Too Busy for Cancer

Hi Everyone,

I realise again that time has escaped me and it has been weeks since I wrote. I think summer is such a busy time and having my monkey at home full time really makes it near impossible to find time to write. I have never been able to just sit down with distractions all around and write something worth reading. So I am trying to write today despite the multitude of things happening around me and give you an update. I know how many of you interpret my silence as something bad so I don't want anyone to worry.

What has happened since round 4 concluded? Well I am still trying to find my "normal" and am realising what a number this chemo has done to me. Every day I wake up, it is a lottery in terms of how I will feel. Some days are better and others awful. I honestly feel my body screaming out in protest to the abuse it has been through. My stomach will never been the same again and the tiniest imbalance sets it off. It makes it hard to make plans as I dont know what the day will bring. I think my daughter is really picking up on what is happening with me as she has said to me quite often (in an exasperated tone) "Mommy - you can't lie down and rest all the time! You have to be with me!¨ Her playing has also evolved and she informed me earlier this week that the mud concoction she was making was in fact medicine to make my tummy feel better. Bless her little soul. I love her so much and she continues to make me push myself to be here...living in the present and hoping for the future.

My doctor called me last week with the update from the CT planning session which was to determine whether I could get anymore radiation. If you remember, we tried to do this back in February but it was deemed too dangerous at the time. You know it is funny when I think back to the beginning of chapter two when we were told it was cancer again. My doctors gave me three possible treatment options and we would give me the best and safest option. But now nearly 4 months later, I somehow ended up getting all three things - surgery, chemo and now radiation - lucky me...not! Yes my doctor has found a way to give me more radiation. Perhaps it is due to time passing and more healing happening from my initial radiation or the new organic material they put in during the operation. Whatever it is - I am starting 25 sessions of radiation in a week and half. It will suck big time as my skin is still so sensitive and I will burn more easily then before. When I asked about the risks involved, he told me that the risk of not doing it outweighed the potential side effects I could get. And the side effects are potentially major but we hope I get lucky and dont end up with necrosis (this is essentially tissue death and can be very serious) or god forbid another type of cancer. He also told me to not bother googling anything about this as it was new territory and there was little to no literature on it. He knows me so well! I joked about how my case will make a great paper one day for them to publish. He laughed and said that they never saw me in that way - as in a patient and an opportunity for publicity. But I reassured him and told him I was more than happy to be a part of the future - a part of furthering research in this specific area of breast cancer treatment. I want my story to help others and make a difference somehow. What he said next surprised me so much as he has always been incredibly conservative in terms of what he has told me about my situation. He has been the harbinger of bad news for so long and I know it is impossible for him to promise something he has no guarantee on but he told me ¨I will look forward to publishing something about how I cured you.¨ I was so shocked by his words but they provided such a comfort to me and gave me hope. Hope is everything to a cancer patient and feeling that your doctor believes in you can help you get through the darker times. So I will face the next hurdle as best I can and try to imagine a time when cancer might not feel like such a big part of my life. A time when things will be different for me...a better life far far away from cancer island. Like I said - hope is everything.

Hope everyone is enjoying summer. We are seeing lots of sun in Norway. Me likey alot.

OBB xxx

The Bionic Woman

"The most beautiful people I´ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths." Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Another week has gone by and we know more then we did the last time. Progress is good. We have a plan of sorts. Plans are also good - they bring some sort of shape and order to chaos. I am good at creating chaos and catastrophising but I am also good with plans. I love them and they give me a sense of control - I feel safer, less afraid, and in forward motion. I have spoken many times previously of the wait involved in the cancer experience and that just kills you sometimes. All you want is to know your battle plan because every idle day that passes allows your enemy to tread further into your territory and you don´t want to give up an inch. So I have been waiting 2 weeks to find out what will happen since we were told it was the big C. That is a long time to think of the worst and draw your own conclusions - a truly dangerous exercise. But my wait has been filled with a job that I continue to try and do on a full time basis and juggle a busy family life. Some people think I am mad to be working right now but my job is one of the few things that keeps me feeling normal these days. I go there every day and am happily distracted by deadlines, meetings and people. I am still me and not the patient. Unfortunately I am slowly losing my cancer anonymity there which was something I so appreciated. I find that one questions leads to another and suddenly I feel that I need to tell people what is happening. I was never good at lying and as you all know - I pretty much live my life openly and share freely. I plan on hanging onto to this normality until the bitter end when they wheel me into the hospital! I have worked too damn hard for this job to give up now and you know what? I will be back in it before you know it.

So on to plans...Breaking news - I am going to become the bionic woman. Yes seriously. I will be going into the hospital in about a week to undergo a rather large and extensive chest operation. They will be trying to rid me of any lingering nasties and in doing so must also remove some parts of my ribs and sternum. Pretty gross I know but hey this is a cancer blog so no one can be that shocked. They will then replace what they remove with titanium mesh which they will shape into a sound structure that will keep my chest stable and hopefully normal looking. Look who´s gonna be the annoying person at the airport that beeps in security! I do find it hard to imagine how this will all happen and how much pain is involved. Honestly? It absolutely scares the crap out of me. How long will it take to be functional again? Drive a car? Cuddle my daughter? Brush my own hair? I will be in the hospital for a whole week which is the longest I have ever stayed and the thought of being confined to a bed sounds awful to me. I am the type of person who only sleeps in my bed. I don´t hang out there, watch tv or nap. It is for sleeping when it is dark out period. And then when I come home, what happens next? I have no clue but hope we will get more then enough info next week when we meet the surgeons.I have tried to find someone in my wider cancer network who has been through something similar but have so far found no one. What does that mean? Is this some kind of weird procedure? It is easy to question everything at this point when so much has gone the wrong way. And the last thing I want to do is go through something as invasive as this but I have to do it. So instead of clincking champagne glasses to celebrate my 2nd cancerversary, I will be assimilating into my own version of the Tin Man. Like everything else I have done. I have to suck it up, walk up to the battle line and run into the enemy camp screaming my frickin´head off. Because there will be a time, some time later, when I will hoist a flag high in the sky and know that I have won. It will come...I just need to be extra tough and extra brave to make it through.

And I would like to give a special mention to my dear friend Anniken who writes a fantastic blog (in Norwegian but google translate isn´t too bad) - Veien tilbake igjen, which means to find your way back again. She is battling Hogkins Lymphoma for a third time in three years and is just starting a stem cell transplant this week. Her strength and positivity is a testament to the kind of girl she is and I am proud to call her a friend. This too shall pass...for both of us.

Thank you again for all the support. I will channel each and every word into getting through this next challenge.

Hugs from OBB