A few weeks ago when I was low I posted something on social media saying I was struggling really badly after chemo.
And you people came through for me...you sent me messages of love and support, you wrote comments that made me feel loved and stronger...the people in my life showed up for me and for that I am so grateful.
No warrior can go to battle alone---you can't fight all the giants without others to fight along with you and I'm so blessed to have friends and family who show up with their swords and pikes and fight along with me by keeping me safe and strong with their loved.
You have to have people who SHOW UP FOR YOU.
And you people show up in a big big way!
I can't thank you enough---because it is very easy for me to feel alone since I live alone, my kids are elsewhere, I don't have a man in my life and all I have is 3 cats to talk to and they are very sassy and unhelpful because they only want to be fed and petted.
I know I whine a lot about being alone and without love in my life.
I do truly feel the love you all give me and the support.
And as a dear old friend wonderfully pointed our the true loves of my life are my kids.
But I do get lonely...and many who tell me to "look at all the love you get from friends" have a spouse, partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, or are happy to NOT have a partner.
It's not the same.
And fearing that I might die without every knowing what real love feels like is a real fear that many of you can't relate to because you have love in your lives AND you aren't fighting an incurable disease.
So you only get to judge my struggle if you are single AND fighting to live.
So that's maybe 2% of you...cause most of you have somebody or you are not actively in a cancer battle...
for those of you in the same boat as me YOU GET IT...
Otherwise---set your judgement of me aside and think for a moment how it would feel for you to be told "you have stage 4 cancer" and NOT have the person you love at your side.
for 8 years now I have been alone...one relationship that lasted about 6 months when I was first divorced and then nothing...
Not
One
Date
Not one...
So PLEASE stop telling me that I have the love and support of all of my friends and that that should be enough.
Because it's not...
I do not want to die without being in love just once before I draw my last breath.
My first marriage was not a loving supportive healthy one...I got two great kids out of it but not a relationship with their father that was a good one.
I was so ready to invite in love and then I got sick.
So I have been in this battle without love or someone to say "it's ok" when I am crying in the middle of the night from pain or fright...the cats could care less if I am crying as long as I don't roll over onto one of them...otherwise...pffffft....I do get some rather good side eye from Angel but she's sassy like that.
So I'm alone and right now I'm not sure if that is EVER going to change but I hope it will.
Because I am fighting to live and I would really like to not spend so many nights alone in my chair...watching Bachelor in Paradise (and maybe we should dissect exactly why I am wasting 4 hours a week on that show...)
I've been blessed beyond belief to have my Aunt Jane and some other sweet friends who have been there for me when I have had surgery or chemo...I could have not handled all of this without them.
And I could not have made it this far without the love and support and faith of all of you who are part of #teamunicorn
honestly I could not do it.
From the beginning, when I knew there was something wrong inside my body, I never imagined ever ever ever that I was going to hear the words "you have uterine cancer".
But I did.
And then I did the only thing I could...I fought...
I got my diagnosis and about 10 days later I was in surgery having all of my female organs cut out of me.
All of them.
But the cancer had spread and these damn lymph nodes in my pelvis (and later in my neck) had cancer but could not be removed because they are too close to the aorta.
And I like my aorta.
And there isn't a surgeon out there who wants to try to remove them.
They seem to have an aversion to operating on a patient who might bleed out on the table if you accidentally nick her with a scalpel.
So those lymph nodes have been absolute jackasses of lymph nodes and have caused all sorts of trouble and despite giving me enough radiation where I should basically glow in the dark and enough poison to take down a dozen horses they still have cancer in them.
So every other week---until science can find a new drug that kills my form of cancer---I get poisoned just so it won't grow.
If I look at Dr. Google I see that I don't have much of a shot at being here in a few years and I probably shouldn't buy a new car because I might not get to drive it very long.
That's what Google says.
I say "not today El Diablo".
Because you know what I have that Google doesn't know about?
My faith and the faith of all of you.
I have #teamunicorn to pray for me and pick me up when I am crawling on the ground and can't go on.
So I pray...and every time I do the first thing I do is thank God. And then I tell him to please use me to teach my doctors how to save other women. Because I want to be an instrument of change and wellness.
And then I do every damn thing I can to make my body a healthy machine so I can fight this stuff.
I recently found a wellness program called the FASTer Way to Fat Loss. I've lost some weight but more importantly my blood pressure is down and I finally don't feel like crap 28 days out of 30 each month. I won't go into it here but message me if you want to know more because one of the main components of it is intermittent fasting and Dr. Rockstar thinks it is a good idea for me. There is some evidence it might help my body get stronger to fight this damn stuff.
