You Want Me to Put that WHERE?

My life right now centers around a blue pill box - the kind with a box for each day, split into AM, Noon, Evening, PM. Thank goodness there are some things to help with my chemo brain...(I forget at least one important thing a day...my brain is a foggy place these days - which I beg you to keep in mind as I write...my thoughts are so scattered now...it takes me far too long to write a complete thought. But we'll try anyway...)

My day starts at 6:15am when I take the chemo. There is a precise order to things because of what meds need to be taken on an empty stomach, and which ones require food and timing things which knock me out most so I can take a nap. Chemo is a "no food" set of pills, and then I can't eat anything for another hour. So I drift back to sleep if possible, or scan Instagram for lovely photos.

About 7:30am, my sweet mama makes me breakfast and I take my next two pills...the ones that require food.

If I'm feeling good (which sadly, over the past week, has not happened much), I go to work for a few hours. My incredible team is so supportive in understanding that as much as I want to be there, cancer is a unruly beast and I have yet to get the meds figured out to a functioning level yet. This week, between adjusting to my new antidepressant/mixed with my other drugs that make me drowsy as side effects, I have done little besides sleep. I haven't even had much energy for reading...today I actually landed back at the doctor because I had had a sore throat and white spots on my tongue and we (I apparently talk as "we" now, but I refer to me and mom and my nurses) were worried it might be an infection...it's only thrush. Something people on chemo often get due to the high numbers of medications they are taking. I had it earlier this month too...so we added another pill for the next 7 days to clear up my throat. I hate thrush. It makes your mouth hurt and I already can't taste food due to a few of the pills I'm on...But my mouth should hurt less after a few days of the thrush medicine and then hopefully I'll be able to eat again.  So thrush pill about noon for the next week.

When we were at the doctor today, I was asking the nurse practionier about tips for the usual dry mouth/ dry nose side effects of chemo (which are made worse by my nightly oxygen use). We were able to get a humidifier today from Norco, but the coconut oil I'd been putting in my nose wasn't helping much and my nose is now so dry from the oxygen and smokey Bend summer that it really is hurting...she said the best thing for dry nostrils? KY Jelly. (You want me to put that where?) I had to laugh...humor for the win! But seriously, KY Jelly apparently is the trick...my grocery basket when we went to the store to pick up the thrush med from the pharmacy, KY Jelly, a few things that sounded good (cantaloupe, carrot juice and sugar free throat lozenges to aid my sore throat) was a pretty funny sight.

After work (when I make it), mom and I usually have one errand to do. That's all I can handle right now. A quick trip to the bank, or to pick up something at the store. There are about 3 doctor's appointments a week to follow-up on the drugs and how I'm handling them, or when the home health nurse comes to check-in. The rest of my day involves sitting in front of the air conditioner and fans in our living room trying to combat hot flashes and the aches and pains of cancer, but really that means sleeping because the pills knock me out so much that I now sleep from about 1 to 4:30 every afternoon. We have a little dinner about 6, and by dinner I mean I nibble on whatever doesn't hurt my mouth (and no matter what lovely thing we have, it's just the motions of chewing now...they tell me taste will come back and improve even when we finish the thrush meds next week).

Bedtime is getting earlier and earlier (except tonight) and involves a routine of baking soda/salt mouthwash to combat mouth pain, two more pills, and settling into my hospital bed with a yoga nidra meditation before I dose off...although tonight, I'll be adding KY Jelly in my nose before I hook up to the oxygen tank....here's to humor, rest and hopefully some moist nostrils by morning! ;-)

We survived July (Plus Menopause and Some Good News)!!

Girlfriends visiting Hospice House from Porland (Lacy, Caitlin, me, Bri and Allison)

My incredible family having coffee together after I got home and finally felt better...

 We made it through July! That by itself feels like a miracle.

This was a HUGE month - being in the hospital/Hospice/home on bed rest for over half the month, starting a new chemo, going back to work 3 hours a day (thank goodness for a few moments a day of not thinking about cancer), then the incredible art benefit and tons of my tribe visiting and loving me in huge ways, then our fabulous beach vacation...now I'm tired. I'm excited to slow down this month, invest in some nourishing self-care and honestly sleep a lot while my body fights "the beast." (I'm looking for a good humorous name for my cancer...suggestions welcome. ) At this point my energy is so limited, it's all I can do to have 3 things I want to accomplish during the day (i.e: work, go to a doctor's appointment, and one other thing) and then I'm lucky if I can stay awake until 9pm now...there are so many life lessons coming out of this...it's okay to rest, learning to honor what my body is telling me about slowing down, letting myself be sad/mad/pissed about the whole cancer experience, knowing I can fall apart and be brave at the same time...

