Treatments and Cheesecake.

Tomorrow is a big, big, BIG day for me! i finish treatments!!!!! all of them! tomorrow i am DONE! and we are going to celebrate treatments with treats... and lots of 'em! jonathan is bringing home Eileen's Special Cheesecakes for all of us. Eileen's is the BEST cheesecake.... it's been on LX New York, The Food Network....... and so on, and now it's about to mark to the end of something so terrible, by starting off with something so special:) make mine banana please!

When nothing makes sense.

it's not writers block, it's cancer block. i've reached a problem. i'm not getting anything out of this anymore. that's how it feels. it's just taking and taking and taking. where has the "given" gone? i've learned some great lessons. and now what? how do i take what i know about the world, and my body and apply it to living and not go insane? this is something i would most certainly be bringing up with a therapist, ya know, if i had the time to go see one. would a therapist be able to piece this together? can i take advice from anyone who hasn't had cancer ever again? "well, in my case i would do this...." well, have you fought cancer? no, no?? then never mind. is it making me a control freak? is it turning me judgmental? thank God, for God. i can come to Him and lay it all down. just lay it all down. i don't know how this journey would be going for me if i wasn't a christian... if i didn't have a love affair going on with Jesus. i just keep turning my head towards Him... the most creative, creator of all living things. i was having a talk with my daughter the other day, "do you know who paints the best, and molds the best, and sculpts the best, and has the most amazing hands, and the most vivid imagination?" she answered, "yes, daddy." i laughed so hard, but replied, "nooooo, God!" i believe this when i am talking to her. and in the end it's not cancer that will make all the difference. it's my knowing Him.

Introducing...

my warrior cubs. these are the faces that make this journey make any amount of sense to me at all. these are the ones that motion, "keep going"... these are the faces that have to say at a young age, "we need our momma." these are the reasons i fight.

and in two weeks, i will have finished all the my cancer treatments. i'll have made it out alive. and i will live. thank you my little ones. it's been your horrible duty to put a smile on my face when i just wanted to pout, and kick, and cry. but you three made me laugh, made me pray, made me love even more. through all this you get a better momma in the end. a better momma! i love you Graycen, Dune, and Lars. you're all amazing.

Where was i when...

my cells decided to turn into cancer? was i grocery shopping? was i giving graycen a bath? had i just put dune and lars down for a nap? was it while i was sleeping? was it during a shower? where was the moment that went from normal to sick? where was that moment so that i can go back and strangle it. i cry. and i cry. and i cry. when i think about this. so i try not to think about it.

i realize that if you stumble upon this blog that you don't know much about me other than i am fighting some very unwanted cancer. three tumors they found. Stage III. but here's some un- cancer related info about me, because i am much more than just cancer. i am 28. i love God. and my husband. this september i will married for 5 years. i have three kids, all with unusual names. i went to school for photography. and i have a knack for design. i am obsessed with all things retro, vintage, old, and babies. i love to be in the garden, and eat from it. i love to wear spf that's over 50, and i like umbrellas. i refer to my children as "my littles" and i get that from one of my favorite movies, Darby O'Gill and the Little People. i like owls and squirrels. i take over one hundred pictures a day. my dream job would be high end children's photography. i was just getting that kicked off the ground when i got a call to come see my dr. because they found something. cancer.

i've done chemo, and radiation. thought i hit hell, came back... have had three weeks off to get stronger, get well. but my white blood cell count has only lowered, and i have caught a cold. all of this would mean very little, but tomorrow, monday, i go in for surgery and 5 more radiations. the month of august is predicted to be a tough one. good thing i am tough.

so here i am in photo glory. i've put my big camera down for a bit and now carry around my beloved point and shoot. it's much easier for weak arms. this is me.

