No more Radiation!

I have decided I am done with radiation. I feel good with that decision. I was supposed to do 28 days and I did 24 days. So I think that is good. The pain is awful and can only imagine what it would feel like if I did 4 more days of being fried. It will now take 2-3 wks to heal. I do hope the pain goes away soon and that it does not last. Radiation can cause adhesions and that is what causes pain.

I am getting nervous now for the next part of this horrible cancer dx. I am supposed to do surgery. I haven't decided if I will do it or not yet. I will meet with all the different drs again and then decide. It is not simple surgery or this would be easy to say yes to. It is a huge change in my body and pain and a long recovery to go through and not even sure how helpful it will be for my cancer to stay away not reoccur when the odds are so in favor of reoccurring even if you do surgery.


"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."
Elizabeth Edwards, RIP

I hope I can get to that point. Still very far off for me but I think I have moved that way an inch or two since the beginning of this.

Cancer is so so cruel

Cancer is so cruel. Cancer comes and hits someone once but why do you have to come and hit someone again. Cancer is so cruel.

I am so upset over hearing more news of cancer coming back to people who fought it and won, for a time, it shouldn't be that way, you fight it once and it should be done, you did your time, it messed up your life and everyone around you and used your strength and yet it comes back for more fighting. And even when it doesn't come back cancer leaves its fear of coming back with every dr appt and scan and blood test you have. I HATE CANCER!!!!! It takes and takes and takes. I can not fight cancer. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE God come and fight this cruel cancer!!!!!

Off ball and chain for now

I have gotten worse, even from this morning when I was at the chemo dr. They took me off the ball and chain (aka 24/7 chemo pump) until Monday when they will test me again to see how I am doing and if I am feeling better. My feet have gotten so much worse. I can barely walk as of tonight. It is like I am walking on rocks. My feet are numb and sting and hurt all at the same time. My stomach has also been hurting nonstop. Hopefully with stopping the chemo I will start to feel some relief soon.

You look good, you sound good

I remember saying that to others. I wonder how they felt when I said that. I know I for some reason don't like it so much. I look good? I have never had so many comments about how good I look until I got cancer. I don't think anyone told me I looked good before I got dx. Maybe I didn't look goo then. So I am supposed to be happy that I look good and feel happy when people say it to me but I do not feel that way at all. I even went to the cancer "Look Good, Feel Better" program they have. It is all about looking good with makeup, wigs and then you will feel better. You get free makeup. It sounded like a good idea and for that time I felt normal girls night out doing something normal and meeting other woman who understood. But in general it doesn't matter if I look good, it doesn't make me feel good. And so I guess that is the sting when I hear (again and again) you look so good. I know the other meaning of this phrase is also really "How can you look so normal and have cancer?" I know that is what I think all the time. I am so normal looking and yet I have this cancer.

Another thing that has annoyed me is "at least you haven't lost your hair". Yes, I have lost my hair. Yep, not completely bald so maybe I shouldn't complain, but you know that won't stop me! :-)

I am fried

I have started radiation, hopefully I won't get too fried. I am doing all the precautionary stuff I have learned from the colonclub message boards in hopes it won't get too bad. It took me about 7 times not to cry during the treatment. It sucks doing radiation more than the chemo for me. Sitting in the chemo chair seemed normal to sit. But to lay how you have to lay to get pelvic radiation is uncomfortable and embarrassing. It is every day, like a job you do not want to go, except you get paid in awful side effects. If I stay on track I will be done on Dec 10. Except the frying doesn't stop, you still keep getting fried for weeks afterward.

My blood counts this week was low so they reduced my chemo dose and I will go back Thursday to get it rechecked.

During the radiation I still get chemo in the form of a pump "fanny pack" that I wear 24/7 never taking it off just refill it and get a new needle and tubing every Monday. The "purse" it came with was awful and ugly. It had a plastic strap that was thin and would dig into my shoulder. So I found my own purse to put my chemo pump in and it is much better in terms of looks and comfort.

I will not tell all

As I have already said this blog will not be helpful. And even though it may seem as if I am telling everything I am going through and every feeling I feel, it is not. It is too much and too much of things some people don't want to know how it really is. I know before this I had NO CLUE what it meant to have cancer AND have cancer treatment. Sort of like before you had kids you thought you knew what it meant to have a baby but it wasn't until YOU had a baby that you really could grasp it. So unlike having a baby I wish no one have the reality of knowing about this for themself so hopefully you won't ever have to grasp and understand it.

I even feel as if I shouldn't tell my best friend all of this, it is just too bad what I feel emotiontally and physically. I don't want to bring her more down. Life is hard enough.

www.ColonClub.com is the reality of this cancer and helpful place to go or if you happen upon my blog and have cancer go there for help and answers. That website has been my place that I feel understood and not alone. Sadly, I am not alone in this. It is shocking the young people there. The moms with children. It breaks my heart to know so many others are going through this awfulness.

Star Trek

I am on a movie theme kick for my blog title posts!

Having finished the horrible FolFox chemo and now to start even more chemo soon. And I am feeling better since I am on a "break" from treatment. Hopefully the cancer is on a break too and not multiplying during this time! I have thought about how horrible the chemo is. Even my friend who is a dr calls the chemo poison. It really is poison to your body. Anyway, it made me think of the movie Star Trek the Journey Home one where they go back to Earth and save these whales to save the world (or something like that). Well, in one scene they are in a hospital and Star Trek Dr. McCoy sees a patient getting treatment for some illness and just thinks it is crazy what the drs are going to do to the patient and says something like "Is this the dark ages. What are they thinking that would be helpful??" and basically thinks the way they practice medicine is crazy and barbaric. To which I think one day people will look back and say "People were so desperate to get rid of cancer that they took poison." Just think about how we used to treat many things in the past and we would say that is crazy, how did people think that was a good idea. I feel in my heart, mind, and body chemo is poison and it is crazy for me to do it (and even more so for radiation that I will be having!) but I am desperate and no choice as the drs say "Take this or die." whenever I object to the poisons they want to give me. It sucks knowing you are doing something stupid and it will hurt you and may even kill you. It is weird to say radiation and poison is bad for healthy people but great for sick people. Doesn't that sound SO MESSED UP!