Updates and musings. With music!

This is a bit of a stream of consciousness post.  I encourage musical accompaniment while you read.  Here are some suggestions:

or this

or this (as an aside, I couldn't find the original video on YouTube, but I encourage you to view it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2590a_george-michael-aretha-franklin-i-kn_music#.UYTuqMr21qI)

Or insert your own.

A fair amount of people have told me that I have a great attitude and that I seem very upbeat.  (As an aside, this can feel patronizing at times but I know that's not the intent.)  This comes from a few different places:

1. While I have had and continue to have sad moments, it's not my personality to mope about.  You get bad news, you process it, you move on.  I'd rather laugh about something than sit around and cry.
2. Despite my diagnosis, I feel fine. So once I'm a few days removed from the hospital, it's like I can go back to my pre-cancer life.  Except, of course, that I can't.  But a lot of the time (mostly at work I find), I can compartmentalize and push the cancer stuff out of my mind.

That being said, please know that I am sad at times and I'm definitely scared. Many of you who know me well also know that I have no poker face. If I'm sad, I'll show it whether I like it or not.  I'm not putting on a brave face for any of you when I see you.  I'll cry if I like it or not, believe me.  But I've received such positive support from family and friends as well as strong encouragement from my care team, that I'm going to beat this.  No question.  If they were telling me this is terminal, I might have a different attitude.  I do have a long, difficult road ahead of me, but I'll deal with it.  My life will be and has already been changed forever, there's no doubt about that.  If anything, that's the part that makes me sad more than having to go through treatment.

I had a great time yesterday afternoon with my sister-in-law Eliza trying on wigs (thanks again, Eliza!).  Honestly, that went better than I thought.  I thought it was going to be more sad but I was so psyched at how good some of the wigs looked (especially the one I ultimately ordered) that I'm contemplating wearing it even when my hair grows back.

I also found out that I'm in the AC (8 week/control) group and not the experimental group.  I won't lie, I was disappointed when I got that call shortly after the wig fitting, but you deal with it and move on.  With all that's happened in the past month, this has certainly not been the worst day, nor has it been the worst news I've gotten.  At least now the dates for everything else can start to fall into place.  Also, I can go with the "experimental" group for the 2nd round of chemo post-surgery, it just won't be part of the research study.  I've also received news that I can exercise on the 8-month chemo, I just can't run a marathon.  I need to clarify with my oncologist if she literally means a marathon, or if she's grouping all running as "running a marathon".  Because I'm still training for a 25K (15 miles).  That's 11.2 miles less than a marathon if we're being technical.

Also, I've joined a young women's support group (I love that when it comes to cancer I'm young!).  Listening to other women's stories made me realize that this is my new reality.  My life has been altered forever, but my personality isn't going to change.  One of the things I found fascinating about the group is how everybody knows the date they got their "news".  It certainly isn't a date I'll forget.  Heck, it's how I started off my first blog post.  The fact that all of the other women did too really resonated with me. 


When I had my last biopsy as part of the pre-clinical trial work up earlier this week, I had a moment where I thought, "what if when they get the results of this biopsy and the results came back negative for cancer and this has been one big, crazy mistake"?  But alas, it didn't.

Some of these posts will be sad, some will be angry, but yes, I'm trying to be funny about this if I can.  That's just my nature.  If I can't laugh about this and try to keep as normal a life as possible, I will drown in sadness.  Because it is sad, but I'm not going anywhere.  I just have a new reality (did I say that already?). 


Thanks all for sticking with me.  I leave you with the following: