I Don't Wanna

That's right. I don't want to go in Friday for my Day one of Cycle 3 Chemo. I want to go to the Puyallup fair with the kids. I want to take them to Seattle Pacific Science Center. I want to re-stain my deck and wash the dog and tend the garden and get a pedicure.

Why is this one so hard? Why am a dreading it more than the others? I don't know that answer...but I know that I don't wanna.

I just remember what my mom told me when I was little and had to go to the dentist for fillings. "We all have to do things we don't like, but we have to do them anyway". You're still right mom. I will suck it up.

Maybe I will rent some movies from block busters to watch while I am there. I don't do that very often. That would at least give me something to that I will look forward to.

Gift of Life

Today is my birthday. I am 32. Still in the hospital getting my "nectar of the gods" I believe this is the most I have ever have had spent on me ever in one day. Chemotherapy is expensive. A good birthday present though. The gift of life. I will take it and not complain.

I am happy to report that Dr G came to see me yesterday at the hospital and said that I am responding to the treatment. Better/ faster than she expected. We are still planning all 4 rounds, but will do a CT after round 3, and may not do round 4. I am not getting my hopes up. I am just happy I am responding. There was always that chance that I would not respond. SO YAY.

Called my dad early this morning and told him the good news and he said he would tell mom, as she was still asleep. She called me later and said she was so happy that she had started crying. She didn't realize she was so worried about it. It is funny how we can be strong when we have to and suck it up and when the immediate threat is lifted is the time we break down. I must say I almost started crying too, but I hate to cry at the hospital. I will wait until I am at home being held by Gary to break down.

So glad to be living in a day and age where they can fix so many illnesses. 100 years ago, I would have been a goner. But today, I am a fixer-upper. yay for medicine and technology.

New Hair

Gary bought me a hot wig today. I am done with my pity party....because I am HOT with this on.


Gary made me pose in the garden. I was going to plant some bulbs and we had a fun little photo shoot.



I feel Beautiful.

Summer Cut

My hair started falling out Friday. I redyed it blue, went to a preseason Seahawks game on Saturday, fit in very nicely with the fans.


Now it is Monday, and my hair is falling out by the handful. I have a lovely bald spot. I am going in today to have it shaved. Gary can't come with me this time, he has to work. I have done this before though, and will be alright doing it by myself. Gary did say that he would buy me a new wig. That would be nice. Something new, different, fun. A bit sick of the old wig.

Time for my close shave.....

Leave my cart alone!

Dexamethasone makes me a bitch. It is a steroid and I know what roid rage is now. I knew from my chemo last year that this pill would make me "not nice". And last time I was really "not nice" a lot. But this time around I am able to control it a bit better (for the most part) when it comes to my family....but today at Walmart (yes, I fit in perfectly there today with my white trash rage) I was shopping for plants. I had a bunch of plants in my cart, left it at the end of an aisle and started down to look at another beautiful plant (I was Zen at that moment) And then.... a woman came up to my cart and started one of my plants out.

"Excuse me but that is my cart and my plant, please put it back, NOW"

The startled lady "I was just trying to see how much it was" as she sets in back into my cart from hers. LOL

"It is $5.50 please leave it in my cart, they are at the end of that aisle there. I don't like people taking things out of my cart"

I could have been so much nicer about it....BUT It felt GREAT to yell at someone. It was bottled up inside and had to escape. Poor lady. Bet she thinks twice about messing with someones cart of stuff again.

Poor lady at Walmart. Didn't know what was coming her way when she tried to take my plant out of my cart.

There is my confession. Forgive me for my sins and my bitchiness.

A little catch up.

 
I was first diagnosed with a molar pregnancy the day after Thanksgiving 2008. They did a D/C the first week of December. My HCG levels were over one million at the time of the D&C. The healthcare team and Group Death Group Health thought that everything would be fine as long as they removed the mole. (which is clumps of placenta with no baby). They were wrong. They were really, really wrong. They continued to monitor my HCG though blood screening and it did not go down. The day after Christmas 2008 I get a call to see an oncologist. They did a CT scan, the molar pregnancy had changed to Gestational Trophlasatic Disease and was now back in my uterus 8inches in diameter, liver, and lungs.

