Chemotherapy begins!

So, I'm officially fighting this with all guns blazing.  And I do want to document it.  But right now, the most difficult thing that my first chemo infusion has taught me... is that it is REALLY hard to be a Mom at bedtime when I just want to crawl into my own bed and sleep, hours before I can justify sending them all to bed!

So... with the last of them tucked in... I say a relieved "Good night!"

ZZZZZZZZZZ

post Christmas blues...

I think I handled the whole Christmas holiday pretty well.  I kept things as upbeat as I could, considering the circumstances.  But today, as I was scrapbooking my Christmas photos from (already?) two months ago, I felt myself becoming a bit sad.  Which is silly because my children had a very good Christmas at their grandparents.  And there will be many Christmas do-overs for me in the future.  But I couldn't help getting a little teary as I looked at photos of my children opening gifts that I had wrapped, anticipating their faces Christmas morning.

What a crappy time to get diagnosed with cancer!

My Christmas Eve selfie.

Our family on our Christmas Day visit.  Love this photo, despite the tale that it tells.

Best Before Dates

I was reading a blog written by a cancer surviver who, twelve years ago, was given two months to live.  Her motto is "No one should be given an expiration date!"

I think I will adopt that motto for my own, too.

"No one should be given an expiration date." (Some people deserve best before dates, though!)

Happy Sunday! 

Three days left in my chemo countdown.

What I did this morning...

Feeling a little radioactive now!   But I'm feeling equally confident that this morning's CT scan is going to be much more positive than the one I had in December.  Just another small hurdle in the path to health.

The C-word

So... I have cancer.  Or, I did have cancer.  I'm not sure which.  Does someone ever really go from being a cancer patient to being cancer free?  Depends which websites you google.  If you google.  I'd advise not to, but then I'd be a hypocrite because I find myself googling cancer. Every single day.  Symptoms.  Prognosis.  Side effects of chemotherapy.  It's all very sobering.  Did you know that Stage 4 colon cancer (cancer that has spread to other organs) has an five year survival rate of 11% ?  I didn't know that. Until I googled the damn thing.  But a stage 3 colon cancer has a survival rate between 53 and 89%, depending on how many lymph nodes were impacted.   Cancer and math.  Not a good combination, if you ask me.

So it's been one month and 13 days since my diagnosis.  If I'm being honest with myself, though, I self-diagnosed this months before that.  But denial is strong in me, so I had myself convinced that it was something else.  Anything else.  IBS.  Diverticulosis. Crohn's. Anything but the C-word. It wasn't until the pain started to accompany the other more vague symptoms, that I really took notice and said, "Okay, something is seriously wrong."

And so here I am.  Spending way too much time googling and not enough time enjoying this reprieve from work that I suddenly find myself with.   I'm in a funny kind of limbo right now.  I had surgery to remove two tumours from my body six weeks ago.  One in my colon and one that had metastasized to one of my ovaries.  While they were removing body parts, they found cancer in two of my lymph nodes, too.  I technically have Stage 4 colon cancer, but my oncologist (how weird that I have an oncologist; not everyone can say that) was quite pleased with the surgery and the very small amount of localized lymph nodes that were affected, and feels that we can consider it a Stage 3 colon cancer instead.  Stage 3 colon cancer is typically treated by surgery followed by 12 rounds of a FOLFOX chemotherapy regimen.  Google that.  Fun symptoms on the horizon.

So I am six weeks post surgery and officially allowed to "vacuum" and lift heavy stuff again.  I'm starting my chemotherapy regimen in three weeks, so I figure I have about three weeks to feel human and get a functional "stay-at-home" mom routine figured out before I start to feel like a cancer patient again.

Or, I could just hang out on the couch all day, like I've been doing, watching crappy daytime television (the 'who's the baby daddy' cliff hangers on the daytime talk shows are so compelling), drinking my easy to digest smoothies, and avoiding reality. I have every right to give myself permission to do that.  I've earned it.  But I think it makes me feel worse. Guilty about not accomplishing anything. Guilty about not enjoying all the free hours to scrapbook or organize those cupboards I've been meaning to tackle.  Or walk the dog. Or plan menus and crock pot meals for future use.  Instead, it allows me to spend too much time in the dark recesses of my brain where the "what if" zone lies. 

What if I had gone to the doctor earlier?

