Champagne and Sunshine

My happy high continues – fed in no small part by each new boisterous comment from you, my indefatigable invisible friends; my rag-tag scrappy support crew; my beloved cross-section of the very finest stuff on earth! 

Last evening, in a room flooded with sunlight, my husband and parents and I drank champagne on my bed while Georgia clambered around excitedly, flailing limbs and causing repeated near-spills of the precious elixir. (Luckily the French have special Jedi reflexes when it comes to champagne spills: my husband’s hand would automatically and deftly stop the falling bottle from hitting the floor before any of us anglos even knew it was in danger. Mais, bien sur.)

The colour returned to our faces, and it wasn’t just the bubbles at work. None of us had realized the extent of our dread.  No one had wanted to admit just how much fear we were living in, so we just kept buggering on, as Churchill would say.  And then this news!  This gift!  There was much laughter and shaking of heads in happy disbelief.

Only four adults and one little whirlygig, but the bedroom seemed somehow more crowded – I surmise that there were a lot of people with us in spirit.  Thank-you for sharing in our joy.  I also have a sneaking suspicion there was a spike in the collective tippling of this bog community last night – and why not?  It’s not often we get a chance to celebrate these days.  And one must warm up from time to time in preparation for the big party at the end of all this (when the cancer is just gone.)  But in the mean time I’m considering the wisdom of always keeping a bottle of champagne on-hand to encourage more reasons to celebrate to come my way. Can good karma be bribed with champagne?  Worth a shot.

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The Restorative Powers of Veal Scallopini

My husband and I went to a movie today!  Yes, as in a movie in a theatre! With actual popcorn! Up and out and enjoying ourselves like a normal couple on a Sunday afternoon – how great is that?  And then out of the dark theatre and into the sunny, breezy spring air, on a hunt to satisfy my latest craving: veal scallopini! (It’s almost always Italian these days, but even I was surprised by the veal.) 

Needless to say I had a great day.  I am feeling much better, and for that I thank the vino(relbine.)  Although a glass of Barolo would have been nice with the veal…

I’m as happy as I am relieved, since I had thought that by last night I’d have seen a bit of an improvement, but didn’t, and began to worry.  In fact, I was feeling so unwell last night that I made the mistake of introducing a new painkiller into the mix and ended up sweating and hallucinating on my bed for three hours.  Nothing too evil, just some white ostrich feathers waving at me from the bedroom ceiling, but still, who needs that?  And unfruling white ostrich feathers? That’s not even my hallucination — surely it belongs to my daughter’s very fabulous choreographer godfather. (Obviously from now on I’m sticking with Big Daddys.  We understand each other – I follow the ‘script, Daddy takes the pain away, and no ostrich feathers on the ceiling.)

Once I emerged from my bad painkiller trip, the worry was still there: maybe I wouldn’t get the bounce-back this time like I did from chemo last week.  I wasn’t really feeling the energy come back like it did two days after chemo last time and I began to fear it wouldn’t happen again, that perhaps it had just been the excitement of Detroit and all the hope we felt that had somehow infused me with a perception of improved health…

It was a depressing thought. But sometimes, when it’s been nothing but painkillers and lousy sleeps and gasping for breath it gets really hard to believe that it’s not always going to be that way.  That it’s not always going to suck that much.  I started to wonder how long I could sustain it, because the only time I wasn’t feeling miserable was when I was asleep, and that only ever lasted three hours at a time.  Those nights can be long, and the thought kept returning, If this is how it’s going to be, how long can I possibly last?

So now that I feel the return of my energy, I’m embracing it – but also trying not to burn out.  Trying, if I can, to store it up so I have some chutzpah in reserve for the next nose-dive.  It feels so good to feel almost normal; it makes me think I can do this. Whatever comes next, as long as I’m not doomed to be a bed-ridden vegetable for all my days, I can do this.  I can come back from this, find a way to beat back the cancer, get it out of my lungs, breathe again, and get my life back. 

Seriously, that’s what a matinee and some Italian food can do for me. Imagine what I’d be like if I got into the champagne?

A Not So Good Day

The good news is that my blood counts were fine and I was able to get Vinorelbine yesterday!

The bad news is that I came home and barfed!

