Rugs of Hair

Years ago, I met a woman that lived on the Eastside, in Bellevue actually that sold beautiful rugs. I asked her if she would be willing to trade massage for one. Quickly, she and I hit it off and we spent the next few years, every week, trading. I have a bazillion rugs now that are housed at various friends homes and are also strewn about my cabin.
She was a young mother of two teenage kids. Michelle was in her early forties. I met her just as she had finished Breast Cancer treatment, her hair was a delightful pixie cut, and she was in the process of getting implants. I learned a lot while I worked on her, all-the-while thinking OF COURSE, I would never be dealing with Cancer. That was about eight years ago now.
I admired that she loved to go out dancing, and rage at various local shows till the wee hours. I watched her fall in love with a man that loved her despite her being without breasts & during the process of getting breasts. I loved her spunk. She was a wonderful mother, her sense of “Napoleon Dynamite” humor with her kids, and… and…SHOOT! I totally thought she had Health in her future!!
Finally, I got my fill of rugs and ended our trades. I got married, and life went along the road of the living. Well…we all know how my story goes and that I entered her side of the Club I didn’t want to belong to.
The past couple of weeks, I have been driving past her neck of the woods for the first time in years and I thought, I should go by her house and say hello. I tossed that idea around for a few weeks, feeling it sink deep into the bottom of my belly. Feeling the undeniable, “I wonder if her cancer came back? I wonder if she is alive? I wonder if she is married to that nice man?” Well, this week I decided to take a left off the road I travel on, and make my way up to her house.
I got a little lost, I couldn’t remember exactly. When I was a little girl, my Mother taught me to get around and remember directions by landmarks…by trees and such. That helped guide me to her house as I saw a familiar Rhododendron and I took that right. As I pulled into her driveway I noticed a “Baby Girl” balloon outside the door. I thought, Jez…did she just have another baby?
I didn’t have to knock because a nice man opened the door and I introduced myself as I asked if Michelle was still here. He said he had bought the house a year and a half ago and that he was (I knew it was coming) sorry to be the one to give me the bad news, but that Michelle had not made it. I looked up into the stairwell and saw that his families photos had replaced Michelle’s families. I thanked him, and as I walked away, I said, “Looks like you have a lot of life to be celebrating in there. Enjoy.” I walked away with a newborns cry and a somber mood.
I drove away and cried, and spoke to her, and remembered her. The past few days I have been thinking about her and realized that I did much of the “coming back to life post treatment” that she had. I rarely missed a night of dancing in the city and had a summer of the most fun I have ever had as an adult. I partied (in a good way) like it was 1999!!! (I’m a Prince fan, what can I say)..
For some reason the length of her hair when I last got to work on her stuck with me. I’ve been mulling and processing in my head how sad I am that I never got to sit and have that cup of tea with her. I never got to shock the heck out of her and tell her I got sick too! I never got to ask her to go dancing with me! Why did she not make it? Where are her kids now? This is my next step is to track them down. The Seattle area is small, and I know enough people that once I start the “did you know”, to my friends I will find her kids or her parents.
Tears are pretty full this past week. If I slow down and just look, they come. This morning, as I was massaging I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair is now the longest its been since I was diagnosed in ’08. Its shoulder length now! Wow! I cocked my head from side to side, and watched it sway back and forth. I still enjoy my new treat of swirling my hair when I am in bad traffic. I never was a twirler before cancer, but it’s a sweet and fun way of connecting in with my ego, my girly side, and celebrating having hair.
I thought today, Wow! At each stage of length bald, fuzz, chemo curls with pixie, at ear length, and now at shoulder length I was healing in drastically different ways. One of the hardest parts of writing this particular book for me is processing all that I went through in one fell swoop. It takes me months to process from a full weeks worth of work and I then start to compile thoughts through that healing, and then go back to paper and write more. Hhhmmmm…Yes, I am still healing. I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to do all this personal growth and am excited to some day share it.
People want to know when I will be done with the book? These folks are not writers, as the published writers in my life, all laugh when I talk to them about how I REALLY feel like answering this question. I have no idea when it will be done. It’s not just a fun book to write, you know. It’s a beautiful piece of artwork that is in the process of healing my heart as I birth it. It will take some time.
Well…Michelle, I am so sorry you didn’t make it babe. You were amazing. I am so very sorry and bummed I didn’t get to drink tea with you. Ugh. Belly cries and sadness.

