Kicking cancer's ass - day 1025

Three years ago, when her brother came home from his first year at church camp with all kinds of stories about his adventures, K was so sad that she didn't get to go.  She didn't get to go the next year, or even the next.  Finally this year she was old enough (and Mom was semi-confident she could handle sending her baby girl to New Mexico for five days).  I hoped and prayed that God would look over her and show himself in amazing ways this week.  My hopes have been fulfilled.

K's name means "brave".  

That about sums up this week, for both of us.  If you know her, you know my daughter is a sensitive, careful girl.  She is quick to love and easily hurt (just like her mama).  She is NOT the type that I would think would happily hop on a bus armed with her Bible, some snacks and her BFF and spend five days away from home with strangers.  The days leading up to camp were filled with excitement and preparation.... buying sunscreen, bug spray, travel sized toiletries, new clothes and water shoes.  The night before camp she was packed and as ready to go as she could be....

Ready.... until she came out of her room at 11pm crying because she was going to miss me.  "What if I get homesick and sad?"  she asked.  After a dozen hugs and the best pep talk I could give, she finally went to sleep and woke up on Monday with her teeth chattering from excitement.

We had another iffy moment after loading her luggage on the bus and heading back into the church to wait for send-off.  "My tummy hurts."  Oh boy.  Ok, another pep talk.  As many conflicting emotions as I was having at that time, I know my little girl's heart was filled with even more.  She was excited and scared, anxious and happy.  She seemed to pull herself together and by the time we headed to the buses she was ready to go.

We had another moment of slight panic while waiting for the buses to pull out.  It seemed to take FOREVER, and then the door opened on one of the buses.  I'll give you one guess whose kid was on that bus.  Hubby and I held our breath, just waiting for K to climb off the bus with her pillow in her arms and tears on her face.  Alas, there was no trouble and nobody backed out.  They were off!

It was so incredibly difficult to not only send my daughter off with strangers, but to send her to another STATE and not be in contact with her at all.  No phone calls, no texts, nothing.  I did write her letters for each day so she would get "mail" at camp, and she told me she loved that I put a joke on the back of each envelope.  I am lucky that so many of my friends and people I know on Facebook either were at camp or had a friend at camp, so I was able to see some pictures during the week of my girl having a grand time.

My nature girl in her element.... bandana in her hair, sun-kissed cheeks, barefoot in a creek.  

This girl right here with K is the reason I agreed to let K go to camp.  Knowing her bestie would be there with her, also away from home for the first time, was such a comfort for me.  I love that they were able to share this time together and make memories to last a lifetime.  

Five days after K left, I was so excited to pick her up tonight that we showed up thirty minutes early.  It wasn't long before the big white fancy buses began showing up (there were 6 of them!).

After a week of tumult and heartache in my life, missing my girl and hoping she had the BEST time, K is back home giving me the best hug ever.   And she brought me a gift!

Faith.  Hope.  Love.

My girl knows me, huh?

I'm sure we haven't even heard a fraction of the fun times that K had this week.  She shared her journal with me and the first page had a message to God about how much she loves him.  She said that she cried during almost every worship service.  When I asked why, she shrugged and said it touched her.  She said the counselors were so nice and prayed with her every time.  So to the counselors from Beltway at Camp Bonita, thank you, thank you, thank you for loving my girl.

When I asked her what her absolute favorite part of camp was, she said "The Leap of Faith".

Brave indeed.  

Kicking cancer's ass - day 1022

I've done a lot of soul searching (and a lot of crying) over the last few days.  You know what?  Having a bad day isn't the end of the world.  Having a couple of bad days isn't the end of the world.   Even having cancer isn't the end of the world.

Things happen every day that make us sad, mad, hurt, disappointed, frustrated.  I can't control how other people treat me.  I can't control what someone else does.  I sure can't control what life throws at me.  
What I can control is how I react.

Since having cancer I have learned to be a tiny bit selfish, because most of the little problems don't really matter in the grand scheme of things when you are faced with your own mortality.   However, maybe I've become a little too selfish in thinking I'm as important to others as I want to be.  There are billions of people on this planet....what makes me so special?