What if I had been more assertive when they told me that I didn't need a colonoscopy until I was 50?

What if I had gone to the hospital in August when the pain first started instead of waiting until September, after it happened again?

What if I had eaten healthier for the last several years?  Or got more exercise?  Or slept better?

What if I don't beat this?

What if I die?

These are all questions that I try not to dwell on.  But sometimes I want to ask them.  I don't expect answers.  I just want to be able to ask them.  I want someone to say, "Yes, what if you don't beat this, how are we going to move on?"  instead of always hearing, "You've got this.  You're not going to die. Everything will be alright." End of subject.  No, not the end of subject.  I want to talk and to vent and be angry and self-absorbed.  Or sad and scared.  I don't want to always protect everyone else's feelings.  After 40 + years of being the positive, kind, considerate good girl, I want to be mean and miserable for a while.  Or not.  Maybe not. I just want that option.

So, I guess that's what this blog is going to look like for the next several months. I can't promise not to be too negative, but I won't always be.  I'm pretty good at keeping things positive. But occasionally the blues kick in and I go dark.  You're welcome to go dark with me.  Or ride it out until I can be funny again.  My "Laura's Family", oft neglected blog, will be less about my children and the funny things they say and do, and more about me needing an outlet to record my thoughts about how my body has betrayed me.  A rambling, unedited, written diarrhea of thoughts.

Now... speaking of diarrhea...

Sugar Free September - Day 1

So, I'm doing this!  The Canadian Cancer Society is a worthy charity that is very dear to my heart.  And I donate to it more than any other charity.  Sometimes through walkathons, sometimes just because someone asks.  This is the first time I've heard of this particular fundraiser, but it intrigued me so I signed up.  So... here's my first update:

Sugar Free September, day 1! So far, so good. I didn't do a grocery shop prior to this morning, so I haven't really planned my meals out too well. But, I did manage to navigate the day without succumbing. I started out with scrambled eggs for breakfast and I took some roasted almonds and an orange to work for a mid-morning snack. Lunch was salad with chicken and homemade salad dressing (oil, vinegar, and mustard --- thanks for the idea, Kathleen, it was delicious). I hit that 3pm workday lull when I often pop over to the bakery or to 7-eleven to pick up a sweet "pick-me-up." Today I went across the street to the grocery store instead and picked up a bag of nectarines (I felt silly buying just one, so I bought 6, I guess I'll share the bounty with my kids). It did the trick. Supper was steak, potatoes, and onions. And tonight, my greatest discovery of the day... tucked in the back of the cupboard from another well-intentioned diet plan, those Ryvita rye crackers. They have NO added sugar. Why they barely have any ingredients at all. So, yeah, aside from the natural sugars in the fruit I ate, I consumed 0 grams of added sugar today!

Thanks to my two recently departed neighbours ;) for being donor numbers 1 and 2! You two are incredibly generous and I really appreciate the support.

Something I learned that I really knew all along but didn't actually consider; there isn't a single loaf of bread in the grocery store that doesn't have added sugar. I know... I looked! Yikes! In my pledge to go sugar free, I didn't actually anticipate going bread free, too. Who in their right mind would ever agree to that? If I "cheat," it's going to be because I really want a piece of toast! With peanut butter. OMG, toast and peanut butter! I miss you already! What was I thinking? So, there are definitely breads with less sugar than your typical cheap(ish) run of the mill whole wheat, so maybe a simple switch is what I need to do. They cost a lot more, though, and for the amount of bread this family goes through (oh no, are school lunches really on the horizon again???), I can't justify spending $6 a loaf. Maybe I'll hide the $6 loaf in the back of the freezer just for my own purposes. The other thing we learned, which surprised my children, was that there is almost the same amount of sugar, gram for gram, in their Dad's can of coke as there is in the same amount of their apple juice! Milk, on the other hand, has naturally occurring sugars, so I won't be making the kids give that up.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, on to day 2. No withdrawal symptoms yet...

https://www.sugarfreeseptember.ca/users/laura-freeman-2

Testing...

Testing...  The last few times I've tried to blog, I've lost everything I finished typing when I hit the "publish" button.  I think somehow, blogger has decided that I no longer exist.  So, before I pour my heart into another diatribe of random motherhood thoughts, I'm going to press "publish" and see if this works. :)  Wish me luck!  Laura