Cancer sucks!

 I was going to write Saturday but I was NOT happy going to sleep that night so I thought I’d wait until Sunday when I was a little calmer and happier. Nope that didn’t happen. So today I’m writing but sadly it’s not really coming from a happy place yet. 

I had a pretty good day Saturday. It was a really nice day. I sat outside with Ryan. My bald head even got a little sunburned. And then things just decided to go south in the evening. I had stomach cramps and diarrhea, I got super nauseous. I was hungry. I ate two bites of applesauce and couldn’t eat anymore. I just sat on the kitchen floor crying. I thought, man if people want to see what cancer is like- here’s the picture they need: me sitting on floor, skin and bones, tears streaming down my face, the floor covered with tear stains, unable to finish a two bite bowl of applesauce. This is the ugly truth of cancer. 

I decided I would just go upstairs, take all my meds and drug myself to sleep essentially. I have some CBD gummies that I’ve only used once. They totally helped with the nausea but they are legit and therefore smell like pot. I just thought okay I’m going to take some CBD and all my other meds and at least I can relax and get some sleep. But I couldn’t even drug myself right. I took a bite of the gummy, took all my other meds but the smell and taste of the CBD was too overwhelming. I couldn’t make it to the toilet. I threw up all over the bathroom sink, over and over again. And then I just got in bed and cried. 

I told Ryan earlier in the day- I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m going to tell Dr. Esplin (my oncologist) that I’m done. And Ryan said that’s fine you can tell him that but he’s going to tell you to keep going. I said, “I know. I know he’s going to give me the same strep throat/antibiotic analogy but you know what? I made it to day 9 of my antibiotic and now I’m skipping day 10. And that’s fine.” Ryan said, “well really you maybe only made it to day 8.” And I said, “great! I made it day 8 out of 10 and I’m done.” Ryan said, “you’re going to go AMA (against medical advice)?” Ya I am. 

I want my body to start healing. I want to get my insides healing. I want my GI tract back to normal. I want to start recovering from this dumb chemotherapy crap! 

Sunday- my kids came home from living it up in California for spring break. We had a pretty good day but I was still mad. I was mad at Ryan. That’s not really fair to him. But he’s the one here with me and he’s the one that’s telling me I have to keep doing it and I don’t want to. 

Today I stayed in bed until 2:00. Thankfully Ryan was home for the morning and when he left Courtney had gone to a friend’s house. I’m sure her friend was confused when they came back over and I’m still in bed at 1:00 in the afternoon. But she’s like another one of my kids so it didn’t matter. 

I watched a video that helped me snap out of it. It was just cute baby faces and their reactions to things. It made me smile. So I got my sad, lazy butt out of bed. Still haven’t done much today. It’s been an up and down kind of day, emotionally. 

Tomorrow Ryan and I go meet with Dr Tittensor. She's the breast cancer surgeon we saw back in November. We were told she'd do an ultrasound and see if the tumor has shrunk or is gone or what she sees. Ideally she won't see anything. That's the point of this stupid chemo. 

And then I’m going to tell my oncologist that I’m done with chemo. Dr Tittensor had said that about 70-80% of the time when she gets in there during surgery there are no more cancer cells. There are just calcifications. That’s why we do the chemo first in my case.

See that’s another thing. I have not met ONE person that has my type of cancer. You think- oh breast cancer, mastectomy, chemo, radiation. No! That’s not how it is. There are so many different kinds of breast cancer. It can be hormonal which I’m beginning to think 90% of peoples is, but mine is NOT hormonal. I have yet to meet someone who has the same kind of cancer as me, who takes the same chemo drugs as me. Some people have surgery first- that’s because it’s hormone positive. You take away the breast tissue, do some hormone blocking and voila the cancer is probably gone. That’s not the case with me. Mine is not hormone driven. That’s why we had to do the chemo first. We had to shrink the tumor and THEN do surgery to remove whatever the chemo didn’t get. Well I’m done with the chemo and ready to move on to the surgery. I don’t feel anything. The tumor is gone. Let’s just cut out what’s remaining, check it out under the microscope and move on from there. 

Because of the type of cancer I have, I have to continue taking a monoclonal antibody (herceptin)- I don’t even know what that is exactly. But I have to continue this medication for a whole year. Every three weeks I have to go to the oncologist and get this medication. It’s still an infusion that goes through my port. If there are cancer cells seen under the microscope during surgery we have to change the herceptin drug to have essentially a little Trojan horse on it to kill the last of the cancer cells. So look I still have to get treated even after surgery. And I have to do radiation because it’s in my lymph nodes. 

Ugh will this ever end?!?!? Cancer is stupid. I have much more I could whine and complain about but I’m done. I’m done for the night.