Happy Halloween

Rescue 911

I seem to be bottoming out emotionally. I'm just having a harder and harder time accepting my limitations.

I'm so frustrated with every facet of how my life is going. I did not see this as my future, my being too tired to work or even get the house cleaning done. I feel like part of me is crumbling.

I was 33 when I was diagnosed. I was just finishing a long battle to complete university with exceptional grades and was ready to kick off a fantastic career. I was ready!

Now I don't know what tomorrow will bring much less next year. I'm exhausted, can't seem to focus and I feel like a complete failure.

I am starting to wonder how I can continue like this. I am incredibly frustrated and unhappy and it seems to be drowning me.

Because I know I'm hitting such a low point means that I can take some action. I've always felt that there is an answer to every problem, you just have to explore and find it.

This is my action plan.

#1 is to make small exercise every day my #1 priority. I will go to my arthritic waterfit class twice a week and do the best I can. I will go for a walk, even if it is only around my block. Exercise is a definite mood lifter.

#2 I am going back to the Cancer Agency to talk to a counsellor.

#3 Reading about Lance Armstrong. He's hot, successful and he beat cancer to carry on an exceptional life.

I know I need help but I also know that I'm the only one here to do it. I'll get there.

*UPDATE: After cruising a cancer forum I remembered that coming off prednisone can cause depression as well as cause general emotional upheavals. DUH! This happened the last time I was taken off this drug and my doctor explained it all to me. Sometimes it's hard to remember all the side effects to all of my drugs. I've made an appointment to see my GP for this afternoon.

Self Portrait-O-rama

I've been MIA recently because I've been reeling in exhaustion from all of my recent appointments. I have had my 3 month oncologist appointment, gyno-oncology appointment and an endocrinologist as well as my second round of shots. All of my main appointments I have to travel for, and non of them were on the same day. I feel a little like a YO-YO. Everything is fine and the doctors are trying to work out my fatigue problem, hence the last minute endocrinologist appointment. Unfortunately he was less than helpful. What a waste of time.

I've also been an emotional YO-YO and have been finding everything difficult. Yesterday produced these 3 self portraits. I didn't plan them, they sort of rolled out on their own.

The first one I called, "I'm a Rockstar in My Own Mind". I find that my brain battles low points by creating visual or written images of being strong. If I am outwardly presented as being strong then I can feed off of that and try to feel a little better. I even added a blue glitter star and glitter eye shadow (it doesn't show in the photo). Because if I look okay on the outside then...

But not a moment after I created Rockstar, this one formed. I had started it like the first and had planned on a variation of Rockstar but something different evolved.



This is just me sitting in my car sipping a behemoth sized mocha and trying to make the best of my day...


With my wicked-cool new earrings.

Self Portrait Oct.10/2008

Completion of the Anniversary/Birthday Post OR Blogger Love

The one thing I forgot to add to my last post, was about all the amazing people I've been connected with. I had no idea blogging was such a social exercise. There have been many a day which was rough and without any expectation, people were there with their kind words and support. This shocked me.

You, the readers and commenters really helped me see myself and let me know I meant something to them. I'm not a waste of space because my bloggers say so!

Everyone has those days of why? What am I doing that's worthwhile...and then come the beautiful comments. My greatest treasure gained by blogging, has been you.

Thank you.

thank you

Thank you

One Year Bloggaversary

WARNING< written while on sleeping meds.


So, I've been writing my blog for 1 year. I started it for a few reasons. I had being desperately trying to connect with other people my age who had been though cancer and were more honest with the way they dealt with it. What I mean by that is they didn't subscribe to the stereotypes that are fed to us on a daily basis through the media and campaigns. "Be positive," "Cancer is a gift," "I am now ethereal being who has seen the light!"

I don't think so. There was so much seriousness and sadness out there but I love to laugh. I had to fight to be me. This fight was particularly hard because I had been through hell for a year and had been tapering off medications that made me ill and kept me from sleeping. I had been coming out of my fog to freedom. That was when the GVH popped up and started attacking my liver. This petrified me because I watched someone die slowly of liver failure from GVH disease. It was not pretty and I was terrified for my liver and my life. I received the news that the prednisone(evil) was back on again.

I knew the drill for the rate of deterioration my brain and body would endure. I felt fine for a month and then the symptoms rolled in full force. I was a zombie again, unable to function or retain any memory. By this point it was the summer and I was unable to take care of myself or my kids so they went to my parents. I spent that summer day after day alone and frustrated. Frustrated with my body, frustrated with how the world perceives cancer and for the lack of it being acceptable for a cancer patient to BE angry. I was angry, fuck it all dammit!

