Choices

Being diagnosed with cancer brings all sorts of choices into your life.

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The first choices are what to do for "treatment". I guess one choice would be to do nothing. Or another would be to avoid mainstream doctors and do non-traditional treatments. Or do both conventional and holistic treatments. One thing you learn fast as you try to choose what to do is that there are very few "if then" statements in cancer "treatment". It would be great if a doctor could say "if you do this then you will be OK" instead you get a lot of "if maybe then" statements "if you do chemo, maybe then you will be OK". I've been reading a couple of the breast cancer message boards since I was diagnosed and women really agonize over their treatment choices. Once you hear the words "it's cancerous" your choices are many and all of them suck.

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Once you decide to go with mainstream treatments, your first choice is what type of surgery you want, lumpectomy or mastectomy. With a lumpectomy comes radiation also. My doctor told me that my survival rate with both is about the same. I'm not a big fan of hospitals or doctors or pain so I naturally leaned towards the lumpectomy choice. It is less invasive with no extra reconstruction surgeries needed. I also was pretty sure it would be cheaper which when your life is on the line seems like a stupid reason to not do something but I'm guessing money plays a big role in a large percent of treatment decisions in the US. Christina Applegate on the other hand chose to have a double mastectomy based on her family history and results of DNA tests she took. I'm sure many other things went into her decision also that she hasn't shared with the general public. Now did either of us make the right choice for ourselves? We will never know. Even if we have a recurrence or if we don't have a recurrence, who is to say it would or wouldn't have happened anyway.

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Now if the cancer is caught early, there is no sign of it having spread, and test results come back favorably then the surgery / radiation choice might be about it for treatment decisions. Then there are all sorts of post cancer lifestyle decisions to make but that's a whole other topic. Hopefully I'll get to that point and we can all have a discussion about my aversion to veggies.

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But for me and for many like me, we are given the choice of undergoing chemo. While in the end this wasn't a hard choice for me, it was an agonizing choice. The list of possible side effects to chemo is really really long and has nothing good on it. In fact when you start chemo they have you sign a release that has the line "I understand that it is not possible to anticipate all side effects." It then goes on to a list of the worst side effects it can cause up to and including death. It also says "I understand that no guarantee or assurance has been made as to the results of chemotherapy and that it may not cure, control or improve this condition". So, not only can the treatment kill me, it might not even help me with the cancer thing at all. What kind of choice is that? Angel Nurse Nancy told me before the first meeting with my oncologist that he would be giving me a rate of survival percentage if I do chemo. She said that I needed to decide at what percent I would or would not do the treatment. Well, when you haven't had chemo before and have only heard about how hard it is plus knowing it might not help at all, it's hard to make that decision. I tried to decide at what percent I would not do chemo. 20%, 15%, 10%, 1%, .1%? It's your life you are deciding upon. Well, I love my life (but really so does everyone else so I'm not saying if you chose not to do chemo that you don't love your life but that's how I saw it for my decision) and I having not been in chemo before I couldn't imagine it would be worse than dying so I made the personal choice that unless he said chemo would not help me at all I was going to do it. Well, my percent came out at around 10%. If I was to undergo chemo treatments my odds of having the cancer return would be cut by 10%. That number seemed huge to me - of course I would take 12 weeks of chemo over increasing my chances of a recurrence by 10%. But that was me. For the pain, cost, time, and all the other bad things with it 10% might seem like a small percent to others in my position. Now that I am half (!!!) way through chemo would I make the same choice? You Betcha!! Six weeks from now or if the cancer does come back, will I still say that? I don't know. I've read about many many women who have had a higher percent than that and not do chemo and I've read about many many women who have had lower percents and did do chemo. Once again will any of us ever know if we made the right decision? Nope.