Faith

I'm down in one of my favorite little towns in California, St. Helena. Today I met up with an old friend, an old friend that we have a deep spiritual understanding together. I would say, my closest friends and I share a deep connection in this way. He was telling me about a shoulder injury he has and that he is heading to Brazil to see a spiritual surgeon, or he'll have surgery in the states.

I looked him in the eye and said, "You are going to need to have real surgery."

He and I looking deeply into each others eyes, and he responded by saying, "I don't know why you are saying that. I am not even going to hear that. I am not going to take that reality on. I am not sure if you are saying that, Heather because Western medicine worked for you, and you chose to go that route."

I started telling him more of my story, and I'll skip most of what I said otherwise this post could be a book in and of itself.

But the jest of it, with lots of tears, was this:

" I lost my faith." To get to where I am now, to go through what I went through, I had to let go of it all. How was it, that I..ME..and again, I got cancer in the first place? I remember blogging about this, but one conversation that occurred frequently was this...some loving caring person (because they always meant well)would say, "You will be fine, Heather. You will make it through this." And I would get really angry inside, and say as loving as I could back, "I will be until I am not." And then they would say, "I believe that you create and bring to you whatever you believe. So be careful what you say." And I would say, " I never thought I was going to get cancer, and I did."

You see, this conversation is on FAITH. Faith in lord knows what. Those of you that are Christian could be upset I just used your lords name in vain. Or whatever religion. Whatever religion you are, any walk of life, in any part of this miraculous planet, we all on this planet are just trying to make sense of what happens in life, and to us. Through faith.

We pray, we meditate, we fast, we walk, we run, we do all these things to help us get through. Because life is hard, and life is challenging, and life sometimes simply does not make sense.

It is easier to put your faith out there, and allow yourself to believe that "some great entity's" will, will be done. For your own good.

I am a deeply spiritual person. And this was one of the hardest things for me, and still is. I realized that Faith, is Control. Control in the idea that we do make our own reality. That we are our own magicians. That we can pray to a deity/God and through our faith, "Let go, and Let God." But this is a form of control, as I see it.

I feel like all the praying, all the seeking is our minds just trying to make sense of all of this life stuff, in reality we have nothing to figure out. Life just is.

For me, I chose to surrender into the unknown. Surrender and in the surrendering I learned to love myself deeper. It all boiled down to that. Surrendering and Loving. In the present moment, that is all I had. I believe it is all we ever really have. The hippie in me years ago, used to say its either Fear or Love. But it really is, just Love.

I have a bumper sticker on my car that sums it all up for me, Love Wins. It does, and through this Love, I will come back to having Faith. Because I do deeply believe I am my own magician. And that I do create my reality. But I do also now believe, that sometimes, stuff just happens. And it doesn't make any sense, and no one can tell you why, or how, or even IF at the end of a long struggle, it'll all be worth it.

There is a sadness in this harshness. I cried a lot today, and have over this many times. Faith is what I have stood behind for years. A mask of faith, full archetypal images, and mysticism...but a mask all the same.

Where is Heather?

This photo doesn't even look like me. My body has been morphed and changed so much. I AM BORED OUT OF MY MIND!!

