True confessions...part one...

Hello all and hoping my American friends had a glorious Independence Day. Drew and I just laid low and watched the larger-than-life fireworks display on TV that happens every year over the Hudson River in NYC. Incredible fireworks, simply gob-smackingly awesome. Usher did the musical choreography this year and it started off on a very promising note - lots of shake your booty type hip hop tunes - and then denigrated into an I-Am-Usher-Love-Me-Then-Love-Me-Some-More-Self-Promo-Fest. Whatever. The fireworks were out of this world. It's hotter than Hades here but no complaints because the hammock is back up - just waiting for the scorching heat to pass a little so I don't scorch my already scorched-from-nuking head. I digress, as usual.

So, a couple of updates, the first of which is that I am currently enjoying a four-day respite from lying on that table, cushion under my knees, having my head enclosed in that mask and then having beams of high-powered external radiation fired at my head. It always makes me think of that scene from the Rocky Horror Picture Show - near the end of the flick - when Riff Raff and Magenta come back as the King and Queen of Transsexual Transylvania and shoot Dr. Frank-n-Furter with their laser beam super-duper weapons. Odd, I know, but there you have it. (One of THE best flicks ever!)

Oh, did I mention that I have my eyes closed the entire time the f**king cancer cells are being zinged and zapped (along with some of my normal brain cells) and that when the machine is nuking me, I see the color violet dance across my eyelids? I don't believe I have mentioned that tidbit before. In fact, I mentioned it to Drew and he (who is master of much info - I swear to God!) said it was probably because the zaps were getting close to my optic nerve. Sure enough, it's that AND it's also a hallucination. Wow, right? Hallucination ...cool. And legal. Maybe next week, I'll see another colour/color. In any event, I'm hoping this little break will lift some of the fog - even for a day or two - that seems to be squatting and making itself at home in my gourd. Really feeling the fatigue from both the radiation and the chemo, and operating at what feels like about 60% brain function. Forgetting stuff. Feeling dizzy, mildly off kilter and just kind of thick, like I should be drooling. The joint pain is still there, but it's an annoyance I can handle. Now heading into Week Five of the Dome-Love-Drug-Nuke-Festival, so only 10 more radiation treatments to go and 12 more of Le Grand Azure Pill. The latter, I will enjoy not taking for four weeks before having to ramp up the dosage for the next six months. Been reading up on some of the side effects. Sigh. On a brighter note, perhaps my eyebrows will fall out this time and I can experiment with some creative approaches - thoughts?

I spent most of the past two days reading cancer forums and other blogs - i.e. other folks who have/had brain tumours/tumors - and not only were both super enlightening, very educational and extremely comforting, but they each raised a very good point; specifically, that although we all "count down" the radiation treatments - "RAH RAH!! Only X more to go!!" - the truth is, the end just cannot come quickly enough. It's like "Oh ... shit ... I STILL have two weeks to go??" As I was reading all kinds of great information from folks who are going exactly through what I am going through, I came across the link of a young man's blog. This young man, now aged 31, was 29 years of age when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and although he was able to have surgery to remove most of it - unlike me who cannot have surgery (f**king tumor is like the Borg and made itself well at home) - he also went through the same regimen of the 30-day radiation/42 days of Temodar, followed by one year of the higher dose (holy shit, I really reeeeeeeeeealllly hope I don't have to take this shit for a year). He chronicled his reactions, his musings, his questions, his doubts, his fears and his confrontation with The Big C. I was so moved and completely drawn into this young's man life and his brutal honesty. So, it got me to thinking that I should probably open up a wee bit more and share with you dear folks what is going on in my head - if you are interested, that is. :-)

The first time I was diagnosed - i.e. with breast cancer - it just all seemed so different to me. Now, please - I am in no way diminishing the fact that I had cancer. It just seemed more straightforward. One day I found a lump in my breast, went to my doctor, had a biopsy and found out it was a Stage 2 tumor. Then, I had surgery and the tumor was gone, followed by seven weeks of radiation - yes seven. Oi, talk about exhausting - have I mentioned that before? And I kept working. I really don't know how I did it. At the time, I had no choice, however; a story for another day. And I also remember a number of folks telling me that I needed to be happier and more positive around the office. I do hope and pray that these same folks never have to go through what I am going through, because it was all I could do to just stay upright, much less try to even utter a sentence and be happy girl. I digress, as usual.

So, when the radiation was over and the fog miraculously lifted one week later (hallelujah!), I clearly remember thinking: "YEAH! This is behind me now and I am ready to MOVE ON!", or so I thought. In any event, I'm not really sure - in retrospect - that I ever afforded myself the opportunity to confront the thought of CANCER head on. The lump was just a foreign object in my boob and then it was gone. This time, though, it's completely different. This cancer is totally different. For starters, it's in my brain. And I have always lived in my head, as it were. The classic right-brain/left-brain stuff, plus the Myers-Briggs stuff (remember them?) that says I fall into 25% of the population that thinks big picture, random thoughts, context and global stuff, vs. the other 75% of the population that operates in the here and now, linear thinking, details details details, and thus thinks I'm as flaky as a Crisco pie crust (I'm an ENFP - some info below - really interesting stuff!)

That's why I gravitate to those folks who think like me, because there just aren't that many of us. I don't mean that to sound pompous; au contraire. Just trying to establish some context. 

So, cancer sets up a home in my brain - my most coveted spot - and it looks like the diagnosis is one where the treatments are going to hold it at bay, shrink the tumor, but that I will have to somehow learn to live with it, because unlike the breast cancer where the docs just removed it, this cancer is sticking around, smaller (hopefully) and held at bay, but a semi-permanent resident. So that's what I'm reflecting upon now. Defining myself in this new reality. Confronting it head on. And yes, the thoughts of mortality are in fact a little more distinct. I don't say that for sympathy, or for any cluck-cluck-cluck "stay positive - you'll live to be 80!" kind of response; a shortened life span is a harsh reality of this kind of cancer. This same young man wrote so beautifully in his blog that people tend to use the metaphor of people stepping off a sidewalk and getting hit by a truck to illustrate that life is ephemeral in nature. He goes on to say that he visualizes himself tied to the railroad tracks, like in old Western movies, and that although he knows the train is coming down the tracks - just not sure when - he chooses not to focus on the train, but rather on the sky, the breeze, the sun, the chirping of the birds, the clouds and all the other beautiful things. I feel good about the fact that I am already at that point, appreciating the here and now.

I have so much more to tell you folks - if you are interested in the outpourings of my emotional and psychological being. At this precise moment - i.e. right now - the details of the treatments seem just a detail. Tomorrow, it may be different. I need to come to grips with the fact that I will not be in the same position as I was when I had the breast cancer and be able to say "It's GONE!" It will be different and I just need to figure that part out, who I will be ... every day is literally an adventure and a journey and I look back to even one year ago and I feel like a completely different person. I read a quote from a cancer survivor who put it so simply and so aptly: "When staring cancer in the face, you learn who you are."

Thanks for accompanying me on this journey. Stay tuned... more musings on the way. Love you all.

Cancerella
xoxoxox