Sunny Sunday Funday

When you are facing what is more than likely going to be some of the shittiest months of your life, beginning  in less than a week, you have two choices....  You can lay in the house in a pile of depression and misery and dwell on what terrible things are to come OR you can get your ass up and jump in the shower, brush your beautiful long hair for one of the last times, treasuring every moment of it, and make the most out of what is sure to be one of the last sunny seventy degree days for many months to come.

Today I chose the later.

When you think you have it bad, just look around, and I bet you will find someone who would gladly trade places with you.  

We have an angel tree at work with tags for little kids who need someone to "adopt" them for Christmas.  Their parents are going through some hardships and need a little extra help.   I always chose two girls, usually between the ages of 4 to 6.  Why you may ask.  Well we have all boys in our family, so I've never been able to buy the adorable little girl clothing, bows, jewelry, or buy a baby doll or a kitchen set.  All the fun things that little girls would love!  When I woke up this morning, I realized I basically had today left to shop for my Angel Tree girls before my shit hits the fan.  And I definitely didn't want to let them down. 

I am so thankful that while I was raising my son, I was always able to provide for him.  He never had to stress over where he was going to live or where his next meal was coming from.  There are too many children in this world who deal with this problem every day.  And even though it's not much, for one magical day I love helping a few kids have a happy moment in what is probably a very stressful life.  This tradition has become my favorite thing to do at Christmas. 

I pick one day and binge shop for my girls every year. Today was that day this year.  It is so much fun and makes me feel wonderful and blessed to be able to help out, even if it's just a little bit.  This is what Christmas is really about.  And for 3 hours today I forgot about cancer, surgeries, chemo, and my problems, and just imagined these little ones faces on Christmas morning.

I then got home and unloaded my goodies and grabbed the golden boy and headed to the park.  I met a woman walking her dog.  Auggie, of course, needed to make friends.  She and I chatted for a moment and Thanksgiving was brought up in the conversation.  I am not sure why, but I was compelled to tell her where I would be on Thanksgiving (the hospital... yippee!).  She inquired further and I told her my cancer story.  She thanked me for sharing and asked if she could pray for me on Wednesday.  Of course I said yes.  This stranger then hugged me and told me it was going to be okay.  The kindness of this woman filled my heart and soul today with happiness.

I don't know if it was the shopping earlier in the day, the sunshine and warmth of the day, the amazing kindness of a stranger, or the ecstatic way my dog ran like crazy when I unleashed him in the big field, but for the first time in several weeks I felt normal and happy.  I think I was even smiling a real smile.  Not the fake "I'm fine" one that has been glued to my face since I got the "C" word call again.

And today, for the first time in weeks, I felt like maybe I will be okay.  Maybe I will survive all that is about to be thrown at me over the next 5 months.  I have been feeling very hopeless before today.

I also know, all too well from the last battle, that this is a temporary feeling and that my emotions will be those of a giant roller coaster.  You know the one …. it goes upside down, and spins and eventually you throw up.  Yes that is how the next few months will be, but today was a good day! I believe this day was given to me to embrace so that in the months to come I will be able to pull my "sunny Sunday funday"  from the archives of my mind and tell myself, you're going to be okay.

Here I Go Again....

Well this is a post I hoped I would never have to write....  But here I am, back at it again.  I won the 1 in 8 lottery with my first breast cancer diagnosis... and the 3% of the population Lotto with BRCA2.  And now the next lotto has been won....  the 1 in 3 breast cancer survivors that will recur.  The word won is definitely being used sarcastically here! haha Looks like you will be tortured with my horror stories of the continued shitty life of Kristy Lee once again.  Yes, it was originally named Kristy's shitty year, but we are now heading into year number 3.  It seems I may never ever again get a break from whatever fresh hell is waiting for me next.  Not sure what the hell I did to the universe but man it's pissed at me about something!  LOL!