A bright Sunny Day

Seattle weather. The word that I could use to describe it in a positive light would be gloomy. What was with the almost tornado that hovered over Lake Washington the other day. Seattle? Despite this, I started feeling like my little Tigger self yesterday and D had to slow the little hummingbird down a few times. I get so excited now that I am feeling good that I get overwhelmed and start talking at lightening speed about things. If you could imagine. My life is kindof like my tongue.
People say that you can check out someone's tongue and see how healthy/unhealthy they are and I am starting to be a believer in that. When I do chemo, my life shuts down and so does my taste buds. They happen about the same day. Shit, even my eyes become blurry and I cannot see the TV or read for days. Can you imagine anything worse? I feel like crap, everything hurts, your mind is numb, you can't think, you can't remember where the toothpaste is and water starts tasting like poison? Awesome time! I mean, give me more.
I am laughing and I am joking, because I have exactly one week to do so. Laughing and joking is going to help me through this and you all get to remind me that I will soon feel better and the hell I went/going through is passing. So yes, the grey skies of the PNW are just like my taste buds.
But the good thing, is that I am drinking some delicious vanilla roobios tea right now and it finally tastes the way its supposed to and my heart feels like exploding with love again. What happens to the joy during chemo? What happens to my spirit? Where does it go? It feels like a grey cloud is injected into my port (my skin actually turns an ashen/grey colour during the chemo injection) and for a week "Heather" disappears. I have no control over that, nor do I have the energy to try to go and find her. She just goes away, far away and I feel like I am left with a shell of who I am. What animal do I transcend into? Let me think. A snail, with no shell. A...leaf that is at the end stage of rotting on the forest floor in early March? Yes, a leaf in March. That is what I feel like.
So today, is a good day. The little kid in me wants to sing lots of songs and happy songs at that. I want to look at all the blades of grass outside as if its the first time ever and ask "Why" a lot. I feel reborn and happy I have one FULL week of bliss ahead of me. One of my favorite bands is playing at Bumbershoot Saturday night, Band of Horses and I am looking forward to having the energy to trawl around like a salmon in the sea of people all day and night this Saturday with D. It will be fun.

Raspberries

Yesterday, I got a pint of fresh local organic raspberries. I had read everywhere that I wasn't supposed to eat raw fruit and veggies and my doctor said that was balony. At least right now while my WB's are good. He told me to eat whatever I was hungry for. I asked him about one of my favorite, raspberries and he said sure. So, I am rinsing everything and have been enjoying eating whatever that I want. Until yesterday that is. I ate about 1/4 of the pint and gave up because they just didn't taste that great. In fact they were tasteless, they smelled good. I left them out on the counter for D to eat. Sure enough, he came around and ate them and said they were the best berries he'd had all summer. What? I didn't think, I mean would you, that my taste buds were gone? My tongue did feel coarser and yes, I got mouth sores the very first day (even with impeccable mouth rinsing after I ate-every single time~my skin basically just came off the first day, I know gross, but this blog is in detail) but I still have always been able to taste everything. I just couldn't believe it. The next thing that I noticed was our water. We just got a new fridge and D and I drank from it yesterday, as the water was filtered really well and tasted excellent. Well today, that was yesterday now, I can't drink water anymore. It suddenly tasted like plastic, so that is why I really wanted to go get those 10G jugs of freshly filtered water yesterday. I got home with that water, same thing. Some chemo patients say they have a metal taste in their mouths, and I am familiar with this taste due to the scans and injections with them. And this is why I was taken by surprise yesterday. I don't have that taste in my mouth. Yes, I am in a lot of pain in my mouth~and it doesn't really bother me because its the least of body symptoms right now, usually a little sore in my mouth would kill me, and last night they did keep me up a bit, but generally not a big deal. BUT plastic, tasteless fresh raspberries, plastic water. Luckily we have a lot of fresh mint here around the house so I put it in the water. D tasted it a few times for me throughout the day, as even with a huge sprig of mint in my glasses, the water still tasted lifeless.
I wanted to share my thoughts on losing my hair. For those of you that remember me pre-cancer I had gotten my hair so long, and just were I wanted it, finally. I was really, really sad to lose my hair. If you haven't read the hair posts, you may want to go back and recap, as I am not going to again. So, my hair is now in a pixie cut, and it took me a week of feeling the symbolism of losing everything in my life right now, to get over it. I love it now. All this week, I keep running my fingers through my hair, just waiting for the day that clumps start coming out. I kind of tug on my little short strips of hair between my fingers to see if they are coming out any easier, and to my delight they are holding firm. I am ready for my hair to come out though.
As ready as one can be. I am sure the emotional response to having a bald head will be deflating and sad, or maybe it won't be. There is absolutely no way for me to know how I will feel and what feelings will be evoked from the ritual shaving. Or from the looks I will get, you know the young precious kids that can't help but say something. My mom was a very large lady, and I got used to those remarks or the insensitivity of people "trying" to say or do the right thing my entire life. So, maybe I will be okay and used to it. There is also no way of saying this for me other than just bluntly, and those of you that know me, know I am NOT an ego maniac, but I know that I was blessed with a beautiful face and body in this life. I have never personally had anyone discriminate against me because of the way I look. Ever. If anything, my life is much easier because of my looks, and I have always known that. So, this will be my challenge that I am wanting to experience, and am actually excited for the growth. There may be days, that I write in this blog about how hard it is not having hair. And you all will have to understand, that I will be processing this growth as a person. So, this I am looking forward to.
I do not want to wear a damn wig. The wig is for everyone else. I HAVE CANCER. I am undergoing a debilitating treatment and everything in my life is gone, except for the love of my family and friends~which on a side note is incredible. The love that grows between a husband and wife through the trails of life-and living together is absolutely a great reason to sleep with one person for the rest of your life. So, yes, we all know I have cancer, and the wig is for everyone else. It is a costume that I am unwilling to act the part. I love more than life itself going to festivals and dressing up in various costumes and morphing into aspects of my spirit that I can explore. I am unwilling, thank god I've been in counseling since the age of 5~smirking again, to not wear a fucking wig. I am going to embrace this and I am going to go bald. I am going to have sunscreen, don't worry to all of you that are my mom's out there, and wear hats, pretty scarffs, and I am going to rock my electric blue wig if D and I go out on the town. For fun. I won't wear my blue eyelashes, because they say I can't, I might get an eye infection. But, I will have fun, or not and that is okay.