I had my weekly check-up on the new chemo with my oncologist today. We do weekly general labs and everything was in the normal range today for the first time since all of this started!! Woo hoo! AND the labs we run to check tumor markers actually showed something pretty exciting...The first time we did this lab it was 523, two weeks later and just before we started the new chemo, it had gone up to 941, and after two weeks on the new chemo is is DOWN to 686!!!! This means the chemo is doing positive things!!! We are still praying for miracles because this is still not likely to be curative, but my doctor and I are hoping this is the beginning of that miracle. :)

The not good news...we ended up running more labs after the appointment today because it looks like chemo has put me into early onset menopause. Let's add one more thing, shall we? I started having severe hot flashes in the past few weeks and a few other symptoms, so we ran hormone tests today too. Early menopause in women going through chemo is pretty common, I guess. We started a new drug that is both an antidepressant and will help with the hot flashes too. We'll start looking into if we want to add hormone therapy to the mix in the next couple of weeks....

To be honest, getting the antidepressant (and some anxiety pills) is a relief after a few anxiety attacks this week. Processing the cancer journey, and how different my life and experience of being in my body are right now, compared to even a month ago, is a crazy adventure.  I'll be spending some down time this weekend thinking through what I need in this season, how to provide the most gentle nourishing care I can for myself right now...my energy levels are so different now, and coming to terms with that  need to happen. A typical day for me right now involves getting up for chemo at 6:15am, resting for an hour until I can eat breakfast, tracking my meds/temp/ blood pressure/ bowel movements, pain levels etc, going to work for 3 hours a day (this is my sanity right now), mom picks me up and we run an errand or to an appointment (right now we are still in the process of getting labs, or picking up a few items at the store), resting at home and trying to eat something that I can keep down and that actually tastes like food (my taste buds have gone away on this chemo so nothing tastes anymore) and then trying to keep my eyes awake until 7pm. face

But tonight I'm looking at the good - the awesome labs I got today! Miracles are happening and so much could continue to change!!

Thank you for being part of this...I will be really exploring what I need healing wise over the next few days...I am a firm believer that we each know what we need...and giving myself permission to really relax, sit with it, and create space for [inset new name for cancer - seriously, if you have ideas, tell me, this thing needs a funny name...].

Doodling from my healing journal the other night

Some of the best medicine in my opinion, is the self-care rituals we create space for once we admit to ourselves where we are at....I'm admitting that my energy is so limited right now (I've got about a 5 hour window per day) and then I'm struggling to keep my eyes open past 7:30pm at the very latest...


That said, I'm going to really focus nourishing myself over the next few weeks with sleep, food and savouring deep rest.

At this point, please call/ text before stopping by to visit as I'm giving myself a week of much needed rest and limited activities so I can give myself a chance to heal and recoup.


Thank you all for being my champions, rocks an supports! I couldn't do this without you!! Enjoy the weekend, and here is to surviving July with GREAT news from the labs! :)

Things Are Looking Up...

My new chemo is a 5 pill regime I take every morning at 6:15am indefinitely. At this point, our plan is to take it either until we get our miracle, or until I can no longer handle the side effects, or my body just gives out. Obviously, hoping for the miracle. Each time I have taken it so far this week, I pray over the handful of pills before washing them down with water. Our usual family prayer lately says"shrinky dinky do" and I'm sure God laughs. Thank goodness Spirit has a sense of humor.

I've been on bed rest almost a full week now between my groin situation and while adjusting to this new chemo. I'm getting cabin fever something fierce, but still have hardly enough energy to do more than read (current reads: Sera Beak's Red Hot & Holy, Mandy Steward's Thrashing About with God, and a childhood favorite: Island of the Blue Dolphins), journal and outline the book I've decided to write. Cancer makes you go after dreams hard (life should make us all do this), but writing continues to be something I can do regardless of my energy level and makes me feel connected to the outside world. I'm slowly getting used to the drugs, and we upped my pain medication yesterday at the doctor so I should start perking up too.