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Is any decision that we truly believe is right for us the right one? Yep, I believe that is true. I though have been (I hate to use the word lucky or blessed when it comes to my cancer so I just say) I have had it better than some women in that my decisions have been pretty clear cut to me so I haven't spent much time second guessing my choices and if I stay healthy I won't ever have to but so many cancer patients out there have many more gray areas in the treatment choices. I would think it would be very hard to not sometimes think "maybe I should have...........". Once again when it's a choice that has to potential to be life or death - yikes - no one wants to be in that position.

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One "if then" statement I have heard from a doctor is "if you get chemotherapy, then you will lose your hair". Yep - as you can see by the picture I've lost my hair. Another choice that is discussed on the message boards is how to deal with this. It seems like wearing wigs or scarves has been the first choice of many. I've seen many women - especially the younger ones - go with my choice though, just going around bald. I just hate having things on my head but I hate looking like this. In the end I went for comfort instead of vanity. Most of the time when I am out around strangers I have worn a scarf or hat but today I just went to town au naturel. Heck it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month and what says breast cancer better then a pink ribbon? Yep - a bald "cancer girl" walking around. I'll scare women into doing self exams or getting a mammogram. Pink ribbons make breast cancer seem pretty and feminine - I've learned it is more like putrid green, pain, and swelling. So, I'm just a walking public service announcement for early detection. Side note and another possible blog topic - why is there so much focus on early detection and a cure but hardly even talk of prevention?

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There is one choice I have to make daily though - it's a hard one and it's a very important one that effects my entire life. When I first wake up cancer is not the first thing I think of - I usually have a few seconds of being my old "normal" self. When I do remember it still takes my breath away and not in a good way. I think if I was standing up when I remember, it would take me to my knees. It's that unnatural and disturbing to me, it still deosn't seem real. Right then when it hits I have to make the daily choice. How am I going to handle having cancer today? I could crawl up in bed and not leave it and be all "woe is me". I could be angry / anguished and all "why me?" and take it out on all those around me. I could try to ignore it and shut down, not letting anyone in or showing any emotion. I could be full of dispair and think that I am going to die from cancer. Or I could chose to live life as fully as I can within the physical restraints I have right now; laughing as much as I can, not letting the little things get to me, enjoying the people around me, being thankful for the support I am getting, smiling at my bald self when I catch a glimpse in a mirror, loving my dog, enjoying the sound of the wind through the trees, chasing the ravens out of my yard, having some steaky goodness, reading good books, and just trying really hard to find the positive in the situation I find myself in. OK - so it's not really that hard of a decision for me but I can see how others in a similar physical situation but in a different life situation would choose one of the other choices. Who knows as I get further into my new life with cancer I might pick another view on my day / life and that would be OK but I hope I don't.

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We all make the choices that we think are right for us and we hope we get the chance to live with them.

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PS - one more item for my "Thank You For" list. Thank you for making fun of my baldness (Charliiieeee). I appreciate everyone who says I look good bald. I know though that you are just trying to be nice. Which is nice but I know better and it was great to have someone finally tease me about it. It's the little things...........

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PS again - I just got fabulous news! I hear there's going to be a new baby in the family! WooHoo. I am so so so happy for you two! Now my hair will have to grown back. It's bad enough I scare stranger's kids with my Uncle Fester look, I can't be scaring my cousin's child. Yet another way that Life is Great!

Thank You For......

* Sending Me Hats

* Rubbing My Feet When I Felt Terrible After Chemo

* Tucking in My Feet

* Being There

* Visiting and Cutting Wood For Me

* Walking Maddie

* The Nice Emails That I Haven't Yet Answered

* A Tour of Your Home Town

* A Book Called There's No Place Like Hope (see below)

* The Box of Goodies

* Being My Friend

* The Phone Calls of Encouragement - Soon I'll Be On The Other of Treatment With You

* Telling Me That You Are on This Train With Me Until I Get Off It First

* Stopping By The Office To See How I Am Doing

* The Homemade Cookies I Am Still Eating

* Not Just One But Two or Three or More Cards of Encouragement

* The Beautiful Necklace

* The Thoughts and Prayers Sent My Way

* Walking / Running in the Susan G. Komen Run

* Surprising Me With A Visit From Texas

* The Phone Call Telling Me to Let My Sisters In The Fight With Me

* My Lawn

* Leaving Me Comments on This Blog

* The Fruit Basket

* Agreeing That This Really Does Suck

* Wonderful Smelling Stuff From L'Occitane

* The Pink Ribbon Pin

* Life Is Good Stuff!