I'm Back

I feel so much better today.  Yesterday was hard.  I have the right to have a hard day once in a while. Although, before BC I never allowed myself to wallow in anything hard for more than a few seconds.  I have never been able to stand the victim attitude and that is what is going to pull me through this.  Remember that earlier post, I am swimming to my little Breast Cancer raft you all threw me.  I am going to get there!

 This is just so big and it takes a lot of spirit to rise above it all.  And I do.  I see the big picture.  I keep reminding myself, that I FOUND IT!  I get to live because I found it.  Imagine if I had waited until next year and possibly my Doctor missing it again.  I have a lot to be happy about and my joy is bubbling forth again today.  It is awesome outside.  My sis left this morning. She just graduated from nursing school and her state boards are in one week.  YOU ARE GONNA DO GREAT DUDE!!!  I am so proud of her.

Yesterday my arm hurt and it got a little swollen from surgery, so today I am going to be a lefty.  I don't have much to say other than I am stoked that I found my lump, and I am one day closer to kicking cancer's butt.  One day closer to starting chemotherapy and one more day closer to having my life back.  

Thanks to my friend Lynn, she got me in touch with the Susan B. Komen foundation here in Puget Sound.  I am going to start training in September for public speaking with them.  I am really, really, REALLY excited about this.  Besides telling every single person I run into, I can hopefully go to schools and talk to young teenage girls (is my hope, not sure where they will send me) or anywhere.  I am excited to see where my life leads me.  I am not sure if I will do real estate full time again.  I know for sure I want to use this blog as a tool to help rekindle this experience and to write a book for young women that are newly diagnosed.  Women of any age really.  I guess age doesn't matter.  What I am going through is a collective experience.  

Where have the hummingbirds gone?

My hair is cut and I'm not okay with it.  Please don't tell me its okay.  It is not.  It isn't about the hair and it is not about how people will perceive me.  I could careless if I am beautiful or not.  My body is what it is.  End of story on that.  I am pissed because this isn't the hair cut I wanted. I didn't want to have short hair.  I wanted to have long hair.  This may seem ridiculous to some. D hit the nail on the head when he said, "It just isn't the hair cut you wanted."  For me the sadness is because I have so many things being taken from me right now.  I do not have a choice.  

The west seattle street fair is this weekend.  Walking around up there is horrible.  I remember last year, how I felt at this little street fair.  I know that my usual little hummingbird self is happy and cheerful.  I just don't feel that way.  I feel like my spirit was crushed.  And THIS is what I am sad about.  I feel broken.  I don't feel sorry for myself.  I don't wish something was different.  I don't wish anything.  That is the problem.  I don't feel empowered.  I just feel blah.  I feel like my eternal fountain of happiness and cheer and ability to see the bright side of any situation as stopped flowing.  I worry that it won't come back.  I worry that D can feel this gloominess and I wonder if he will stop being attracted to me.  Not because of my hair, but because the spirit of the woman he married has changed. Has it changed forever, who knows.  I am scared of the depths of sadness and shock I am in.  

