In Remission

Last night I walked outside to take the newest puppy out again. As I stood there waiting for her to do her business I looked up at the beautiful, glowing harvest moon and for the first time in 6 months I felt like I could breathe. I had almost the same thing happen just a few minutes ago. I again, was outside with the dogs and decided to enjoy the coolness of the morning. I sat at the patio table and this feeling of release swept over me. I stopped for a moment and listened to the life around me. The birds chirping, the squirrels doing what they do, a woodpecker in a neighbor's tree, things that I have not listened for in 6 months.
 For 6 months I have ben consumed first by the "what if I have cancer", then the "wow I have cancer", then treatments and side effects. I have looked in the mirror with every treatment and not realized the woman standing in front of me as chemo took my hair from all over and steroids added to my weight. I have laid in bed at night and cried because of the bone pain and because of what cancer was doing to me mentally. I have cried during waking hours to and apologized profusely to those around me for what my illness was doing to their lives. I have worried about the bills that I knew were going to come in and how I was going to pay for them even though I have insurance. I have stressed over the cost of what it was taking to get me to eat and drink between chemo treatments.
There were days when all of this, when cancer would become so overwhelming that I would cry and wonder what I didn't just let it take me. When I would think that people would have it easier if they didn't have to take care of me. I mean what 15 yr old wants to take care of their mom and hear her cry over and over again because of the pain?
When I would have these moments I was so blessed to have some amazing people around me. Adam, who even though he was away for 90% of treatment made sure that I had what I needed to make it through. Lorissa, yes she drove me crazy some days being her normal teenage self, but she really tried to step up and take care of me the 4 days after chemo. Mom, who even though she was only able to drive me to two treatments, still made the majority of them and worried about me even though she was/is going through her own health issues. Johnathon, my brother, who stepped up to drive me to two treatments after Mom wasn't able to and bought dinner for Lorissa and I a few times, Yummy ribs from Dreamland once. Joy, my sister, she couldn't be here to physically help but she called and called and listened and listened to me cry. Jennifer and Cheryl, these two beautiful, wonderful women, who I have known for 20+ years but lost contact with for 20 years, walked back into my life and talked me down off ledges many days, even if they didn't know it. Ed & Kim Strader, again from my high school days, these two amazing people, when I was diagnosed and then had my first treatment, were not only there as I walked a 5k I was supposed to have run, but were the driving force behind the R.B.R shirts. Bryen Grant who's Eye of the Tiger, RTR, RBR, and now his running became not just a reason to make me smile, but an inspiration to me, oh and he isn't a runner :).  Hell at this time, I might as well say the entire Duncan U. Fletcher Class of 1992. There are so many of them that FB brought back in my life, and so many of them who would send me words of encouragement, often at times when I would need them the most. GOOO SENATORS!  Rebecca Mauldin who made me the awesome hat that I can't wait to wear when it cools off some. Tina Diaz who made me the awesome Teal Ribbon blanket for chemo. My neighbors who cut my grass and took care of me when I stepped off into that dreaded hole and had to be rushed via ambulance to the ER. The Gadsden Runner's Club many of who don't know me very well, but many of who would check on me. The wonderful women I have met who are fighting or have fought Ovarian Cancer or another gynecological cancer, groups such as Teal Diva and Teal's the Deal. The awesome people I work with. ABC Enforcement is the best! I know it was hard for them, or maybe it wasn't, to take up my slack and hell let's be honest, when I am there I am a bit far off in my memory and function sometimes.  There are so many more and damned chemo brain is keeping them from coming to the forefront to be added.
I am lucky as well to have had such an amazing group of Drs around me in Gadsden and at UAB. Speaks volumes when your oncologist, who doesn't think you have cancer, can walk into your room after surgery and apologize because it was cancer.
I know that I have come out of this a survivor. I am blessed to be part of an elite group of cancer patients, women who have had the distinction of having Ovarian Cancer. I am part of an even more elite group in that I am right now, not part of the 70% who will not win their fight this year. I am part of the small 30% who survived this year and it is time, time to start living life.
If there is one thing that this as taught me, it is that life is short. I am only 39 but days after I turned 39 I was faced with the fact that my life could be taken away just like that. I have spent all of my life scared to do things because I was afraid I would look like a fool or just out of fear but no more. I have made the "bucket list" and I will begin checking them off. It might take me forever but I refuse to sit around and let life pass me by. As the Tim McGraw song says, it is time "To live like you were dying"

Six is in the BAG

On Tuesday August 27th, 2013 my nurse Karen hooked up my IV for what I hope will be the last time FOREVER! I shared that day with Linda a woman maybe a bit older than me who was getting treatment for cervical cancer who was there with her teen daughter. She was the first of us this day to finish but she had already gotten radiation that morning as well. There was Mrs. Weeks who came over for treatment from Columbus, GA. She is much older than me, at least old enough to be my mother, and is in treatment for ovarian cancer. She is dependent on a son to bring her to treatment and she and her family are still in the process of finding a  nursing home for her husband who had a stroke a few years before. There was myself and then there was a woman named Kelly. Kelly was accompanied by her husband and sister and was I figure, 5-10 years younger than me and in treatment for cervical cancer. She and her husband have a little boy who had just started school this year. Kelly was very sick, very, very sick. She was so sick that she had to be brought up in a wheel chair and her speech was so slurred that I could only make out a few words here and there. It broke my heart to see her like this. I wanted so much to be able to take her disease away from her and take it on myself. I felt guilty that I was going to get to ring the bell and she wasn't, that Linda wasn't and that Mrs. Weeks who was supposed to be ringing, wasn't and although I was half tempted to skip it, I didn't.

Side effects since chemo:
My nails. They look diseased and if they just touch something they break. One broke today down so low I was afraid it was going to bleed. Tomorrow I must file and paint what I have left so as not to scare people I come in contact with.

I have found orange soda to be the most awesome thing ever invented and I have found more weight. All total treatment has given me 20 pounds. I talked to Dr. Straughn who said in about 3 weeks I can really hit the weight loss hard. Now I plan on working to make changes starting tomorrow but I guess I need an all clear before I can commence crazy mode.

The neuropathy is like torture. Walking today felt like I was walking on a continual bed of straight pins. I tried 3 different pairs of shoes today, two of which had to be bought because we weren't home for me to switch them out. My Granny had diabetic neuropathy and I always used to wonder what it really felt like even though I felt I could imagine, well never in my imagination did I think that it would be like this.

The bone pain is equally as bad. It hit sooner, with more ferocity and seems to be lasting longer. It was so bad Friday night I took a sleeping pill and then last night I took a pain pill I had left from my sprain and yet sleep eluded me both nights. I had intentions of taking two sleeping pills tonight but it was so late I was scared to. I hope that it will decide to stop tonight so that I can sleep.

There are the other things too, the nausea, the chemo brain and the acne. Oh the acne!. UGH! And all of the other crap that goes along with being sick, all of it is there but I hope that it is on its way out.

Cancer sucks, chemo sucks and I am forever changed because of it. Good or bad changes, I am changed.