* My Chemo Angels

* The Horse Postcards

* Making Me Dinner

* Sitting On The Edge of the Bed With Me When I Can't Get Up

* Laughing With Me

* Telling Me I Look OK Bald

* The Sunflowers

* Not Letting Me Do This Alone

"You walk through the darkness with us, not because you are ill and have to, but because you chose to. We were drafted, but you enlisted. We recognize and appreciate the difference more than words can ever say. YOU are our heroes, our support, and our reasons for fighting." - Vickie Girard, There's No Place Like Hope

Life is Great

I'm back to normal and I have a long, beautiful, sun kissed, sweet smelling, rose colored week to enjoy it! It's great how a lack of pain makes me a deliriously happy girl. I've been working long hours but who the heck cares when at least it's not a chemo torture day and it helps that I love my job. My lower eyelashes on my left eye all fell out last night but even that can't make me upset today or tomorrow or the next day. Woo Hoo! Not even that picture of me bald on this blog can get me down - I might not even delete it anytime soon. Hope everyone out there is having the great week like I am!

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Tomorrow is the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Doing Good

I'm feeling pretty good these days. Still not sleeping well, a bit of the sniffles, and never ending numbness in the hands and legs. I walked Maddie around the block yesterday and half way around I thought my legs weren't going to make it home. But of course they did. Going to try to walk some everyday from now on. Maddie looks forward to it. I've got a blood work on the schedule for tomorrow so I'll see if my white cell counts are staying high enough. This second chemo didn't knock me down as hard as the first one but I feel like I am taking longer to recover from it.

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I went to a friend's wedding this weekend here at the canyon. It was beautiful! And nice to have something nice happen and to be around happy smiling people. I wore a wig - it was a wedding after all. I felt goofy in it and it was hot and itchy.

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Chemo brain story. I know I've talked about some of my mental mishaps but this one still makes me laugh at myself. A couple of weeks after my first chemo I was coming out of Wal-Mart after getting a prescription filled. I not only couldn't remember where I parked, I couldn't for the life of me remember what I drove. I knew I had driven something there so I didn't panic. I just walked up and down the rows pushing my unlock button. When the Saturn blinked it's lights at me I thought - "darn a Saturn" - I thought I was cooler than that.

The Elephant in the Room

I should say - The Elephant in My Brain.

He moved in the day I was diagnosed. He brought lots of luggage and furniture with him like he meant to be here awhile. I should have taken the time and energy right then to kick him out on his ear. But instead I made the unconscious decision to just try to ignore him even though it was a little tight in there. He seems content most of the time to just hang out in the corner and hum to himself. I think it cracks him up to watch the efforts I go through trying to ignore him. I focus on the physical pain of the operations and chemo, the unexpected financial drain, the thought that now people pity me as "cancer girl", and the just plain inconvenient amount of time cancer takes out of an already busy day. Every once in a while especially when I am unable to sleep at night, he starts to hum a little louder and starts to dance around my head. I just close my eyes and stick my fingers in my ear - lalalala, can't hear you, can't see you, don't want to think about you. He eventually settles back into the corner and takes a nap. I really piss him off and cause him to come out roaring though when I start to spend too much time worrying about the little things - he bugles "you are worried about losing your eyebrows when YOUR CANCER COULD FREAKIN' KILL YOU!!!!?!?!". "You are sad that you can't go out to eat with friends when TWO YEARS FROM NOW YOU COULD BE DYING A HORRIBLE PAINFUL DEATH!??!". This huge elephant gets his panties all in a twist because I don't believe that I could die from breast cancer and therefore I spend very little time worrying about the potential of a fatal end to my newest worstest adventure ever. So, my pachyderm buddy in my head let's get this straight once and for all - I'm going to get through this cancer "treatment" and come out afterwards sassy and smiling and dancing and happy. I'm going to spend the next five years taking my meds and getting my checkups and paying hospital bills. At the end of 2013 I am going to get a clean bill of health. I will be declared "cured", I'll hug my doctor, walk out of the cancer center, and I'll never look back. You might as well move along now because I am no longer going to entertain you or the dark thoughts you brought with you!

