www.cancermonster.net

8:30a
Good morning. I am having a better morning than I did yesterday. Yesterday was a tough day for me. The problem that I mentioned on Monday didn’t go away. I am getting stuck in chairs like an eighty year old, swollen pregnant woman on her way to the delivery room. “I’ve ‘sitten’ and I can’t get up!” Partly due to the muscles on my side that are starting to stiffen and the rest of the blame goes to my knees. Both legs hurt now. Maybe the right leg is revolting in political protest for the mistreatment of its fellow. Or maybe I am just overusing the right leg by favoring the left and it’s had enough, I don’t know. I would blame the FibroCreature for the pain, but it has been constant. Fibromyalgia is fickle, never content to stay in one place for long. Short attention span, that one. No, this pain is not his doing. Maybe a little.

I asked K yesterday if there could be any part of the radiation beam hitting nerves that connect to the right leg. She gave me her best smirky smile. You know, the one that comes with a slight tilt of the head and the word “honey?” attached to it.

“Quit looking at me with that tone of face!”

Ask a lot of questions. Just try to ask the right person the right question phrased in the right way. Lol. No offence K, dear. I know that the question was stupid. Of course, no stray beam wandered from the left butt cheek over to the right butt cheek. It’s just that I wondered if the field was wide enough to nick something . . . Oh, never mind.

I did ask to see BB, nurse extraordinaire. She would know why my right leg was going astray. Guess what? She gave me a look reserved for little old ladies! Stop that! I am not little. And compared to the majority of the other monster fighters I come across at the center, not particularly old either. As for whether or not I’m a lady? Depends on the situation, I guess. (My theory on how to be a woman: Know when to be equal and when not to be so equal. Know when to be a mother and when to be a wife. In other words- Know when to be a lady and when not to be a lady. Get that right and your all grown up.) In any case, I am not a “little old lady.” I just play one in this little drama of mine.

I think we decided it was just par for the course. I thought that maybe since it was my last week of radiation, I would be graduating better off than we all expected. Dr G had told me in the beginning that even if I didn’t need the surgery, I would need physical therapy just from the radiation. I guess I thought I was special.

And that is just it, you know.

I am nobody. I am everybody. I am anybody.

I am nobody special. I am not Lance Armstrong. Oh, how he inspires me. Look what he did to his Monster. He has made it through the hell and came out as strong as ever. I want to be like him.

I am everybody who walks through life thinking that it can’t happen to them. Hearing of someone else’s battle with cancer and saying, “Isn’t that sad?” “That poor person. Turn the channel, babe. The movie is about to start.”

I am anybody. I am middle America. I am a mother, housewife, friend, sister, daughter. I am the lady next door, the friend of a friend, the woman sitting next to you on the bus (that says “Practice Happiness” on the side). I am you.

I am a reminder that this could and does happen to ordinary people. I have cancer. The doctors say it’s a “Fluke”. Nothing I did, no where I worked or lived, nothing I ate or abused my body with in the past caused this tumor to grown inside me. I am the one-in-three that you read about in the paper. Look around you. What are the chances that the one will be someone else? This has to stop. We must find the way to stamp out this Monster for once and for all. Get involved. Next time it could be you. This is our collective fight.

We need a cure. But in the mean time, we need to strengthen ourselves for the war. We need to get ready. We need to build in ourselves a character so strong that we don’t allow any Monster to beat us down. Physically or Mentally. We need to stop being so lazy and filling our minds and bodies with poison that will make us weak for the fight.

Be strong. You can handle more than you think you can.

I don’t know what made me think that anyone would be interested in my story. Go figure, but some are.

They are because I am nobody, everybody, and anybody all at the same time.

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1:00p
I had a wonderful visit with my friends over at the treatment center today. And I do think of the staff there as friends. There is something about sharing your most intimate insides with another person that bonds you. For the moment or for a lifetime, I don’t know. People come into your life for a reason. Some are just passing through and some are here for a while. A few, for a lifetime. But each person that crosses your path changes you in some small way. When you part company you never quite erase all trace of them. You never can replace their part in your life story. No bit part can be recast. My starship bridge crew included.

“When I come back to visit, you won’t zap me? ‘Cause I am giving you only until Friday for the zapping and then I am calling it quits! No more. I’m done!”

I actually was scheduled to come back on Monday for the twenty-fifth and last treatment. Since I am coming from so far away, the doctor agreed to combine that treatment into these last four days. The treatment on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be increased to include one quarter of the dose I would have gotten on Monday. I listened today for a longer beep, but I couldn’t tell.

BB stopped and joined the hallway chat K, H and I we’re having. She settled a question the girls had about the name of a certain drug. We knew she would know. BB is a font of information and I told her as much. She has been in Radiation Oncology for seventeen years though she doesn’t quite look old enough. She told me that she loves it. And it shows. Never once in the past weeks have I seen her off her game. “You wear your heart on your sleeve.” And a smile a mile wide. I’m going to miss her.

I stopped to talk with C and the front end ladies on the way out. Each one of them touched my heart this past month and I don’t think they understand how much. I fought to get here. They don’t even know how hard I fought for my treatment.

In some weird way, I am sorry it’s almost over. Part of that is missing out on these people. The other part is that I don’t know what is coming next. I just got used to this chapter and now I have to ready myself for the next. I want, desperately, to go home to my family and stay there. But I have been out of the loop. I have to reclaim my position, just to lose it again in three weeks time. I’m confused. I don’t know what I’m going to be when I grow up except that I will be “up” when I get there.

It’s the not knowing that is the challenge. It’s the tomorrow that’s scary. Who am I now and who will I be tomorrow? That is the question.

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5:00p
This afternoon I had some errands to run for Dan and then I went to the neighborhood bookstore to check out some books to add to My Book Store. I have always wanted a little book store. The one I imagined had big over-sized comfy chairs and couches tucked in niches and cubbies carved into shelves upon shelves of books of every kind. In my mind’s bookstore there was coffee with creamers of every ilk and little pastries all for free. People came for an hour and stayed all day. No one wanted to leave.

Instead I have the new millennium kind of book store. One where you have to make your own coffee in your own kitchen and sit on your own couch and browse. It’s still good. There is no dress code here. (No, don’t tell me! I don’t want to know what your wearing! Really, it’s ok.) I am slowly filling my “shelves” with good stuff. If you have a book that helped you with whatever life threw at you, I would love to hear about it. If it helped you, it will help someone else. If amazon.com carries it, I probably can too. Send me an email or post a comment with the books you love and if I can put it in the store (some books I can’t for some reason), I’ll put your review on it. How’bout that? How fun!

I have to get ready for Wednesday Date Night with Kelli. My number one. What a gal!

Tomorrow my treatment is not until 2:45. I’ll have the morning free. Maybe we’ll hang out. At the book store.

Find the door to the store on the top bar of any page. Always Open. Everyone Welcome! BYOC.