It could be a torrential downpour outside and that would be fine.  Even that is horrible.  I used to love summer.  I need to pull my head out of the self-deprecating, but its hard.  Because there is no normal to go back to.  Normal doesn't exist anymore.  Normal life is gone.  I am in a transition, but one that just realized I am in transition.  My little car light just flashed, need oil.  I still need to go to the store and get the oil (chemo) and then put it in and then hopefully that is all the car needed and I can start racing around town again.  

Not a pocket full of posies

I am pissed this morning.  As I lay in bed under my fuzzy flannel sheets, I started thinking about breast feeding.  I have to.  Just incase you guys didn't get this earlier, I have wanted to be a mom badly, I mean badly my whole life.  When I was a little girl I babysat for anyone in my neighborhood.  My doll collection that I still have were my little babies and I often would pretend I was breast feeding them right along my mother's side, as she fed my brother. 

Thoughts came to my head as I was under the sheets and I started getting so mad.  I understand that anger is a base emotion, and I understand that it is my sadness that is fueling it right now.  But if that gene comes back positive and I choose out of sheer statistics to remove my breasts (which is the no brainer choice for MY body, maybe not yours but for mine) and  I don't get a chance to nurture a young one in this way, oh.  Watch out.  I am going to loose my mind.  I mean it, loose it.  All the things that I have read for years will no longer be possible for me.

I won't be able to give birth and put my baby to my breast and feed the little tiger.  I won't be able to feel the benefits of oxytocin being released through my body and getting the baby high from nursing.  I won't be able to walk around with a pad in my bra because of the "let down" reaction.  I won't feel a "let down".  I won't be in the kitchen making muffins and hear my baby cry and have my breast start pumping that milk.  I won't have the accidental let down in public if I hear another baby cry.  Do you wonder if I really meant it now when I say, " All I've thought about is having a baby."  I could be crying over nothing, maybe I won't have that gene.  I hope the Genetic Counselor is right this time around, and the other Doc's are wrong.  That would be nice.  I wonder if I will be able to breast feed with the breast that has cancer in it if I just do the lumpectomy?  That sounds like from my ignorance a bad thing.  Like a dirty thing that I wouldn't want my precious little one to be near.  My breast that had cancer in it.  Would there be a transfer of any little particles in the tiniest amount at all??  Not that this is shrouding in the tiniest amount my decision to either do or not do a mastectomy.  Because right now I haven't been faced with the genetic answers yet.  

As I take in a deep breath, I am breathing in the sun's rays deep into my body and breathing out all this sadness and I am going to go through my day staying in the present moment.  All of these fears can stay here.  In Wonka Land, up in the " TV Mikey" room of space in the sky.  For those of you that haven't watched Willy Wonka as obsessively as I have in my life (maybe 200 times) you have a fun movie to watch tonight!    

All too fast and painful

Have any of you watched Deal or No Deal?  If not, it's a game show that people have the chance to try to win a million dollars.  I like to watch this show because right before your eyes you get to see someone forgo a whopping $200,000- $300,000 in hope that they get the million bucks. I am always screaming at the TV, "Take the Deal!!"  Seriously, they walk in with zero bucks and they could walk out with a nice little chunk.  I am not that much of a risk taker.

I am a risk taker that likes to jump off of bridges into a known natural swimming pool.  This "known" is the key.  I wouldn't do that if other people hadn't, and the older I get these risks are getting fewer and farer between.  This is the exact thing we, D and I are dealing with this morning. Fertility.  As most of you know, D has been trying to figure out if he wants to have kids and with all of this he has moved to a closer place of possibly wanting them.  I totally respect his decision either way. I have to.  I am not one of those woman that would poke a whole in a condom and say, "oops."  So today we got a call from the fertility nurse.  We, D and I didn't know that there are two types of freezing eggs/sperm.  In fact I didn't know the sperm was even an option.  D is supportive of me freezing my eggs, if I feel that I have to do that.  It's my body.