Madison Junction

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To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace. ~Milan Kundera

I'm laying here in bed typing this with Maddie's head laying on my foot. Maddie has been my faithful companion for a bit over 12 years now. She moved in with me as a puppy back when I lived in Toledo, Ohio. She was hell on paws. She never stopped barking, digging, chewing, howling, destroying, running, more chewing, whining, jumping, and more destroying until she turned two. My poor father had to repair more carpet and walls than either of us will admit to my past landlords. I remember once when she was about two and a half she was laying on the floor next to me and she just reached out and started to chew on the wall. She hadn't done that since 6 months earlier - I said "Maddie what are you doing?!". She looked at the wall and then at me - "I have no idea what that was all about" was the look on her face. She quit chewing on the walls right then and has been a perfect companion ever since. I don't think either of us liked each other those first two years but it has been her and me against the world ever since. This dog never did like the outdoors in Ohio. I tried taking her for hikes in the few woods we could find and she always walked like she was stepping in something unsavory. She preferred walking down sidewalks. I couldn't believe that I lived with a "city dog". We moved to the Utah desert when she was a little over a year old. Oh Boy, she was not a city dog, she was a desert dog! She LOVED the desert. Chasing lizards, playing in mud puddles, smelling coyote droppings, rolling in dead cows, finding trails through the sage, barking at ravens, climbing up rock walls like a mountain goat. It was all heaven to her. She even learned to stop and hold her paw in the air after stepping on a cactus. Maddie would stay there until I found her and pulled it out. We used to hike miles and miles with her running up ahead, popping her head up every once in awhile to see where I was and then back to sniffing and running. We had hundreds of miles of trails to explore together and years to do it in. Maddie's twelve and a half now. Both of us are slow these days and our hikes right now are less than a mile with more sniffing than running. I think she enjoys Arizona and her favorite thing to do is walk the rim of the canyon at night meeting people and looking over the edge. One constant that has never changed with Maddie and I is our morning ritual of waking up excited to see the day. We open a window shade, remark what a beautiful day it is, and bound out of bed ready for any adventures that come our way.

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These days Maddie does more of the bounding than I do in the mornings. I think this illness of mine has confused her. At her age I should be the one making sure that she is feeling well and is comfortable. Instead, she's volunteered for that role with me. This past bad chemo weekend she stayed on the bed with me most of the weekend. This dog loves my parents and spends most of the time during their visits following all of us around making sure she's in the middle of everything. Not this time - she just hung out with boring old sick me. Dad would be out in the lawn working on things and I'd look over at Maddie. She would be laying on the edge of the bed watching him out the window with her ears up. I'd try to get her to leave the bed and go outside with him. She would just put her head down between her paws, close her eyes, and refuse to leave my side. I'd look over a few minutes later and there she would be staring out at him again. Mom came in while I was sleeping and tried to get her to come out with them - same reaction, she wasn't budging. Finally on Sunday, when I started feeling better, she went out and laid on her favorite couch next to Dad. During the worst of it though her place was by my side.