My nurses think it was more likely due to adjusting to Big Daddy + empty stomach + coughing/gagging than the chemo.  Nonetheless, totally gross and uncalled-for.  I slept for about an hour before heading back to the hospital for the brain MRI.  Not easy in my state (but still, what a wonder that lying still in a space capsule while being assaulted by the sound of various pavement-smashing construction tools for approximately 40 minutes delivers a picture of my brain!)  Then home again and weak and exhausted.  And so depressed. That’s the thing, it all just wears you out.

Altogether not a good day.  A completely crap day, in fact.  But I had a better sleep last night and am staying on top of the pain today.  I’m still weak – but I have high hopes for the vinorelbine to begin working its magic again like it did last week.  Also, helping out on the emotional front, my dad is back in town and my cousin from the U.K. showed up for a quick visit, which has boosted my spirits as it always does when we see each other (which is far too rarely.) Although I have to admit, we’d both prefer the traditional pub visit to this bedside visit nonsense. 

Meanwhile my husband and mother (aka: The Executive Committee) have decided that my only job is to eat as much as I possibly can – and super-clean anti-cancer diet be damned.  All that rice and miso soup and seaweed might be good for me, but the pounds were dropping and bones are beginning to stick out where they ought not.  It was a supermodel diet and I wasn’t a particularly fleshy woman to begin with, so the effect was not that desirable.  Besides, seaweed?  Please, it’s enough to make anyone nauseated.  So, the new rule is if I want pizza, I get pizza.  (I don’t want pizza, but I do want pasta… mmm, yes, the fusilli from the Italian place down the street!) My cravings are varied and my appetite sporadic, but I’m eating.

And now, we wait for the results of the MRI.  How do you stay hopeful and optimistic while at the same time steel yourself for the worst?  Can it be done?  The CT scan was clear.  That must count for something.

Return From the Brink

Now that it’s been several days of no longer feeling like I’m actually knock-knock-knocking on heaven’s door, I think it’s time to admit that for a while last week the general consensus around here was that I was a goner. That I was on my way out, making my grand exit, rolling the credits.  That I was dying.

I’m wary of tempting fate by talking about it in the past tense, since we’re by no means in the clear, and I am still spending the better part of my days in bed.  But the difference between how I was last week and how I am now is enormous.  I just feel that how close I actually came to the Big Finish needs to be acknowledged because all of us – me, my mother, my husband, my brother and the friends who had rallied around and tried to hold me to this side of the mystic curtain – are just shaking our heads in wonder at my apparent Return From the Brink.

It is hard to say this without it sounding like an exaggeration, but just a week ago I was literally thinking that I had maybe a few weeks at best, and probably not many of them lucid, given the pain and the difficulty I was having breathing. This fear was of course confirmed by the solemn words of various medical professionals, including my dear cancer shrink.  I remember panicking that it wasn’t enough time; that it had come upon me too soon.  I couldn’t look at Georgia without wanting to hold her little body close enough to mine to feel her breathing (which she is able to tolerate for about four seconds.)  My husband and I said “I love you” as we always do, but the words got bigger and heavier, sweeter and sadder.  My mom would put her hands on my forehead to ease my headache and I could feel her trying to pull the cancer right out of my body, trying to draw it away from me and make it stop killing me.  So, even as I got ready to go to Detroit, I wasn’t convinced there was a point.

There were other, less emotional responses too.  I remember wondering if this blog might get published as a book posthumously, and thinking how unfair it would be to not get to be around when it happens.  (Who will get to sit on Oprah’s couch?? Will all of you give your permission to publish your comments along with my posts??)

I also began mentally composing my own eulogy, or a kind of farewell speech for my funeral. I know that’s macabre and a little egomaniacal, but being a writer and  a control freak I’ve been drafting some version of it since I was a teenager.  Besides, I reason it’s a lot easier to make jokes about a dead person when you’re the dead person.

I also became philosophical, wondering if I were granted a reprieve, or a second chance at life, how long it would take for me to start complaining about things like wrinkles or gaining weight.  Whether I would eventually start taking for granted in little ways the people I love and who love me.  I wondered whether I would really be able to sustain wanting and appreciating every single day that was given back to me; if I would be capable of holding on to the concept that each day was a thing once taken and then returned to me, to be treasured, to be grateful for.  To want life that much, continuously – is it even possible to function when you have that profound an awareness of your mortality?

