#35 Finding Sunshine

It's not that I haven't had time to post an entry. For the first few days I didn't have anything new to say. Some days really just are me sitting in a chair trying not to spiral into what if land. It's me at the grocery store shopping for vegetables and spending hours cutting them up for my juices. I hit the gym a few times, it wasn't easy but it wasn't awful. I'm getting used to the stares. I go to do my little workout and I come home. I haven't been to yoga. The silence this week isn't something I find soothing.

This week was a challenging one. My Dad arrived on Sunday and on Tuesday he had his surgery to remove the tumor that was on his left kidney. We waited from 8am until about 2:30 to find out that they had to remove the entire kidney to get rid of the cancer. This is good news/bad news type situation. Bad news is now he only has one kidney, and limited function in that one, but good news that he is now cancer free. He won't need dialysis right now and they are monitoring his function as he's in the hospital for now. The thing to focus on here is that he 100% cancer free. It won't come back. That alone is cause for celebration.

I have been going to visit for the past few days and taking care of what I can. Renting him a phone, getting the TV set up. Bringing him broth, juices (because hospital food shouldn't even be fed to healthy people, let alone sick people) encouraging him to be positive and trying to get him to get up and moving. I was there all day Tuesday and the morning on Wednesday. I'm happy to do it, but I have to be careful. There are sick people there.

Today my nurse told me I shouldn't be going. The ER at St. Joe's yesterday was packed with people with the flu and people who think they have the Coronavirus. I had to stay home.

In preparation for chemo tomorrow I usually clean the house, sheets and do the stuff I won't have the energy to do next week. I'm a little discouraged doing it because during my appointment yesterday with my oncologist we discussed the fact that my tumour isn't really shrinking. He said I'm justified in my worry. It doesn't feel smaller. He told me that my cancer subtype is so rare (less than 1% of cases) that there aren't a whole lot of studies on it. This means we don't know how it will respond to the chemo, or if it will even work.

He told me that it might be a more aggressive cancer than we thought, and he is sending me for an ultrasound to check. This is really discouraging, but he told me not to jump off a building just yet. The chemo might be killing what's called micro-metastises - tiny cancer cells roaming the body in the blood or lymph looking to set up shop elsewhere. This metastatic cancer is what kills people. No one dies of breast cancer, but the secondary cancers that it causes in liver, brain, lungs and bone.

He told me that we still have another type of chemo, surgery, radiation, hormone therapy and if none of that works (which would be very bad) he will try to get me into as many clinical trials as possible. It wasn't a good thing to hear. He didn't tell me I would be cured. He just said we would throw everything at the cancer that is available. Just because on thing doesn't work doesn't mean nothing will.

I sat alone in my car after another appointment where I received scary news and cried. I have googled micro-metastatic breast cancer and the average survival rate is 3 years from diagnosis. I don't intend to be average but after appointments like that I feel the weight of the world upon me and think of my babies.

In 3 years Madeleine will be 10. I don't even remember much from being 10. Ari will be 14, just starting adolescence and needing a mom more than ever. I can't die. This chemo has to be working. I don't know if it is, and we'll know when I have the ultrasound and keep pushing forward, but we just don't know.

I had to sit in the car until I composed myself enough to go home. I ran a bath and got my shit together. When my kids came home from school I heard their little laughs and happy little voices and knew I just needed to carry on. My burden is not one to be shared, I will carry it so they don't have to, it's what mothers do.

I have to now push aside my feelings of fear and doubt and not google. I need to focus on beating cancer, regardless of how rare or aggressive. I need to be positive. It hasn't been easy these last few weeks.

My hair is gone. I am weak and not overly ambitious. I know I should be grateful for the days I have now, instead of spending them worried about the future but it's not always so easy.

If it were just me, I would of course still care, but just thinking about my kids if anything happened to me is almost paralyzing. I actually have to stop myself from thinking about them having to leave this home, about Jason being alone, about the girls maybe not living together or seeing each other. It would just tear everyone's lives apart. I don't know how I'd ever get to a point of acceptance with it. I refuse to entertain the ideas for long.

So I rearrange furniture and try to come up with new meals that I can eat. I try to think of my garden in spring, I try to think of being cancer free. I think of returning to work and not having to budget every single cent. I think of all the women who beat cancer. I think of being around when my kids grow and have kids of their own. I know it's possible even if the odds are low.

So tomorrow I go for my last AC portion of the chemo. My Dr. said he still thinks we should stay the course of the chemo until it is done. One more. And then we move on to Taxol, a different type of chemo. He is adding a bunch of other meds to my IV tomorrow because my reaction last week was so bad. I'll get benedryl, more steroids and more anti-nauseants. He told me it's likely I'll need a wheelchair when the chemo is done. I try not to wonder if I'm doing all this for nothing. It's the last AC anyway. And the first step in many steps so I try to just believe something is working.

I'm still taking European Mistletoe by injection and modified citrus pectin, genistein and Vitamin D. I'm still eating a plant based diet, with some fish. I haven't had a candy or cookie and with the exception of a few vegan gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins I eat nothing but vegetables and fruit. I drink tea and exercise 4-5 a week. I sleep at least 6 hours a night. I drink lots of water.

There really is nothing more I can do. I guess I could be SURE I was going to beat this. My Dad just beat cancer. He's having a tough time in recovery, but he's alive. It's possible.

Our family minus is one person with cancer this week and that makes it a good one. I might be fighting a more challenging battle but it's not unwinnable. It's just a little more complicated. I now wait for more results and more news and try to remain positive. I need to remember that good things happen. That spring is coming.

I should take take a lesson from my little collection of plants in my window. It's been a grey winter, but they manage to find the sunshine and keep growing. Some days are darker and colder than others but there's always hope. Beating cancer is possible. As long as there's a 1% chance there's still a chance.

Also, I remind myself when I do have dark thoughts that really all I have is today and hug my kids a little tighter and tell them I love them. No one is promised tomorrow, and our thoughts about it can often do more harm than good. I don't want to spend my days worried about what may come for my kids or for me.

So I try to enjoy the little things and remember I'm at the start of a long journey and nothing is over yet. Setbacks are a part of life. They don't determine the outcome, things can get scary without being over. It's all about managing this information reasonably and trying to focus on the positive not worrying about the worst.

Bottom line this week is 1 DiGasparro is cancer free. That's one down, one to go.