He is just not into freezing our embryo's, at least in the, "right now you have to decide because we have to move on this as my cancer treatment has to move forward, right now."  This is the deal.  My Oncologist says that some of the women my age return from Menopause, if the chemo forces them into it.  D's point is that this is all IF's.  IF I go into menopause, if I don't go out of menopause, and if, if.  This is all too much, too soon for him.  A month ago he was dead set on not wanting kids, with the not for sure still being tossed around.  Now, he realizes that he may and so he has to decide now.  Now if he wants to risk not getting to have a biological son/daughter with me, if I am unable to due to my treatments.  My Dad says just pull back, just freeze your eggs.  If I just freeze my eggs it is a 20% chance that they will be able to make an embryo when we are ready.  Since eggs are so fragile, this is not the greatest of odds.  If we freeze an embryo the chances go to 60% that we would be successful, they aren't as fragile.  This just sucks.  I need to be focusing on getting well and not on wether or not I am going to be able to have kids in the future.  It is so much all at once.  I have a call into the Oncologist.  We need the stats.  

D is a numbers guy and we need to know, do all the young woman my Doc works with go out of menopause/return to normal? If so, then are we worrying over nothing?  But if there are woman that don't return to normal, then I will just be freezing my eggs, and not our embryo.  D said, it is just wrong, just not natural.  My point is that none of this is natural.  If I wasn't going to do the super science of Chemo (very unnatural) I would probably be dead in the next few years. We are all dealing with this news of my having cancer the best we can and as fast we can, and dealing with all the unknown's the best we can.    There is only so much both D and I can move through in a matter of a week.  

Last night on Oprah an incredilbe man said that roadblocks aren't for stopping us, they are put in our lives to help us see how much we want something.  This is one of those times.  

++++++++

I just got back from the gym.  While I was on the treadmill my athlete rose inside me again, and shared this story with me.  Even though I fell overboard in a huge stormy sea, the team (you guys and D) threw me a dingy.  Right now I am swimming towards that dingy and getting hit in the face and gulping air and fighting for my life, fighting to get to that damn dingy.  I know I am going to make it and I know that I am going to paddle to the big boat with all of my loved ones. While I am getting back to all of you, and D, you're going to be cheering me on, and wiping the tears off my face.   But I am the one who is in the Sea and Dingy named Breast Cancer.  I am the only one that is going to be a Survivor and if all I have once I get on board is that 20% to have kids, I am going to take it.  So, regardless I've decided to get my eggs frozen.  The embryo thing is intense.  D even said, "I'm surprised you want to do it."  Funny how when your are faced with severe options our choices become at times wider than we'd ever imagined.  And D isn't in the sea with me, and if I go to his side of things I do totally understand how "icky" or "wrong" freezing our unborn, pre-fetus, embryo's this option is.  

So, I've got that 20% and I am going to take it because that is what I have to do.  End of story.  I am not going to let cancer potentially take what I value the most in life.  I refuse.  I am going and will be a mother someday.  I want nothing more.  Nothing more.

++++++

I've been waiting to post this to my blog till I talk to my doctor, he should call sometime this evening.  I spoke with a young survivor today, who got breast cancer when she was 30.  Funny how she was sent my way today because she is one of those woman that didn't go back from menopause.  She wasn't able to freeze eggs, and later in her life, she met the man of her dreams and got married and they adopted a little girl.  She made a few good points to me, points that in my franticness of the moment tried overlooking.  One of the main points is this, to be able to do the egg retrieval they need to wait till my second day of my next moon.  Which I just finished, so I am out for a month already.  At which point they will give me estrogen or progesterone or both, I can't remember right now.  For two to three weeks I am on those med's and then they can start doing the egg retrieval.  So this whole fertility trying to get my egg thing is pushing my VERY needed cancer treatment out for about two months.  This is what does not sound good to me. 

The other point she made is that cancer feeds off of something.  Like I said in earlier posts. My Triple Negative feeds off of something they just don't know what.  If my body is pumped full of these hormones, which cancer usually feeds on am I increasing my chances of giving my cancer a party?  A party that wants to go visit all of its neighbors, like my ovaries?  No Doctor is going to be able to say yes or no to this.  There is not enough information about Triple Negative yet.  