(I swore that I would try.  I’d love to face the wonderful problem of not functioning properly in society due to an excess of awareness and gratitude for being alive.)

Anyway, it is a strange and terrifying thing to get so close to death, and stranger still to be reflecting on it when I don’t actually feel like I’m a comfortable distance from it.  Around here we’ve all begun to tentatively and somewhat incredulously talk about it, like survivors of a car crash or a house fire, still in shock, mere meters from the burning shell of a once-recognizable thing, but starting to believe that we’re safe from immediate danger now.  We’ve started to admit to each other that it really looked like I was going to die, that it could have been days or weeks, that we were all so scared – and that just as suddenly it doesn’t look so much like that anymore. It’s as though on a cellular level, or maybe somewhere near the seat of the soul, we’re all still reverberating from the enormity of it.

And yet we’re also calmer than before.  This comes partly from our new-found hope about the future (because now we believe that there could be a future for me!) and partly from walking so close to the edge, but not going over.  Having approached it, sidled up to it, we’re perhaps more at peace with the possibility of my death, but also hanging on even tighter to my life, and to each other.

Anyway, for now, even in the shadow of the Brink, it feels immeasurably good to be able to be out of bed for a few hours a day, to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air, sit at the kitchen counter, boss people around my kitchen, laugh and eat and talk.  And so far I’m not complaining about wrinkles or starting to take anyone for granted, though I did notice with some alarm that I’m in desperate need of an eyebrow wax.

Dr. Detroit!

We love Detroit!

Well, maybe not the urban wasteland / don’t-take-a-wrong-turn-sucka city proper – but we definitely love the gleaming, amazing Karmanos Cancer Center, stuck incongruously in the heart of it.  And we especially love the brilliant clinical trial leader there, who shall hereafter be referred to as Dr. Detroit.

Dr. Detroit is world-renowned for her work in testing new cancer drugs. She’s been at Karmanos for 21 years and in that time has brought so many important anti-cancer drugs to market that she’s become a bit of a cancer legend.  In person, she’s a thorough, straight-talking, personable, smart, get-it-done whirlwind of a woman – but what we liked best is that she seems completely unafraid to give us hope.  Specifically, hope that this drug will work for me. Hope that I might live.  She did it in part by saying that for HER2+ cancer, TDM1 is the best drug she has ever worked with. 

This is the first time we can remember sitting in the presence of an oncologist who will use a word stronger than “interesting” to describe a trial drug and its potential benefit.  And frankly, I really would like a drug to do more than “interest” me, especially if we are going to have to travel several hundred miles every week and raise several tens of thousands of dollars to get it.

Anyway, there we were, listening to Dr. Detroit and feeling the unfamiliar buoyancy of hope for the first time in forever. Amazingly, I was also feeling more energetic than I had in weeks, which was unexpected, especially after the long drive Wednesday (we’ll be taking the train next time.) In fact I’d been totally exhausted when we checked into our room on the hospital campus the evening before, and had a low fever as I got into a hot bath while my husband went out to forage for food.  (Let’s just note here that driving around downtown Detroit after dark with Ontario plates and no idea where he’s going is not what I would describe as typical of his intelligence and good judgment, but he did make it back in one piece.) By the time he came back, I was feeling better, sitting up reading in bed, and he remarked that I had colour in my cheeks again and wasn’t coughing continuously.  “I don’t want to jinx anything,” he said, “But do you think the chemo could already be working?”

In the morning, I was even better.  Neither of us could believe that I was able to walk across the hospital grounds to the clinic, and then sit, eat, talk, and just generally function at an almost normal level.  It was a surprise to both of us; hard to believe I was the same woman who, four days earlier, couldn’t get out of bed to get a glass of water. Mind you, four weeks earlier I could go for long walks and chase pigeons through the park with my kid…  Anyway, we were just happy that I didn’t seem quite so ready for the Final Curtain anymore.

So when Dr. Detroit remarked that I presented a pretty darn healthy picture for someone whose records note that her oncologist had been recommending palliative care, we confessed that this returned energy was new.  “Hm,” she said, “Maybe the vinorelbine is already working.”  (More hope!)  It turns out that far from disqualifying me from the trial, she wholly endorses me getting chemo and has encouraged me to continue to get it weekly, if possible, until the 21-day cut-off point.

