No one said it was easy...

There are those days when everything is clear, all of my blessings are apparent, and all of this mess makes sense in some way. There’s purpose to everything and I am SO thankful. I wish they were all that way. The last few haven’t been. In fact, I haven’t been here to update because I thought that I had nothing to say. Actually, I have plenty to say, just nothing good or particularly insightful. But, I started this blog to capture the journey, good and bad. Newsflash: It’s not all a bed of roses and that’s as much of the story as the good parts. The truth is, cancer sucks. It turns your life upside-down and wreaks havoc on every part. Everything you thought you had a grasp on or plan that you made escapes like vapor. Nothing is left untouched. As much as I know that “All things work together for the good…” I’m also tragically human and can’t help losing sight of that some days. I KNOW it, but I also have all of these “feelings”. Stupid feelings…

I spoke with my chemo nurse/researcher today. Just 2 MORE tests before we get started. I didn’t have an EKG before surgery. So I have to do that and also an Echocardiogram. The EKG I have had before. It takes more time to get undressed and put all of the little stickers in place than it does to have the test. I have not had an Echo before. So, I asked specifically what we were looking for. What she told me was that they were going to be looking closely at the left ventricle of my heart to see how effectively it was pumping the blood out. Because if I have the side effect of heart damage from one or possibly two of my drugs, they’ll have a baseline to measure that damage by. It’s the left ventricle that is most likely to be damaged. If that happens, we can determine if the benefit of treatment outweighs the damage it's doing and how to treat my heart for the rest of my life. Even though I knew that, it hit me like a brick. Today it’s REAL.

So the stats come flowing back through my head like a gambling junkie stuck at the tables in Vegas. Playing the numbers with my life. If I did nothing else, no chemo, nothing, I have a 25% chance of recurrence. If I do the 2 chemo drugs only, I take that down to 15%. Chemo + Herceptin brings it down to around 7%. That 8% reduction is where the heart risk begins. Add the test drug, Avastin, and who knows? Maybe it does nothing. Maybe 7% becomes 3-4%. We don’t know. No one does. That’s the point of the clinical trial. They’re all just numbers. As if any of us are really in control…

Besides all of that, we’re back to “Hurry up and wait” mode. I’m counting hours and days like Rainman. I want to get the show on the road, get this over with, and get started. The 25th is a long time away…Then I pass a mirror in the building at work…Getting started also means I have 7 days from that ‘till I have no hair. Shamefully, that DOES matter to me. I AM that shallow. How can I be?? But, I am. I feel extremely guilty about that. So many people are fighting this disease for their lives; many of them are losing the battle. For 40% of breast cancer patients, death IS the outcome. So how can I be worried about my stupid hair??? Yet, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. For today, anyway…

Last night I was taking to my Mom about how uncharacteristic this whole “putting it out there for the world” thing is for me. I still can’t believe I’m blogging all of my most personal things for the world to see. I’m the girl who never had a journal because I was just terrified that after I died, someone would find it, read it, and I’d die of embarrassment all over again. How stupid is that?? Mom reminded me that I learned to roller skate in the house so that no one would see me fall. She also helped me learn to ride a bike one summer only after midnight for the same reason. I do neither of those things well as it turns out. As much time as I’ve spent hiding any weakness, it’s never helped. It has taken me almost 40 years to figure it out, but vulnerability is actually a strength, not a weakness. Some days you do fall and people will see it. And, so what?? Who cares, really? The important thing is that you get back up and that you always have help. That sustains me, my ever present help in time of need. Thank you, Jesus for always meeting me where I am, instead of only where I should be. You've always helped me back up. And I am more than aware that I can’t do it without You.

Happy Labor Day...Pass the Instructions.

Labor Day weekend with my boy and the family...It doesn't get any better than this. The weekend started great with good news from the doctors on Friday afternoon. It appears that both my bone scan and my CT scan came back clean. So, no more cancer in my body from what we can see. That's what we expected, but it's still good to hear. So, now the only thing left to battle is the microscopic variety, if it's even in there. 18 more days until we begin... I'm having quite the battle with the anxiety over the beginning of chemo. It's like watching a horror movie when you just KNOW that they shouldn't go in there but they do anyway, or a movie where some chick is running, then drops her keys and falls down while being chased. Yeah. It feels like that.

I know the answer is to turn it over to God. And, I do! But, I also just seem to keep taking it back. It's like eating off someone else's plate. I turn it over to Him (putting it on HIS plate), then take it back, bite by bite until I look up and it's all on my plate again. Start over...turn it over. Repeat. It's maddening. The incurable human condition is always there to remind me of how short I fall. But, I guess that's true of all of us.

So getting my mind off of that, I decided to clean out a couple shelves in the TV cabinet in my room this weekend. Jackpot! I found 2 gift certificates I got several years ago at Christmas. I was just sure that they wouldn't be good anymore, but called and they were! So today Mom and I went off to Toys R Us with Brayden to buy a new Hot Wheels track. In case you don't know...Hot Wheels rule your life with a 5 year old boy. They are legal tender in our house. Chores buy Hot Wheels...bad behavior loses Hot Wheels...There is no leverage like Hot Wheel leverage at 5. Since we're up to more than 220-240 at this point I keep thinking that we'll eventually get them all, and I will run out of the motivational supply. Never happens. They just keep making more. Unbelievable, really. The crazy part is he remembers every one. He can look at them and tell you instantaneously if he's got that one. I have no idea how he does this.

So since we had $25 of free Hot Wheels money and he had not complained a bit when I got rid of 75% of the toys in the game room on Saturday, we headed off to add a new track to his collection. The coolest one there was the Drop Force track. It has all kinds of twists in it, the battery operated booster-thing, and a switch that allows you to run multiple cars on it and make them crash into each other. Cool, right? Of course! So, all the way home the anticipation was building. He couldn't wait to get back to Nana's and play with it. Great. To tell the truth, I was pretty excited about it, too. Then we dumped it out of the box...

Now I am not stupid, but an engineer I am not. And I would challenge anyone to put the thing together in less time. The pictures were not clear, and it was hard to recognize the pieces because most of them had an unusual shape, all 92 of them. This thing had more parts than any track he's ever had and because the configuration is so unusual...let's just say the next 90 minutes weren't pretty. I'll admit, there was some yelling, some time outs, some frustration...When we completed every step of the "instructions", there were still 5 pieces left. Fortunately, the picture on the front answered the question of where those went. Two D batteries later, and the thing has been running almost since the last piece was snapped into place. All of the frustration was worth it once the assembly was complete, and he got the chance to see it in action. It was a great day.

So sitting here now thinking about the chemo and everything else ahead of me, I can't help but compare it to assembling that track. The difference here is that I don't have all of the pieces or the "instructions". There's not a picture on the box to show me the end result. Instead, I have a promise that has to be accepted on faith alone. The Bible tells us that, "All thing work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called to His purpose." That's my promise. So, I don't know how all of this is going to go, what's ahead of me, or where I'll end up. But I do know this, as long as I am called to His purpose (By the way, That part's important...), all of this is going to work together for good. And the best part is, I don't have to snap all of the pieces in place. I just have to keep my focus on Him, and He's going to do that for me. How cool is that?