Today is the BIG DAY!

It's finally here! My last day of radiation! The last day of phases 1 (surgery), 2 (chemo) and 3 (radiation) of my five phase treatment (4-Zometa for another 33 months and 5-Arimidex for 5 years). But it somehow feels like I've crossed the finish line--taken the checkered flag--had a drink of the milk of healing! I'm so very ready to get my life back to normal...even if it is a "new normal" that still contains some additional treatment and of course, those twice yearly check-ups.

We're celebrating today in fine style. First, we're going to lunch with Jodi and Ed Schaffer...dear friends of ours that we both worked with in the ER some 35+years ago! Then Teddy is taking me to R Bistro which is my favorite restaurant for dinner. So actually, it's going to be a full party day!

I'm filled with gratitude for all the hundreds of ways you've all touched Ted and me and our extended nuclear family with support over the last six months. You've all made such a difference in this tough journey...turning it into a ride we could handle despite the bumps along the way! Thank you all so very much!

I'm going to keep writing the blog for a little while longer because as they say...the healing continues. For me, the healing won't be complete until my energy is back, the skin on my chest is healed, I need a hair cut, I'm back in shape, Teddy feels like "I'm back" and I've completed my first check-up! So until then, I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Report Card!

Several of you have written me in the last few days asking me how I'm doing, so here goes! For starters, I have a chest you could fry an egg on! (I started to write 'a really hot chest', but knew where that would go!) It's really burned, but thankfully my skin is still intact, so according to those who guide the radiation rays my way each day, I'm doing good. I have special stuff to apply multiple times daily and have found it most helpful to fall asleep at night with an ice bag on my chest...a new cure for both my skin and those ever present hot flashes!

I'm also pretty fatigued, not enough to really slow me down much...but just enough to take a bit more mental fortitude to get up and do what I need to do each day.

The best part though is that I have just 3 treatments left...YEAH! I go tomorrow, then Tues/Wed next week and I'm officially done with radiation on the 27th! It will be great not only to start the upward trend towards healing, but also that I won't have to organize my day around this daily treatment schedule.

I wish I could say that I'm off to my first week of NO doctor appointments, but alas, not so. I have Zometa IV again on June 3rd (which is followed by 3-5 days of flu-like symptoms) and an appointment with a genetic counselor (to determine if I need genetic testing to inform family members) on June 8th.

So it looks like my first full week without ANY doc appointments will be the week of June 15th! Praise God above...really looking forward to it!

Most of all, I just continue to feel so blessed. Literally every single person that I've come in contact with at the hospital as I go for my daily treatment, is in a far worse situation. So once again, no whining is coming from this mouth...only thankfulness and anticipation of the joy of returning to a far greater sense of wellness!

For Better For Worse

Today is Ted's and my 35th anniversary! We remarked to each other that in one way, the time has passed so quickly, yet when we stop to consider all that has happened to us across those 35 years, it feels more like 50!

So today, I want to honor my hubby! There is no luckier woman on the face of the earth than me! There is no better soul mate for me than Ted. In all the many, many ways that really matter over a lifetime together, he has always, always been there for me...and for our family.

Tonight, we'll attend a wine tasting dinner together. We'll remember the many challenges we've faced together. But mostly we'll remember all the blessings of our marriage...our love, our wonderful kids and now our growing nuclear family, our many good times with friends and family and all the lives that are now intermingled with ours in that journey. A wonderful life...a blessed life!

Here's to my Teddy...I will love you forever and always!

Clouds

Did you, like me, lie on your back in the grass looking up at clouds when you were a kid? Seeing if you could see a likeness of this or that character in the clouds? Have you since that time flown above the clouds to see the splendid magnificence of the heavenly side of them? Among the most beautiful scenes I've ever witnessed is a flight that I took at sunset that gave me a breathtaking view of cloud mountains, all painted in brilliant hues of pink and purple...glorious!

I loved my devotion this morning, as it uses clouds as a metaphor for troubles that come our way where we only see the underside of our cloud. The story goes on to point out the other wondrous side of clouds as God's view of these troubles. The last line reads..."that clouds are always moving and passing before God's cleansing wind".