I've had so many people tell me "but you don't look sick" or "I can't believe you have Stage 4 cancer because you look so good"...or they think because I can climb on a spin bike I'm not that sick...
Trust me...I have Stage 4 incurable cancer.
It hasn't gone away.
I have it...I just have hair and I'm fat so I don't look sick.
But I'm just as sick or maybe sicker than those women you see with no hair or who are bone thin.
Skinny and bald are not the only signs of illness.
Trust me I'd love to have lost weight through all of this but the combination of menopause + steroids = fat me.
And I also take it as a great compliment when people say it...because I know they say it because they are used to seeing cancer patients in a different light. And when I am in the Cancer Center and I see so many people who are so much sicker than me I see why they say that.
But I decided from the start that I wasn't doing this cancer stuff in the way that other do...I was going to do it my way. And I'm blessed that i found an oncologist who is so on board with that that she lets me do all the crazy things I want to do.
Today I was in the chemo chair at 3:30.
And then I was on a spin bike at 5:30.
Because I am a badass. (and because I desperately missed my spin instructor the Marvelous Mel---perhaps I have mentioned her about 3467 times...)
And I got on that bike to prove that I can't let cancer stop me from doing anything unless I let it.
My spine on the other hand has its own ideas and it can manage to stop my world...and lately it's been acting up because it thinks El Diablo has gotten too much of my time and energy and it wants to get in and act like one of the bad guys.
sciatica---so much fun....but let's hope it's just that and not another bad disk because frankly I don't have time to deal with more spinal surgery...
God gives us all challenges.
And it's in how we meet them that define us.
There are some challenges that seem like the end of the world until we are faced with a mountain and we had only been looking at hills.
I spent my life with a smooth flat road, the occasional bump, and a few hills.
And then God asked me to climb Everest.
And He said "you can do it"
So I got me some sherpas (my docs and nurses) and gathered all the things to climb and got myself to base camp and literally almost fell apart.
Because base camp was surgery and then chemo.
And you can't get to the next higher camp unless you can acclimate to base camp. You have to survive base camp first.
So I got to the next base camp and had a few more things thrown at me (25 rounds of pelvic radiation, 3 brachy treatments, 30 more rounds of radiation). But I got through it and acclimated. All was well...let's move on to the next camp...
And then I had hernia surgery...and spinal fusion surgery...and the cancer got active again and I had to have chemo again. Surgeries I can get over---you have them, there is pain and then you are done. The chemo going on and on and on and on...that's the hard part.
I felt like crawling back to base camp but i was halfway up the mountain.
And those are those moments when you ask yourself: do I go up or do I go down.
And I had to keep climbing...
and so now I'm still climbing...I think the top is up there somewhere beyond the clouds I just can't see it yet but I know its there.
And for me the top might not ever be that I am declared "No Evidence of Disease"...it might just be that it is managed and I survive for more time.
(And maybe in a year or so I will buy the new car but hey Beyonce the 4 runner is fine so maybe I'll paint my house instead)
But the point being that running back down the mountain would be easy and I need to do hard things so I can get to the summit.
Because up there is a view I haven't seen and I think I need to see what it looks like from the top.
(and no, I will never ever ever climb Everest for real because I hate the cold and heights and sleeping bags and I like hotels)
Life makes us climb places we don't always want to go.
I don't know why God has allowed me to have this disease.
Please note I said "allowed"...
not "given"
not "punished"
but "allowed".
But I know He did because I am going to teach my doctors things about how to treat UPSC and how a cancer patient can do the things we don't think cancer patients can do. And how I can inspire others who are on a cancer journey or just struggling to keep going.
To keep climbing...
To look for the summit and claw your way there if you have to.
So now that I have gotten the stuff that's in my head out here's the part you have been waiting for...
WHAT HAPPENED WITH MY SCAN
First---CT scans are super fun
NOT
But I got to meet up with my imaging buddies Rod and Debbie and I drank the magic potion (barium) and had the iv and we took some images.
And then I went and had a massage and had dinner with Kute Karen 2 who knew I needed a good dose of Flower Child and laughs.
And then the next day as I obsessively checked my portal Sweet Suzanne took me to lunch and I got more laughs and love and began to breathe.
And then I went and did a double yoga class with Heavenly Skye and right after I got into my car I checked the portal again and ran in to hug her...
because as far as my limited medical knowledge was that scan was damn pretty.