Love.

a friend posted on her facebook tonight that she knows way too many people with cancer right now that are close to her in her life. i can honestly say that before my own cancer, i only knew of one other person who had had it and that was my grandfather who sadly passed away from a long, long battle. but now i know many, many people with cancer. meeting so many through radiation and chemotherapy, i have so many new friends now who are fighting for there lives. i love about 20 knew people who i call friends and who i pray for by name every day. most times you could find me begging God to save them, crying my eyes out knowing all too well their struggle. these people know a part of me that no one else knows, that no one else could understand. these people cheered for me the other day when i came in with a new hair color and hair cut. these people screamed "hurrah" when i told them i was spending the day outside running around with my kids. these people cling to me for hope. and these people are sick. and it makes me sad. and it makes me angry. and confused. and bitter. and it makes me lash out at the people i love. i hate cancer. i hate cancer. i hate cancer. i will never be the same. ever.

"you wonder where God is when things like this happen to you. and then you realize He is there in the pits right beside you."

Although this picture is completely corny, it is what i feel like doing right now. if you are in the fight, just found out you have cancer, hating chemotherapy, lost someone to cancer, cursing the world, angry, sad, mad, confused... then i want to kiss and hug you. i am in the fight too and it really sucks. but it IS giving me my life... and ah, it's such a good one. "this too shall pass."

Break.

i am taking a break from this blog for the moment. mostly because it totally depresses me. but also because i am taking a general break. i have two weeks off to get a little healthy and strong and then i am having surgery. then 3 more weeks of radiation. and then the scans begin, and so does my life of wondering if i'll ever go a day without thinking about cancer. i have so much to write about, so much that weighs on me heavily, so many subjects that need to be talked in the dark, to my husband, in the privacy of our room. this is by far the saddest thing i have taken part in. it shattered our family, and at a very young age jonathan and i are learning how to plan on putting it back together again, when we are up against statistics that say i have a 70 percent chance i will even be alive in 5 years. i am battling fatigue that would normally land me on my back and in bed, but after what i've just been through, i am calling those days, "good days." with already missing out on the last two months of my kids lives, i am trying to jump back in and participate finally, even if it makes me dizzy. i miss my husband. i miss being able to kiss him on the lips because my white blood cell count is low, and getting sick at this point could land me in the hospital. i'm sad that my kids can't share my drinks, or that i can't suck on their little, chubby baby fingers in fear of getting sick. in so many words, I AM OVER IT. AND CANCER CAN TOTALLY KISS MY A**. so the next two weeks i am going to spend them breaking the rules. i am going to kiss my husband till it hurts, and share my drinks, and suck on baby fingers and toes.... because this is medicine also. the kind i really need right now to begin truly healing.

Born.... Again.

Born... Again.

I am sitting here in a new Lily Pulitzer nightgown picked out by my daughter with a home made necklace strung around my neck. i look like i could be jet setting to the Caribbean, but my body reminds me other wise. i have bruised veins and a stomach that won't let me ignore the schedule that has now become my daily pill regiment. but i am blessed. i turn 28 years old today. and i am beginning to understand that any day with cancer, is in fact a good one. i am alive. i am free. i have three beautiful children, a husband that i am in love with, my family is in town getting me through this ordeal but today is here to help me celebrate. I praise Your Name God, and thank you at the top of my lungs. Today, i feel born again.

The Tough Questions 101.

I've spent the last couple of weeks with terrible insomnia. i lay awake playing out every scenario from my own funeral arrangements to my daughters high school graduation. point being, i have no idea what is going to happen with and to my life, like most people. i just happen to carry around a cancer statistic over my head that says what kind of percentage i have of being alive in 5 years. one thing that does play out over and over in my head is my movie like moment... the one i'm told that i am cancer free. but wait- hold up...... (insert screeching brakes). i had a visit with my doctor today. he actually told me i'm thinking "too much." but really, i've never been down this road before. i've never used words like remission and pet scan, and blood levels when i am thinking of being a healthy cancer free living momma. well, it doesn't quite work like that. my movie like moment won't come for two years. for two more years i don't get the opportunity to say i am living "cancer free." the first year it's scans, scan, scan, scan, scan, scan, and scan me again. the first couple of scans might even show cancer still! what! this is news to me. so after i caught my breath i pressed on with more questions. what does this mean for me? tonight, do i go home and finish picking what flowers i prefer at my wake? well, not exactly. he did continue to tell me that by the 6 month scan that if it shows that cancer is still there, then we worry. chances are something didn't work and boom, i still have cancer. from then they would only do chemo, because where i have already been radiated on is way to softened and could never handle that type of radiation again. from there we'd pray that chemo would do the job. it wouldn't be Cisplatin, because that's already done a number on my kidneys... so... well, you get it, i am a thinker. i guess my next question was, "what if i make that first year with all clean scans?" then i go into remission. and if that whole year i get clean scans, well then i'll get my movie like moment. i'm thinking... i'm walking down a long hall, going into my doctor's office and he looks up and smiles, and says these words i've been fighting to live for, "you are cancer free." see, this is where i can decided, how do i live with cancer, and choose not to die from it?

