Friday, December 24, 2010

Happy Everything to All!!

It's Christmas Eve, friends, and I am grateful to spend another Christmas with friends and family; and the chance to be grateful and thank all of you for your continued support.

The last few months and several weeks have been up and down. Every day is a cancer adventure and I don't mean adventure in a good way. Every time I put food in my mouth, I'm not sure if it will come back up or not. It's been quite the challenge to get ready for Christmas with all the shopping and running around when I only have energy to maybe visit one store a day and then have to come home and take a nap. But I did it! All is ready for Christmas, hooray!!! It took the help of my mom and my friend, Theresa, helping decorate our tree. It took a lot of help from Richard around the house to conserve my energy and do some of the running around. It took some help from free shipping offers on the internet, but it's true----you aren't helpless if you have cancer and feel like sitting on the couch all day, especially if you have an amazing support team like I do. I am so lucky.

I had a brain MRI and it came back negative--no new tumors. Yay for an empty brain! We will check in on the brain again in 2 months which is our schedule.

The scans that will show the rest of the body (CT, bone, echocardiogram) will be in February. The doctor wanted to put some distance between the radiation and the scans so there would be no false readings. The last CT said my lungs were clear. The last bone scan showed the spots on my spine and sternum that we just radiated, so those spots should be stable now. That leaves the pesky little liver, but the last CT showed that the cancer went down on my liver. Hopefully, it will have gone down even more and everything else is still stable.

My hair is slowly coming out in little handfuls on my pillow and in the shower but you can't really tell yet, unless you visit my shower where all the hair piles up like a nasty little chihuahua.

It has taken me almost 4 years of treatment to get this beaten down by the side effects and medicine so that might mean something like I'm a bit of a bad ass still. I hope. Having such a rough time has put some things in to perspective regarding taking of myself and my family vs. work, even if it's working from home. So, starting January 3rd, I am taking an official leave of absence/short term disability from work. My new job will be taking care of myself full-time. I hope that will leave more energy to give to my family.

I am a bit nervous about how I will spend my days, although if recent days are any indication, it will be lots of napping with my fuzzy snuggly dog, Yoda, and playing roulette to see what food might actually stay down. I am looking forward to the break, though, and just thinking about myself, which I never do. I've set up a weekly standing appointment with energy medicine/massage with the fabulous ladies at Massage Solutions on Corinne Drive. They really are amazing and have helped me tremendously.

I am also starting to look at yoga schedules to see if I can start that. Perhaps that will help my muscles relax and pull me into the right posture that I've been destroying my whole life with my hunching forward. Sanctuary!!!

I don't like the physical therapist I've been seeing so I won't be back to her after next week. She does trigger point therapy which basically means she squeezes the shit out my muscle until it releases. Quite frankly, I've had enough. I'm returning to the good old fashioned get in touch with your body and breathe technique. Let's see what the hippies know.

I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas. I am grateful for you and your support and the fact that you even bother reading my little ol' blog. I love love love you!

Laura