Another one bites the dust..

Yesterday, is now behind me. Chemotherapy number 11. I have actually done eleven chemotherapies. To get through this I just have had to keep my head down and go. Move. Don't think to much, little one. Just do it. Just get your port put in. Don't think, feel a bit, and move forward. Yesterday, I let myself think about the monstrosity of chemo and what I have actually gone through. All the stuff. The IVF stuff, all the injections I had to give myself, all the emotions of coming to grips with possibly not getting to have my own kids someday, all the tests, the hair cuts, the hair falling out, the sleepless nights, the not feeling good, the losing and tearing away of the veils of my former life, on and on the list goes. I let myself think about my these feets yesterday. I have actually allowed myself to receive eleven chemo's so far. Incredilbe. There are tears running down my face right now.
Yep, I have only five more and I can't wait. I am a little scared of all the tears that will start percolating in early March, when I am all done, and am safe to REALLY start processing. You know, when you go traveling to a third world place and you are suddenly able to live and do things that you in your first world mentalities would never allow yourself to come in contact with, and you can fully function and love life in this new way. I've always wondered how I was able to live with the people in West Africa for as long as I did. And I loved every moment of it. Having cancer is sortof like this. I for some reason, am able to transcend my old way of being, (although its just in reach, whenever I am ready to go back to it) and do and go through things that I once didn't know I could go through. We are all like this. We are so much more than we ever really know.
I had relatives this past winter tell me and D that they didn't think I could handle being on Survivor. It was such a funny statement to me when they said this. First of all, it was clear they didn't know who I was very well, and secondly to think that a human spirit isn't able to transcend was such a foreign concept to me. This is what WE do. This IS life. And WE all do it, daily. Maybe not Cancer level, or Survivor level, or Africa level, but we do it. Its how we survive what we call life. Its our opportunity to grow spiritually.
So, here I am unable to sleep and thinking about what I've done so far. I told my Onc yesterday that if there are any microscopic cancer cells that have not been killed, and rear their heads on a MRI in a couple years (it takes sometimes, a few years to grow large enough to be detected) that i wasn't sure if I'd go through this again. He said, that right about now this is how everyone feels. I have been, not out of morbidity, but out of the very real fact that it could happen, thinking about my action plan if it does come back. I told my Onc that I was thinking a nice beach in Costa Rica would be a good way to go, instead of poisoning myself in my last days in hopes that something works.
He told me, that he's giving me the most powerful chemo drugs he can this time, in hopes that that doens't happen. The brite side, is if it does come back, he'd give me lessor powerful drugs to see if that would do the trick. And in a couple years, the medicine will have new innovative treatments. He told me its common to go through this. Which leads me to thinking about how vulnerable I will feel when this is all done.
As it is right now, each day I have to stop myself from doing breast exams. I keep thinking I feel lumps, and panicking. D, reminds me that my Onc, "the best guy in the state to do a breast exam, Heather" just did one last week and you are OKAY. Right. I am okay. Sure. Sure. Its so unsettling. I already know that I am going to NEED a few support groups and I can't wait to start turning this blog, into a book. This process is really going to help my process.re