the funeral flowers are just gonna have to wait.

For Jonathan.

"There is a madness in God's plan. But know that between my sighs and moans of desperation i feel your pain, too." - from the book, Surviving Cancer

i've met so many couples in the last almost two months. each with a heart breaking story of life, love, pain, and sickness. jonathan and i are one of them. as i sit here typing, my hands are shaking. i don't eat anymore, and i've resorted to IV fluids to get my hydration. to say i feel sick would be a huge understatement. but i've been wanting to get this post written for a while, and i am going to do my best to be the voice of these people.

there is something that no cancer patient gets, and that is what their significant other is going through. as i look around the room while i get my chemo, i see so many older couples. one couple is about to celebrate 64 years of marriage! cancer has brought them here. one couple met in 1943, in Germany, he met his bride and brought her back to America. she sat next to me last week. she is fighting cancer. as i look at these men and woman waiting for their loved ones to finish the treatment, fight this battle, or even wait for it to claim the life they once knew, i wonder what that moment was like. the one where their heart shattered into a million pieces, the moment they were told that the person that has taught them the most about life, shared children with, the person they love the most, what that moment was like when the blood drained to their feet, where they would struggle to walk out the door that day, the day they were told that the one they belonged to had cancer. i know what it was like to watch jonathan, but i was in my own shock hearing the news. so over the last couple of weeks i've been asking. what was that moment like? and every one i've talked to can agree that it was the worst kind of pain they have ever experienced.

knowing that my jonathan is suffering like this makes me angry, mad at the world. it makes me want to scream. sometimes i do. mostly into my pillow, letting my fists fly around me violently all over my bed. wailing. sobbing. the pain sometimes, i wonder, has already won.

i sit in a room full of people who are fighting to be with other people. to live for other people. i celebrate my wedding anniversary, 5 years, this september. strangely, that chemo room has made me fall more deeply in love with jonathan and the idea of marriage. i feel honored to sit in a room full of people who fought for their marriages and now for their lives. by this september, i hope i can say, "happy anniversary baby, i am cancer free."

Update.

emotions- drained.

mentally-confused.

faith-tested.

physically-beat up.

tumors- shrinking!

chemo/radiation- ordered another week, blah:(

spirit- up and down.

kids- adorable, little warriors.

husband- my rock, occasional punching bag.

veins-bruised.

stomach- nauseous.

weight-down.

blood count- good!

hair-still on my head!

attitude- poor.

body-weak.

head-dizzy.

heart- suffering.

treatment- 3 weeks done, 9 weeks left.

this is a journey that i was entirely unprepared for. i still feel uncomfortable to say that i have cancer. this is harder than anything i have ever done.