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She moves pretty slowly these days and she groans to herself every time she lays down. 90% of her day is spent sleeping and dreaming of chasing lizards. She catches them more often now than she ever did when she was awake. I know at her age every day I have with her is a blessing. I just hope she's here long enough to see me through this and we are both able to bound out of bed again - ready for our next adventures.

I'm Frustrated

It feels good to be done with 50% of the "bad chemo weekends". On the other hand, I've started to get frustrated with myself. I'm physically / mentally exhausted but I haven't been able to sleep the last couple of nights even with the sleeping pills. I have a ton of things to do and part of my mind is ready to get started and excited to get things done. The other part of my mind forgets who my co-workers are when they come into my office to ask me a question. I try to act like I know what's going on but it's like there's a bee in my brain darting all over the place trying desperately to remember who they are. I hope the absolute panic doesn't show on my face. I'll sometimes start to do something simple like scratching my back and I will find myself frozen in that position with no idea how much time has elapsed. I want to participate in life but at the end of the work day it's all I can do to get something to eat and crawl into bed. And then there's the boils?! Where were they on the chemo side effect list?! Sorry - too much information. I do want to be "positive" "courageous" and a "good example" but heck the highlight of my day today will be if I can successfully get myself out of the bath tub tonight. I found myself complaining to anyone who would listen today and I'm frustrated with myself for doing that also. And here I am complaining to the blog world. Please know that this is not me - or maybe like they say, it's when the chips are down that you see what kind of person you are. Which means it is me. sigh................... another cancer side affect - way too much introspection.

Cancer T-Shirts I've Seen Recently

* Eyebrows Are So Last Year
* Bald is the New Black
* I Have Cancer - Cancer Doesn't Have Me
* I'm Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired
* Chemo - Breakfast of Champions
* Nice Try Cancer, But I'm Still Here
* I'm Making Cancer My Bitch
* Your Boyfriend Likes Rubbing My Bald Head
* Does This Shirt Make My Head Look Bald
* If I had known how much work it be, I would have never have gotten cancer
* Bald Chicks Rule
* Cancer Options: A) Give Up B) Fight Like Hell, I Choose B
* Not Just Surviving. LIVING!
* Chemo - All the Good Kids Are Doing It
* I'm Confused. Wait Maybe I'm Not
* I Make Chemo Look Good
* I Pay My Oncologist Big Bucks for This Hair Style
* Friends Don't Let Friends Fight Cancer Alone
* Cancer is Not Contagious - But My Spirit Is
* Oh Yeah, We Are Talkin' Cancer Glam
* Fight Like A Girl
* Unbeknownst to the Mosquito I Just Had Chemo
* breast cancer you suck chemotherapy killed you eat shit and die, chump
* One Day Pink Will Just Be for Princesses. Let's Find A Cure.
* This Is What A Cancer Survivor Looks Like
* I Beat Cancer Like It Owed Me Money
* Chemo Ate My Eyebrows
* Breast Cancer Isn't for Sissies
* Fighting Cancer and Still Fabulous
* I Already Kicked Cancer's Ass - Want To Be Next!?
* Dear Cancer, You are a sorry piece of shit that's messed with the wrong person this time. I will destroy you and love every minute of it. - Me
* Fighting Cancer = A Black Belt in Badassery
and Last But Not Least
* Chemolicious!

Chemo 2 Linda 0

I'm still out here. Thanks for all the kind messages, texts, emails, cards, goodies, encouragement, prayers, etc. etc. etc. This was hard again but a bit better than last time. My teeth and nails don't hurt this time and I don't have that horrible fever. Everything else stills hurts but with the new meds I don't hurt as badly. The sleeping pills have also worked so they give me some relief. Having Mom and Dad here helps bunches also - it makes it harder to get lost in the pain when there is someone sitting at the end of the bed telling you that you have a pretty bald head! If I can go by what happened with the last chemo treatment hopefully I'll be feeling half way human again tomorrow afternoon. And pretty much back to normal by the end of the week. Thanks again everyone - your support helps like you wouldn't believe.