5-12-11

I do not have cancer anymore.

5-10-11

I had a PET scan Friday and today will get the results.

If I have more cancer, then I will do all that shit again.

If I don't have more cancer, I have reconstruction surgery scheduled for July 15th. So I will do different shit! It is a real pain in the back (literally) surgery, no easy boob job for me. They rip the muscle from your back, whip it around front and make a boob hammock out of it. Then, they do the expander and fill you up week after week to stretch you out for the implant.

I feel very wrong for putting myself and my family through that. I feel like I will need to get that straight in my head prior to surgery. I don't want to go under the knife already feeling regret and guilt.

Do I deserve boobs? I will take time off from work, stress out my kids, need help from family just to get a new boob (and to perk up the old one to match). Do we have a right to boobs???

Am I just trying to psyche myself out?

4-28-11

I am doing such a bad job of blogging, I think I am trying to get away from the cancer crap.

The other day, Big Onc's office called to schedule a PET scan. My blood all fell to my feet as I stood there. I realized that everyone seems to think this should all be put behind me, I even try to live like it is all in the past. But...that call meant that it is still very much a thing of the present.

On the health front, I feel pretty shitty. I have had a headache since the first of the year. They have done a CT scan and it showed a sinus thing on one side (the side that hurts). I thought this was great news and that it would be a quick fix. Well, it didn't get fixed with the sinus stuff the NP gave me, so we are trying a new med just targeting the headache and not the sinus.

My eyeball pressure is responding well to the drops, so it is not the cause of the headaches either.

Oh, but I did come out of "chemo-pause". My period started again after 15 months. I am hoping that this will jump start something in my system, make something , anything, feel different.

I am trying, really, to live my life like this was all just a bump in the road. It all just seems a little like getting a new paint job for a car destined for the demolition derby.

3-29-11

Tonight, there is a specialist coming to Gilda's Club to talk to the parents and answer any questions we may have. I was contemplating my possible questions and just started weeping.

How do I know how fucked up the kids are from the cancer? They seem OK, but I am sure it altered their trajectory somehow, even a slight bit.

My sister and I have been estranged since right before my diagnosis. She was having a midlife crisis thing, affair, divorce, blah blah, I just didn't have a lot of sympathy for her. If that makes me a bitch, then OK, I am a bitch. Then, I was diagnosed and it changed nothing, we remained estranged.

The thing that has always chapped my ass about that year was that she NEVER checked on my children. She could have taken them out for a pizza, had them hang out with her kids for the day, she could have lifted a finger to give them a break from their constant reality. To put it in perspective, my kids are homeschooled, they are with me 24 hours a day, Monday - Friday (they spend weekends with their Dad). Anyway, the kids dealt with living in my cancer crap all damn day. They could have used a break. They could have used an Aunt to get them out of the house every once in a while. (Other Aunt did help me with chemo crud and did help the kids with things they needed).

All the shit with sister doesn't matter anymore. We don't talk, we don't ...anything. I don't care about the specifics of her affair, divorce etc. She was a shitty Aunt to my kids.

Glad I got that out, now on to my day.

3-16-11

Best outcome possible, there is something wrong but it is not cancer. There is something amiss in one of those sinus cavities in my head, just on the right side. That makes sense that it is one sided since I have been so unsteady and out of balance.

So, I have new meds and won't even need the "Total Recall" ping pong ball plucker!

3-15-11

I went to general doc yesterday with my weird head complaints.

I am having a CT scan of my brain this morning.

I have learned that it does no good to tell anyone as:
1. There is no point in worrying anyone needlessly, wait till we find out.
2. I don't like hearing, "It is probably nothing, don't worry", blah blah blah

I did tell significant other type guy, I guess that makes him pretty significant, how about that.

So, let's cross our fingers for some big old sinus fatty tumor thing that is causing the eyeball, balance and brain issues. And, it would be cool if they could pull it out through my nose like Arnold Schwartz-y-whatever pulled that tracking device out of his nose in "Total Recall".

03-11-11

They say when you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras.

I have been wondering when cancer is the zebra, not the horse. Right now, when something happens, I assume cancer, it is my horse. But at some point, cancer should become the zebra-right?

My head is still wonky. I have headaches pretty much all the time, not really painful headaches, just annoying discomfort in my head. I am still a little clumsy sometimes. I have cognition symptoms that are an issue. What are the chances I finish cancer only to develop early onset Alzheimers?

So, I have stopped trying to figure out the probability of zebras vs horses and just focused on the prescence of hooves. Something is amiss. It has gotten to the point that I am not concerned with feeling like a hypochondriac. I need my head to feel better.

I called the Onc, the nurse said let the general doctor take a looksie. I made an appointment for Monday. That seemed responsible. I had been thinking tumor vs crazy. I came to realize there are a whole slew of other things that could be going on in there. It could still be the eyeball thing.

But I would like to stop hurting. I will go deal with the hooves. I will worry about species later.