Acid Reflux and lovely people.

i am meeting some amazing people. every one is talking to me. everyone is telling me their story. i've met a number of woman who are going through breast cancer. i have sat next to many men getting blood transfusions. i have made friends with a man who has been battling cancer for a year and a half now. and i have shared a conversation with a man who has six months to live. i watched a woman come in today for chemo with her daughters ,who looked like she'd already given up... and we were all thinking the same thing, "why haven't these people made peace with this woman's suffering." it's all hard to watch. even harder to accept when i am in chemo already feeling a little sick, and trying to stomach the massive disaster that cancer is. but no matter what, i find that room to be the most humbling place i have ever found myself. i am absolutely humbled by what i see in that room. the compassionate spouse, the loud mouthed advocate for the woman who can't speak up, the two timer who will never give up, the one so sick that there is no choice but to show up, the nurses who go to a place that allows them to show up everyday, me.

on another note, i have avid reflux so bad it makes full term pregnancy with twins feel like a cake walk. my babies are 11 months old today and i am very sure that this time last year i was thinking that that acid reflux was about all i could handle. this year, i've got that beat. this is much worse. so, again, thank you protonics. i will be enjoying you later to help me sleep.

Radiation.

i am trying to see radiation as Healing Rain. I'm Not Afraid! I'm Not Afraid!

Today i woke up worshiping and thanking God for all He has done and i couldn't get these words out of my head- "Faith is RISING. Faith is RISING!"

Chemo/ radiation

one week down. i've finished one week of chemo and radiation. i go for 10 more weeks. i get chemo every monday morning followed up with 40 minutes of radiation. i do radiation every week, 5 days a week. puking, or not. i have to show up. i go in for fluids every two days and get my blood drawn three times a week. i get b12 shots twice a week. for chemo i get an iv of aloxi and decadron which are both anti nausea, mannitol and cisplatin , and a drip of magnesium sulfate and iron. i get this pumped into my body every monday, which takes about 4 hours at a time. i sit in a room full of lazy boy chairs and IV hangers, with mostly older people who look like they might be on their last leg. some of them are. the waiting room is full of these patients' other halves exchanging stories of WWII and their wives latest battles with cancer. my first experience with chemo was an instant dose of my new reality. that everyone in that room with me could agree upon one thing. that whatever chemo takes away is still better that losing your life. and that's why we all keep showing up. the man that sat to my left started talking to me first. he was thin and fragile looking. he wore a baseball cap, but had told me that none of his hair had actually fallen out yet. he told me that cancer messes with your brain. at the time i was like, "yea, yea of course it does." i quickly found out that at that time, i had no idea what that meant. i would soon find out. he talked to me about his family, and his 14 year old daughter, how he use to coach little league until he got cancer. he told me how he stopped telling people that he even had cancer because everyone started looking at him like he was going to die. he just couldn't handle that. he also told me that he is always the youngest one in the room. he is 47. the guy to my right was born in 1939. his grandfather died from prostate cancer. his mother died from cancer 30 years ago, and his father died from cancer 10 years before his mother. cancer runs in his family. and the equal opportunity destroyer that cancer is, it was also going to try and take the life of this man. but this man had a unique relationship with chemo. he loves it and hates it. it makes him feel terrible, but he does not do it in vain, as he is the first person with cancer in his family that actually has a fighting chance. thank you modern medicine. then there was me. i'm 27. i have Stage III cancer that wants to kill me. if i don't show up everyday, chances are, it will. so i show up. i showed up that day and for the next four. by wednesday i was dry heaving my brains out. i lost 8lbs in 3 days and my hair is already beginning to thin. i am getting hard core cisplatin, the most intense chemo drug, and i am getting a lot of it. i am also getting this with massive amounts of radiation. one of my cancerous lymph nodes is in my paraarodic area of my stomach. my oncologist told me this is one of the toughest places to be radiated on. by friday i wanted to quit. i walked into my oncologist office crying hysterically, having a panic attack, (literally, they had to stop everything) and begging them to let me quit. i actually thought for a second, or a week, that i might rather die. after being talked to and cried along with my nurse, i gathered myself and went over to chemo and got some fluids. i sat in there with a bald woman, a sick man, and a couple people needing some quick shots before the weekend. i looked around and got some much needed perspective. we are not called survivors for nothing. we are actually cheating death. staring it in the face. it wants me to give up. it wants to take me from my family. but, that is not going to happen. so hell or not... "in the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil". tomorrow i am showing up for my second round of chemo.

