One Year

It's been a pretty uneventful week fortunately! My numbers dipped as expected but I've mostly felt good physically the last several days. I had a busy weekend running around in the heat with James and it was a blast but completely tuckered me out -- probably a bit too much activity, but oh, well. At last check Monday my numbers had come up slightly from Friday, so hopefully they'll keep doing just that. My white count is 2.4 and my hemoglobin is 9.4. So, both are still on the low side, but doing fine. A little perspective: my white count was 2.7 when I started chemo this time around (and is roughly 4-10 for the average, healthy person). Today my temperature has been up a bit, between the mid-99s to the upper 100s, and I've had the chills on and off. But with my numbers where they are, I haven't even bothered to check in with the doctor. This scenario happened a couple of weeks ago and it was nothing. If anything gets worse before I see her Thursday I'll call her. 

James woke up today stuffy, with a runny rose so fingers crossed she's not getting a full-blown cold. I think we let her stay out in her freezing cold kiddie pool on Sunday too long. Oops. I hate being afraid of her essentially when she's sick. Instead of staying away from her, I'm just really careful and when she -- without fail -- wants a drink of MY water, I let her and then just get another glass. Of course, I've been doing this even when she's not sick -- you just never know. 

On Thursday I will have my numbers checked again and will meet with the doctor. I expect her to tell me we're starting back up with Herceptin infusions soon and that's about it. I have four more of those, every three weeks, and am then expecting to be told I need 10 infusions of Perjata after that, if the results of a study to be released next month are what my doctor is expecting. Both of these drugs I take because of my HER2 positive status. Herceptin was just approved by the FDA a few years ago and apparently has made a huge difference. The mortality rate and rate of reoccurrence for HER2 positive people have gone way, way down with the use of these drugs. She may also bring up my medicine protocol into the future -- I'm not sure if I will need to start taking my estrogen blocker medicine and/or getting shots to shut down my ovaries soon or if that will wait until after I'm done with infusions, therefore being officially done with cancer treatment. 

By the time you read this, it will be the one year anniversary of my diagnosis. June 14. I remember everything about that day and I think of it often. I had that Tuesday off due to a client cancellation so Daniel decided to take that afternoon off too and suggested we lay in bed and watch a movie -- which we certainly haven't done in many years, since at least before James was born. I will now always associate that movie with that day. I wasn't expecting to get a call about the previous Friday's biopsy results until the next day, but it was definitely on my mind and Daniel knew it. We watched our movie and dozed off.

I left to pick up a few things at Trader Joe's, then was going to pick up Claire. As I was pulling out of the Trader Joe's parking lot and onto Woodward Avenue my phone rang. I picked it up as I always did for a local number, even if I didn't recognize it, because it could be a potential client. Instead it was a doctor from my midwife's office saying she had my test results and was calling because she was the only one in the office that afternoon. 

You picture it like in the movies, where you and your partner are sitting in grommeted leather chairs, hand-in-hand, across from the doctor who is sitting at a large wooden desk covered in files and papers. He or she looks you in the eye and softly says, "You have cancer," then tells you all the details and a plan of action. That is not reality. At least not for anyone I've ever talked to -- and I've talked to a lot of people with cancer int he last year. Instead, a doctor I have never met was on the other end of the line and said, "It did show a cancer." A CANCER. What does that mean? She then proceeded to rattle off the names and numbers of surgeons from whom I could pick and their numbers, saying I should get in right away and they would take it from there. It didn't occur to me to pull over and I wasn't taking in anything she was saying. 

I asked her if my midwife would know this information because I was just going to call her (we have a relationship outside of her being my midwife, therefore I can just call her) and she said yes, but I could also create an account in the patient portal and she would e-mail me the details. Again, my mind was blank. Nothing was sticking. Just as we were getting off the phone, I pulled up to pick up Claire. I smiled and asked her how her days was. She asked if we could stop at the store to pick up a few things she needed for a school project and I said we should take the groceries home first. 

I walked in the door, where Daniel greeted us and started chatting with Claire. I put the perishable groceries away quickly and walked upstairs, where I paced for a few minutes before deciding to text Daniel to please come upstairs. I debated about waiting until after the kids were in bed, but then realized that was stupid and I certainly couldn't keep this in for the next 5 hours. I shared the news with him and after just a couple of minutes we pulled ourselves together. I set to texting and calling my midwife like a crazy person and figuring out how to get into the damn patient portal. She called me back -- having no idea that my results had come back or she would have obviously called me herself. She said she would find out some details and call me back as soon as possible. It was after 5 by the time I got off the phone with my her, so I had to wait until the next day to call the surgeon she recommended, who it turns out we would have to wait a whole week to see.

Daniel left to get James while I sat in bed, Googling and staring at nothing. I tried to eat a sandwich in bed while Daniel fed the girls dinner. Then I put on my big girl pants, gave James a bath and put her to bed. I have a picture of her from that bath smiling so big -- I look at it and wonder what in the world was going through my mind at the time. 