I scoured the internet looking for others but kept finding abandoned blogs where the writer had died. I felt quite grief stricken then. I wanted to find live people! I wanted proof that I could live and come out of this with flying colours.

I remember spending most of my summer on the hammock on my patio unable to move. I was too exhausted to make meals or even get a glass of water. I hated everything then. I hated my useless situation and I was burning to prove that being angry and being yourself when you had cancer was ok. Hell, it's necessary! Before I knew it, in my angry ass busting mode, I created a blog.

I knew nothing of my computer and I didn't know what a blog was. I just did it anyway.

The second reason was because I'm the strong silent type who keeps in all the hard stuff. I don't want to be seen as weak or as having needs. Idle chatter is not my thing. Talking about myself is not my thing. I've actually frustrated many a person I've known because I don't share or divulge much of myself. This blog helped me stretch those boundaries. I'm always about stretching boundaries because I am about pushing forward and my forward with cancer was to try and express it.

My way. Whatever I wrote, it was for me.

I also wanted a blog that would touch others and hopefully give them something good they could find when in they were feeling distraught. I would create the thing I wanted to see.

I also wanted to tell the truth.

Physically I'm not where I'd hoped to be today. I'm now back to the point I was over a year ago because my liver got better and the prednisone has been dropped. I'm still in a middle mode of healing. Where I will be in another year, I can't even tell. But I hope I'm still here.

Being here is good.

By the way, I turned 36 and I am SO thankful to be 36. 36 Rocks!

Climbing Mountains

I was rummaging through a random disk and found photos of my sons surprise spelunking birthday trip.

I planned it all out and woke him up early in the morning saying, guess what we're going to do today? Then we drove a few hours and crawled around deep pitch black caves with crystallized spiders and stalactites. It was so dark and quite down there that you could hear your own heartbeat. The flash of the camera made it possible to see the cave walls in these photos.


I squeezed through places in the darkness that I never believed I would have ever gone! I felt like spider woman because up and down didn't seem to matter too much. I could climb everywhere.


I wish this was the mom my kids remembered instead of the slow "lazy" one they have now. These were the days when I could tackle any mountain. I felt powerful like I could conquer anything. I could wrestle lions, earn honours degrees and still read to my kids at night. I guess I got that over the top challenge that I thought I could deal with.


Too bad I looked so geeky on the way home.

Cellular Revolution

My self photo portrait became a drawing. The drawing represents what I vision in my head about the fusion of my cells and the cells from my brother. I often imagine them all mingling and coexisting happily together to keep me healthy and safe.

Happy cells = alive me.

There is no place for cancer in my visualizations. I do not see them so they do not exist. There is nothing but purity and light.

Pain is My Playmate

I'm laying here covered in hurt. During my hiatus from the computer I visited my GP about my carpel tunnel. It had gotten so bad that my shoulder hurt and I couldn't hold things or drive with out serious pain. Every thing I do feels like walking through neck high mud. It's hard.

When I asked my doctor about what was happening and described what I was going through, she told me I don't sleep at night and end up wrenching my body into weird contortionist angles to try and get comfortable. She asked a few questions and BINGO. I realized she was right. She told me to go get wrist splints and then one of the molded pillows. She also raised my sleeping medications. The first few nights I felt like a freak. Isn't all this cancer/stem cell/puffy prednisone head shit enough without adding insult to injury with cripple splints? I felt like a monster.

I drove around to several stores looking for one of those freak pillows. I was so steaming angry while I was shopping that I'm sure I was spewing nuclear grade energy out into the biosphere. There was no one anywhere in site to help me find the freaky P. I had to drive to another mall. There was a young couple registering for their wedding in the line in front of me. I had had it! Then I growled at the price and dickered her down until I got it for $24. I left down that escalator hoping to not end up like this gentleman. (escalators are my nemesis). Damned you vile escalator!



After I got home I braced for an uncomfortable night but as soon as my head hit the much expensive pillow, I was in lala land. I slept like a rock.

After a week I started to feel a lot better. My pain started slipping away. My days were easier and I was functioning at an acceptable level for the first time in a looooong time. I realized I could have a life! I bought a few clothes and a couple of hair accessories and I felt human again. I even started a waterfit class! So, it's an arthritic class for elderly people but it is the right place for me right now. My sleeping pills were only raised for a week, so I'm slipping down into the pain and soft tissue damage at night again. But at least now I can discuss this with my oncologist and see what she says.

I've been in bed these last 2 days because the elderly people kicked my ass in that last class. They are much to fast for me! I'm really not sure about going again tomorrow but we'll see. Maybe I'll be the one kicking ass soon?

At least now I know there is a solution to my pain problems and that makes me very happy and hopeful.