Ownership.

something has changed within me. i've spent the last three weeks focusing most of my energy on the sheer shock of the news i received, the way my life was forever going to be changed, the horror and debilitating power that cancer now held over my head, the denial that this couldn't be happening to me, and thousands of "why's" i had for God every night around 2 a.m. that would last till the sun came up. but the last couple of days, something has happened. i'm not sure i can call it peace, i don't know if i will ever be at peace with having cancer. i think i'll call it acceptance. ownership. it's mine. i'm claiming it, i'm learning about it, i'm changing it. and at the end i will be alive because of that choice. i start treatment on Monday. i start treatment on Monday. one. more. time. i start treatment on Monday. three weeks ago, i thought Monday consisted of cleaning toilets, and grocery shopping for the week. this coming Monday, i fight for my life. i'm IN the fight. saying, typing, thinking that i start the beginning of the end of this nightmare excites me and terrifies me. there are a million unknowns... what about the way my body reacts to the medicine, what if my white blood cell count gets so low they have to stop, what if i get pneumonia, what if i get a cold, what if at the end none of it worked, what if at the end they find even more cancer? then there is this, "what if it all works as planned?" and at the end i get to reclaim my life, live fully, and teach my kids a lesson i would never have learned otherwise. what if at the end i get to add "survivor" to my repertoire? i am at the beginning of this. but Monday my wheels stop just turning, and begin to move. i get to be in motion. right now, i can't see the finish line. but i know it's there.

Short Hair.

I met with my chemo therapist oncologist yesterday who was explaining to me that my hair will fall out gradually, not all at once, and that short hair would be a better transition than going home and just shaving my head. i've always liked short hair, really short hair, so this part actually excites me. i am in a position to go all the way because of my circumstance and i will force myself to not back out. which do you like the best?

This Woman's Work.

Tattooed.

Yesterday i was standing in the dressing room in Urban Outfitters and began to cry my eyes out. i had gone shopping for a few new things in the hopes of some distraction. but just like every corner of my world right now, cancer just keeps on following me. i took off my shirt to try some things on, and there they were. the fresh tattoos i had received the day before. i had met with my radiologist on tuesday to have a CAT scan so they could "mark" me. these marks are permanent. i felt like i got branded. these will be forever reminders of this battle. and as i laid there shaking, and they kept reminding me to "keep still", i just kept thinking, "why am i here?" i tried focusing on the contrast of my skin to everything else... the white room, the white ceilings, the bright white lights, the white coats, the white machine, the white gown they had me change into when i got there. i was staring at my skin reminding myself that i was still alive. the radiation is so precise that i am given these marks so they know exactly where to aim the beams every time.

it's another hard pill to swallow. another hard step in this process to accept. i will be in a dressing room a year from now, trying on clothes. will these marks still stand out to me? will i be wearing them in pride? will they no longer be marks of suffering, but of surviving? i hope.

Perspective.

"Cancer is one of the bet things that has ever happened to me. Cancer is a perspective giver like nothing else i've ever experienced. it has given me so much more than it has taken away. and it has taken away a lot." - Sylvia McNair, Survivor.

Wow, what as awesome thing to be able to say! as i've been laying awake most nights trying to figure out what i am going to do with the massive amounts of information given to me by massive amounts of doctors, i've been trying to decide how i am going to live my life now... now that i have cancer. i can't go back. back to the place where what i thought about life is true. i am now in a place where what i know about life is true, and faced with this choice... how am i going to live? no more cliches, no more cute quotes... it's down to the Word. The. Word. The Word of God that i believe is true. it's staring me in the face. am i gonna do it? am i going to live my life differently now... now that i know i could die? and the answer is, yes. Yes. I. Am. i am at the very beginning of this journey. i will never again be the person i was before i had cancer. i am going to be different. and i am going to live better. i am going to be a better wife, and mother, and sister, daughter, friend, stranger, driver, speaker, writer, traveler, photographer.... the lens i look through is going to see things others don't. for the first time ever, i might actually really begin to live without borders... beyond what i ever thought possible. so in the end i wonder, could cancer be a gift?

Dammit Doll.

Today was just entirely too sad to write about. but at the oncology center today, they did give me this.

i think it says enough.