So, if all goes well, I can begin the trial in May. I will get TDM1 plus two other drugs, pertuzumab and Taxol.  They’re being tested in combination for the first time together, which is why this is called a Phase 1 trial, but the drugs themselves are not Phase 1 drugs – they’ve reached far beyond that – and I am optimistic that they can really help me.  

What if it works?  I think it really could.  Really, I do, because Dr. Detroit does, and she’s been around the cancer block a few times.

But first, all must go well. Meaning I have to get through at least five more weeks without my health deteriorating any further, I have to navigate the not inconsiderable administrative hurdles of getting my records transferred to Karmanos, I have to continue to get vinorelbine (and even lobby to get an extra dose, if possible) and I have to raise massive amounts of money.

But most important of all – and here, ladies and gentlemen, is the catch – there can be no brain metastases. Because if there is, I am not eligible for the trial. Period.  

Or, as I like to say, if there is cancer in the brain, I can’t get on the train.

So, even though the CT scan was clear, everything now depends on an MRI of my brain. I believe I can get through all the other challenges, but this one thing I just can’t control.  Why is there an aura in my right eye? Go away, damn aura. Out damn spot!   Becasue having just found hope again, I can’t stand the idea of losing it so soon.

The Narrow

Still exhausted and weak but now capable of being vertical for short periods. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you — your words carried me and comforted me.  As did my mother, my dearest friends, my family, and my incredibly incredible husband.  Everyone managed to hold me together, distract Georgia, feed and water me (despite my protests), prop me up, tuck me in and generally get me through.  Their care and your messages reached me through the fog of fear and pain and reminded me that when I fall I can stay down for a while.  And then I can come back up swinging. I’m not lacing up my boxing gloves just yet, but at least I’m eyeing the ring again.

My husband on the other hand seems to be in full swing.  Today he woke up and left the house early for an unscheduled confab with my oncologist.  By 10:30 I was having a CT scan of my brain, by noon, bloodwork, and a couple hours later, chemo. It’s the one we were holding in reserve, vinorelbine, and my oncologist made special arrangements to get it administered today so that I can still go to Detroit tomorrow.  And I am going to Detroit tomorrow, oh yes I am. If I have to be carried into the car and out again at the other end, I’m going.

My uncooperative and obstinate cancer may not respond to this chemo — given its history of response to standard treatments — but then again, it may. Even if it slows down just a little bit, it will be worth it.

This chemo may also get me disqualified from the Detroit study, but then again, it may not. My family, my oncologist and I all agreed that we have to take that chance; I simply can’t go another 5 weeks without trying some kind of treatment.  Some kind of something.

So, even though I am typing this with one hand and only one eye open while lying down in a vegetal state with an excruciating, pounding headache, I am actually feeling better.  All is not lost.  There is action, so there is hope. 

And best of all? The CT scan showed that my brain is CLEAR!!!  I was warned not to get too excited since an MRI will be required to be sure that there is nothing evil lurking in the neuro-spaghetti, and of course those pesky “auras” and headaches still need to be explained… but don’t get too excited about a clear brain scan??? That’s a tall order, given the shortage of good news around here.  How about just being incredibly relieved and grateful that today at least I don’t have to reckon with cancer in my brain.  Today, and maybe a few more days.  Maybe lots more days.

Yes, I can hope, and I try to.  But yesterday I met with my cancer shrink whose horrific job it was to tell me that I also need to recognize that this cancer is crashing through every obstacle we put in its way, and the reality is that maybe nothing — no treatments or trials or anything we can throw at at it — will stop it from killing me.  My amazing cancer shrink who by the way I truly believe is one of those rare people who is doing what he was put on this earth to do (he really is that good at it.) Unfortunately this is what he was put on the earth to say to me yesterday.  

Not that I hadn’t already recognized it and begun to wrestle with it on my own, and with my family and friends.  But when your shrink tells it to you… ouch.  Holy Moses, it’s real.  It’s moments like those that you realize this isn’t one of those nightmares you get to wake up from. It’s moments like those when the world freezes and you feel like you have just glimpsed the way the whole thing works but it doesn’t matter anyway because all you want to do is love the people you love and live the life you love living… except maybe you won’t get to do that anymore. 