So we can paint our troubles in glorious hues of pink and purple, bathed in brilliant light and only temporarily there before the next wind blows them by!

So as I'm feeling the full effects of chemo and radiation with all it's bodily symptoms...a very raw chest, an irritated esophagus and the expected fatigue...they are just temporary clouds....blowing by just for a moment.

Anticipating the "New Normal"

I've been reading ahead lately. You know...I've read tons of stuff on how to get through chemo and radiation, so anticipating that I'll be done with radiation soon, I became more interested in the last chapters of these books...all of them talk about the "new normal"!

What they write about is that when treatment is over, everybody pretty much thinks you're cured of cancer (a lovely thought indeed!) and goes back to their lives and expects you to go back to yours. And you want to go back to yours...except for this one thing...the big "R" word looms somewhere out there in a cloud of uncertainty. Recurrence! Will it come back? When will it come back? How will it come back? How does a person cope with all that normal, natural "what if" junk that crowds a head when one has just come through treatment for cancer.

From what I'm reading..it take a lot of thought work...a lot of thought reconstruction if you will...to turn those fears into something manageable and to move on with life.

I read that the worst thing you can say to a person who has just finished treatment is "Well...now that's over!" One of the books had a great quote from a doctor whose patient had asked the question..."How will I know when I'm cured of cancer?" The doc wisely answered..."When you die of something else".

Because it's never really over in terms of thinking about if and when cancer might come back. Those thoughts need time to legitimately be there in full force...get more dim with time...and finally rest in their proper place somewhere in the background of a life once again full of life and anticipation and hope and love! Like our wise elders say to us...it just takes time!

Celebrating a Moment!

It was 9 o'clock last night when I asked Ted and the Wrigster to hop up and go for a walk with me. It had been raining all day, but was warm and quiet with the air full of those clean spring smells that come after a rain. We walked arm in arm enjoying the peace and quiet and celebrating a small, but coveted moment...I had just finished grading papers, essentially completing the semester!

I remember what I felt like in January when I started this semester. I was only four days post-op from the lumpectomy. I hadn't started chemo yet. I hadn't read a single page of the 1,000's of pages of reading for both courses. I barely understood how to use the online technology we use in both courses. I hadn't met a single one of the 38 students in one course and 10 in the other. My wonderful teaching partners assured me I'd be OK, but I wondered if I would be able to carry my share of the load along with going through treatment. I had not yet gone through the interview process to assure continuance of my faculty position. In short, the moment I had last night loomed as a real challenge back in January!

So last night was sweet! It felt great! It felt so good to look back and dwell for a moment on how great the last 4 months have been in all regards! I say this all of the time, but all of you played a HUGE role in this celebration. Your support and constant words and deeds of encouragement have truly been so wonderful!

So what's next? I start teaching 'solo' (well kind of...Professor Anna is in the wings ready to help at a moment's notice)! I have 22 students that start summer school next Wednesday. Monday marks the 50% mark with daily radiation treatments, so will finish that phase by the end of May. Zometa treatments will continue once a month for three more months, then every 3 months for an additional 30 months. I'll start an oral medication soon that I will take for 5 years. And the best marker of a return to normalcy...my hair will grow back over the summer!!

So it feels like life is easing up a bit! So for the next few days, I'm just going to bask in the sweetness of accomplishment! Hope you're finding moments to celebrate too!

Mini-Me

Today was the world's largest mini-marathon...yep, right here in Indy! Ted and I have walked it twice and I must say, we thoroughly enjoyed watching it in our PJ's this morning vs. the very early morning endured by 40,000+ runners plus all their supporters and of course, the many organizers, TV personalities and volunteers.

We really enjoy watching this event on TV. The best part is that the reporters always interview people with great stories...an 87-year-old who runs just because he likes to do "what old people shouldn't be able to do", a 7-year-old from Tulsa who ran it with his Dad (beat the old man by 15 min!), father/daughter teams, wheelchair athletes, thin people, fat people, serious runners and those who are just out there to have a great time.

I felt like "mini-me", living vicariously this year through their stories and being okay with the fact that my "mini" this year has been the last 5 months. We each have our "hurdle" to cross but we all have one thing in common. We're striving to conquer something that might have overtaken us, but we just wouldn't let it!