Fight #3. He protects me.

So, in the last few weeks my family and I have found out that I have a fourth brain tumor, and innumerable nodules popping up in my chest. So I’ve have five days of radiation and am about to have what is called​ an SRS treatment, it’s like surgery on the outside of your brain with a very precise level and degree of radiation on the new tumor. The past few weeks have been so confusing and startling that I think I’ve taken two days to process and actually think how precious life is. How I’ve had to prepare things for my girls (just in case) and that alone threw me down. It’s not fair. However, this past Sunday I watched with the rest of my family see my oldest graduate. It was truly amazing. I’ll never forget that moment. I have some pretty cool kids! 

My other daughter is working hard and helping so much around the house and raised all of her grades and will be a junior in the fall when high school starts again. Again, I am so proud of her trying to juggle emotions and friends and you know just teen stuff. But; she did. And that grabs my heart. I am blessed. I know I complain a lot, but I really am blessed. 

On the 19th I will be starting chemo again and it is going to be rough from what my nurse explained. But they have to treat this aggressively, as to the fact my cancer is a big fat bi*ch. And will be on this regimen for the rest of my life. Taxol, Carboplatin, and Avastin. Now, I don’t know about any of you, but it doesn’t sound like a walk in the park. But I feel like if I can beat a mass in my right lobe.. then three mets to the brain, I GOT THIS. But truly WHO has me?? GOD!! 

Third time’s the charm. But as I look around and find myself getting angry or scared I have to use that energy to FIGHT. Instead of fall apart. I just wish it was that easy. Either way, I can do this. And I will not let my anchor abandon ship. It’s around my neck with hope attached to it. So what do ya say? Wanna go with HOPE and pray this round with me? 

Room 9

Six months in remission, and I have to say that I feel pretty okay. Not 100%,  about 75%, but okay. Other than my trip to the ER that brought me to my knees in tears because of the dreadful room number. Who would have thunk that a number could make one just fall apart?? Room 9.  That’s where I got my diagnosis in March of last year and it’s weighed heavily on me since. The reason for my trip was pneumonia, in my right middle lobe and near my heart, and into my back. All the while I was just afraid of it being my lung cancer back again. Testing me, lying to me.  It won for a few short bursts, but it failed to be my cancer; its just pneumonia the doctor said to us. How relieving, but scary and painful. So now its back on bed rest, lots of fluids, medications and anger.

Anger because it never goes away…It just hides… The feeling of you never know. So much to think about when you’re coughing and hacking your lungs up. In pain, fever and everyone keeps saying, “its just a cough, don’t worry so much honey, that stuff will never come back”.

Well how the hell do they know?!?! It’s frustrating as heck to hear that all the time. No one knows!! I will live with this fear, (its normal I hear) for a long time. So tired of being told to move on, get past it, its over, you’re a survivor. Well, damnit; I can feel this way for as long as I want to and I would NEVER tell anyone with this disease to just move on…. Those words hurt. And no matter what you say back, whether it’s that you need a break at the holidays or you just don’t want to go out for the day you hear moans from the crowd.  I can feel this way until there is a fucking cure!! Leave me alone about how to feel and when to move on. I will talk about it, blog about it, advocate about it and you better believe that others understand the difference between the stigmas of it. For a VERY long time. 

And room 9… You suck. 😦

~Sincerely,
An angry woman with lung cancer

Did I really just do that?

It’s been a few weeks since updating, that’s my fault. I’ve been a tad overwhelmed and a little stressed out. Okay, a LOT stressed out. Anyhow, I completed 7 weeks of chemotherapy & radiation. Now I’m anemic and have to go in for B12 shots and in a few more weeks find out if I need iron through my good ol’ port. ~ needless to say I’m just in the “grey” area. Wait; is what they say to do now. 

I hate waiting. I have 4 more weeks to have my CT SCAN and then we’ll know where I’m at as far as if my tumors have shrunk enough to say I’m in remission or if it hadn’t and I have to go back and have another form of chemo… An even more aggressive form. Which scares me. Having been on two types already that caused me to be sick, mood swings, my hair to fall out, acid indegestion …. I could go on and on. It SUCKED!! I know that all these things are normal with this, but I would be lying if I said I wanted to do it again. Screw that… 😦 So I ask myself all the time, ” Did you really just do that?”

Sometimes I find myself in the bathtub staring at the ceiling crying and just wondering where I’ll be in so many years feeling as if I’ve been robbed of my future. I can’t predict it. I can’t see what happens… It’s annoying as hell. I want to see my daughters graduate, go on to college, get married and see my grand babies born. Is that too much to ask?!?! I want what ANY mother wants. But this stupid disease makes me afraid and I HATE to be afraid; of anything. Then at the end of my bath I answer my own question after being upset and torn and afraid….Hell yes I did that, I really DID just do that. And I will continue to do it for my kids, and myself!     

Because I don’t want to be afraid anymore, I want to fight. I want to be a stronger person and teach my children that it’s not okay to just give up. Cancer isn’t easy, it’s a bitch. But I’m going to be the person I was before I was diagnosed. Courageous, outgoing, not afraid to stand up for myself or my problems. I will talk about it more often than not to others because I feel it helps. I know that I pull the bald look off pretty well, or so many people say and are yankin’ my chain. I got this. I will keep telling myself this until I win.  So yeah, I just did do that. 7 long weeks of it. I feel like right now; I’m a survivor. And I’m going to keep on going. Sure I’m gonna have my crying spells, but who doesn’t?!