What do you do at a moment like that?  I just cried big fat gigantic splashing tears, and when they slowed down enough that I could look him in the eye I said, “My god. I’d really f**king hate to have your job right now.”

So this is where I am.  This is where my family and I have to live right now: on this razor’s edge, this impossibly narrow place right smack between the terrifying reality that perhaps nothing can stop me from dying from this cancer, and the slim shiny hope of a clear brain scan and a meeting in Detroit.

And so far, the only way I have found to stay sane while living in this narrow place is to say it to myself every day, several times a day, and many times throughout the night: 

but what if it works?

Chasing Trials South of the Border

Yesterday marked five weeks since I last received treatment for my cancer, thanks to low white blood cell counts preventing treatment in the weeks before my last CT scan.  Five whole weeks since the last time I was given anything at all with which to combat this disease.  They may say my cancer is unresponsive to treatment but something must have been making a difference, because in the past few weeks the cancer has noticeably advanced. I can literally feel it advancing. There are lumps in places there never were before, and the old, familiar (once disappeared!) lump in my neck has grown to the size of a ping pong ball.  Plus, my breathing has become a bit more laboured, and my coughing fits are sometimes so violent and unrelenting that I end up in tears.

To have the little flickering light of opportunity that the Montreal drug trial represented snuffed out at a time like this was utterly devastating.  Universe, you are a turd-head.  I ask it again: Why do Nazi war criminals and child molesters get to die of old age?  Who’s in charge here? And don’t give me that “mysterious ways” crap.  Come over here and watch me try to catch my breath long enough to read my kid a bedtime story and then talk to me about mysterious ways. It’s like the universe is being run by a schoolyard bully who is high on acid and has grown weary of torturing cats.

Alas, crying “Not fair! Not fair!” isn’t going to get me anywhere. My husband and I wiped our tired eyes and dusted ourselves off.  Time to get back on our feet, yet again.  Time to act.

So yesterday we went in to see my oncologist, fully prepared to coerce, plead, blackmail or otherwise drag her into a more active role in our desperate pursuit of a drug trial.  Instead, we were pleasantly surprised to find that she was instructing us on the need to take immediate action and to move ahead with applications for all potential TDM1 clinical trials simultaneously. Her sense of urgency, it turns out, is equal to our own. Perhaps greater — I was almost alarmed at her no-time-to-lose approach.   

In addition to the Great Trial Chase, we covered every physical concern I have, from the ping pong ball to the coughing fits. She made suggestions, proposed options, and was sympathetic but serious.   

In short, I felt in every important way that I’m still her patient, and that she is committed to giving me the best care she can, even though this clinical trial quagmire is relatively uncharted territory for her too.  She is “very busy” it’s true, but she is not the problem in this equation.  If I point my finger (and I do) it’s not at her. I’m pointing it at the system’s treacherous gap, the one into which I have fallen and am struggling to clamber out of.   

Anyway, while feeling good about my oncologist is important, what really matters is that we are once again moving toward doing something to push back against this cancer: We left with the enrollment process underway for three different TDM1 trials at six different sites in the U.S — several of which we have unfortunately already heard are closed.  It’s a nail-biting time, trying to get into these trials. And while we have always said that what matters is that I get the right drugs, and not where I get them, the logistics and finances of pursuing treatment in the States are a bit daunting.  But we’ll figure something out. First, I need to be accepted into a trial somewhere, then we’ll figure out how to get me there.  We have to.  What choice do we have?

I really believe TDM1 is promising, and right now all my energy is being directed at getting into one of these trials. I’ve literally been at it since I woke up this morning.  I forgot to eat.  I forgot to take my vitamins. I ran a bath and let it get cold.  All that matters is getting into one of these trials.  Okay, eating matters too.

But will it work?  Something has to work.  Last week, caught between the nightmarish fear of my own death and clinging to the faint glimmer of hope represented by the Montreal clinical trial, I tearfully asked my friend Eden, “But what if we go through all of this and the clinical trial doesn’t work?”

And she said, “I know. But what if it does?”

Happy New Year… In the Mood for a Party??

