Nothing is Permanent

Getting There..

While I can churn out updates every week I am pretty sure most of you really do not want to or even have to know how many needles I get stuck with each week. Anyone looking at my arms can mistake me for a junkie or anyone snooping at my bedside table will find a fully stocked pharmacy complete with a bouquet of painkillers. But I look at my life thus far and I realize that I’m just a speck on a wide and vast landscape of a planet.  I realize that my tiny miracles are just that… tiny.  I realize that though I live and breathe and work and play, my day-to-day achievements aren’t all that significant.  At least not to the planet, not to the world as a whole. My little triumphs, day to day struggles or multitude of frustrations are better kept to myself. And then I remember the emails, tweets and private messages I get and I remember the people out there who make me feel a lot less alone when they read my blog, Other cancer patients who feel like someone else gets it.  And I realize that I’m making a difference every day, even if it’s just to myself and my child… and maybe, just maybe, one of you. I maybe a woman of little global significance. But I am a woman of great individual importance.

That said the people I interact with only in social media have become a part of my days, inextricably linked to the volatile space in my computer and phones. In reality, my relationships with them may be no deeper than with the barista at my favorite coffee shop but they have the same sort of familiarity: a near-daily presence, a constancy without intimacy. I know only what they care to share about their lives and they know the same about me. My interactions with all of you are brief and perhaps of limited substance. But they are there. They are elements in the mosaic that makes up my life, both virtual and physical. When the flash of color that is a social media friend vanishes from the larger picture, there is a noticeable blank space. The fact that a lot of you have noticed this void gives me the strength that in the grand scheme of things me being out of sight does not necessarily mean out of everybody’s mind.

The current round of chemos while not mind zapping are adding up. My body feels like that out an old woman with its numerous aches and pains. What gets me going is the end of this part of the process is near. I have just 4 chemos left and then I am done!!!! While that will definitely not end my battle with the disease it feels like I am halfway there. The next phase will be surgery and then radiation! And after the chemo those two seem kind of trivial. I am waiting for the day where I wake up in the morning and not have cancer or better yet not have anything medically wrong with me. While my mind understands that day is still afar my heart is making plans for that carefree day.

I do have something more serious to share with you in my next update which will probably end up being next week so watch out for this space.

The quick update

Just wanted to do a quick update for everyone who have better things in life to do than read my rants. If you want the detailed version you can find it here [fair warning it just an incredibly boring monologue and not at all humorous]. But if you want to go back to discussing how the wrong person won Dancing with the Star or how boring SVU has become without Elliott or how socially aware you have become since Satyamev Jayate has started here is a quick update on my health.

I have completed four of my AC chemotherapy protocol. With AC being the vile chemicals they pump into me and not  the stuff that makes the room really cold. I started my Taxol protocol last Friday. Again has nothing to do with taxes but is just as taxing. This will be weekly for another 11 weeks and then surgery will be scheduled a month after my chemo stops.The AC was the more brutal of the treatments, think of it like a combination of a really vile villain and a mean boot camp sergeant. In comparison Taxol is just a strict librarian who frowns when you talk too loud. Hopefully with this phase of treatment I could resume a lot of my normal life [read spending an abnormally long part of my day on Facebook and watch Full House reruns]

My first chemo had me crying for my Mommy who promptly along with my dad came over and have been with me since. They will be here till end September. The upside getting good food to eat which I am not cooking, the downside is having to eat even when I throw a tantrum and don’t want to.  Thanks so much for all of you who have inquired about me and reminded me through your phone calls. cards, gifts and emails how lucky I am to have such amazing friends in my life. I should be in touch more often now.