Moving Tumors.

My faith is the size of a mustard seed, and while i may not be able to move mountains, i am pretty sure it will remove these tumors. today has been a mix of emotions, and i've been working on explaining to myself that i am a healthy person, i also have cancer, and when it's gone i will still be a healthy person. i do not want this cancer to have any more power over me than it already has, and frankly i feel like putting boxing gloves on and kicking it's butt. cancer, you picked the wrong girl.

also, this is my anthem... Need to Breathe, "Something Beautiful". and please, go to itunes and download it. to all my friends and family, i recommend you listen to this on LOUD and envision me totally healed. through your prayers, and by your prayers, i will be.

Adult Tantrum.

Last night was major for me. i threw a cancer tantrum. i kicked, and screamed, and cried, and paced back and forth, and rubbed my eyes, i talked a mile a minute and swore like a sailor. i came undone... and was put back together again. this morning i woke up with a clear mind. i felt i had an understanding of some sorts of this cancer thing that has pretty much taken over my body, spirit, and mind. i came to the conclusion that the yuckiest sum of its parts, the radiation/ chemo combo is what is going to save my life. it's not there to destroy me, but to help heal me. and over seeing the whole project will be my God. i feel thankful today for adult tantrums, and for God's grace breaking through the cracks in my darkness to shine His light.

Step One.

Step one, breathe. step two... repeat step one. i am utterly exhausted. emotionally almost over the edge. i am furious that i am in this battle and that i have to say that i am 27 and officially a cancer patient. i am so mad that my kids will have to watch me puke, and have such massive fatigue that i won't be able to move most of the time. i am struggling to see this as any sort of purpose and want to return to my old life immediately. but instead i am visiting doctors i have never met before discussing my life, the one i thought i had a clue about, only to know that they know more about what's going on inside of me than i do. i found out today that i have stage one cancer and stage four. wt? my cancer is contained with in the tumor, stage one... but it's also in a lymph node, stage four. i now wait to talk to a radiologist so they can discuss what it means exactly to light me up like a firework. basically at the end of this, i think i will glow in the dark. i get to talk all things chemo. oh what fun! really this has just been a hard day/ dose of my new reality. i want to get off this ride now. i want to press the Stop button. i was not chosen to have cancer. i am not suppose to light the way for others by having cancer. i don't want to live my life with cancer just to be an example. i can only hope that before and without cancer i lived my life with positivity. i don't think in any way, God has given me cancer. in fact i think He hates that i have it. but at the end of the day i will sleep tonight because i know He will heal me of it.

What it's all about.

i've been living with cancer for almost a week. well, i don't know how long i've had it, but i've been living under the diagnosis of cancer for 7 days. in those seven days i've made trips to target, made dinner, been told i have cancer, changed some diapers, given some baths, cried my eyes out, cried some more, informed my family, informed my friends, done laundry, done research, had a PT scan, gone out to lunch, gone to a fair, pretended it's not true, declared it's true and now i am diving in head first. the ups and downs of it have been extreme. it feels like a grieving process. the pain, sometimes, has seemed unbearable. they found a tumor. gulp. they found it was cancer. bigger gulp. as i write, doctors are looking to see where the cancer is, what it is, and how to get it the heck out of my life.

i am going to try and keep up with writing as often as i can. i hope at least for a line a day. this is the last day i can pretend that i don't have cancer. tomorrow i face it head on. i go over what they have found and talk all things treatment. i never thought that at 27 years old i would be told that i am in a fight for my life. today i am buying a journal and am going to begin writing it all down for my kids. i am also going and getting the ipad to help stay connected and distracted. i have my mom here to help and my sister has flown in for the weekend from Florida. she'll be coming as much as she can. my dad has been here helping out, making me laugh, and giving out great hugs. yesterday we went out to lunch and i acted like i didn't have cancer. aside from the fact that every thought i had kept drifting back to the topic.

for today i am going to laugh, and probably cry some more. but mostly i am going to try and laugh. and squeeze my kids, and kiss my husband a little too much.