What a great last couple of days I have had! Oh, I hate to even be this happy this soon but even if this isn't a cure maybe a set back of growth of cells? My first Chemo ended a week ago and I feel so good, is this how it works? I haven't been to the doctors yet, I go next week but I feel almost back to normal. I am in love with life again! I was always one of those strange ones who loved a mess to clean, guess that's why I had four kids but to stand back afterward and just admire your hard work was pleasure to me. Yes I know, most would say I needed to get out more but I truly am grateful for my home and my family and I feel a pride in all that. The reason for all this chatter is, I have energy to clean my own house! Get to all the places the house cleaner misses, which is many!

Even though I am feeling so good, I am still being ever realistic. Melanoma is not a disease that is cured! The 20% means it will have an affect on your tumors, causing them to either stop growing or stop the growth of new tumors. Cancer is a tough little cookie, it finds a way around most Chemo eventually. So I am buying time and for that I will be grateful! Thank you God, I will take whatever you give me.

I am living on milestones, first is my daughter Sam's wedding next year August. I will make that, I have promised her. Not to worry, I am not a cruel Mother, we have talked about me making it in another form. I can get in the middle of everyone's dances that way and hear all the conversations. They complain about the wedding, they somehow dump their wine. Oh no. Let's see, after the wedding then it's the babies I have to wait around for. They better hurry with school and getting that first job! Just as long as it's not all backwards and it's babies and then wedding! Of course then I have a graduation next year from college I have to be here for, good job Nick! So I have so many milestones to wait around for that I will be here for a long time. But remember, I am still realistic! ;)NOT!

I really had no intentions, timetables or time lines when I started this. It was just a place to let loose in words. Knowing my kids are reading this sometimes makes that harder to do. Makes it harder to be totally honest. That is one thing, I promised them throughout this whole process, to be totally honest with them. I think I have done that so far, even when it's been absolute pain for me to do so. What mother wouldn't want to spare her children pain? Especially when Mom is telling them one thing from the doctor and everyone else is telling them something completely different? I hope everyone else is right, Oh how I hope it, but who do you believe? The one who sees this everyday of her life or the one who loves you and doesn't want anything to happen to you?

Well, I've dealt with my big bad monster for this month. No, I am not talking about my period. Already dealt with that beast! Talking about Chemo!! I feel like a drum roll should play when I type that word out!! It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Friday, the first day, was pretty rough, retching wise, but then I learned, don't eat a thing, absolutely nothing before you take that pill. Then life is not so bad, but life is going to be much better today when I don't have to take that pill at all! I only take the Chemo five days a month, then rest for 23 days then five days and so on. The weight loss I feel from not eating is not so bad either. So often the pills I take for my peripheral neuropathy caused me to gain so much weight, it's nice to have one that has the opposite effect for a change. I just wish that I didn't have to take it, which should go without saying, but you never know...

Now is the time to sit back and think of those little capsules loose in my body doing good and fighting danger for all the world to see so the words of those who love me can then out weigh those of the doctor who sees it every day of her life at least for my kids sake! Please God, for their sake.

I went to see my oncologist yesterday. It was a follow up after my MRI of my brain and spine. She is such a chipper little thing, considering the line of work she is in. I just love her to pieces! My MRI's showed no cancer in my brain or spine, so that was good news. Then it was time to take care of business. She told John and I that she would like for us to fill out a Power of Attorney for Health Care. This took me back a tad and caused me to ask a question that my son Nick had been asking me to ask. What was my prognosis? She didn't want to answer the question but I told her I knew I wasn't getting out of this alive so just be open and honest with me. She looked me in the eye and said, three to six months, up to a year. Nothing like a punch in the gut to make it all real.

I start chemo tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about it. Not sure how my body is going to react to this little pill that could change the design of my life. Can I lay there and imagine that the big monster is in my body eating up all the little cancer cells like you see on TV? Is it like a video game? Does it even matter weather I take it or not? I'm going to give it a couple months try and see what the test show after that, if no change then why let it make me miserable?

I'm not afraid to die, I'm just going to close my eyes and sleep a long peaceful sleep. What I worry about are my kids left behind and my other family and friends. It's going to be a hell of a split for my kids, I have kept them on a short lease up to now. I have kept them close to my heart. There is no love like a mothers love for her children. But I will leave that for another post...

Don't mourn me yet, I'm not gone yet. I don't know why I think I would be appropriate for a miracle, but then I don't get to decide now do I?

