Where to Start?

Cherries. I love them. So much. Dark sweet cherries. And it is major cherry season RIGHT NOW! So the idea of life as a bowl of cherries seems particularly fitting given my fondness for them and the fact that my life has been and continues to be filled with love and joy and great times.

I'm not really sure how this blog will evolve. My initial motivation comes from wanting to keep people updated on my health situation - because so many of you have been so kind, continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers and seem interested in how things are going. Also, I just feel like I'm doing a pretty horrible job of staying in touch with people, and responding to emails and voice mails and facebook messages in any kind of timely fashion...so here we are.

I want to start out by saying that I am really doing well. I feel fantastic (okay - a little fatigued) and the chemotherapy I began about 4 months ago seems to be doing its job. So as I share my story below, know that when it brings you to today - I am feeling like a million bucks and the drugs are successfully attacking the trouble spots. I am symptom free (really HAVE been since this all started) with the exception of the mild side effects of the chemo.

At the risk of boring you to death, I will give you some older health history, because you may or may NOT know my story.

In June of 1998 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a bi-lateral mastectomy, chemo and radiation that all completed in March of 1999. Initially, I was scared to death. My mother's sister had died of breast cancer and I was terrified. But science had come a long way, and as each year went by with no sign of trouble, I was encouraged, to say the least. 

At my 5 year anniversary of end of treatment, I was thrilled. And each year after that I believed more and more fully that the doctors and I had beat this thing.

But in March of 2008 as I approached my 10 year anniversay, I found a small lump on my chest wall. After a biopsy and a PET scan, it was discovered that I had a breast cancer recurrence AND metastasis (spread) to lymph nodes in my chest and neck, and to my liver.

You can, perhaps, imagine my state of mind at that point. Or maybe not. I felt pretty "doomsday" until I had information from my oncologist that though this is a terminal condition (unless something else gets me first), there are many ways to treat it and keep me alive for who knows how long, with good quality of life.

Because my cancer is highly estrogen positive, the first line of defense was hormonal treatment (pills) which often slows things down. The first drug I took got decent results with the lymph nodes and chest wall tumor, but not the liver, so we switched to another kind of hormonal treatment (injections). This wasn't working for EITHER the lymph nodes or the liver so it was chemo time.

NOW....realize that first, the side effects from these initial treatments were practically non-existent and second, even at the time of failure of the second drug many many months had passed, and other than the small lump on my chest wall I WAS SYMPTOM FREE!!!! Hard to believe, right? Stage 4 cancer and no symptoms. Life is good.

So in February of this year, 2009, I started chemo. I had been made aware that many people are able to take the hormonal treatments for some years - holding their cancer at bay - before having to start chemo. And this was of course the path I was hoping to take, but it was not to be, and less than a year into all of this I was chemo bound. I should also say that many people are in such dire straits by the time their metastasis is found that they are indeed lucky if there are any options at all for them - so the fact that I lasted almost a year before having to start chemo is FANTASTIC and I'm keenly aware of my good fortune.

The news that the second hormonal treatment wasn't working hit me hard and by surprise. I knew it was a possibility that I'd have to start chemo sooner rather than later, but I wasn't ready - or I THOUGHT I wasn't ready. It was the Thursday before I was to start taking the chemo pills on Monday, and I felt like I really needed some way to help me keep my head in a more positive place...something to remind me of the TRUTH of my situation: that I am very alive and that researchers are making amazing progress in treatment options and that there truly IS hope and reason for me to believe that I will be around for a long (whatever that means) time. 

I got a completely crazy idea. Get a tattoo. Something permanent to help me keep my focus where it needs to be - in the reality that the possibilities are many and growing and though I acknowledge the complexity of the situation I am in, I want and need to keep in front of me the vision of what is possible.

I am the mother who has ragged on my dear son, Elliott, about his (now 3) tattoos - being totally unable to understand why on earth he'd want to do that to his body. But I enlisted the help of the family expert and he took me to his tattoo artist, loving the idea, and that he had a convert.

I don't know that my reasons for getting a tattoo and his are the same, but I've shut up about his tattoos! I now have my mantra tattooed on the inside of my right wrist, where I can see it almost all the time, reminding me where I want to keep my head.

So I have been on Xeloda (pill form chemo) for 4 months and it is working. The last scan (a few weeks ago) showed no new sites, no growth and substantial shrinkage. A GREAT TREND. I of course have my fingers crossed that Xeloda will continue to work for a long, long time. The side effects are manageable (mostly fatigue and a few other weird things BUT I HAVE MY HAIR) and I would happily take it forever if it meant feeling like I do today.

Other than the side effects of the chemo, I still have no symptoms of the cancer. I think I look normal and not sick at all (and friends agree, unless you guys are lying to me!!) and I certainly feel pretty great.

I am treasuring each day. Truly. I am continuing to work a pretty full schedule. I am happy. I sleep well. I have you rooting for me. What more could I ask for?