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.