why I have been feeing so tired this week. The chemo is suppressing my ability to produce Red Blood Cells (RBCs). So today I got a new "shot" Procrit. I gave it to my friend Fernando when he was really sick with cancer, God rest his soul....... very nice and lovely man and family. Now, I have to go back next week, MY ONLY WEEK OFF OF CHEMO FOR A MONTH, to have blood work done and probably get another one of these shots. It's a drag I know, but I hope the shot works. The shot itself is not painful, but when the medicine is going in, it feels like a bee sting. Hot.......This is the first chemo with the capacity to change my markers and my scans. I don't want to change it!!!!!
So that's today's story of woe.
But, as usual, I remain optimistic, always. It's the little things that make me bummed out.
Peace,
Jeanne

chemo tomorrow

Don't know exactly what I'm thinking right now other than I should be asleep, took the X, took the sleeper, had a glass of wine, yet inevitably the night before chemo, I can't sleep. That's tonight. I'm not thinking anything drastic, not afraid, at least not that I can detect, not spooked out, anxious yes. I guess that's what I feel if I really pick it apart. Anxious. It's not an easy feeling to explain. I'm not conscious of anything, but there's an undertow, something that makes me feel awake, not relaxed, un-calm, anxious. I wish I could pick it apart, then I could act on it. Perhaps I'll do some guided meditation after I write, Beliefnet, they have some good ones.... then maybe I'll be ready to sleep. 5:30 AM comes awfully quickly, especially when you're not sleeping too much. And to think I was yawning at 3 this afternoon and 4 and 6 PM. Crazy I suppose.
I was talking to my friend Elle at work today. She has 3 more chemo treatments to go.... then I think she's done. But she's in a clinical trial and if she's getting avastin, she may be part of a continued study till Oct. But.... she has radiation treatments to deal with next. I think she's amazing...... always at work.... hands like an alligator at the moment, side effect from the toxic stuff..... she's tired.... it's like looking in a mirror and seeing another face.... we go through so much of the same stuff.
Well. I think I'll read the other blogs on the site now........ hope you all are sleeping well.
Peace

birthday

Some would say they hate the day
Another year older, no other way
I have assumed an alternate bliss
A beautiful year, I have not missed
While others depress in the years as they fly
I'll be so grateful as a new year arrives
Be happy to see the world as it spins
Not fearing age as a new year begins
Be diligent to think of a new perspective
To live in the moment and be more reflective
Life goes on in its own scheduled way
We get to choose how we spend every day
Peace