Courage

Sometimes I just forget I even have cancer. I'm like all the other girls in a crowd. I'm shy around a sexy guy, I blush when someone gives me a compliment, I like girl talk and sappy movies. When the hero dies, I'm sad. Somewhere inside I still believe in Cinderella.

And then my head gets cold. I need to put on a hat and along the way to get to my hat I see the mirror. It's true then. I do have cancer. I have a distorted chest with scars. A port. No hair.

I write in my journal: "Doesn't someone else have cancer? Can I quit now?...I just want to cry -- not really. I want to hike. Swim. Be well. Run in the fields. Eat food that tastes like something other than chalk."

Courage is not winning the battle. That doesn't take any courage at all. Courage is waking up everyday and painting on a happy face. Walking with your head up when you have no hair at all. Courage is going to the hospital every three weeks to be injected with deadly chemicals designed to kill living cells. Courage is waiting it out and knowing that someday you will have a new chest that isn't hard a rocks and painfully sore. Courage is believing in a brighter future no matter how dim the present seems.

I do not find my courage in me. I find my courage in all those women that have gone before me. I find my courage in my friends that have stood beside me. I find my courage in the special man that shares his time with me. I find my courage in my aunt, my brother, and my niece who is just now starting her life. And I thank you.

What! No hair!

Every day my body changes

I don't know where it is going

When it will stop

Or who I will be when it's over

Water Balloon Boobies Get Some Float!

OK, I admit it I’m a product of the 80’s with bad hair and worse clothes. I bent my arms at the elbow and swung them wildly back and forth while chanting “I must, I must, I must increase my bust”. But not in a million years did I actually think I would watch my bust grow! But there I was – my water balloon boobies got a 55 cc dose of saline and I actually watched my bust bloat. Tomorrow it will feel like I’ve done 40 push-ups. Hmmm. Watch my boobies grow and get the benefit of 40 push-ups without even doing a single one…I could be onto something!

It could happen to you...

So there I was enjoying a nice dinner with my sweetie when all of a sudden it happened! My bulb exploded. The bulb at the end of the drain inserted into my chest to collect "boob juice". Laugh. Out loud. There is absolutely no other way.

Freshly "juiced" I managed to re-assemble myself and enjoy my chile verde and (2) margaritas. As for my date, he walked away, also laughing. It was funny! And he came back, still laughing.

Cancer can kill you and there is no joke about it. But laughing out loud will get you through the treatments. There has yet to be a good reason to be mad. I won't give cancer the satisfaction.

The Birds are Dancing

Ever since surgery I can't sleep for extended periods of time. I wake up with this incredibly stiff back. I bring my legs into my chest and roll mildly from side to side like a laying-down weeble-wobble -- OK, if you weren't little in the '70's you probably don't know what a weeble-wobble is, but it's not a compliment and I'm a broken weeble-wobble.

So usually it's about 4:00 a.m. when I wobble back and forth. Outside my window I hear the mountain chickadees singing. Their little voices are so strong. I also have sparrows and what sounds like thrushes. The birds sing heartily at four in the morning. I can picture each one scurrying about, looking for worms, insects, collecting things from the ground, feeding little chicks. The birds of the morning do not argue, fuss, or fight with each other like you see later in the day. They dance, hurry about their business, and sing.

Within the next ten minutes (it's about 5:20 a.m. right now), the eastern sky will begin to turn a beautiful rosy pink color as the sun crests the horizon. This light filters through my north kitchen window because the sun is so high in the sky right now -- it's almost the summer solstice.

Once the sun makes its appearance the singing becomes just a whisper.

A Beautiful New Day

After a week of rain, the sky turned blue and welcomed the sun with a crisp spring morning. The Rocky Mountains aglow in the morning light -- Longs Peak tantalizingly teasing me in the distance.

Today will be a whole new day. After my seemingly daily doctors appointments, I'm off towards Longs Peak. My sweetie is taking me on a drive to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Still recovering from surgery, it seems like a million years ago and just an hour ago. I'm not used to this. I'm used to sprained ankles and bug bites (spider bites being my specialty). Cancer is forever. Every turn reminding me. I still wait impatiently at the doctor's office for him to utter -- we've made a mistake, the lab mixed up the results and you don't have cancer. But they don't say that and I would not want that for then another would have cancer other than me.

I've been handed my potion: six chemo treatments of Cytoxan and Taxotere followed by five years of hormone therapy.

But today, I will sit shotgun as I ride up into the mountains towards Longs Peak. It may tease me now, but I will stand on top of Longs Peak ... and countless others in the Rocky Mountains.

Worthy. MS is one of the remaining diseases with no known cure!

Smile!

Click today for breast cancer research!

Also, this may sound so strange to be diagnosed with breast cancer and then ask people I know to donate to MS. MS is one of the remaining diseases without a known cure. Thanks to the enormous amounts of money poured into breast cancer research it is one of the most curable diseases. I will recover and go on to be 92 (the palm reader promised!) Yet thousands of people with MS will not.

My dearest friend is riding his bike 150 miles at the end of June to raise money for MS. Because I am not sure where I will be in my own treatment I will not be able to join him for the riding, but I will be there in spirit and certainly for the after party! If you can find a way to donate to this cause, even $5 that would be so great. To donate online click here.

Thanks!