Almost ready to JUMP!!

I feel the past week or so that I have been on the edge of a giant mountain, with my toes curled around the edges of the earth. I have been looking down and noticing how far down it is, so far that I cannot see the bottom. I see giant boulders that I may strike and I don't let myself spend too much time thinking how much it will hurt when I hit them as I tumble into the abyss. I see clumps of grass that I am hoping to land in and that is my journey I am faced with with starting chemotherapy today. Hard to believe.
I think back on the first week or two that I was diagnosed and I have moved on from that numb place of shock. I am able to believe that I have cancer, but somehow my mind has made it just what IS now, instead of the big bad monster that word con notates. It helps me when I want to relate to the bigness that cancer is is if I think of a dear friend, or my sister having it. Many emotions than arise, but if I bring it back to me, I am just going through the motions.
I have absolutely no idea how today will be. Down to the simplest unknown of how they will access my port. I wonder if my skin will make a popping noise as its accessed or maybe not. I wonder if the chemo will come in one of those cylinders that the radiation for my various scans came in. Or will it be a simple IV. I don't know if I will be ravenous coming out of the treatment or if I will have the 'metal' taste in my mouth that everyone mentions.
I ate a big breakfast today, and am filling in this morning at my real esate business since the secretary is out of town. I thought it would be better, however crazy it is, that I work here today until around 1, instead of sitting at home worrying. Well, it doesn't really help. I am at the office, still worrying, because Cancer is Always WITH ME. It is all consuming. Some of you that don't understand this will think, "jes, move on think of something else." I am sure there are those of you out there. This is the first time in my life that it is impossible for me to seperate myself from my disease. Maybe it is because I have never had a disease before. Maybe like a woman that has not had a child before. She thinks she will act in a way for this particular event or if this or that happened. But then, she becomes a mom and finds that she acts totally different. And then there are the mom's that get to have a few kids. And again, she finds herself doing something she never thought she would.

So, today, at 2:20 I check in for my first chemo. Something I never thought I would do. Funny, the day I got diagnosed, as D and I drove to the hospital I told him, " Okay, I am going to treat this totally alternatively, this is my body and I don't want you to tell me that you think that I shouldn't be doing what I am going to do. I am going to drink mothers milk (as this in Europe has been effective for treating many cancers), and I am going to treat myself alternatively." He was so sweet, to agree with this request. By the time I left the doctor's office, I realized that my cancer if treated JUST alternatively would very much be sealing my envelope of death. So, here I go. Into a zone that I never thought in a million years I would be entering and I am nervous, excited to start killing the cancer that is floating in my body, and anxious. I am almost ready to jump! Almost.

Weeds and things

This weekend is almost over, so that means I have just two more weekend days before surgery.  D and I got a lot accomplished this weekend and it feels good not to have so many monkeys on our backs.  He has been very supportive of me and it really helps to just listen to me.  I can't stay rosy and always in the present moment.  Although that is the only time that I feel good, is when I am in the moment.  At the bottom of my belly, I am afraid and sometimes it helps if I can tell someone all  those horrible fears.  I am really scared.  

What is incredible to me is that my surgeon told me that I may have very well had this cancer for eight years.  When he told us that, I blew it off like he was just throwing around a probability. He ended that thought process with, "You'll never know, how long you've had it."  The other morning I was reading Susan Love's Breast Book, and in this book she said that by the time Breast Cancer turns into a Lump it usually has been there for six to eight years.  So that puts me at 25-26, (so maybe the surgeon was right). 

 That is amazing to me.  I have been joking around that maybe the day those cells went haywire I ate one too many maple bars.  I love bakeries and I love sugar and it is hard and just wrong that I cannot indulge in this way anymore.  I wonder what I will grow to love, food wise.  Please don't comment that there is Stevia, because I think its disgusting.  Have you tried Agave Nectar?  I am going to try to make some bran muffins with my mother-in-law.  She makes really yummy ones with blueberries.

I've read about Port-a-caths this weekend.  They are the size of a quarter.  So there will be just a small bump under the skin of my chest.  Thank god it isn't some huge quart size container under my skin.  D and I have been thinking it was huge.  I get kind of creeped out thinking about it but at least I know now that its small.  I wonder when I get a massage, and I am face down, if I can lay like that.  Or if I will need a pillow under my chest.  D and I thought about what I could do while I am in chemo sessions.  I told him I just want to make a book of happy things for me and sit and mediate while listening to healing music.  This is the medicine that is going to kill any radical cancer cells floating around in my body.  I want to use this time with fully being in the highest of places and visualizing total and complete health.  Renewal.  

Happy Solstice

One of the best things I do for myself is force myself from my fuzzy flannel sheets when I cannot sleep.  Since I've found out I have cancer, my sleep can become all about the fury of Breast Cancer. All the questions start piling on top of one another and soon my heart is pounding and I start getting so anxious.  The best thing I do for myself is get out of bed.  Luckily I love to write, so this is my only way of talking about all the hard stuff.  I can talk to D about anything, but there are only so many times I can talk about a port-a-cath to him.  I layed in bed this morning imagining that port-a-cath's tail being like a scorpion's tale to my heart and started panicking.  What if it hurts my heart?  What if it does start to hurt me and I can't get to the emergency room fast enough?  Do you know what this tells me, in the middle of my slumber?

To get out of bed, write about my fears, and then read about my fears.  Ignorance is a bad thing for me.  I have now turned my soon to be implanted port-a-cath into a scorpion's tale!!  Oh, I feel better now, I am laughing out loud.  Well, quietly it is 2 am and D needs to sleep.

I am so excited it is summer, as of almost three hours ago.  I wonder if I'll be able to go to my favorite little beach in Leschi this summer to lay out and listen to the little ripples of Lake Washington?  Will a sun tan be okay?  Will the chemo make my skin sensitive to the sun and may I burn more?  So many questions?  My Oncologist must get some pretty wacked out ones?Like my panic with the port-a-cath.  I am going to have to make it my friend.  Okay, that's it.  I am going to have to welcome it to my body.  It is going to save my little veins from being poked and prodded over and over again.  It will save them from getting burnt from the chemo.  It is my little helper.  I wonder what I  will call it?  One young survivor told me she called hers "Alien".  She made a joke to the surgeon once all her treatment was done, a year later, "Okay, now is your time to put anything else in me!  Are you sure there is nothing else?"  

Oh, boy!  I surely have no idea what is in store for me.  Yesterday was another doctor's visit.  I felt myself get kind of panicked over knowing I needed to go to another one yesterday. I thought to myself, " I can't wait till all these doctor visits are over."  I felt my body relax back to normal for a second, and then I realized that I was just getting started.  My life is soon to be one huge doctor appointment, starting July 1st.  How will I be able to make this fun?  I will soon find out I am sure.  Instead of date night, I will have chemo night, radiation night, will D and I have fun?  I have to stop myself here, as I will of coarse have fun.  Fun just might be measured in a new way for a while.

Everyone is wondering when I am starting my treatment.  I have no idea.  I am thinking mid-July?  I will of coarse be posting more info when I know.