Keeping it upbeat!

I now have 7 wigs that I wear...I still will wrap a bandanna around my head...but I've learned to lighten it up a bit and if I wanna try to look cutesy or girly, go for it...mind over matter!

Plan of action...I'm ready!

So after consulting with each other, my radiologist decided she was gonna handle my head & my oncologist would tackle my liver...it was a very busy week of doctors and tests and appt but at the end of it, we had a plan...back on steroids & hit the radiation. I went on the steroids immediately cuz my brain was also swollen & it would help that, which it did in the first 2 days...thank God that the roids were doing obvious positive things to me cuz they were rough last year & I was dreading them so bad. The relief they were bringing me this time in the pain though were making them worth any of the oncoming side effects I knew I was gonna get soon. Doc said we could treat my head with just steroids for a while but to be the most aggressive, going back & doing more whole head radiation could be done....I told her I wanted aggressive & funny enuff, she's been with me long enuff to have already scheduled it up cuz she knew that would be the road I'd want...okay, plan for the head treatments are made...3 weeks of whole head radiation...Monday thru Friday & then scan & see...
Now for the liver...I met with my oncologist & he came in so positive about his course of action, I couldn't help but be...he still wanted to get me away from chemo...ok, but I wondered how if my tumors were growing....he explained....he wanted to do a procedure like the one they do when they go in up your thigh to unblock clogged veins in the heart but do kinda the opposite...they would go in up my leg to my liver & blast the veins that had developed around these tumors to feed them & kill them, thus starving the tumors & killing them entirely...at least that was the theory, but dang, he was so certain this was gonna work...I was kinda excited about it since it would mean, if it did, I would be off chemo all together!! I was signed in for that immediately....he explained I could have the procedure done even while I was doing radiation cuz it was an outpatient thing...I'm thus far scheduled for a consultation next week to get it all pulled together...

New doc & more new of the old stuff...

So I don't know if I've mentioned it but my original oncologist left the practice...I started seeing a new one that I don't think is actually far off from my age. He is the one who thought we needed to get me off the chemo I was on cuz I'd been on it since the beginning. We tried a new kind for a while but....in February 2012, my newest PET scan showed that the tumors in my liver grew. Cancer shouldn't grow thru chemo, but alas...I also had a follow up MRI...hey, guess what?!? More bad news...small tumors back in my brain but this time, all over & now centralized...I was completely deflated & scared to death. Thank God for my Dad & stepmom cuz without them, I am not sure what kind of basketcase I would've turned into that weekend I got those reports. I also had my daughter's 20-something year old sister & husband walk in that Friday night & tell me they were moving into help me. My girl & I were having problems getting things handled with school & appointments & them coming in was just overwhelming to me! I was in way over my head by myself...

It's been a while...

I've been gone off my blog a while & it's not becuz there wasn't anything going on....I went back & read my last input & well, it's been a rollercoaster since almost that post.

Right after that post, my husband asked me for a divorce. He blames it on the gambling I did when I was in my depression but it's so much more than that. First of all, he's a gambler, so it's not like he thinks it's a token sin. I did do it quite a bit but NEVER put my family's finances in jeopardy. Secondly, part of my depression was from the fact I was always home alone with the kids. He was working 60+ hours a week & just almost refused to come home early or take time off. It got so that our kids only saw him on Sundays & that was spent with him taking only one of them to the bowling alley for most of the afternoon. It was lonely & I felt very deserted. If I dare mentioned anything negative about my attitude with cancer, he wanted no part of discussing it...it was over...he was gone emotionally...I resented it TREMENDOUSLY!! I spent July finding a home for me & my 2 kids. I fortunately have some wonderful family whose privacy I will protect by only saying, they are my angels. The love and support of my closest friends got me thru July & August & we got moved into our new home and, for the first time, when I had an opportunity to breath, I realized how much my homelife before was strangling me. The marriage had crumbled & with it was part of strength. I was slowly finding it again in the hope for a future with my babies...nothing to hold me back or to stifle me. Sure, the prospect of growing old alone was kinda a downer but growing OLD was actually the target now & THAT felt pretty dang good to want again!