Hoping to stay alive long enough for miss pac-man to save me?

Seeing this story on CNN a few weeks ago created a mental image for me I can't get rid of - waiting for nano-particles to be created to deliver the anti-cancer treatment directly to the bad cancer cells leaving my healthy cells healthy. Brings me to thinking about a little miss pac-man type cell eating up all the cancer cells, chomping through my body, finding all the cancer cells and leaving me healthy again. I so want to be healthy again, tired of being sick, of all the side effects of medication, limitations on my life. My desire for a steaming hot cup of starbucks de-cafe cappuccino with steamed low-fat milk is overwhelming, something I can dream about, and get jealous about when I see others drinking hot liquids, so hoping the research that is ongoing since 1974 becomes prime-time soon before my body is damaged beyond repair.

Happy depressed

My husband often asks me how I am. Can I be happy and depressed all at the same time? When I was young I definitely knew depressed, as I was depressed and angry, having grown up in a dark angry unhappy household. Took me a long time to find a smile and laughter. Lightness and air to breathe. After my father died I started to write a dark angry hostile novel about it, but found it was taking me back into that dark depressing world. So I hit the delete button and vowed to write only happy things that make people smile. So, sometimes I feel yes I can be, happy to be alive and seeing my son spread his wings and fly, to do what I raised him to do, and be the best him he can be. I am happy to wake up in the morning and be alive. I am happy that I have a wonderful loyal loving husband who is my soul mate. I am depressed that I wake up to cancer, to not working, to the daily grind of being a professional patient, and knowing that I will likely leave my son and husband behind sooner than I planned. So there it is, happy depressed.

Regrets

Regrets, I've had a few. But in the end I did it my way. Keep thinking about that song and knowing that I don't have many regrets. I have lived a good life. Been an above average parent. I am not perfect. I should have cut ties with my family years before I did, but I kept it going until my father died. I suppose I kept thinking it would all work out and if I improved as a person, I could improve the entire situation, but it was one that only spiraled downward and could not be fixed, or at least not by me. So in the end I did it my way.

Professional patienthood

Having now been through 23 chemo treatments, five of doxil/avastin, it is exhausting to manage symptoms and side effects and try not to have them. Although I thought I would done with the next treatment, I've now been informed that the treatment is working so well that we're going to continue indefinitely, until it stops working. So we will continue icing my hands and feet, feeling hostile everytime I see someone drinking hot coffee because I am not unless I want to suffer from mouth sores, and wearing clothes or shoes that I no longer wear because they are not comfortable, too tight, too irritating, and feeling constantly tired. Having a limited half-life and sometimes even less. Days trapped in the house because I don't feel well enough to go out. Finding shopping overwhelming, especially certain big-box type stores. Having to walk out of walmart one night knowing I couldn't walk through the store. Glad to be alive and still waiting for science to catch up to me.

Spread happy - Sisterhood of the traveling scarf

As I contemplate another birthday, feeling lucky to get there, but knowing the next one may not be as good, I continue to knit my way through cancer and chemo, giving ruffle scarves to friends who I ask to wear the scarves and think positive thoughts for everyone and to spread happy and do good works as they go through their day. I want no negativity in my life, only happy positive energy, only good kind people, no evil.

life as empty nester with cancer

Now that empty nester status is official, I can say that there is an emptiness that goes along with it. Although my son has been away for summers in the past, somehow this is definitely different. His room is emptier, knowing that he won't be back in only a few weeks, knowing that he is at a different stage of life, makes this entirely new. Got confused at the supermarket the other day looking at food and knowing I was not buying it for him and having a much lighter load, probably by half. Knowing that our electric and gas bills will be reduced by at least a third. But also knowing that I only have so much time left but not knowing how much. Hoping I will live long enough to see him graduate from college but not knowing if I will. Have had some good news this week, finding out my CA 125 is down to 71 from a high of 420 before I started the current chemo, which I needed to hear after a bad migraine with nausea and vomiting only a few days earlier. So I continue on one day at a time, letting my son fly and enjoy his life, and trying to fill in the time. Food becoming way too important. Maybe I will be baking once a week, keep knitting (made several scarves, two shawls, several needlepoint pillows, blankets) but I have to find things to keep filling in for my time and whatever energy I have.

Shawl as life metaphor?

Recently I have been trying to again learn to knit but with fewer rules, refusing to follow patterns, not listening to the needlepoint and knitting police, and just going my own way while I build some skills. So, I took my skills, old and new and make a beautiful shawl, using yarn that I had received after my great-aunt died and knitting needles I received from her and my grandmother and only recently rediscovering. I have been crocheting since age 12 or 13 as a way to get out of sewing class in junior high, getting my grandmother to teach me, and needlepointing since age 13 when a friend of my mother's had a needlepoint business and gave me a pillow to make as a gift and would steer business to me to finish projects of other women who didn't have the patience for it. I made some good money in those days, especially as a teenager, finishing other people's work. Yes, I'd had tried to learn to knit before but it never really clicked, maybe the timing wasn't right, maybe I just wasn't focused, maybe I just wasn't ready. So, instead, now I am learning, and feel that it is sticking, that the time is right to begin this part of my journey, and returning to lessons learned in the past and applying them to now and the future. And, while I was creating this shawl from the remnants of yarn left from probably about 20 years ago, using old and new skills, old skills from my family and new skills from friends, sometimes making mistakes, and lacking in perfection, but learning as I go, isn't that really all about life? We take skills and lessons learned, and add our personalities and creativity, make mistakes along the way, discarding what we don't like and can't use, and still end up with something beautiful and warm and that can be passed along and shared with others after we are gone. It will be something to wrap ourselves in and remember all that came before it to get to a point where it could be made, even with its mistakes, and what will come in the future from the lessons learned while making it and wearing it. Most importantly, it will be a special gift for a special friend after I am gone to pass along this history and these lessons.