Cancer You've Made Me Cry, Again!

I'm not really sure what it is, or why it is, but since treatment, I don't cry very easily.  But, yesterday, the tears just wouldn't stop. In some ways, cancer has toughened me up a bit.   However, there are certain things that really get to me.

A few weeks back, I was contacted by a dear friend of mine from high school.  While we haven't really kept up with each other over the last 20 years, (yes, it's been that many) my heart really went  out to her when she messaged me several weeks back and told me that her sister had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I get a lot of these kinds of messages.  And it never gets any easier.  Every time I hear it, I feel like I'm being punched in the chest, and all of the memories of being diagnosed flood my brain- every single time I hear of a breast cancer diagnosis, I am flooded with these feelings.  I know what it's like.  I understand it.  I get it!  Fear.  Sadness.  Raw emotion.

This message was no different-except for the fact that there was definitely a close connection to this cancer diagnosis.  This was someone that I knew personally.  I feel so strongly that I was spared because God has bigger plans for me.  I don't know what they all are, but I am very strongly compelled to reach out and support other women who have just been diagnosed.  I feel as if my journey was meant to inspire others, and while it's hard for me, and it breaks my heart into tiny little pieces, when people reach out to me, I do my very best to give encouragement and guidance.  Somehow, I just do it, even on days when I think "I just can't!".

I've thought of this woman multiple times a day for the last several weeks.  My prayers have flown for both her and her family.  Cancer is never easy to deal with, and sometimes I think it's actually harder on the family than the patient themselves. But, I could tell she was having a rough time.  For the last couple of days, I haven't been able to get her off mind, and extra prayers flew.  I knew that she was in the hospital, and that there were complications.

Then yesterday, rather late in the day, I see a post that she had passed away yesterday morning.  Nothing could have prepared me for this news.  I couldn't even speak enough to tell my startled husband what was going on.  I had to say it 10 times before he understood what I was saying.  I am heartbroken.

Cancer the sneaky S.O.B. that it is, had snuck into her lungs.

Today, my thoughts and prayers are with her family and all of those people who loved her so much.  She was too young.  Cancer moved too fast.

Now, I am mad at cancer.

I'm Pretty Sure That I'm Being Haunted....

by Erma Bombeck... and although Jen Lancaster doesn't know it, she's helping.  I've come to this conclusion because it seems that every little bit of my day to day existence seems to resemble something from an Erma Bombeck book... (with Jen Lancaster thrown in for good measure!)  I don't have it all figured out yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be writing a book....

This morning, as I was sprinting to the laundry room for a pair of jeans and a hoodie (God, it's cold in Florida... I think you hit the wrong button....) I realized something.  Yes, it took several weeks, but by God, I think I've got it.  We recently replaced our solid glass front door with an almost solid wood door to increase the amount of privacy in our home.  When we did this, out of the kindness of my heart, I opened the window blind and curtains in the office at the front of the house so that Duke could still terrorize the UPS guy.  This wouldn't be a big deal, except that the windows go almost to the floor, and face right out onto the street.  Let's just that say that typically when I'm running to the laundry room for jeans, I don't have any jeans on and we can leave it at that....

Last evening, my husband and I returned home to an empty laundry room.  Duke is always waiting for me in the laundry room.... ALWAYS!  Panic sat in as I frantically ran from room to room turning on every light in the house screaming for Duke.  My husband discovered him in the spare bedroom, where he had accidentally shut himself in.  The guilt is overwhelming.  What kind of a boxer mom forgets to close all the doors in the house before she leaves so that her children don't unnecessarily spend the entire day locked in a bedroom?  24 hours later and I'm still upset... and I think Duke is very traumatized.  My poor husband spent the remainder of the evening trying to turn off all of the lights in the house so that we wouldn't have to send an arm and a leg to the electric company.  I know in his mind he was wondering why if I had the time to turn on the light, why didn't I shut it off when I left the room?

In a blink of an eye last week, I literally went from having next to no hair, to 20 inches all over.  This is taking some adjusting.  It's really challenging to close the car door without getting caught in it, and it doesn't always occur to me right away why I can't move my head.  (Hey, I've been through a lot!  Give a girl a break!!) And all through chemo, I couldn't figure out why I had so many handbags that weren't shoulder bags.  So, I bought a couple of new shoulder bags.... and now I remember.  You can't have long hair and carry a shoulder bag, at least not gracefully.  And I strive for "gracefully".