Yesterday my incredible home health nurse came by with a new fancy foam mattress for my bed...it feels magical! It actually is comfortable enough that I slept last night. After our usual run-through of all the meds I'm on, she decided I needed to up the pain pills and sent me off to the doctor to do so...as the tumors grow,  I feel more pressure in my abdomen, but the remaining pain from my surgery in March that split my belly open down the middle completely ruined my abs (chemo also weakens the ligaments and many people I know who have been on chemo say their ab muscles were never the same after chemo), needless to say my sweet nurse found me a belly binder often used for after c-sections to hold the muscles together properly...already I'm getting relief and can move on my own again for the first time in weeks! Not having core muscles anymore made my back and abdominals so tired, but I'm not cleared to really work on those muscles because of the abdominal tumors and risk of tearing the tumors and bleeding at this point. Additional surgery is not an option due to how fast the tumors are growing, they fear that if they were in there cutting things up they might rupture again, spread and we'd have more of a mess with more tumors growing quickly. Our goal is to keep the tumors I have at the size they are as long as possible, and hope that this new chemo will give us a miracle and shrink them all together. The groin, they tell me will take months to heal, and all I can really do is go slow, rotate ice and heat and stay on top of my pain medications. I was feeling like an old woman, all things considered, who was confined to my bed, but these changes should really help!

Monday night is an art benefit my friends are putting on in my honor from 5-9pm, which is a lesson in letting people truly help. The perfectionist side of me struggles not to try and help, or organize, or do anything. All I have to do is show up. Cancer is teaching me to rely on others for strength and daily living in a way that is so unfamiliar and so strange. I'm really excited for this event! It will include music, art and community and from the sound of things the community has really rallied around it! I feel so incredibly blessed, supported and encouraged by the whole thing. Despite my moments of feeling totally alone in this, I truly have the best community supporting me and my family and I still don't know how to express my gratitude for the kindness and love we have been given. I would love to see you at the event (details are linked in this paragraph).

Design by Megan Izett Design

Let's Try New Drugs (or chemo arrived in the mail today, woo hoo)!

Today my much awaited new chemo arrived via UPS. We're trying our own trial of sorts with a drug called Cometriq....I canceled the trial I was going to do in Portland, feeling that it was going to drain me with lots of travel and unknowns. After doing a genetic test on my tumors, we learned that my cancer has traits similar to thyroid cancer, so this specific drug is very targeted. We know what I'm getting. The Portland trial wouldn't guarantee what drug I was getting as I would be either in a control group or not. My oncologist and I are hopeful this drug, although never tried with Sarcoma, has potential for good. Wouldn't it be a wonder if it works as we could make history and help someone else? ;-)

The white cooler of pills arrived this afternoon and I read through the usual side effects, nothing too different than the doxo. I was on. It came from an East Coast pharmacy with a packet of sunscreen, lotions, lip balm and a note: call us anytime. We hope this works too! They'll ship it every month, no cost to me what so ever. Miracle courtesy of my insurance company bending over backwards to help get this drug!

I hit a dark place last weekend but I think I'm coming through it. After getting home from Hospice House, I had managed to pull my groin and was in some of the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced...let's add insult to injury. I could barely move all weekend, but pushed through trying to get some grounding beneath me again. To feel, slightly, even if temporarily, normal. I realized there are about two days while at Hospice House that I do not remember in any way shape or form...my family came from Portland and I have no recollection of the entire experience...I remember other guests, but those days that I was really flying high on morphine are completely gone (no offense, family). It is a strange thing to  be made aware of a gap in one's memory...

The home health nurse came on Friday to officially sign me up. That's when it hit me. This is real. Before, I could go to doctor's appointments, watch them pump red chemo into my port and say the words "I have cancer," but it still felt surreal, like any minute the nightmare would be over and I would wake up to my old life. I had been working and trying to carry on as if all I had to do was take some drugs and it would be ok. The nurse (whom I like a great deal) made it real though...she asked questions about how home bound I am, what I'm able to do for myself vs. what my family has to do, and it hit like a ton of bricks. This is my real right now. Cancer is part of it. I got scared. The weekend turned into a dark place and I fell into a funk of wondering how soon I should be responsible for getting my affairs in order and still maintain a sense of hope and expecting miracles. It's a delicate balance. Everyone should have their affairs on track in the 30s, but who really does that?

