Still here...

I'm still here and I'm still pushing.  Just finished 15 of 35.  Geeez... That's still not even half of the way over.  I am basically doing 6 weeks of radiation then a "boost" of one additional week that focuses directly on the area where the cancer was growing. I saw my radiation oncologist this morning (love her) and she seemed very pleased with how I am doing.  The burning is keeping at bay for now, my mixture of udderly smooth, olivamine lotions and aquaphor seem to be doing the trick.  Fingers crossed. The fatigue I am working on...basically I conserve all my energy to be able to do something with the kids. Abby or Leo. I can't do many activities which is hard for my personality to accept.  Yesterday I took Leo to babygroup.  Today I took Abby to a swim lesson and to play at the jonathan beach club.  Then I can't do anything else.  I tried to nap when she went down for her nap but here I am...typing in my blog instead.  I lay here and lay here and my mind will just not shut off.

I'm going through my treatment but it's not just the physical aspect of fighting this disease that is plaguing me.  It is the spiritual and emotional tenets.  I am constantly evaluating and judging myself, my beliefs, and my actions.  It's as if deep down I am wondering if there is some causal link between my own actions and the fact that I got cancer.  I know that medically no one could prove it but I wonder if it is possible.  There's a woman named Louise Hay and she has a successful line of "heal yourself" products.  Now, I haven't read any of her books and I have one of her DVDs here but I still haven't watched it but if you are able to "heal yourself" is that also saying that you can CAUSE a serious illness like cancer? It is the concept of "dis-ease" that can cause disease.  Furthermore, that's like saying if you live a bad life you are bound to get disease.  If you live a good life you will have less or no disease. That's a ludicrous thought. Having said all that, I don't believe that I caused my cancer.  Plus if that were true then you could expect all these despots in the world to rot with disease early on but many of them live on well into their 80's and 90's...like Teodoro Obiang from Equatorial Guinea (where 70% of the population lives on $2 a day) whose son jets around on a $36MM jet to get to his $35MM mansion in Malibu and who has commissioned a $380MM superyacht...

Two incidents are really bothering me (the mind-numbing current state of the World doesn't effect me as much since I have accepted the fact that I have no way of controlling something that huge):

The first - a wonderful nurse at my pediatrician's office has told me in the past about a friend of hers who is battling cancer.  I don't have the full story or details but she told me last week that her friend was "stopping treatment" because she learned she had damage to her heart from Chemotherapy.  That she was undergoing radiation but stopped when she learned she had leaky heart valves.  I asked her what stage it was and she said it was "not the best prognosis"... she had 12 involved nodes.  TWELVE.  I had 15 of 19 nodes.  I am stage IIIC.  Why is she giving up?  This disease is curable.  I don't understand that situation at all.  It boggles my mind.  All weekend I could not stop thinking about it.  Of course I do not know this woman nor do I have the true details of her case so it makes it that much more of an enigma.  Regardless, hearing that someone would stop treatment was so disheartening.  It's as if she decided to give up because she was just "done" with all of it.  I can fully understand being so exhausted with all of the treatments, protocols, etc.  I totally get the feeling of just wanting to be "done".  But you have to DO the work. No pain, no gain. This is the seventh inning stretch.  The 25th mile of the marathon.  KEEP GOING!!  I gave the nurse my info so this woman could call me if she wants to talk.  It helps so much to be able to connect with people who have and are going through the same thing.  I rely on Annie and Sharon, my two pregnant with breast cancer sisters, so much.  They are crucial to my treatment.

Before my own diagnosis the only person I knew with cancer was a beautiful woman named Heidi who was married to David's best friend.  She was diagnosed in her early 40's with colon cancer at a late stage.  Colon cancer is so incredibly forceful and aggressive.  Because it was late stage, the odds were not in her favor.  Undergoing conventional treatment at that time would only give her a 5% chance of beating it. She opted instead for holistic and experimental treatments in Mexico.  I didn't understand it but knew it was her decision.  In the end she passed away a year after her diagnosis.  And at the end of her treatment she decided to do the conventional therapy but it was just too late.  There's no way of knowing now if she had done the conventional therapy in the beginning if she might still be alive today.  But it was HER choice.  We are the only ones who control our destinies and I get that.  I really do.  Although I still have an opinion and I would want to tell the nurses friend that she can't give up.  She just can't.  If you have the ability to throw everything in Eastern and Western medicine at your cancer to send it straight to hell, why wouldn't you?  Her chemotherapy is over so she won't have more damage to her heart. She would just have to finish radiation and that doesn't effect your heart.  There's obviously large pieces of information missing from that story which is why it doesn't add up but that is exactly the kind of puzzle that my mind loves to currently obsess about...

The second incident is a woman at a preschool where Abby does a toddler program.  She was diagnosed  in January with colon cancer and passed away 84 days after her diagnosis.  She was an architect and from what I hear, a beautiful and loving wife and mother to a 4 year old boy and 1 year old twins.  How can life be so cruel?  The husband doesn't know me but I wish there was something I could do for them.

I've got so much on my plate but all I can think about is how I might possibly help these people.  It's mostly because I know that helping them would help me too.  We are a community of individuals.  We thrive on the support of others.  Reach out and lend a hand to someone today.  Corny but true!