Giving a new car to someone who has frequent moments of "chemo brain" mixed with constant "blonde moments" is a lot like giving a huge fire hose to a 5 foot, 90 pound woman and turning it on full blast all at once.  It's been a week, and I still panic every time the "ECO" drive kicks in and the engine shuts off.   My sales rep told me about it, but I forget to shut off when I get in the car.  I've had at least 15 of the these "OH NO!" moments in the last 7 days.  And moving the gas tank from the right side of the car to the left, what's that all about?  Who came up with that brilliant idea.  It should be a law, all gas tanks should be on the same side of the car.  This would eliminate a lot of confusion at the gas station.  They do stuff like this, just for people like me.  My first trip to the gas station was a real riot...  between not being able to remember which side the tank was on, and then not being able to figure out which way I needed to pull in... let's just say it was a long hour.  The night I brought the car home, hubby and I decided to go for a ride.  I look over and notice that the gas gauge is red and in the E zone.  Since neither one of us have a wallet on us, and we don't really want to walk home, we come back home.  I get up the next morning and start the car up... and wouldn't you know it.... I've got 352 miles to empty.  And here I spent all this time cussing out the dealer for not filling up the tank.   It was full, I just didn't know how to read it.

But, never fear.  I am making progress.  I turned the heat on in the car without having to pull over and get the manual out.  And this morning, I figured out how to turn the seat warmers on.... The little red seat icon on the screen... BRILLIANT!  Gotta hand it to them.  It was a stroke of genius...  I still refuse to hit the parking button... I'm just not ready for a car that can park itself.  I'm not sure I ever will be.

Last week, I cancelled my Hereceptin infusion.  Having a right hand that's completely numb just sucks.  Of course, the doctors assistant calls me, and of course, the current drug that I'm getting has nothing to do with the issues that I'm having.  The drugs that I stopped getting 8 months ago must be causing the problem...  and the high blood pressure, debilitating headaches, and severe anxiety... well there are other excuses for all of this stuff too.  I have an appointment with her tomorrow, so this morning I did my homework.... As I'm reading through the fine print of the Herceptin literature I start noticing that a lot of the "Issues" that I am having, are side effects of this drug.... not the other drugs.   Oh, she's in for a long morning tomorrow.  Here's me worrying about a brain tumor, a stroke from my blood pressure and taking meds for anxiety when they're pumping stuff right into my veins that is causing all of this stuff....  What's the matter with this picture?  There's gotta be some humor in this situation too... I just haven't located it yet... maybe if I didn't have a splitting headache....

I'd Like A Redo, Please!

I  have some business to clean up before going to my regularly scheduled blog post.  I have not been blogging much- there are 2 very good explanations for this.  The most pressing reason is that I have developed peripheral nueropathy in my right and left hands.  I am having a very hard time typing (and doing a lot of other things that require hand coordination) and it's making crazy.  The second reason is that I am swamped with work related stuff, and just don't seem to have a lot of spare time on my hands.

Now that my excuses have been made... an update from Life After BC.


At some point last week, I decided I wanted a re-do of my 40th birthday.  Yes, you read right.  I wanted to re-do my 40th birthday.  (I know, most people don't even embrace 40 once, who the heck would want to do it twice?)  I really had this day built up in my head- as I should have.  39 was a rough year for me, and I had a lot to celebrate.  But fate intervened and a whole bunch of other crap went on that other than my "girls day out" made my birthday really crappy.  I wasn't in a very good place mentally, I was scared to death of radiation, and just feeling out of place in general.  I know it sounds silly, but I really wanted to turn 40 looking like myself, not some altered by chemo and cancer version that I don't even recognize when I look in the mirror.   I guess I was expecting fire works, or at the very least some damn sparklers.  But, no.  A shit storm would have been a better description of my 40th birthday.  So, heck- I'm Superwoman.  If I want a redo of my 40th birthday, then by golly a redo I shall have.

