My New Year starts NOW

It is time to celebrate!! My blood tests show no more cancer! Gone. :-)

I even now have the required final stage of treatment under my belt: two additional chemo treatments after reaching "normal". Nine cancer treatments in ten weeks and I am done! Now starts recovery, building back my strength and stamina and pace of normal life. Now starts my "awesome-2018".

My 2nd-to-last visit for chemo, and right after finding out that I was in the "normal" range. Such a relief!

I'll have a little over 6 months of monitoring before we are really sure it is gone. But in most cases, the treatment that I have received does the trick. And in the mean time I can have my life back. We can all get back to normal.

Now I get to figure out how I want to celebrate. A party? Hike in the mountains? A party on a hike in the mountains? Vacations and fresh air and copious alcohol sound pretty awesome, but it also sounds really exhausting. I kinda just want to take a nap. I'll work on my recovery for a bit and then figure out how to celebrate.

I don't belong here

If you were to ask me, I would say that I am a really healthy person. I don't see myself as someone who has had health problems pop up for the past 8 years. I imagine myself to be strong and healthy and mostly invincible (though not so much with my joints anymore - I'm not completely disconnected from the reality of aging). I totally expect to live into my 90s with good health and mind. In daydreams, I imagine myself as someone who would survive a collapse in society. If our population were to be wiped out by disease or war, I would be resourceful enough to survive.

But in reality, I would probably not last more than a year if we became Yemen or Syria or the world in Station Eleven (assuming I made it past all of the non-controllable events). In reality, I am the person who develops the weird condition during pregnancy that none of the books talk about, and difficulties during labor that no Lamaze class prepares you for. I am the person who develops hypothyroidism, though no one in my family suffers from it, possibly as an auto-immune disease or possibly as a rarer version (after 7 years with the disease we are still unsure). I am the person who, evidently, gets cancer at 40 as a result of a failed pregnancy. Never knew that could happen. But it happened to me.

But I take good care of myself, and I feel like I am all the way here, not fading away. I eat really well: lots of whole foods, fresh vegetables of every color, whole grains and seeds, red meat only rarely. I drink water. I have eliminated artificial sweeteners and most processed foods. I am mindful of what chemicals I expose myself to (cleaners, bug sprays, lotions, etc). We take our shoes off at the front door. I exercise and meditate and live life with the glass half-full. I have plans in life, things to do, people to love.

So now the voice in my head says that this is all so very unfair. It isn't supposed to happen like this. Not to me. I feel like a strong, normal person who should be able to have as many children as we want without getting cancer from trying. I don't want to be having chemo and the weeks of blah that follow. I don't want my body to feel like this. I want to get back to normal, even if it is just to paint and exercise and cook dinners and sometimes clean my house. I want to be able to make plans for the day, the week, the season without the caveat that I may instead need to take a nap, locked away in my prison of poor health, all the while silently yelling that this is all wrong, that really I am a healthy person, I don't belong here!

A little help from my friends

Our amazing neighbor has been bringing dinner to us on my days of chemo injections. What is extra super awesome is that she cooks really well (nutritious and delicious!), and she brought extra meals to help us through the week and for the freezer. She could not have given a better gift.

Also helpful have been the playdates and friends knocking on the door that get Calvin out of the house and moving around. I don't have much energy to participate in games or come up with projects, so inevitably Calvin settles down to a book or video game or restless boredom. Getting him out to play makes us all feel better.

Calvin has also been extra sweet with the kisses and hugs and "giving" me extra attention, which really is a need for attention from me, haha. But I am happy to have cuddle time. And I enjoy helping to get him to bed as it mostly just involves reading our own books side-by-side in his bed for a while before tucking him in and turning off the lights. And then bedtime for me too.

Mom hopped on a plane the day after we told them my diagnosis to help me with the first week of appointments, testing, waiting and worrying. Friends and family have, and will continue to, come in and out of town over the course of this disease, helping us with childcare, dishes, meals, doctors appointments, etc. And through it all, Bryan has been there - taking days off work, going to appointments with me, helping pick up the slack when I don't have the energy to do it, taking over my responsibilities to let me sleep in and nap and go to bed early. He is there to hold me when I'm sad and when I am cold and when I'm just plain blah.

Finally, our cats have some magical 6th sense that detects when I'm full of poison and needing extra love. Maybe they can smell it, or maybe I glow, haha. Perigee (the gray cat in the pictures below) follows me everwhere and cuddles up extra close at every opportunity.

Perigee curled up on top of me, as close to my face as possible, when I laid down for a nap on the couch on the first day after my first chemo treatment. So sweet, but a little hard to breathe.

I now exist in pajamas and cat fur.

Feeling better at the end of the first week, but still needing lots of kitty cuddles.