Couldn't smile wider

Today is a good day. I never heard from my Onc, so I guess that is good news. I guess he is not concerned. I feel even better about not hearing from him, because today I saw my radiation oncologist and he isn't concerned about it either. He said that the radiation treatment will not cause me to get another effusion, and I will be fine!!! I will go in tomorrow at 8:30 AM and do my planning session. This will have the CT scan and the little tattoo marks for the computer radiation equipment so it will know where to zing me. I am thrilled. When he told me this good news, and that I wouldn't be delayed any longer I couldn't wipe the grin off my face!!
I just got back from a nice walk down to the beach and the waves are pretty big, because its stormy here in Seattle. I managed to fit my walk in between down pours! My hair is growing back with force now. I just wish my eye brows and lashes were! I feel good but still swollen from the waist down. Hopefully it corrects itself. If its still around by next week I am calling my Onc again.

Upside to technology

Wow! Swedish rocks! That's Swedish hospital for those of you that are out of towners. I just picked up the phone and ordered a huge meal. All I've eaten today was an egg on toast (of coarse.haha) and then I went to do the Bone scan. Which turned up AWESOME!!! Of coarse!! But back to the meal. So I went right after that to see my Onc and he was not so happy about what was happening. He said when I asked him how often this happens, and he said, "once in a career." So I am pretty sad about this. I have a considerable amount of water around my heart. So, they wheeled me on over to the main hospital and I sat here in my scrubbies and had tons of tests, and watched the clock click...for six hours before I saw the Cardiologist. I was begging for food. And finally I was given the okay.

It seems that when I first started talking to the cardiologist he wanted to do the tap right away, tonight he said. But then I asked if I'd be knocked out, and what the procedure is. He said no, i'd be awake, given a mild sedative so perhaps I wouldn't remember it. But I would need to lean forward so they could stick my lining of my heart sack with this needle and aspirate it. Well, from the look of horror I think he started back paddling and soon he story changed to just giving me an anti-inflammatory drug for a week and seeing how I respond. What it seems to me, is that what he said is that there is no way to find out if this is from a viral infection, if its from the taxotere, and then the other that my Onc has ruled out from cancer. So, its possible to find out by testing the fluid they pull out of its viral, but also this might not be able to come to a conclusion.

I'd rather not do the needle thing. It sounds traumatic.

So I just ate this huge meal, and then the nurse came in and said, "eat some more." I guess the med's their about to give me can mess up my stomach. So they want lots of food in there like you would IBproferan. I am going to sleep here tonight and wait for my Onc to get me out of here tomorrow morning.
Luckily D brought me my computer. He doesn't like hospitals at all, and was pretty squirmish until he left. I have become immune to this whole thing.

I feel sad and shocked and overwhelmed about this whole thing though. I almost start to cry and then I don't. Our house closed today in the midst of all this. I have been pretty stressed out with it. The buyers lender was a nightmare and so it was not a smooth closing.

So, I guess I get to go home and if I have any sudden light headedness, more pain in my chest, ect..then I am to call him again. I want to get out of here. The smells and cleaners remind me of getting chemo and make me sick.
I am off to watch TV and listen to my roomate snore. I wish this wasn't true, but I like hospital food. I know its gross. But I do love it

***

I just read this and I know it is all over the place and may not make sense. Its just how I feel right now.

Chemo Nurse

I woke up and cried last night. I remembered that in my chemo induced fog, last time I was at the hospital my chemo nurse Cara told me that it was the last time I'd see her. I was so sad to say goodbye. She is one of two nurses that has always given me my chemo. They are both my age, a bit younger and are traveling nurses. It is crazy that I just processed it. Chemo makes me so icky and all I can do is focus on me and getting better that now that I am better I remembered and I am sad about her departure.
I have officially reached the point that anytime I even write chemo, I get sick. My mouth waters and I get a full body "Icky" feel. Ewhh!!

The changing weather has given me an invigoring feel the past few days. I love my head being cold and not hot. I never realized how many spider webs my head goes through with hair. Now, I notice it a few times a day. My taste buds are still wacked out. Water tastes like poison. I can't handle anything spicy. Not even pepper.

I can't wait till the debate tonight. I can hardly wait actually.

My new club that you can't belong to!!

I guess the best place to start is to explain what started this whole thing, but first want to say that all my posts won't be this long. 

 One day about a month ago I found a lump.  Never in my mind did I actually believe I had Breast Cancer.  My mom and sisters all have/had lumpy breast and so that is how mine are.  Instead of making an appointment with my regular ND, I went to see a new MD.  She said not to worry, but anytime she had any hesitation she sent the woman off to Swedish's Comprehensive Breast Center.  Two weeks out, and I wasn't all that worried. All of my family and friends were all saying not to worry, "Its just a cyst."  I was joking around with everyone about it, and the worst case scenarios, throwing my life around as I didn't realize what NOT A JOKE this was soon to be.   

