Exploding Love

I have always been a high energy girl! Like those of you know that have read this blog from the get-go, I never crawled and at 7 months I just got up and started running, and screaming of coarse! I'm still really vocal, and still full of energy. But not like the past few months. I'm not sleeping very well at all. I toss and turn and finally get out of bed in the middle of the morning. Thank God for my new addiction, FaceBook. I would described myself, and did to my Onc the other day as maniacally enjoying life. He said, " how about taking sleeping pills a few nights a week." I balked at that idea, but honestly its starting to sound appealing. I told him that I am taking 1/2 a one every few weeks just to get one night of solid sleep. He said he doesn't think I can keep going at the pace that I am, without sleep. That makes sense. No one could go for very long, even if they were a coach potato with the amount of sleep I am getting.
What wakes me is my little hummingbird just whirling inside of my chest and I find myself wanting to jump up and down on my bed with sheer delight! YOU GUYS!! I AM BACK, AND I'M FEELING AWESOME!!! This is possibly one of the most exciting times in my life. When I was married, I shut out all but a select few of my girl friends, and this summer being as my friend Emily always sings to me over the years when I am single, "free and single, she likes to mingle, she lovveess the part-y liiiffeee." Its true. Cancer, forced me to open my heart to all of my friends again, and now that i am all done, and single, they are all still rallied around me and I don't have a spare moment without one of them loving me up! So I get to love back, and be loved, and I couldn't be happier.
I find myself driving down the road and I start crying (a manic sign....who knows-maybe its a coming to life sign) because I am simply exploding with love.
I have not called (because I've been having too much fun) Dr. K's office to get my tumor marker numbers. They are of coarse good, other wise he would've called me. I have it in my to do on Monday, so that I can keep track of my numbers.
I told Dr. K that he should not refer anymore patients to the dip whit cardiologists I had been seeing. I told him my new one rocked, he agreed. He asked my what about her I liked, and I made him laugh out loud when I said, " You know, all the cardio's I had seen were just guessing, and telling me they were guessing. With her, even if she didn't know what to do, and even if she is guessing, she didn't tell me that. She allowed me to feel safe, and that I was in competent hands."
Which leads me into the thought I've (one of many-one reason I don't sleep) been having. There was a study done years ago, with children with cancer. The study did a visualization with the kids while they were getting their chemo that Pack-men were eating up their cancer. And then every night their parents would lead them through the same visualization. The kids that had this done, survived 50% more than the other kids.
Which made me think about how dip-whit cardio, who will not be mentioned kept telling me he had no idea how to treat me, and "this is where art and medicine come together", and a slew of ridiculous stuff. He freaked me out. He made me not be able to trust my body. I tried really hard. But honestly I felt like I was a walking time bomb.
Visualization is an awesome thing. And I just live my life like that. I always have. I think it started with sports. The night before a game, I'd visualize me playing, ect..It works. It does. Its time for me to start having faith in something again. This is kind of one of the hardest things for me right now. I am a deeply spiritual person. But this foundation of mine got shattered. I still believe everything I did, before cancer. But now, I also see that possibly all the faith and visualization in the world, still doesn't change one's Karmic path, or ones whatever. However, we as humans use words to make it okay to go through tough times.
The other hard thing is vanity. It was NOT hard losing my hair. When I did, I was in the beginning of a race, and I knew what was a head. I knew I had to let go of everything. But now, that I am done. Now, that I am starting to run again, and exercise, and laugh, and feel awesome, I want my long hair back. I am actually loving that its growing. But at the sametime, hating how short it is. And it is SUPER, SUPER curly. Its those chemo curls!
I'll leave you all with an exploding love for life, and go out there and do something fantastic just for you, today!

2nd follow up

I'm starting to get a little nervous for my oncology appointment tomorrow. Its been over two months since I saw Dr. K. I know I have nothing to worry about. I really do know this. But as I write those words I think, bullshit. I really have no idea. There sure can be a lot of hope and a lot of hippie "good" thoughts but really, who knows.
I've been listening to what I say to people lately. How it is that I talk about cancer or dying or living. The thing that I hear myself saying the past few weeks over and over, is basically. You know, I have and you have no idea when our time has come. And I can hope that I stay cancer free, and live a long life. Because I want to grow old. I want to have a family. I want to teach my kids how to ride a bike and push them on a swing and laugh with them and cuddle with them and dance with them. But, maybe I'll die soon. Maybe I could die. Yes, I will she says. Someday I will die.
What's up with all the fear around dying. What's so UN-P.C. about freaking acknowledging this basic freakin' fact. I am, I will repeat, I AM going to die. Someday. Some Day. One Day. One moment. One second, I will take my last breath. We all will, so what's wrong with stating the fact.
Well because we live in a society that beauty reins and botox keeps old age puffed to its preened state. I hope I get to live a long life. But I get to dance with the beauty of the fact that I could go to my Onc's, in a year, or as the case could be, tomorrow, and my cancer numbers could be high and I could start this whole damn process over again. I have enjoyed the past month taking a break from writing and thinking about this. Not that I don't think, because I do, constantly. Its more thought of when I speak to others about my process at the moment. So, yes, I go to my Onc's office for my bi-monthly check up.
My little hiatus is over and I've pushed "cancer" into the corner in the top floor of a twelve story building and I have had to go up there and get the little bundle and walk back to the main floor with it. I am just about to begin the process of sitting in my little beach cabin I've rented on Vashon, starting September 1st and reading my entire blog from beginning to end. I think there will be a huge box of kleenex and my computer to get me through.
I can't wait to start writing my book and finishing my healing process in this way.

