To Clarify

I may have babbled on a bit with my last post and what I was trying to say got lost in translation, so to speak.

Basically I've wrapped myself up in my own catch 22. I was bound and determined to do this all on my own. Not to say that I don't need anyone because trust me, without all of my family and friends, the support everyone gives me is more valuable than anyone can imagine, I would not be mentally or physically strong enough to pull this off.

So now that this has been going on for a year, I looked back and find myself feeling alone, not necessarily in my life but in my battle, if that makes any sense. You would think that when a person is told they have cancer, whether it is curable or not, they would live their life differently. Live as if there is no tomorrow. I just don't know how to do that and I have complicated things further by being so stubbornly independent as far as walking a lot of this journey alone, by choice.

What am I supposed to do? Become an adrenaline junky and jump out of an airplane, climb Mt. Everest, do some other life altering thing so I can prove I've lived? My thought on that is, why put the life I am trying so hard to save at risk? When this happened to me, I figured it this way, I am able to get out of bed everyday and I feel pretty good, so I go to work to help provide for my family. I try to listen more than be heard, I observe, I say what I think but I try to think before I say it. I enjoy the song I hear playing on the radio and yes, if I really like it I do turn it up too loud (hell I am a Who fan, what is too loud anyway???)

My prior post was a momentarily lapse for me. I approached an anniversary, I thought I would be at a totally different place a year after my diagnosis and I wasn't so I got filled up with self doubt and pity. I then expressed this to a few people in my life and I didn't get the feedback I was hoping for, not that I know what I wanted I just know I didn't get it????

What it comes down to is I am thankful that people can treat me normally, they don't see me as a cancer patient (in the stereotypical sense) that is what I want so I have to be thankful that that is what I have. When I get to a point where I feel sorry for myself and I need some extra love and support then I have to be open about that too. I just fear that if I show weakness I will become weak. See there I go again, putting a wall up around my own solution. Just as everything else in life this is very confusing and I think I will just go in living life each day, appreciating the beautiful blue clouds in the sky on a sunny day, the corny jokes my 7 year old tells, listening to the trials and tribulations of my teenagers and all the other daily occurrences in my life. I just have to remember to breathe in and out everyday and before I know it this journey will end and another will begin.

It was one year ago today!

That I started this journey. Well one good thing, I'm still here!!! I feel about the same as I did then too, nothing has really changed all that much. I began thinking about this last night, I remembered back to that day, when I got the call from my doctor. I was alone, no husband, mom or best friend to hold my hand and support me when I got the devistating news. I was alone. In many ways I wanted it that way, the less I talked or even thought about it then maybe the less I thought it could be true, that's called denial, right??

People say to me all the time "You look great"; "you would never know you are going through this". In some ways I like hearing that, in others it is a curse. I have set myself up to be the super hero, that I am not. Funny because I see this disease as a weakness that has eaten away at my strength, the person I was, my sexuality, my sense of humor and my faith. I wonder everyday if I will get back the things I have lost, do I really want them back? Do I embrace this new person I have become, in the eyes of others a super hero; in my own eyes weak and diseased? I suppose there has to be a middle ground between the way I see myself and the way others see me, I just wonder if anyone knows that person and if so can you introduce her to me. I just hope there is someone out there who has seen right through the super hero persona I have put up and the weak diseased person I feel I am. I want to be strong, I know I can be strong, I rarely allow myself to be weak but I need to find balance as I go forward on this journey, I feel very alone even with all the support I get from my family and friends, that is a bed I have made but as I sit here typing I am refusing more and more to lie in it.

Don't worry though, I am OK, really I am just thinking out loud wondering how a disease that makes me feel so different inside and out doesn't really show to anyone around me? I suppose it is a comfort to them that I can be as independent as I have ever been and still have cancer, that way it isn't in there face every time I see them. I want people (especially my children) to feel that comfort as I fight this disease that way their positive energy only charges me. I guess I just want someone who knows me to tell me it is OK to feel weak every once in a while, that someone else will carry the load for a little while.

Pity party over, Meg lifts her world back up on her shoulder and changes the batteries in the light so you can.........

STAND BACK AND WATCH ME SHINE!

Meg

The little things.............

As I read the comments from my last post, I realized how something so mundane to one person can be monumental to another. Yes, it is true, this past Saturday, I went to get a HAIRCUT!!! I know what your thinking, actually, I didn't think much of it either. I was talking to the hairdresser and telling her that I had had chemo and I wanted to cut the ends off of my hair to make is less fuzzy, the first hair that grows back is very soft. I joked with her and said yes, this is my first haircut (with this hair) and she kind of looked at me with this very genuine smile and said "Thank you for letting me be the first to cut your new hair". Only then did I realize the significance of the moment. Different milestones on our journey, some pass us by unnoticed and some leave their mark.

I had my second infusion today and I have a week left of the oral drugs for this cycle then a week off and God willing after that I will start and finish my last cycle. Fingers crossed!

STAND BACK AND WATCH ME SHINE!!

Meg

Seeing right through me.....

Literally! Yesterday I went to my doctor and he had the results of my repeat CT. He was quite pleased with the results. Apparently, I had a small spot on my pelvis that was developing into a problem. No longer a problem as it is gone and the bone is sclerosed(which I am told means healed) so that is a good thing. The lymph nodes in my clavicle area that were involved are also free and clear now. I have a bugger of a lymph in my chest that they are trying to shrink so I can have radiation to eradicate the damn thing all together. Well that has shrunk. So as far as I can tell the score is Meg + Chemo 1, Cancer 0.

So I have agreed to do two more cycles of my current chemotherapy to shrink the field even more and then radiation, in about 5 weeks. Hopefully, that will do it and I can be free of the big C. I will remain optimistically cynical as always as I don't want to put the cart before the horse.

Just know things are looking good! (That is as positive as I am going to get right now!!)

Stand Back and Watch Me Shine!