The next morning I went to work, and every morning after that for the rest of the week. That Saturday I catered a dinner party in Birmingham, laughing with the hosts and their guests and sharing pictures of the meal to my Fresh Chef Facebook page like I always try to.  On that gorgeous, sunny Sunday we celebrated Father's Day with sushi in Royal Oak, like we do every year. I smiled and acted like nothing was wrong when I ran into friends in town. We didn't want to share anything with anyone beyond close family until we knew more. I did reach out to a few friends who I knew had gone through various forms of cancer treatment -- that's a big part of why I posted anything to Facebook and share so much here. I wanted people to feel free to reach out to me because it was so, so helpful to me in the beginning and throughout the year -- and they have. Some of them I've still never met and may never meet, but we have each other online and it's been a big help. We also chose not to tell Claire until we had more details and knew the course of action -- she was going to be away for the next week anyway. That was a good call considering it was far worse than we thought, as I sat foolishly hoping it could be taken care of with perhaps a lumpectomy and some radiation. We were so naive and had no idea what was coming our way. I worked on Monday morning, having no idea it would be the last day I would work for at least the next year. 

Why am I relaying all of this? I don't know. It's just been on my mind. I see people come into the chemo room who are clearly there for the first time and I think back to that day when we first walked through after learning what the plan was. I wonder if there's anything I can say --- anything at all that would have truly been a comfort to me back then and I know the answer is no. Although I do remember an older woman, who could probably tell I was a newbie by our expressions and my tears, telling me that everyone in the office had been wonderful and that they would take good care of me. It was sweet. I don't think that sentiment would have the same effect coming from me instead of sweet, grandmotherly figure. 

So here we are. A year later. In some ways it seems like yesterday and also seems like it's been far longer than a year, if that makes any sense. And while I should be doing backflips that the worst is over -- and really, I am so relieved -- I'm not doing backflips. I try to be honest and straightforward in these updates, so I'm going to continue that, again, particularly for others with in cancer treatment who are reading it. I know this has been passed on to many friends of friends who are at various stages of their treatment. I hear it has been helpful and to me it's not helpful to always have a smile on my face and act like everything is OK all the time. It isn't. I mean, I'm OK. But I'm also not OK. Yeah, cancer's a real roller coaster like that. 

As I've approached "the worst is behind you" stage and the one-year anniversary point, I've been having an increasingly tougher time. Maybe it's because I've been doing this for a year and my body and brain are freaking tired. In new ways I didn't know existed. The last few weeks have been rough in that way. I've been so focused on the finish line, which has kept moving. But now that what I thought was the finish is essentially here, I'm realizing there is no finish line. Ever. Now I'm looking at about 10 more months of the aforementioned infusions, and daily pills for 10 years (that sound kind of horrible to take) and monthly shots (until I finally let them remove my ovaries). And spending every day not only worrying that this garbage is going to resurface in another part of my body ANY DAY NOW (and certainly that weird pain I felt in my leg or my back that one day MUST BE CANCER), but obsessing about how I can eat and supplement and meditate and yoga it away. I talk to people all the time who have 5-10-20 years since they were "cancer-free." Then I see a blog or Instagram post or, like this morning, a magazine in the Target checkout telling me Olivia Newton John's breast cancer from 25 years ago is back and in her bones. When it comes back it's considered terminal. You still might live for quite a long time after that, but you will never again be presumed cancer free. 

I made it through this year really feeling okay most days, even when I wasn't feeling okay physically. Having a subdued but hopeful attitude. Having lots of fun when I was up for it. And now it feels like some kind of failure that it's all hitting and I'm having a hard time now. A lot of my friends with cancer seem to be maintaining their positive attitudes and why can I not? I told Daniel I feel like I've been holding my breath for the last year and I just can't anymore. It's just all coming to the surface. And maybe that's the healthy thing to do. Process my emotions and whatnot. And I say all this not looking for comfort or pity or to be told how strong or brave I am. Sometimes it's okay not to be okay and this is just one of those times. 

That being said, there is still a lot of fun and laughter and good things in my house and in my life and those are things I want to focus on creating more than ever. I am not spending all day in bed, even though sometimes that sounds like a good idea. I'm looking forward to a summer of fun and activity and feeling well, as much as I can. Visitors coming here and trips away are planned, I'm finally prepping my garden (albeit a little late in the season) and we have a lot to look forward to. Hopefully I'll be getting back to work in the next couple of months, at least in some way, and starting to rebuild -- my body, my business, my life. Even lifting James can really take it out of me -- time to regain some muscle somehow and build up some stamina before I jump back in full throttle at work, assuming I'm told by my doctor that that's something I can start doing sooner than later. 

I just learned you're not considered "cancer-free" until you are totally done with treatment. If that's true, I've got you in my sights, April 2018. Let the new countdown begin.