I stopped using this blog when I was all done the chemo and radiation the first time around, but it might be time to start utilizing it again. A place to vent, a place to express, a place just to get the words out.
Words like pain, hurts, ache...
Yep, last year I think, time just keeps passing... No wait, 2015? Was that when I was re-diagnosed? I was working on a mural downtown Toronto when I bent, lifted, twisted and totally messed up my back. It was late summer. I had my 4 year all-clean check up coming up but kept postponing the appointment because my back hurt so much for so long. I had spent weeks laying on the floor trying to rock my spine back into alignment to no avail. Screw it... back pain or not, I wanted my all clean.
Well guess what. Back pain is a serious symptom of stage 4 breast cancer. Who knew?!
Turns out the little buggers came back and made themselves at home all along my spine, in my hips, and apparently in my jaw (although I don't notice any ache there).
We tried a different hormone... the hormone did no good.
Next step - total infertility and chemo for the rest of my life. As long as they were radiating the masses that were causing so much pressure in my back, they zapped off my ovaries which put me instantly into menopause and qualified me for the oral chemo.
That stuff works. But it's hard on your body. I especially suffer from chemo poisoning of the feet - red, dry, cracked, peeling... walking on Legos made of lava. Not fun.
Life expectancy. Hell if I know. Could be 3-4 years, could be 10-20. I keep exaggerating the deadline because you never know, there could be improvements in medicine. Could be that I'm just a tough old broad who refuses to die.
OK, so let's say it was Sept 15 that I was re-diagnosed... And it's Feb 17... That's 15 months I've been living like this. Dammit! I was supposed to be a success story!!!! (Or maybe I am and just don't know it.)
I think I will start using this blog a lot more. Several people have said I should write a book because of my positive outlook. My thoughts on that? Geesh, if every one who ever got cancer and wanted to share there experience in a book wrote one, man, that's a lot of downer reading. Who am I to say what it's like and what to expect. I've done my utmost best just to keep it on a need to know basis.
Like last fall when I'm doing a check up and my hospital sherpa mentions, "you have stage 4 cancer" and I was like, "WHAAAAAAT?!" I just thought it was a recurring cancer. Deny, deny, deny...
(PS: Stage 5 is you're dead, so that kind of through me for a loop.)