The Continuation...January

My primary doc sent me back to my surgeon for that little lump on my chest wall "and while you are there ask him about that little lump above your belly button that we think is some kind of abscess". My surgeon ordered a PET scan which lights up when the radioactive dye they injected in me attaches it's self to cancer cells. Dr. D called me back and told me I lit it up like a Christmas tree. Many tumors found within the fat layer of the skin with more small tumors, which is the normal progression of Melanoma. Back to surgery to biopsy that lump on my chest wall. When I came out of surgery that lump on my chest wall was still there but the one on my belly was gone. Doc wasn't in the operating room and I just asked why he didn't do that lump and they kept saying that he would talk to me as soon as he was done talking to my family. I just told them they might as well tell me it was cancer, I already had a pretty good idea anyway, they told me. An hour later I left the hospital laughing. Why not, what good is crying going to do?? I'm not saying I didn't have my days of crying and I still do. My poor brother Tim got the phone call telling him how scared I was with me crying. I can't imagine how I would have handled that if I were on the other end, he handled it wonderfully. I have two wonderful friends, a married couple who are just a phone call away no matter what, they have been a God send. Chuck and Cali (Carol) I love you both! Cali did a wonderful job of helping me search the internet for studies or trials throughout the mid-west when my new oncologist (who I love to pieces) told me that a trial was my best hope of surviving. They traveled from Chicago to Milwaukee for doctor appointments, Cali took notes and kept all my records in order because I was just lost. When we did find a trial at Chicago University, they both came with me at the start or when Cali had to work Chuck was my taxi. It's hard for me to ask others for help, I'm the one who helps others, they took this burden away from me. They didn't give me a choice. But the trial didn't turn out as planned, I guess you could say I was voted off the island. My cancer cells didn't match what they were looking for. Not to mention, as easy as these two people made my life, I was tired, tired from the cancer, tried from not eating due to lack of appetite, tired from being away from home. I was exhausted! This was my out, my way to come back home and roost.

I am now going back to my own oncologist and finally some kind of treatment is being planned. I am just waiting for my first bout of chemo in pill form to be approved by my insurance. I spend my days laying on my couch in the family room, my back hurts if I am up to long, it hurts now from sitting here. Dr. S, my oncologist said after the MRI of my spine on Tuesday and the MRI of my brain due to headaches, if there is a tumor that is big enough to be causing the pain in my back they can do a bout of radiation. The chemo on it's own won't take my hair away, but mix it with radiation and it will. Sounds like I will have to find some fancy doo? rags to replace my missing hair but at least the pain will be gone and that means less pain pills. We can save those for later when they will really be needed. I know what I'm up against and it's OK for me, I just worry about my kids as any mother would, I want to protect them and shield them. We joke a lot, it's the way we do things around here. If I don't get my way, I see nothing wrong with pulling the "c" card. ;) Not to mention, I think puking gets a bad rap. I told my girls I want a pretty puke bucket.

Ok, my fingers are wearing out...incase you didn't also know, I have peripheral neuropathy. It's a nerve disease of the feet and hands that causes these areas to become numb and yet have very painful sharp pains or pins and needle type feelings all the time. It's not fun, but it's life and I've had it long enough now that I'm use to it for the most part. I am thinking cancer trumps this. More another night.

One more thing before I go...as the weather warms and we wear less clothes, please use sunscreen. Please get those yearly checks from the dermatologist. Please don't allow this to happen to one more person....please~

The Beginning ...

I knew I had a problem but my Mother was dying and there was nothing going to take me away from her. It felt as if I had spent the last twenty years with only a few holidays and a couple more visits a year to spend with her and I wasn't giving up this time to try and play catch up in my heart. Cancer can be such a wicked invader in so many ways. We lost our Mom on June 8th 2009. Funny thing was, I had places to go and people to see before I could take care of business. By the time I finally made it to the doctor the mole on my back was not only itching like crazy, but I had to keep a band-aid it to keep it from messing my shirts. I never thought I'd be that kind of person, who would put this kind of treatment off for so long, like some women finding a lump in her breast and ignoring it for months on end. I think there was a part of me that knew all along what was coming and just didn't want to deal with it.

Found out on my birthday that I had cancer and I was seeing a surgeon the next day. (am I boring you yet?) Anyway, lets speed this up, first surgery on Aug. 12, 2009. They did a wide resection of my back where the mole was and since it had spread to my lymph nodes under my left arm, they took all those from me as well. But, I was cured according to the first oncologist I saw!! Since surgery was the main cure they had done their job and nothing more was needed, go home and live. Until he started getting feedback from all my other providers who were in shock that no chemo was administered. Then I needed to go get a second opinion in Chicago. Yanno, I never did like Chicago much, to big, to much....but now, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth! I still go there, my son lives there, goes to school there and probably always will be there. Saw one oncologist who asked me if anyone had talked numbers with me,I just looked at him. He said, "You have a 65% chance of this coming back within 10 years and at that time there won't be much we can do". He recommended chemo that gives you a 20% chance of helping but he didn't have room in his clinic right at that moment. To bad, we had living to do, we were going on a cruise and besides, in 10 years, who knew what they would have available by then. OH well, we had a great family cruise end of December into the New Year and everyone had a great time. We forgot the word cancer in our vocabulary, except in the context of sunscreen. We were in the Caribbean after all and we were all a bunch of pasty mid-westerners.

Then came the truth about a small little lump I had been trying to forget about since mid December, on purpose this time.