Sunday my sis took me to the mountains for a little drive, loaded me up on morphine and we at least let the sunshine kiss our heads as we talked and cried. She made me aware of the darkness I had let sink it...I'm shaking it off and I know it will come and go, and I can be both responsible for me and expectant of miracles at the same time. All these things collide in this odd and beautiful dance unlike anything you can imagine if you have never walked it. It is a lonely place, and yet, the support I have is incredible...I'm in a strange paradigm.

My friend Nancy shared her survivor story with me again last night, and the switch went off: I still have time. I am not in my grave yet. The voice in my heart told me to fight, to make goals, to nurture myself and to put on my bad ass armour and fucking fight like hell (excuse my language). Today all I could do, thanks to being doped up on morphine for the groin pain, was lay in bed, ogle Pinterest and watch Facebook; there were no doctor's appointments, nothing that had to be done. Family friends graced my bedside chair all day encouraging me with hugs, love and laughter. I am not alone and I feel alone at the same time. BUT I feel stronger, more hopeful and more authentic knowing this is my story, crappy as it is, it is not finished! Both the struggle and the calm are beautiful and now being able to recognize that this is truly real, freely empowers me to process it, to feel the rawness of it and to move forward into both good days and challenge. I will have equal numbers of both and I am so very deeply thankful that I am never truly alone! The tribe that I have is bigger, more enormous in loving me than I will ever understand, and Spirit, is still here. As always. Bring on the new drug, the adventure, the eff off cancer attitude and a willingness to rest, fight and be in the battle. Here we go!

Chemo #2

Some of the lovely gifts from the Wiggin' Out Party - THANK YOU!!

Last week was my second chemo and although it went better than the first one, I still got sick, but I'm learning tricks of the trade...for example, the white blood cell shot I get the day after chemo gives you massive amounts of bone pain, but taking Claratin for three days around that helps! Who knew! The day before chemo my co-workers hosted a wiggin' out part for me and decorated my head with scarves, hats and wigs...here are a few of them. I'm still learning how to tie scarves, how to rock the chic cancer bad-ass look, but so far...I'm loving he options! It was a great supportive way to go into the second dose of chemo.

Chemo this time around involved more trips to urgent care for fluids and meds; I'm more tired than anything this go around, but they tell me that is the dead cells getting flushed out of my body. My friend Christina came with me to chemo this time. I was nice to have a positive face to sit with me post conversation with my oncologist. He's serious, and hope doesn't seem to be a part of his vocabulary.  Is it too much to ask for a doctor to at least offer hope? I'm not expecting you to make everything perfect, but I simply want someone to say we're hoping for the best and we will fight together. I continue to be thankful for my tribe - family, friends, nurses - who fight along side me when doctors don't see to have that attitude. He's not a bad man; he's young with little bedside manner and less time to have experienced miracles. I'm bent on being a miracle case just to prove him wrong - that science and medicine do have limits, and meditation and faith know no bounds! Pretty sure we'll be having a conversation about hope in my next appointment...bring it on serious, oncologist man! :)

The weekend and today were rough. I started out feeling better, but then slowly progressed into nausea and dry heaves, and pain all over. The worst...I thought it would be a good idea to lay on the floor in some very basic restorative yoga poses....I guess when your body has been fighting you for about 3 months, laying on the floor hurts your bones! But at least I could laugh....yoga will solely happen on the comfort of my soft bed until further notice. :)

And the good news, my specialist and oncologist here have decided that we'll do 6 doses of doxorubicin (the lifetime max.), then I'll get a break from chemo...it could be anywhere from three months to a year depending on how it goes. They say we keep monitoring it of course then, but I'm thinking I'll keep fighting then with more natural methods. I'm still researching, but there are options. So watch out world, come October this girl is getting a chemo break!!

But magical moments continue to happen. Somehow in spite of cancer, I feel bolder, more confident, more optimistic than ever and I'm pretty sure things are going to work out beautifully!

Thank you for all the positive thoughts and well wishes through the second dose of chemo. Now for a little down time until the end of the month when I'll have a CT scan and head back to OHSU for a follow-up. We're praying the tumors will have shrunk, or at the very least not grown. I'm not so secretly praying for clear scans...#eff you cancer!

Hair.

Friday my hair REALLY started falling out...I brushed it one more time and much of what was left fell into a pile on the bathroom floor which my cat immediately wanted to play in. Weirdo.

My mom, sis and friends gathered at a friend's salon and all pitched in for the shave. It was highly liberating! I would never have considered cutting my hair short - but I was surprised that I freakin' love it! I can't wait to rock headscarves like my African friends!!