As exhausted as I am from all the whooping it up I did over the holidays, I’m contemplating throwing a huge party.  For myself, in fact.  It might even be a surprise party, since I don’t know exactly when it’s coming.  But it’s coming. Champagne, dancing, balloons, cake, tequila shots, fabulous party dress (and shoes), fantastic food, kids falling asleep under tables, neighbours complaining – the whole nine enchiladas. 

The idea came as I was getting ready for New Years Eve, thinking about what I wish for in the New Year.

You don’t have to be particularly clairvoyant to figure it out.  Obviously, whenever we get the chance to make a wish in this family, we pretty much all wish for the same thing: that I become completely free of cancer. (Well, probably everyone but Georgia, who I figure is entitled to wish for pet unicorns.)

I was thinking back to all the New Years wishes in the past and how having cancer has distilled my wishes into this one thing: to live. Because just like every other family, we have lots of other stuff going on that we could wish to make better or easier or even just plain go away… but facing an illness that is sneaky and life-threatening and a giant pain in the @ss makes wishing to be rid of it kind of an easy top pick for the ol’ wish list.

And then I got to thinking how very sick and tired of having cancer I really am. Truly. Ca suffit, already.  I got to thinking how badly I want this wish to come true — how much I just want that life back where we didn’t know what it meant to have to fight and fear and hope with such desperation and hold back the tears or let them come and just deal with it all the time.  I got to thinking of my favourite dream, which is to hear myself telling and retelling a story that ends with “…and then it just sort of disappeared, and the doctors still can’t find any trace of it anywhere, all these years later!”

I want to say that sentence more than anything in the whole world.  And preferably sooner rather than later.  And that made me think maybe I should up the stakes for this wish of mine; add a little incentive to make it come true.  Put my money where my heart’s desire is, so to speak. 

Hence the party idea. So this year, with my one wish in mind, I am formally extending an invitation to come celebrate with me when it comes true.  The day I hear that I am free and clear of cancer, I’m inviting you all to a party to celebrate cancer’s demise and my freedom from its tyranny. I’m daring cancer to make me make good on this.  

And I’m extending the invitation to every single person who reads this blog: you and your kids and partner and really whomever you deem a worthy attendee, capable of whoopla and hoopla and just generally givin’ ‘er. 

I’m not kidding.  I’m confident that I can totally pull this off because I happen to count all of this town’s best event producers among my closest friends (including my mother) and when I say I’m throwing a Sayonara Cancer party, I know I’ve got the resources to back me.  I may not have the space to cram you all into my house, it’s true, but whatever the venue, the theme is the same: Sayonara Cancer. Bye-bye Jerkface. Adios Gigantic Bummer.  And don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, etc.

So what do you say?  RSVP at your leisure.

The Plot Sickens

Apologies about that mysterious reference to “developments in development” – I was waiting to speak to my doctor, and now that I know what is going on and have shared it with family, I can finally blog about it.  Basically, the nodules in my lungs have turned out to be metastasized breast cancer.  

This means that somehow, in spite of the lymph nodes shrinking and stabilizing, the spots in my lungs managed to multiply and grow larger.  Those very same spots I saw on the CT scan in the solar system of my lungs – those tiny little flecks indistinguishable from all the other tiny little “normal” flecks – are in fact gigantically evil.

We were devastated and enraged when we heard the news, especially after having felt so buoyed by the stabilization and shrinkage of my lymph nodes.  I did a lot of crying, and a lot of raging this past weekend; a lot of fantasizing about smashing things (windows, pieces of furniture, cancer cells…) and a lot of asking the universe if it couldn’t have just cut me a little slack for once?  Really, how much hope-bashing is allowed?  How many bounce-backs do I have to make? 

But, after having to gone to some very dark and scary places, I was surprised to find that I could come back from them again.  I resurfaced.  Once again, the will to live my life and beat this thing has prevailed over the fear that it will beat me and take my life. Or prevailed for now; it’s a bumpy ride, I’m bound to fall off the hope wagon from time to time.

What helped enormously was having a long talk with my oncologist yesterday.  Apparently it is unusual that some areas would respond to treatment while others do not (of course I have to be special.)  However, it is not at all unusual that the cancer would affect multiple organs.  It is also not unusual for people live years and years and years just firing at the moving target of metastasis.  Years and years and years.  So, looks like I should continue to look both ways when I cross the street and keep wearing my bike helmet.