I put a lot of thought into this and thought about what was really going to make happy if I were to re-do my 40th.  I decided that it was best to do a whole week, with the 3 month anniversary of my 40th right smack dab in the middle.  The first few days of my 40th birthday, I decided on several different activities that I was going to do that would brighten someone else's day.  Can I tell you, that just felt good?  I was so fortunate to have so many people doing "little things" for me during my treatment, that it was time to pay it forward a little bit.  I've decided that this just needs to be a regular practice in my life. It's so amazing to see people's reactions when you do something totally unexpected for them.  I really think if more people made a habit out of this, there would be just a tad less violence in the world?  Maybe people would smile more?  Just maybe...

In the middle of all of this re-birthday excitement I found myself with a brand new, shiny, white car that I love so much I'd like to sleep in it.  It smells so good in there, and it's sporty and energetic and a lot of fun.  It feels like me.  While I hadn't been planning on a new car, every time I got in my other car, all I could think about was going to chemo treatments.  So for me, this is a fresh start.  And thankfully, I still love looking at it, so I can always find it, and I haven't found myself trying to get into the wrong car....yet.

I did not get a chance to blog about that ridiculous incident.  Let me fill you in if you missed my Facebook post about it.  2 weeks ago, I committed to pulling a sweet little boxer girl from animal services on Tuesday morning on behalf of Florida Boxer Rescue.  Monday night, I decided around 8:00 that there was no way that I could go pick this little girl up without getting her an appropriate collar first. (My brain works in odd ways, and sometimes not at all, but I just have to go with it.)   So, I hopped into the car and went off to the pet store.  I was so pleased with the pretty pink ribbon collar that I picked out that when I came out, I didn't notice that I was getting into the wrong car.  Before you start thinking that I must have been drinking, the car was the same make, model, and color as my car, and it was parked right next to mine.  And... it was unlocked. (And... you should have seen this collar!)  I jumped in and attempted to start it.  No good.  It wasn't until a bunch of little alarms started to sound that I looked around me and realized that I was in a car with a black interior, mine was tan.   OOPS!  I did a quick survey of the area, hopped out of that car, and got the heck out of there.  I won't lie, I looked in my rear view for flashing red and blue lights more than one time.  I laughed the whole way home.  I've never done that before!  Hubby just shook his head.  I can say one thing about this chemo brain nonsense, it definitely makes for some really good stories.

The following morning, I sprung "Izzie" aka Charlotte from the Osceola County Humane society...  What a sweetheart!  She didn't smile until I put her in the car, and then she grinned from ear to ear and didn't stop the whole time she was with me.

I drove her to the Kissimmee airport where we met up with Pilots and Paws- a local group that flies a lot of boxers for Florida Boxer Rescue.  She and I spent about an hour that morning together, and boy did I fall in love with her.  Unfortunately, she had to go, and I hung around while they outfitted her with ear muffs and a harness and strapped her in for flight.  How cool is this?  How many dogs can say they've been flown around in a private plane?

This was my first "official" rescue.  While I've been a volunteer with FBR for nearly 2 years now, I've always stayed behind the scenes doing advertising stuff, and writing the newsletter and holiday letter.  But, this... this was fantastic stuff.  I can't think of a better way to spend a Tuesday morning, can you?  I'll definitely be doing that again!

On the eve of the 3 month anniversary of my 40th birthday (yeah, I know it sounds a little ridiculous), I walked into a salon sporting a barely there pixie cut, and walked out feeling like myself.  Amazing how miracles can happen right?  While I was so disappointed to not be ready for extensions on my actual 40th birthday, I was happier than a pig in mud to have them for the anniversary of this birthday!  I can't think of a better way to say "screw you" cancer, than by feeling absolutely fabulous, and I FEEL FABULOUS!

As my 40th birthday redo week winds to an end....  I really want to say how fortunate I feel to first of all be alive, but cancer free, and basically healthy.  Yeah, I've got some issues (hey, did I just say that?), but believe me, I am working around them.  While I wish that I could say that I am a kid again with no responsibilities,  that's not gonna happen.  I am proud of myself for finding ways to bring joy to my life, which somehow manages to over-ride all the blah of adult responsibilities.