Last weekend was a whirlwind of friends and family getting me moved from my apartment back in with my parents, some good laughs, lots of naps, and finally having a bit more energy after being sick for a few days last week.

Yesterday was my first "bald" day at work - I work a scarf and my sweet co-workers shared the adventure and wore wigs, scarves and hats with me. I am so lucky to have such a great, supportive team walking through this with me.

Here they are in their wigs and hats! Amazing!

Some of my sweet supporters at Pacific Source. Love them!!

Tonight, my amazing friends hosted a "wiggin' out party" and showered me with scarfs, hats and wigs. It is a beautiful thing. In honor of Maya Angelou's death this week, I share her poem "Still I Rise..."

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

-Maya Angelou

 

I am inspired everyday by the people who read my blog, love me and support me. Going into tomorrow's chemo I feel strong, confident and well loved.  This time I'll have chemo Thursday, get the white blood cell shot Friday and fluids from Friday-Tuesday so hopefully the effects will be less horrific than last time.  I can hardly believe that it has been over two months since this whole crazy thing started with the emergency surgery...life is slowly starting to resemble some sense of normal...ok, that is still a stretch of the imagination, but I'm trying to make space for more normal in my life.
What is normal anyway? Aren't we all trying to make the best of what we have? Cancer, or not, I will dance like I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs....what a legacy you leave behind, Ms. Angelou. I am inspired.

Real.

Cancer just got real over the past few days. My hair starting falling in the shower....cancer finally feels real. Explain that to me? Its been two months since my emergency surgery, I've been to many doctor's appointments and had my first chemo and still as encouraging notes and hugs poured in I've been feeling like this is a mistake. I still thought somehow this was wrong, this wasn't my life/my body/my reality.

I stood in the shower for a long time looking at the clumps of hair in my hands. I'm not scared of being bald, some of the most beautiful women I have seen were bald, but something about your hair coming out of your head effortlessly is so unnatural and wrong. The sarcoma group I joined online told me people usually lost their hair around the two week point after their first dose of doxorubicin. Red devil indeed (the drug's nickname for the horrible effects it has on your body). It sounds like people loose ALL their hair - including nose hairs! Who would have thought...

I vacillate between feelings of how lucky I am to be alive/ supported by an incredible community/ able to work/ able to share the journey and feeling pissed that I got dealt this hand. In more lucid moments I'm grateful for all the incredible things life has given me so far - family and friends/ travel/ work experiences that I have loved/ education/ creativity and then there are the moments of fear and sadness about what I am missing out on simply being a young adult cancer survivor.

The hardest part I think is just recognizing you can't do everything like you did before...it's a sobering reality.  This morning I woke up to more weird side effects - bleeding gums again, pain everywhere and hair coming out every time I touch my head and what looked like a blood blister under the new scar down my abdomen from the surgery (they think it's just part of the healing process). The doctor said bleeding gums could just be from flossing and taking meds in the same day, the pain is just part of the chemo attacking my cells and probably just the stress/emotions of it all...or a little bug.

Today I stayed in my recliner all day. Everything hurt. I keep reminding myself that everyday won't be like this, and hasn't been like this. Today is just a rough one. I watched a trailer for a new tv show called Chasing Life coming out in June about a woman who gets diagnosed with cancer.  I hope they make it real - the aches and pain, fatigue, chemo and hair loss. The trailer just looked pretty. We'll see.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Chemo Day 1...

My incredible support team at work....Pacific Source is amazing!

Wednesday after getting the port put in I felt like I had been hit by a mac truck. My entire shoulder area was sore, so I camped out on the couch taking pain pills and sleeping. Yesterday when I got back to work I arrived to this beautiful group of people wearing navy blue and their follow your bliss shirts in support of my first day of chemo. I am so completely amazed by the tribe!