I laugh, I cry, I support my friends, I treasure my husband and family.  I do my best to be the kind of person who inspires trust, the kind of person people want to be around, the kind of person whom others want to make a priority.  I become attached, I care, I love.  That's just who I am.

That also means I get hurt.
That doesn't mean I can't continue to be kind, caring, and fun.  Tears can be wiped away, hearts can mend.  If life wants to knock me down, I'm going to get back up stronger, not become bitter.  My mother is the most positive person I've ever known.  If I can be even just a little bit like her I'll have succeeded in leaving this world a better place because I was here.

Life gives you lemons, sometimes a lot of them.  Good thing I like lemonade.

Kicking cancer's ass - day 1020

My heart is breaking today.

I know it's not goodbye - more like a "see you later" (or in November), but the friendship I have with Shelley is so so special to me and I can't even describe with words how much my life is going to change with her gone or how much I'm going to miss her.

I had no idea back in 2012 when our girls met as 6U teammates on the Lady Diamonds that S and I would grow so close.  Our friendship is full of laughter and even some tears, support and companionship.... she is my honorary softball board member, my fellow crazy football fan, my Dallas doctor appointment traveling buddy, my gummy bear sharer, and my Vegas vacation partner.

Shelbel, you have made my days brighter.  You're a blessing to me and my family.

I wish I knew what I'll do without you.  

Kicking cancer's ass - day 1018

Insomniac blogging....

It's 2:04am....do you know where your children are?
I know where mine are.... they are sound asleep, like I should be!  And yet, while everyone else is snoring away in this house, I'm out here on the couch drinking sweet tea and surfing the internet.

I had a super fun day with my friend S.... eating and shopping and eating some more.  We've had a pretty fantastic week of girl time, actually, trying to cram in lots of hanging out before Sunday....but we won't talk about that.  After our day of baby shopping, wedding shopping, camp shopping, breakfast, lunch and pedicures, we were crazy exhausted.  We sat on my couch for about two hours just looking at each other and wondering why we were so tired.  I told her it would be nice if I was that tired at 10pm!  (She shares my insomnia habit so she "gets it")  Ha.  Little did I know I wouldn't even be that tired at 2am.  

It's officially summer vacation.  School is out.  Grammie has already come and gone for K's birthday.  Both kids are gearing up to go away to church camp in the next couple of weeks.  I keep waiting for life to slow down, but I still feel like I'm going a million miles a minute!  I have a lot of free time, but no time to get anything done.  How does that happen?

Anyway, I don't feel tired and I have nowhere to be first thing in the morning, but I should really quit rambling about nothing and try to get some sleep.  

But first, a few random pictures from the last couple of weeks:

K was selected for the 10U All-Star team

J received two awards at the 8th grade awards ceremony.

Crazy girls at K's birthday party.  Four adults, three hotel rooms and a dozen girls overnight.  OMG!

Watching The Jungle Book with Grammie (excellent movie!)

Frontier Texas (first time for me!)

The Abilene Zoo with Grammie (the one day it wasn't raining!)

And finally.... my girl doing the other thing she loves.  When she's not on the softball field, she wants to be on the back of a horse.

Sweet dreams everyone (including me, hopefully!).

Kicking cancer's ass - day 1007

Happy 10th Birthday to my beautiful daughter.

Our family has been so incredibly blessed with a decade of having this girl around to brighten each and every day.

She is a free spirit who is full of life and laughter, silliness and creativity.  She is sensitive and caring and extremely compassionate.  She loves to read, swim, ride horses, play softball and anything minecraft.  She is the best friend anyone could ask for, and she has her daddy wrapped around her little finger.

I can't wait to see what the next ten years have in store for her, and I'm so very grateful that I'm around to watch her blossom into such a beautiful young lady.

Happy Birthday Kels - keep shining bright like a diamond!

Kicking cancer's ass - day 1000!

I haven't posted on my blog since the first of the month, but boy did I pick a BIG day to log back in and write something.

Today is day 1,000!

DAY 1,000!!!!!

That is one thousand days of kicking cancer's ass, in case you haven't been paying attention.
Hoo-rah!