No big deal, I was told. "This is highly treatable." With a shot of methorexate you should be cured in 7-16 weeks. I started the first Tuesday of January 2009- 21 weeks later, the methotrexate stopped working. Time for some bigger chemo. I had a PIC line installed in a very old school fashion way to pump the vein damaging drugs to my heart. The PIC lasted one week. My vein was too small and clamped down on it- the PIC was removed. For the rest of my treatments I was given these toxic chemicals right though my veins. Why did I not get a port? The reasoning was I had only one or two more rounds to go. Eight rounds later and four different treatments and more IV's than I can count I was finally in remission. The last day of that ordeal was Oct 23^rd. 2009. I did finally see a specialist Sept 2009. She was surprised that I had not had an MRI of my brain, as that is where this cancer likes to migrate. Thanks GHC. *sarcasm* If the cancer was in my brain none of the treatments I had been receiving would have even touched it. Thank god that MRI that came back was clean.

I was sick, lost my hair, mouth sores. It was not fun. But I made it and I thought it was done.

I was starting to live my life again. I had anxiety. Trouble around crowds, malls, people that rubbed me the wrong way, I had little tolerance for things that made me anxious. I slowly started to heal. I had beat cancer but I had some deep war wounds. Battle scars. The war that was waged had its casualties. Slowly I started to not worry so much about the cancer coming back, tried relaxing just a little, really getting backing into shape, cycling, swimming, playing with my family and….just when I took a good exhale, my blood labs came back. 5 HCG. Okay I told myself don't get too worked up. But they kept rising each week. Another 5…a 7….an 8…..

I made a request for a specialist at SCCA and started some CT scans. Hello Liver.

That is where you are hiding. So far it seems like GHC will allow me and pay for a specialist to treat me. That I feel better about. I had my Port installed on Friday Aug 6th at 8am and it is a bit sore.

I started chemo Friday also, I am more tired than I remember being last time. More nauseous, and the nausea medication makes me sleepy. The steroids make me cranky, and hungry all the time, and gives me lovely acne. I am vain enough to care that my skin changes to a teenagers – and not in a good way. I am going to work though this chemotherapy also. Only taking the days off I need to do the chemo. I actually really like my chosen profession most days. My employer is a bit cranky this time around about me being gone (all 3 days)…but really, what is she going to do. Not as if I am going to Jamaica.

Over all, my biggest worry is my son. He is more upset than the other kids, and possibly even Gary. He wanted that brother so badly. But no babies are in my future again. After this is all over they will do a full hysterectomy in hopes that this disease will leave me forever. Leaving me to raise my wonderful son. Jonah hates that I will go bald again, but was such a good sport that he dyed his hair blue with me.

This chemotherapy is already making me tired, and unfocused, nauseated. I am quick to temper when I am like this and trying to keep an even head. Patience. I lack patience. My whole family lacks patience.




What we don't lack though is humor. Jonah posing in my wig. 



Laughter is the best medicine. So more blue hair and wigs.

A Port of my very own

August 6th, 2010 I finally get a port of my own. After 10 months chemotherapy with no port all intervienously, and 8 months of remission, I am happy to have a port for the next phase of my cancer treatment.
Also happy to be in the good hands of SCCA. Group Health had treated me last go around, and wow was that an experience in frustration. Group Health has agreed to cover my treatments my SCCA and the UW hospital. It is important to know when you are over your head. And they were. 
First part of Round 1 is done. 2nd part of Round 1 is Friday. Hoping they get it all this time. Rephrase that, glad they are going to get it all this time,

But since I am losing my hair yet again I dyed it blue. I always wanted my hair blue...my boss even let me where it to work blue. She is not the blue hair kind of gal. The cancer card was used and it worked!
Then my son dyed his hair blue. My SD refused to even put on blue streak in her hair.

Parents in Seattle

My parents came for a visit last weekend. I know what prompted it, my diagnoses, They hadn't been to my house in years. They have a hard time leaving Grandma by herself, but I am glad they came. I miss them. We had a fun time walking around Pike Place Markets and Post Alley, eating at the brewery. At the end of the day, Gary said "you are just like you mom". I take that as a huge compliment, my mother is one the most wonderful people I know. And I respect her more than the average person.

What should you do when your re-diagnosed with cancer?

Go to an amuzement park. All those happy endorphines have got to be good for you.,This is what my husband Gary and I did afterwork the day we found out I would need more treatment,