CD That's Me

Once again my friend Diane’s timing is impeccable. Just to refresh your memories, Diane is my friend who is battling invasive breast cancer. I don’t think I meed to remind you how I feel about that word invasive.

Di regularly emails a bunch of her family and friends to update them on her progress, and I think to help her cope with the obstacles life decided to throw her. Today’s message was about being or doing something “normal.” And just today, I was actually singing (every now and then I break into song in my office about whatever crosses my mind) about everything that is NOT normal in my life. Professionally speaking of course, if it were personal, I would have already composed the Greatest Hits versions 1 – 39.

Di’s message is an important one that once again I wanted to share. I post this to continue to support and inspire her, and to remind me and you, to appreciate something normal.

p.s. – Di congrats on your last treatment!

It is with no sadness whatsoever that I compose this message announcing that I have received my final chemo treatment. Of course it has not gone quietly into the night and I have been feeling the pain just a bit more than usual. I know I was told the effects are cumulative, but I was still hoping to be magically better the minute my last treatment was over. Instead I felt ill most of Friday, fatigued on Saturday, had a fever with chills on Sunday, and excruciating bone pain most of the week. Oxycontin has become my closest and dearest friend these days. Sorry to all my human friends, but you just don’t make me feel as good as those little blue pills do right now. I do expect all my side effects to continue to diminish each day as I get closer to full recovery.

The results of my last Echocardiogram were very encouraging, up rom 35% to 45%. I will have another one on June 18th and if my heart function continues to improve and reaches 50% we will be able to proceed with the Herceptin treatment. No one on my medical team seems to doubt that this will happen so I am very optimistic. Of course continued use of Herceptin will require close monitoring of my heart, but Echos are pretty easy tests and very effective so I am happy to comply.

I have surgery scheduled for July 1st. This surgery will be to “clean up” the margins of my lumpectomy. When the first surgery was completed there were a couple of areas where the measurement between healthy cells and cancer cells was too close when examined by the pathologists. My surgeon’s goal is to widen these margins to an acceptable width. Although every surgery is serious, she will not be removing large sections of tissue this time. I am very optimistic that this will be successful. Once this surgery is behind me I will have all summer to recoop and hang with my boys and whatever friends haven’t fled town for the summer. I will be starting radiation treatment in the fall when the kids go back to school.

As some of you already know, my mother-in-law has been diagnosed with liver cancer. They have found it early, and we knew she was at a high risk for this because of her Hepatitis, but as you can imagine we are still in shock. My brother-in-law and my father-in-law continue their struggles with their own aggressive cancers as well. Each time we gather as a family we are reminded of how precious our moments together are. The kids are all doing well, but I worry about the coming year and the toll that all that awaits us is going to take on them. They can’t appreciate it now, but when they’re all older I know they’ll be stronger because they had their cousins to lean on and so much kindness and support from everyone around them.

I know I’ve said thank you to so many of you for your support of me, but I have to make a point to say thank you on behalf of my kids too. So many of you have given so much to them and by doing that have made their journey through this so much easier. You have made a lifelong friend of me and I will always be there for you. I have to say a special thank you to the director/owner of one of my boy’s preschool. Her and her staff made me the most amazing gift of a DVD of him at school. Since I haven’t been able to go to his classroom this year and even missed my teacher review they put together this dvd of him playing, dancing, learning and interacting with his friends at school. When you miss out on these things because of an illness to be given them back is a blessing that’s hard to describe. Again, I am amazed by the depth of love and support I have received. Thank you and God Bless you.

I have to sign-off so I can go take my boys to see Kung Fu Panda. May sound silly, but it’s been so long since I’ve been to the movies with my kids that I’m actually excited that I can do this for them. It almost feels like a normal day.

Have a great weekend. Go do something normal and be grateful J

xo Diane