The folks at the Comprehensive Breast Center were great.  I said goodbye to my husband, as I got to walk into the world of woman in robes waiting to see a Doc.  We all just looked at each other in that warm room with suddenly unimportant magazines about what clothes are cool right now.  My husband said that he sat in his room with a bunch of scared men that he was totally thinking, he wasn't part of this club either.  My appointment seemed to get a little scarier when after the Ultrasound & Mammogram I was asked to sit in a little room.  I asked, "Is this the not so great room, should I get my husband?"  They let him come back with me.  The Doc told me she wasn't certain either way, and wanted to get  what's called a Core Biopsy.  She also asked me if I wouldn't mind getting a tag implanted into my breast, just in case in the future I needed surgery.  That didn't go so well. 

 This was the first time that I medically (and I didn't realize it until now) got to make a decision about my little body that I would have NEVER considered, and I didn't for too long.  I told her, "No way" was I going to have someone put some foreign thing in me.  If I got Breast Cancer then we'll go to those drastic measures.  That was on a Wednesday, results take 2-3 days, so I had to wait until Monday.  This was the weekend I started practicing becoming a Yogi, and I hadn't realized it yet.  We went to the Hoh Rain Forest and the little lovely town of Forks (there are good things about it, like the ocean and the forests).  This was just the trip we both needed.  Even last night when we couldn't sleep, we both remarked that the Ocean's beaches of this area is what was helping us to relax.  Anyways, so here came Monday.  The call, " Heather, unfortunately you do have Breast Cancer.  You need to come down here right now.  We have an opening just for you at 3."  

I just couldn't believe it.  In one moment Our Lives had Changed.  We both got dressed in a fury, and numbly walked into a new Zone.  When we first met we used to call it The Zone.  We'd just look into each other's eyes and suddenly our spirits would start flying in a reality that seemed to only exist with each other.  Now, I was experiencing this but in not a loving way.  In a Twilight Zone way.  My husband, (from now on will be named D for short) "Okay, we don't know anything.  Let's not panic.  We just know you have Breast Cancer," says D.  Right, we don't know." As we got to the front desk, I was hit so hard.  I couldn't talk.  I just started crying.  This was the first time I was about to utter the words of cancer and my name.  The lady was so sweet.  Saying to me calming and caring words.  Words I simply cannot remember now.  I got the strength to say, because it was important so important for me to say what I had to say.  " Hi, my name is Heather __ and I was just told I have Breast Cancer."  Phew!  It was true, and I said it.  I think D new that I needed to say this.  He gave me a Kleenex and walked with me to start filling out all the paperwork.  

We met with my Doc, she was going to be my Surgeon they told me.  I found her to be incredibly confident, a wonderful communicator, personal, trustworthy, and again confident.  For the first time in my medical history, there was no feeling of being rushed in there.  She made us feel like we were the center of the world and took lots of time with us.  Even as I just sat there and wept, I just couldn't believe it.  This was so much to take on within a few hours.  The team at the Comprehensive Breast Center Rock!!  I left there not floundering at all, and had the miraculous experience of having all my Scans scheduled for me, this week to boot!  I left there totally knowing, if I chose to stay with them that I was going to see my Oncologist on Monday and have surgery on Friday the 12th.  Incredible!  We felt completely deflated as we left, but for the first time empowered with the information we needed to start doing our own research.

We got home and just cried.  There are no words to express this than utter despair.  Shock.  Disbelief, why me, why you.  The Why's started to kick in.  So we started cleaning the house, both of us.  Taking control of what we could, and started kicking around those why's and how is this possible.  

For those of you who don't know me, I am a bit of a Health Fanatic.  I love to fast, eat only Organic everything, exercise, love yoga, I mean I love to be healthy.  I took this approach since the age of 17.  On my own, I worked at a health food store in Kodiak, AK and started learning about my new life path.  One of healing my body and one of being a Healer.  I got my first massage from a co-worker.  As this massage was happening, I heard a whisper in my ear, a calling I was soon to realize, that I was to not go to College, but instead go to Massage School.  I looked up thinking that maybe she- the massage therapist had whispered this, but no she was down at my feet.  I have been a Healer since 1994, and have even studied Cancer Massage.  Since a few of my clients had/was going through this journey.  I loved working with these woman.  Their range of motion wasn't so great in their little arms and they had lymphadema.  My massages really helped them and that is what my life is all about.  So, how could it be that I am now part of this club.  As D put it, " A club you didn't want to belong to."  I corrected him,    " A club we didn't want to belong to."

As I am feeling, hearing, and reading, this Cancer thing affects everyone in our family.  We are ALL living with Cancer now.  Not only has our marriage come from 3 (each of us representing ourselves, and a 3rd-the spirit of our marriage) but now, I feel on an energetic level a 4th spirit, kindof like a ghost in the room that is now claiming its presence.  We need to call Ghost Busters!!  So, where was I.  Yeah, yeah, the picture of health.  Seriously.  The picture of FREAKIN HEALTH.  What more could I have done. Seriously.  I can't remember who now, but one of you Angels said to me, " Heather, there is nothing more you could have done.  You couldn't have been better.  You couldn't have done anything different.  You did everything your supposed to do."  

