June 25th — Well, I didn’t drive to Panama after all. That might be due to the fact that Greg was driving and made sure I made it to the church on time, or the fact that I took a Xanax earlier that morning and wasn’t quite so intent on not doing another treatment. After drawing my blood for the requisite labwork, Dr. K tells me my white blood cell counts have recovered from their low of 300 last week. I’m at 6000! Unbelievable! The nurses had told me I probably wouldn’t reach my pre-chemo high of 4,500 because of the treatment. Dr. K said it’s because of my “clean living” and the fact that I’m young, strong and healthy. The chemo is still working at killing any stray cancer cells despite the fact that I still have blonde peach fuzz on my head, eyebrows and a high white blood cell count. I’m not feeling great physically, but mentally I’m in the game to win it. It’s nice when your healthy condition makes your oncologist smile.

June 24th — Today at Wonders and Worries, a counseling service for children whose parents have a life-threatening disease, the children made Feelings Gardens. Sara comes out of her play therapy session with a flower pot she decorated that had paper flowers sticking out of it, each one representing a different emotion. These were feelings Sara has had since finding out that her Mommy has cancer. They included some obvious and some surprising flowers: sad, angry, frustrated, exhausted, jealous, bored, confident, smug and the biggest flower of all was hopeful. Sara and I chatted about why she felt each emotion while Daniel had his turn to create a feelings garden. When he came out of the playroom, his flowerpot had only one large flower: sad.

June 23rd — Sara and Daniel have learned that certain words are bad words in our house — “stupid” being the main one. Yesterday, Sara wanted my attention to show me a play she and her best friend had put together. I was finishing my birthday blog entry so put off Sara until I could complete my computer work. Sara got frustrated and said, “is this what happens when you get stupid cancer? You have to type on the computer and can’t come see our play right away?” I automatically replied, “Sara, don’t use the word stupid.” Sara looked at me, and I swear I saw a 50 year old woman staring at me out of her eyes as she said, “but cancer is stupid Mommy. I think that’s a good use of the word.” Yes, Sara, you can use “stupid” when you’re talking about cancer because it is very, very stupid.

Chemo tomorrow — my third of four A/C treatments. Prayers that I actually go because a big part of me wants to keep driving south on MoPac on the way to the oncologist until I reach San Antonio or Mexico or Panama or Argentina…

June 22nd – Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday to Me!

I’m delighted to have turned 43 today. It feels somehow more acceptable to have cancer at 43 than at 42. I’ve survived another year, yay, even though it’s only been three months since my cancer diagnosis. It only seems like a full year.

My plastic surgeon gave me more inflatable boobage for my birthday. For those of you keeping up, I’m definitely bigger than an A cup now, but the doc says to trust him on size because this reconstruction process isn’t exactly a precise science. While in the office, he was complimenting my crazy blond curly wig and how well I seem to be doing (he’s just looking at my incisions and the placement of my new cleavage). I told him, “as long as I don’t die, everything else is manageable.” Dr. Haydon, who has to be used to my irreverent cancer attitude, says, “well, that about sums it up for all of us, doesn’t it?” I thought about what I had flippantly said and amended it, “well, even if I die, I guess I’ll manage that too.” But, I’m not planning on going anywhere since birthdays are so much fun. Let’s all plan for 40 more!

Life seems so sweet

June 19th — After receiving good news on my CT scans, today seems like such a happy day. The sun is shining, people are nice, birds are sweetly singing at the bird feeders outside our living room. It’s so funny how relative happiness is — I still have Stage III breast cancer with a long dark road of chemotherapy ahead of me, but somehow it doesn’t seem as bad compared to how bad it could be.

June 18th — Do I need to say any more? Now I just have to deal with my regular breast cancer, instead of breast cancer of the liver, lungs or brain. Thank you for the prayers.

June 17th — The brain MRI didn’t happen this morning because my expanders have a form of metal in them. So, after a few phone calls, the MRI was rescheduled to a brain CT. Since I was scheduled for chest and abdomen CTs tomorrow, I asked if we could just combine all three scans into one procedure. Yay — one port IV, two cups of berry flavored barium drink, three tablespoons of flan-like paste washed down with a cup of banana flavored barium. All on an empty stomach that’s already slightly queasy from last week’s chemo. This time around the contrast dye was uncomfortable instead of tickly. Sigh, I guess everything’s becoming less fun. I reminded Greg that if I really come back with cancer in my brain, liver or lungs, I will lose my sense of humor. I feel like I could sleep for 12 hours straight.

June 16th — Neutropenic again. This time my white blood cell count is 300. Just as a reminder: normal range is 4,500 to 10,000. I feel fine considering I’m on the verge of getting sick just from walking into the grocery store or breathing the air at the kids’ Vacation Bible School. Keep your germs to yourself for a few days, please, while my blood cells recover and I take my prophylactic antibiotics.

June 15th — Crazy health insurance! My CT chest and abdomen repeat has been scheduled for three months, but apparently Austin Radiological Association just began checking insurance authorizations this week. When they called to confirm my 7:30 a.m. appointment for tomorrow, the clerk lets me know that only the chest scan has been approved. ARA called my doctor and that office said to proceed with the scan, regardless of insurance coverage. I mildly inquired who would be the responsible party for those charges, should the insurance company decide not to pay them? It’s me, or rather, Greg, but it’s all one pot of gold since that whole “better or worse, sickness or in health” business. And a CT abdomen scan comes at the price of several thousand dollars. So, I put on my thinking cap and decide to reschedule the exam to later in the week when perhaps the insurance company will have decided whether or not to authorize the exam. And I think I’ll have a little chat with my oncologist’s office about letting the responsible party know before steaming ahead with expensive scans that the insurance company hasn’t authorized yet, but “probably will” in the near future.

So, brain MRI on Wednesday and CT scan of the chest and abdomen will be on Thursday. By the way, one of the options ARA gave me was to go ahead with the pre-approved chest CT and do the abdomen CT later. That means twice the yucky drink and flan-like paste!

June 12th — My friend Bryce relieved my troubled mind about the brain MRI.  He sent me an email that the doctors weren’t looking for brain metastasis with the MRI, they’re looking for chemo induced encephalitis, which is easily treatable. Bryce is a lawyer and not a doctor, yet it sounded like a plausible technical answer, so I queried him further. He revealed that a workout buddy who is a doctor had given him that information. I thanked them both, then thought I’d check the doctor’s credentials, given the latest “breast cancer of the eyeball” scare. When I asked Bryce if his doctor friend were an optometrist by chance, Bryce sent a one-word email, which completely banished all doubt as to the credibility of the medical information:  neurosurgeon.

Thank God for well-connected friends who are willing to share their neurosurgeon work-out buddy’s medical expertise. Not that I want to have chemo-induced encephalitis, but I think I’ll take it over brain metastasis any day.

Prayer requests for this week include my follow-up CT Scan (scary flan-like paste) to check my liver and lungs and the Brain MRI.