My oncologist’s recommendation is that we change course of treatment immediately to something that might be more effective in hitting ALL areas of activity, because she is especially concerned that I don’t become too symptomatic in the lungs, since it’s not fun to be gasping for breath and this cough is already super-annoying.

So my new treatment is a combination of drugs called gemcitabine and cisplatin, administered through IV in the chemo clinic, starting tomorrow. Off the pills and back into the veins! Actually, I’m kind of ready to abandon my current side effects and try out some new ones.  I’ve been told to expect nausea and tingling hands, but with any luck my bad dream about losing my hair won’t come true — my oncologist says there could be “some mild hair thinning or loss.” Sounds a bit patchy to me, but we’ll see.

In the mean time, onward. On Friday my friend Chris wrote me an e-mail and in it he said “The universe loves you.”  I really need to believe he’s right.  I just wish it wasn’t such tough love.

Losing My Marbles in The Hope-Fear Continuum

On Friday I had CT scans of pretty much everything but my arms and legs to check the stage of my lumps and bumps as compared to three treatment cycles ago (that’s  just over two months ago.)  We’ll get the results Thursday morning, when I go in for my regular clinic appointment. 

Normally a head scan wouldn’t be included but I’ve been having some dizzy spells and frankly they’re freaking me out a bit.  Despite my best efforts, the words “brain tumour” crept into my mind like sneaky little spiders leaving clingy cobwebs of fear behind.   Reassuringly, my oncologist said that the problem is more likely related to circulation (it mostly happens when I stand up or get out of bed) but since I have a pretty good record of reporting symptoms that turn out to be indicators of disease progression, she’s not messing around. She tagged an “urgent” head scan onto my scheduled CT so we can get all the results at the same time. 

And so here I am again, trapped in the hope-fear continuum, as I always am whenever I wait for the results of tests like these.  No matter what I’m doing – working or buying groceries, talking or typing, listening or laughing – I can feel the almost magnetic tension between the poles of hope and fear.  It feels like walking a tightrope, where any slip can hurl me either into terror or wild optimism.

And this time in particular there’s a lot going on, pulling me in both directions.  There is the fear that the scans will reveal tumour growth or new spots, possibly in my (gulp) brain.  I’ve also noticed pain at the site of my original tumour, the one long-ago removed, and …is that a little lump under my arm?? 

But before I spiral down into the murky depths of Fearsville, let’s just shake off the slime of terror and foreboding for a moment and give the other end of the spectrum a chance.  Because there is also the lure of hope: pure and shiny and just as powerful a pull as the gravity of fear. And this time, offsetting the whirlpool suck of fear, I have to say hope’s got a pretty good leg-up. This time, I actually believe I have reason to be hopeful – dizzy spells and phantom tumour pain notwithstanding. 

Even though I’m superstitious enough to hesitate to blog it out to the universe for fear of jinxing myself, I’ve decided that I will share why I’m leaning toward hope because I also have a cockamamie theory that other people wishing for it too might help to make it come true.  So, here goes: I can feel that the lumps in my neck are getting smaller!  Its not just my imagination – my oncologist has on two occasions made a happy/surprised face and a little “Hm!” sound when examining me in the past few weeks.  (She is not the overly effusive type, so for her, I like to think “hm!” is the equivalent of jumping up and down and high-fiving me.) 

Anyway, I’ll know on Thursday. In the meantime I’ll walk the tightrope and try not to go completely mad.  Although I confess I’m rubbing my shrunken neck lumps like lucky pennies, and giving my brain and under arm lump 800-pound-gorilla status just by dint of the concentration it requires to not think about them.  

Luckily, I had a visit with my amazing cancer shrink yesterday, and he says “What-ifs” are strictly off limits.  No matter how positively you spin a What-if, reasons my amazing cancer shrink, it invites its opposite, thereby opening the door to anxiety.  And nobody wants to live in that house, located, as it is, in the reeking swamp of Fearsville.  So I just have to stay with what I know, which, right now, is …nothing.  Nothing is pretty hard to hold onto – but even if it’s not as great as good news, it’s still better than bad news.

Holding onto nothing… Oh my, my, my.  That’s the thing about cancer: you might beat the disease, but you’ll probably go crazy doing it.