This morning I had a checkup with Dr H (my oncologist).  Other than being fat, I'm doing well.  (Seriously, the one thing he commented on is my weight..... ha ha)   My labs were good, tumor marker was 8 which is the lowest it's been ever and my white & red blood cell counts were normal.  Yay!  Basically a "Good job, see you in 6 months."  

I like those kinds of appointments.

The one thing that has changed for me is going back to Tamoxifen has made a world of difference in how I'm feeling.  I tried two of the aromatase inhibitors that are supposedly better for post-menopausal women.  But after five months of insomnia, debilitating joint pain and fatigue and even hair loss, I said enough is enough.  Dr H approved me going back to Tamoxifen, the devil I know, and things are so much better.  I can't say I feel normal, but feeling bad with Tamoxifen is nothing like feeling bad with Arimidex.  Everyone is different though, because some ladies I know say the opposite!

Since my genetic testing was positive for BRCA2, I will have to be on some kind of hormone therapy for 10 years, which is most often Tamoxifen.  So I just switched back a few years earlier than scheduled, that's all.

Celebrate life, people.  
One thousand days ago I began the fight for my life, and despite a few (ha ha) extra pounds, some missing body parts and lots of scars, almost three years later I am happy and healthy and trying to live life to the fullest every single day.

Kicking cancer's ass - day 978

Instead of the 2-3 business day wait I was told to expect, it was two weeks before I received the results of my abdominal ultrasound.  The wait was more than worth it - NO ABNORMALITIES!

I don't get regular scans by any of my doctors.  They only check things out when there might be a problem.  So far, any "problems" that I've had have turned out to be easily explained as NOT CANCER.  Good enough for me.  

Also, as of last week I'm back on the dreaded Tamoxifen.  I couldn't handle the Arimidex family of medicines any longer.  The extreme fatigue, the insomnia, the pain and the hair loss..... there's no way I could live like that for years and years.  

In some cases the devil you know is a better option than the devil you don't.  

Kicking cancer's ass - day 966

This is sooooooooooooo true.

I am forty-three years old but I walk around feeling like a woman twice my age.

Today I have a headache.  A pain pill and a nap helped this afternoon, but now it's back.  I blame the weather.  It has been rainy and humid and damp and gray and gloomy.... off an on for over a week.  (I know I have no business complaining about the rain when Houston and other parts of Texas are under water, but still.)

I'm taking a self-imposed hiatus from the medicine that causes my joint pain.  It's also the medicine that is supposed to help keep cancer away, but my body needs a break from hurting.  I was on Arimidex for several months and the side effects were awful.  Everything hurt all of the time.  I had insomnia almost every night.  Restless legs, weight gain, hair loss, the list goes on and on.

I asked my oncologist if there was something else I could try, so he gave me a different pill (same family of meds, just a different kind).  I've been on that for a month and haven't noticed any improvement.  Joint pain is the same, fatigue is debilitating, I still can't sleep - AND this medicine is $75 a month.  Uh, no thanks.  I sent my doctor a message last week explaining that this was not working.  He was out until today, but the nurse said to go down to every other day or even stop taking it completely until she talks to him.  I just sent another message asking if she's followed up with him.  

I don't want to face cancer again.  I don't want to do ANYTHING to increase my risk of cancer coming back.  But I don't know if I can go on like this for the next 5-7 years.  My knees crack every time I bend them.  Sometimes I have to take stairs one at a time like a toddler because it hurts too much.  My knuckles swell and ache in the morning - I haven't been able to get my rings off in weeks. I'm so tired all of the time, yet when I got to bed I toss and turn, alternate between sweating and freezing, and then my legs AND arms get too restless to lay there. 

I take my vitamins.  I try to eat well.  I have been walking a lot lately, which is about the only exercise I can tolerate.  And yet I always feel awful.  Something's gotta give.  I hope my doctor gets back to me tomorrow with a solution so I can get back to feeling somewhat like me again.

Speaking of tomorrow.... I have an appointment for an ultrasound (of my nonexistent female parts, which is interesting).  The biopsy I had in Dallas a couple of weeks ago came back benign, which is GREAT.  So hopefully this scan is just overkill and there will be nothing to find.  Any prayers and good thoughts would be appreciated.  And one the subject of scans.... my mom had a CT scan this morning, so send some good "clean scans" thoughts her way, too.