My new cancer survivor friend also said, " You have to remember, you are the most important thing right now.  Getting you cancer free as soon as possible.  Getting you healthy."  I cannot agree with her more.  Since I have such an aggressive form of cancer, is it worth waiting?  What if my fight is super hard, super super hard.  What if in the back of my mind did we wish that I hadn't waited to start treatment.  We know it is in my lymph node(s) so speed is important, right.  Get it done.  Like yesterday!  Or am I just trying to talk myself out of this?  The woman I spoke with today also said a great thing," Don't you want to know what your chances are when you do beat this, for you to be able to conceive a baby naturally?"  The other thing is if we wait 3 weeks to get the genetic tests back, and If (oh, the freakin' if's) I am positive for one of the whopper's do I want to inflict that 50-60% chance on my kids of them getting breast cancer?  That is something I do not even for a second have to think about that is a no.  

So, I am left, waiting for my Oncologist to call and spew this all out to him.  He will wait and do whatever I want.  This is my game I am playing.  My Deal or No Deal.  If I didn't want Chemo, he would say okay.  But I do want chemo and I do want my own kids, but this waiting to be treated thing is also something I do not want to do.  There is too much empty time filling up and allowing my precious healthy cells in my body to be sabotaged by those evil little sick cancer cells.  I am exhausted, yes.  I feel like today was the worst day I've had except the day I found out I have breast cancer.  I am playing God, and I am asking my husband to play God too. It is so wrong.  I am starting to look at this whole thing as, look this is in the hands of something greater than I.  If I am meant to have my own kids, I will be able to snap out of the Menopause and have my own kids.  If not, I have friends that adopted two beautiful little girls and I know they couldn't be more loved or love than they do.  I think I've come to my answer.  I'll wait to talk to my Doctor.

++

My Doctor just called. He said one thing that just put it all to rest, if one of you doesn't want to do it, move forward.  

He also told me that no one is going to treat me with this fertility thing until we have my pathology.  We won't get this until surgery, and then we will have to wait a week or so to get my results.  If the cancer has moved to many nodes and if its a super nasty tumor, he very well may suggest that we not delay treatment.  Which couldn't start until I heal from my surgery.  If its just in a node and not a nasty tumor than he said he may say I have the six weeks it will take to get my eggs.  He also said that there are no stats available, and if someone tries to tell me otherwise they are simply not true.  There is absolutely no way to have stats that prove if someone hadn't delayed treatment six weeks if their outcome was better or if the hormones they pumped me with did anything to the cancer.  

He told me to wait until after surgery and we will all know more then.  I did ask him what my chances of being able to bear my own kids when done with chemo, not great.  They are 40 to 50%.  Chemotherapy is so toxic.  Crazy, thanks for going through this with me.  Today was the worst day, maybe more than getting cancer.  I have officially had the most precious thing for me possibly being taken from me.  

  

Mowing the Lawn

I woke up this morning thinking of getting out there and mowing the lawn.  It has finally stopped raining in the city of perpetual rain, Seattle.  I also want to get dressed and go up to my Realty office and make like thirty boxes of my blog address on it.  When someone asks me, like at the PCC, "How are you doing?"  I am going to tell them I just got diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  I have always disliked this question.  I don't dislike the question, I just dislike the chitter-chatter of it.  The fake depth, but we all know that if you answer, "I feel like shit."  The person asking would react like you told them too much information.  The main reason I need to share, is that it helps me say cancer, I have breast cancer.  D and I both feel like this is maybe a mistake.  Maybe someone will call us and tell us that "Oh, Jez!  Sorry!  We mixed up all the tests, we've been looking at someone else's file." 

So, I am going to tell people.  The other reason is is that I want to educate people while I am the picture of seemingly "Perfect" health.  I want to be the face of cancer that says, "Look at Me, this could be you, check your boobs!"  Have your sister check her boobs.  Last night my sis and I went into a store and this exact thing happened.  He asked me how I was, I told him.  I told him because I saw he had a wedding band on.  I hope that he does call his wife when I leave and tell her. 

 In a while I am going to my office, nobody's ever there on Sundays.  Which is perfect.  If I see someone, I'll start to cry.  I am going to make these little boxes, and if any of you want to get it out there too, please do.  

I am going to mow our lawn today.  I feel good.  I feel like Heather again, just a shocked Heather.  I feel that little girl inside me, that can sit on her Dad's lap and cry.  Dad, she is crying all the time right now.  I am scared.  I am sad.  I am bewildered and shocked, and will probably be pissed for a bit.  I hope not.  I hope that I can stay in a peaceful place with this, as peaceful as possible.  Love.  Its all about Love or Fear.  I must continue the choice to stay in the Light of the Present Moment.  Have a great day all of you.  I might even go watch Sex and the City!!