So here we go....  1 in 3... How it began....  Thursday evening I was showering.  Went to shaving my armpits like I always do. For those of you that don't know, after mastectomy and lymph node removal, you have no feeling at all in your chest area and a lot of time under your arms.... All the nerves have been cut.  So when shaving you cannot tell if your getting it all or not so you sometimes have to feel around to make sure.  And this was the moment that will no doubt define my next year, if not my forever.  I felt a mass.  I knew it was something.  Not scar tissue, not a cyst, something was not right.  I got out of the shower and got dressed for bed.  But as expected, I did not sleep much at all.  At 8:03 I had my oncologist on speed dial and luckily was able to get into see him at 9:00 that morning.  Doc checked it out and said, "I don't think it's probably anything to be really concerned about, but let's biopsy it just to make sure".  Uh, yes, lets.  Better safe than sorry is my new rule.  So out of the oncologist office with a 1:00 appointment for a ultrasound needle guided biopsy.  If you recall my first go around with this shit, me and needles do not like each other at all.  So needles shoved in armpit didn't sound like a fun day at all! But nonetheless here we go. PTSD through the roof at this point.  Checked into the outpatient section, escorted back to put on my most favorite outfit in the world... the ugly gown LOL  I am now flopped up on the bed with arms overhead and the first set of needles being shoved into my pit.  Felt great!  lmao!  Thankfully this got me totally numb and all I hear are the clicking sounds of each piece of my armpit being cut out, 5 in all. Hum must have been a decent size.  Bandage up and ice pack applied and out the door I was sent...  We'll call you on Monday, leaving me alone with my paranoid thoughts for the whole long ass 2.5 days.

Today, Monday, phone call day.  Except no phone call.  So I finally decided to call, confident that at 2:00 in the afternoon surely everything was fine or they would have called, right... no news = good news right.  The radiologist got on the phone and said the preliminary results were in and everything was benign, but due to my history they were going to do a few more extensive tests just to be 100% sure. She would call me back once they were done with those.   Ha!  Benign!  Yes!  Relief!  Back to working and feeling okay.  Escaped a tragedy.  Whew!  LOL LOL LOL.... silly me! An hour later my phone rings... it's the doctor again.  "I'm very sorry, but the more detailed samples show cancer in the lymph node."  What?? Wait... noooooo, you said okay, benign, safe.  WTF!!!  At that point the very same numb feeling over came my body that happened just almost 2 years ago when I got the first "you have cancer" phone call.  The blood drained from my face.  I almost threw up and passed out.  Cried a little.

Here I am again, two years later.  Getting ready to make plans to try to save my life from the awful C word once again.  This time the oncologist included terrible words in our preliminary game plan.  PET scan.  To check the rest of my body to see if it has spread anywhere else.  Then chemo.  Then radiation.  ALL of the things that, two years ago, I was so relieved I did not have to go through because my cancer was "not aggressive" and chemo and radiation would not make enough of a difference in my chances of recurrence.  So we did not purse them.  Yet here I am... recurring...  I cannot explain how angry I am... at God, at the doctors, at fate.  It's not fair! How much pain needs to be inflicted upon one human being in such a short time before they just finally give up???

So I'm not sure where I'm going, but I sure know where I've been.... lol....  We'll start off with a PET scan I'm assuming this week early.  I am praying like crazy for this horrible awful shit to have not spread any further.  Then we will get a game plan from there, but it is sure to include chemo and radiation according to my conversation with my oncologist today.  I know it sounds trivial and ridiculous but losing my hair is going to be so devastating to me.  I am so sad, mad, depressed and just in shock at this moment.  And this year, unlike my last go around, it will be alone.  My best friend, my partner in crime, my support person is not going to be here with me and that scares me a lot too.  But I must go on!  I hope that I can make it to the other side of this next massive trial I am about to go through!  And no doubt, if I do make it out to the other side, will once again be a different person with more life experiences than anyone should have to endure in one lifetime.