So....tomorrow...9:20 in the AM I go in. Get the port flushed, for the last time as mid-September I get it removed. I've asked my friend Tamara to come and be with me. Hopefully I don't get too sick from the operation meds and we can watch the first season of True Blood. I am excited.
But back to tomorrow, I am not looking forward to the flushing of the port, smelling all those icky smells. A friend asked me where on Madison the cancer institute is. I told him, Madison and Disgusting. hahaha! It grosses me out driving by it. I am going to run to my appointment tomorrow and then run home. I am excited. I have moved to Madrona, so from my house its 2.4 miles. I am excited. I can run there and back. I have been running every day for a few weeks now and have started lifting weights as well. I canNOT WAIT to have a hard body and feel my body's strength as I walk and play again.

Summer meanderings

It’s been a while since I wrote in here. I have been living life. Living again. At times it feels that this past year didn’t even happen. This morning marks the second day that I have gone for a run. I have lost almost all my chemo weight, just five more pounds to go. My hair is growing, at a snails pace. I am in between being about to use a palmade and a more viscusy hair product.
I was looking in the mirror this morning and saw my port. Its kindof one of the last things that I need to do to be done with all this. There is a safety in having it there. It kindof feels like an implanted security blanket to me. My friend. I can’t believe that I became so close to it. I can’t believe what it did for me. I wonder if my surgeon will allow me to keep it. I set the date for removal for Friday of labor day, and then realized its labor day weekend, and must cancel. I am going to have entirely too much fun, fun doing what I have no idea, but I don’t want to be laid up in bed for one of the last summery weekends in Seattle.
Figuring out who to ask to come and be with me for the removal and post-operation is a biggie. It is a milestone and a marker for me. One of the reasons I haven’t been writing is that my sis, just had a baby boy. I made it down to Eugene just as they were checking into the hospital, so blessedly I got to attend the entire birth. I felt like I was team captain, alongside the doula, and my sis's husband. I am so proud of her for digging deep and finding the strength to have a natural child birth. She rallied with all the ancient mamma energy and wisdom and was able to birth, our little tiger, Nolan.
There has been less grieving and more just maniacally enjoying life. I’ve been working really hard and playing really hard. Like my friend Gen said to me yesterday when I told her I slept just 3 hours. She said you are being manic but your just living life again. And I will go back to not being manic, because I wasn’t before. But right now, I am just so incredibly full of life. Its beautiful. And full of angst as well.
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A week or so later..
I have run now 8 days in a row, and I am happy to report that MY HEART AND LUNGS ARE SERIOUSLY HAPPY!!! I am so thrilled. I am slowly starting to trust my body again. There is just a tiny little devil on my shoulder saying, "hope you don't have to go backwards and go on steroids again." I don't think I will.
I have just had a week of visitors and last night two more came into town. I am having a great time.

I am going to visit my friend Keiko for labor day down in the bay area. I'm hoping we can go play in the ocean a little, and party like its 1969. I have had a few drinks, which did not do me well. Hysterically, I found myself pucking in an alley in Seattle a few weeks ago. I said out loud to myself, "This is not loving myself, Heather!" I did go a little over board, for me just a few measly drinks! Regardless..

THis is a potent time. I have just birthed a new me, and I need to be careful with whom I allow into my energetic force field right now. I get to be discerning on who gets to walk this magickal road with me. So far, its old friends that are helping me to remember that Yes! Life is full of living and loving, and each day, I am learning how to integrate all my new wisdom into the "living Heather".

I don't feel like writing here as much, not feeling like making things fluffy and fun to read. I have been sitting for the past month and praying about how to write my book. What angle to come in at. I have finally figured it out. I am excited to start writing, but have given myself until Sept 1, to play hard and then I am going to start.