The Glow Stick

Phew!  I actually slept in this morning.  Yesterday was for a lack of a better word, Icky..GROSS..mmmm..  What else could explain the disgusting stuff I got injected into me and that I got to drink.  

As D and I checked in for my PET & CT scans the check in lady gently told D that he was not going to be able to be in the room with me, while I was being injected with the stuff that helps me glow.  The F18-FDG, and this was for his safety.  For his safety?  He couldn't help but feel scared and protective of me.  He said, "If I can't be in there what is this going to do to her?"  Well we've all heard the speech before the, "It's for your own safety.  Policy is..."  I simply replied remembering what my Dad said when I first told him that I had breast cancer, I shared with him a thought that I knew wasn't going to be around much longer, about not wanting to do Chemo, " Heather, the alternative sucks."  So with that jewel in the back of my mind, that yes, I will do anything and everything I have to because I love this world, I love all of you, and I love myself.  So I told D and the check-in lady, " It's better than having Cancer."  End of story.  All this will be better than having Breast Cancer.

We got into the little room and the nice Radiationwhatever you call them Tech lady sat down with us and began telling us all the things we were going to do.  I asked if it was so bad for D to be in the room just this time, do her parents worry about her.  As she was my age.  She showed us that she wears a ring and a clip that monitor how much radiation she is  getting.  Note to all, when speaking to people about Radiation and their bodies don't pull stats from this classic line, " Well people in Chernobyl.." I forgot everything else she said from there. I started flying to Russia in my mind, and thinking that yes, we don't know the side effects because this just happened.  So, okay back to what dad said, the alternative sucks.  Give me it all.  

D was in there when they let me drink a great potion of liquid oral contrast.  Barium.  Now when your husband who is a photographer says this is going to help you with the black and white pics you gotta laugh.  I mean seriously.  I get to glow.  Awesome.  Let me tell you, if you get the chance to drink this stuff, don't sip it.  Pound it.  Fast.  I chose the berry one.  Not realizing that in a half hour I was going to get to drink another, I chose Vanila hoping it would be better.  Gross.  Imagine drinking a mixture of milk with lots of flour, almost a gravy that has perfume berry in it.  I could be on a milk commercial too.  A survivor drinking this milky mixture, just downing it for my race of a life time. 

D got to stay when they brought out this little steel bomb looking thing that held the radiation mix they were going to inject me with.  But first they injected me with Saline.  Now saline shouldn't if it was all there was, taste and smell like a rotten orange in a fruit bowl in August.  But that is exactly the senses I had simultaneously as the "Saline" was injected into my arm.  Crazy.  D was taking pics of me (so we can have em up here soon) and couldn't help but cry and say, " We are going to get through this.  We have so many things to do and see together."  Our lives are on hold. 

A few months ago we sent an email out to tons of people asking where there favorite place in the world is.  Planning a long trip, but now that is simply not going to happen for a while.  I couldn't help but cry with him.  This was no fun.  He left, he had to.  He didn't want to.  I got to sit in a chair by myself and not move so all these concoctions could fill up my little cells and body so that we will know if the cancer has gone anywhere else.  This is good.  We will KNOW.

One of the craziest sensations I have ever got to experience happened to me when I was in the scanner.  They injected me with Iodine and barium, an IV contrast, that felt like very hot water was being poured over my head.  Quickly in about 30 seconds felt it flush from my head to my groining.  Incredible.  Not pleasant, but not great.   A few hours later a wobbly me came out and my husband and I kissed.  In the back of my mind I wondered if I shouldn't, am I a walking glow stick?  My skin sure felt it.  For the rest of the day I felt pretty brain dead.  I couldn't eat, just not hungry.  I drank lots of water and forced myself to have the biggest bowl of delicious watermelon.  But I was forcing myself.  I usually love to eat.  Weird.  

I woke up this morning thinking, which is great, I don't feel brain dumb anymore.  I thought  it would be fun for you guys and me and anyone that reads this that is going through this at any stage, to start a little list of potions I have had.  I am sure this list will grow and will be a seperate post labeled: A List of Potions..