Enough of the self-indulgent behaviour!  We both needed to start telling our parents and siblings and dear friends.   That is when the tears really started to spill.  Disblief, sheer and utter disbelief.  But now Support.  At some point we went to bed, crying and trying to start finding the postitives in a sea of unknowns.   I woke up at my now new time, 5 AM.  It seems that this is the time that my mind starts to race and I start thinking not positively so I get up, and START DOING STUFF (heres that D in me not my husband, but as in DISC profiling).  I emailed everyone that I knew could help me with the new daunting task of finding the best Doc's.   I then went back to sleep and was awoken by a call from a Dear Friend Steve.  He is an amazing athlete, a so far 2 time oh, heck what is that crazy race he does.  The one that would kill me, the one that takes almost 3/4 of a day to complete, the uhh..IRONMAN!! That's it.  He literally (as if I was trying to run the race next to him) grabbed the back of my neck as I was crouched down in almost a fetal position, and stood me up.  And looked me in the eye and said, "We are just getting started here, friend.  Gather your strength, let's get going.  You can do this."  I told him to call in the horses, I mean Calvary and he started Networking like all extraordinary Networkers do.  

Steve asked if I was going to get a second opinion.  I was so exhausted, my spirit was exhausted.  For those of you that don't know me I like to think of myself as 2 animals, Tiger from Winnie the Pooh and a Hummingbird.  I love to do as many things I can at once, I love to be busy.  But this was gone, momentarily.  So, I said no.  They know what it is.  I have decided now my second opinion will come in the form of my treatment.  

Jumping ahead, Tuesday the day after being diagnosed, was spent with my phone and laptop on me at all times.  You little worker bees!  I will tell you that I have not felt so Support and Love as I have in one day as this day.  Except the day I got married.  Slowly, D and I got pumped up more and more.  As you all, started resourcing for me.  Everyone that said what can I do, just let me know.  I said, " I need to find the best Doc's in this city.  Not that other's aren't but, I wanted to know who everyone has gone to.  My little list was being made.  Soon, I found 3 Docs names that kept coming around and around.  I want to mention here, that there are a lot of Best Docs but I wanted the ones that have been doing this a LONG time, and that is what I needed.  So yesterday (Wednesday), I called the Breast Place and told them, " I am calling to break up with you guys."  It truely felt/feels this way.  I know that everyone supports me making my own health care decisions but I had a connection with these folks and I knew I was with good hands. But for those of you that don't know me, I am a little Type A and in DISC a D.  Okay, I hate to say it, but here it goes, alright... yes, I am a bit of a Control Freak.  

  I needed to know that if it(breast cancer) comes back for a 2nd visit, that D and I can look into each other's eyes and say that I did everything I could.  I saw everyone I could, and should've and I would more importantly have no regrets.  So the KICK ASS ROCK STAR team was formed through the help of a few Key Players, calling these Docs and getting me in.  I am not going to mention anyone's names as I do not want the other KICK ASS Doc's being thought of as not good.  This was just my team that I needed.  I feel that My Angels brought them to me. Thank you Angels, as you know who you are.

So yesterday, was the Team Together day, YEAH!! and my first day of Scans.  I got to have a Bone Scan.  I am excited to get these results as its my little body and I have absolutely no control over the fact that either the Cancer has or hasn't gone anywhere else.  This is going to either way be a fact, and I will face those challenges when I face the.  So, D and I go into the little room that they will soon inject me with RadioIsotopes AKA F18.  I looked him in the eye and we both had a little psychic moment.  We both new that in no possible way would I have EVER  in a million years agreed to allowing someone to pollute my body with Radiation.  The Doc said that it similar to what I would get if I had flown to NY.  I said, " Can I fly to NY instead."  We all knew it wasn't like that.  My tongue a day later can tell you it isn't the same.  I have a nice Metallic taste, mmm...

Before I go, I want to say how we are.  We are only surrounding and reaching out to folks that are seriously not giving us any Negative energy in the tiniest amount.  I am going to not only make it through this, but I am going to be transformed and am looking forward to my new growth in every aspect.  I believe I am on this earth to GROW and I have attacked my life thus far in this fashion.  I am opening my heart to a new path as a Healer whatever may come.  I feel that suddenly I am a Yogi.  For years meditation has been nearly impossible for me, as I am a little Hummingbird.  But I feel a new animal coming into my life.  I and We are only being in the Present.  I know we all know its important to do.  But now it is all there is.  No looking ahead at things we do not know if I even need to think about.  Like a wig.  Like maybe just I'll be bald.  Because I may not need Chemo.  If I do, I will get to cross that path.  So, if anyone does comment, please do not go ahead.  Practice with us, simply being in the moment as that is all we all EVER REALLY HAVE.  Lots of love and light and tears and love to you.