I'm doing my chemo (doxorubicin) at BMC. Mom and dad went with me to the first round to hear the consult with the chemo nurse educator prior to starting. It still feels completely surreal. We packed the gift bag from BMC with information papers on what to eat, how to combat fatigue, nausea, pain etc. and loaded my bags with water bottles, and pill boxes it started feeling a little more real. We talked through the usual side effects and the last chance call on fertility. I've decided not to freeze my eggs - it's too expensive and with my polycycstic ovarian syndrome I never was sure I would have my own kids anyway, so it seems like an expensive risk at this point. Besides, kids can come into your life in a variety of ways and there are many kiddos out there who need a magnificent auntie or god-mother! But I'll still admit it made me tear up to think of the reality that my fertility is really drying up now...I can always find sweet babies to snuggle for my baby fix! :)

The best news of the consult...I CAN kayak this summer after all! I just can't lift the kayak or do any speed racing. I'm okay with that. ;-)

The chemo session itself wasn't too bad. I'm still sore from getting the port put in last Wednesday, so my chest was swollen and required a longer needle, but I actually didn't feel it going in. We sat in recliners smiling awkwardly at the few other people in the infusion lab. My sweet nurse Janelle actually lives down the street - small world. The infusion itself was a combination of taking some blood, getting pumped full of liquid, saline flushes, anti-nausea meds, then the pump of red looking jello shots of doxorubicin, followed by more anti-nausea meds and fluids. Sunday morning I go into urgent care for the follow-up shot to keep my white blood cells up. The whole thing took about 4 hours because of the education consultation, the next session should be faster.

My parents and I had a nice dinner while I was still feeling okay, but a few hours after getting home, I began feeling sick. I took more anti-nausea meds and pain pills and inspired my mood while reading the tribe's Facebook comments, emails, texts and looking through cards.

Then the miraculous happened: UPS delievered a Vitamix! I have dreamed of perfect green smoothies done on a Vitamix for years! My cheap blender has never done the job well and I'm sure this will help in so many ways!! I look forward to making my daily green smoothie later! Thank you mysterious gift giver!! :)

 I'm exhausted. I have big plans to sleep, watch funny movies and keep up on anti-nausea meds this weekend in hopes that I won't feel too bad. They say the worst of the nausea is day three...Sunday. We'll see. Thank you again for all the support and being my cheering committee! You guys are the best!

Scary Moments & Miracles

I debated if I wanted to write this post. I've stopped myself a few times. Do I want to share the freak out moments? But then I decided, especially if someone else comes across my little blog and is hearing scary news and recently diagnosed with sarcoma or any cancer, I want them to know they're not alone. So I'm sharing...

When we were at OHSU last week, the CT scan showed some small tumors left from when the mass ruptured in my abdomen. Scary moment #1. We had hoped the scan would come clean. Then the doc said it's stage 4.  Panic set it. My life flashed before my eyes. Scary moment #2. Doc's recommendation - chemo - and the big guns kind starting soon. #3. I had let chemo cross my mind, but I am was not excited about it. At. All. The days since OHSU blurred together with most days involving tears, thinking the worst and reading HOURS of info. about cancer, chemo and alternative therapies.

Tuesday I met the doctors here again. First the oncologist, who asked for the update on my visit to OHSU and then showed me the CT scan. The little masses are in places that worry them that they too could rupture. They want to shrink them fast so they don't rupture adding more little bits of cancer spread further. He began explaining chemo - the heart test first, minor surgery to get the port put in , and chemo's risks and goals. We would start next week.

We talked questions, risks, side effects, fertility and hair. And in the end, I've decided to try it. I'll do a radical nutrition plan too (no dairy, no sugar, gluten free, limited red meat and no nightshades and focus on veggies). I'm scared. I don't have answers. I'm still reading and I plan to fight - not just with drugs, but with a lifestyle overhaul. Tomorrow I go in for an echo cardiogram heart test to see if I can handle the drug. Next week I'll have minor surgery to put the port in and then next Friday would be my first dose.

Perks of chemo? Potentially shrinking the tumors. Not having to shave my legs. Free Brazilians (do you know how expensive those are?) Perks, people! Humor and finding the bright side get me through it.

Last night I lost it. This whole thing still feels like a bad dream that I will get to wake up from. But today was bright - I went back to work for 5 hours and felt massively loved!! I am incredibly blessed by my tribe, my community and people's willingness to stand in this with me. The warrior woman in me is a fighter and my tribe is full of warriors of all kinds. I'm grateful and terrified at the same time, and my warrior woman cries, "I am woman! Back the f off cancer!!"

There are still miracles happening everyday...

1. Tribal support...there are fundraisers in the works by incredible people, people have offered to help in so many ways!
2. Gifts and encouragement encourage me daily!
3. I was given a $500 Help$ grant from The Northwest Sarcoma Foundation toward medical bills
4. I'm gaining more energy.
5. My warrior spirit is getting fiercer!