So I kept busy and had some more girl time with Vibrant Vicki, Kute Kaelyn and Marvelous Melonie and some excellent wine from CabeRene and a delicious dinner at George's Pastaria that reminded me that I don't get to eat there often enough...(if I sound like a commercial it is because it is---you people should eat there).
And yesterday I flowed with the Marvelous Madonna and had my sweet Divine Deanna next to me and breathing came with a sense of power and strength...just like the yoga class.
But I wanted to wait until today when I saw Dr Rockstar to hear her thoughts on what I thought looked like the kind of scan she might want to put on her refrigerator along with pictures her twins made.
And it turns out that yes, she is damn proud of that scan too...it might just be on her fridge with a magnet...
because those 5 pesky lymph nodes?
they are finally BEHAVING
two have decided to become stable (they aren't NED (no evidence of disease) but they decided not to grow at all). The other 3 grew so slightly she is not even sure there was any real growth but it could have just been the way I was laying on the table or it was measured.
No other metastasis...
there is a kidney stone but we can talk about that later.
What does this mean?
This means despite being down a drug (no more cisplatin) that my body is fighting and holding its own.
I'm not NED...I'm not cured...I still have to have chemo...
but at least for now the cancer seems to be stable and behaving.
Like a dog in it's crate...it might want to get out and run amok but for now it's not actively growing and causing trouble and knocking over things and stealing food...
I'll have chemo every 2 weeks still...
and I'm going to keep on my FASTer Way plan because my blood pressure is lower than it has been since I was diagnosed (I'm hoping to go off the diuretic) and I feel GREAT and I am convinced this plan has something to do with it. (like I said message me to learn more)
I have a happy oncologist...and she hasn't talked to Dr. Angel yet but she's pretty convinced he will be happy when he sees it too...
We did a lot of hugging and crying and laughing today...Dr. Sweetmeds was super happy and she is the one who doses out the poison so I know she is proud that it's working for me.
The biggest thing I have in my corner is my faith in God and the support of all of you.
I could not do this without you.
I can't do it alone and I am so grateful to have all of you to lift me up and do all the the loving things you do to make me feel better and to continue to fight.
When life makes you climb the mountain it's really good to have some people to climb it with you.
I don't have that loving partner in my life...but I do have all of you people and that's more than a lot of people can say.
And who knows...maybe a gambling sort of man will take a chance on a crazy blonde and be willing to climb Everest too...
Thank you all for making me feel so loved and blessed...you people show up deep and strong...and some of you are literally friends who are family to me (too many to name but you peeps know exactly who you are) and I am beyond blessed.
#teamunicorn hit a homerun today---we haven't won the game yet but to me this is a loaded bases homerun...
Love is not just between 2 people.
Love is what you put out in the world with no expectations of getting it back but you show up for others and you do good.
Love is supporting someone when they are so low the can't get up so you carry them.
Love is taking a moment to pray for someone.
Love is easy to give and hard to get....
But love can be found all around you...and you people have surrounded me with so much of it I don't feel I deserve it but I will take it (just like a free dessert at a restaurant). And like that free dessert (which I will eat) I will take what is given to me.
I love you all...now go hit your knees and thank God for what he has done in your life and mine...
Inspiration Song: I Never Knew Love Like This Before by Stephanie Mills....because honestly I never knew so much love until all of you showed it to me and I am especially feeling God's love and I never have felt it more strongly. And because this season on the amazing show Pose (you should be watching) they featured this song in the most incredible way.
lyrics:
I never knew love like this before
Now I'm lonely never more
Since you came into my life
Now I'm lonely never more
Since you came into my life
You are my love light, this I know
And I'll never let you go
You my all, you're part of me
And I'll never let you go
You my all, you're part of me
Once I was lost and now I'm found
Then you turned my world around
When I need you, I call your name
Then you turned my world around
When I need you, I call your name
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
Opened my eyes
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
What a surprise
Opened my eyes
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
What a surprise
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
This feeling's so deep inside of me
Such a tender fantasy
You're the one I'm living for
Such a tender fantasy
You're the one I'm living for
You are my sunlight and my rain
And time could never change
What we share forever more, ooh
And time could never change
What we share forever more, ooh
I never knew love like this before
Now I'm lonely never more
Since you came into my life
Now I'm lonely never more
Since you came into my life
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
Opened my eyes
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
What a surprise
Opened my eyes
â??Cause I never knew love like this before
What a surprise
Bye Darlings---I never knew love like this before...from God and from you!!!!
This is wonderful!
ReplyDeleteAwesome, Anice! Such great news! Sending you more love and continued prayers! ❤️
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