Life's Journey

I'm healing. Each day is a little better than the one before, this is good. My surgery wounds are healing correctly I'm on the path of recovery. And I can honestly still say that today I feel better than I did before the surgery and for that I am grateful. I'm still getting used to the new body and body image that I have now. It's definitely a reminder every time I look in the mirror. I have this lovely "scarlet letter" with me where ever I go, I just hope I have (or can find) the rig...

Today is Christmas. I am home with my amazing husband. We are spending the day comfortably, relaxing, and watching a South Park marathon on the comedy channel. It's a quiet Christmas and I am so glad to be home with Roy and Ben. My mom and Dean will be coming over for the afternoon and evening. They are bringing all the stuff to make a yummy Christmas dinner.

I'm feeling a little better every day. I'm recovering much better and faster than I ever expected for t...

Surgery went as good as could be expected considering my circumstances. The doctors knew this was going to be a tough one for a lot of reasons. All the surgeries I've had done to my abdomen have caused a lot of scar tissue and adhesions to form - this is not what a surgeon wants to deal with. Also the fact that the cancer is just running amuck in my pelvis area is another unknown that surgeons are not fans of - these and some other factors meant that I had a lot of risks just going into su...

Sarah’s surgery went well this evening and she is currently resting in her room. The procedure was able to be performed laproscopically which is a less invasive procedure and means there is a much greater chance of a quick recovery (3-5 days instead of 5-7). Thank you all for your thoughts and well wishes. I’m sure Sarah will post another update once she feels up to it.

-Roy

Again I feel I have a lot to catch up on, things are changing and moving so fast but that's what I've learned cancer does - its constantly moving and changing. Let's start with part of the latest update… I had an appointment with Dr Gordon, the experimental guy, last week to talk about a clinical trial he's working on. He and Dr B thought it would be a good opportunity for me since they were seeing good results in the 2 patients they had used the drug on. This was the scary part abo...

There is a lot to catch up on. Let's start with the fun news. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving with the family in our home this year. It was so nice to have Roy's family all together and having the kids around was great. There were 16 of us, 4 are kids: my parents, Roy's parents, his grandma, his aunt, his brother, wife, and kids. This easily could've been chaotic but I had a plan. I, as always, laid my plan out in a color coded spreadsheet. Everyone had responsibilities for Thanksgiving...

So I have these days where the nausea over takes me. The other day it hit me and I had to ask Roy to pull over into an empty parking lot so I could jump out of the car and find myself keeled over throwing up. It's a horrible feeling and it comes out of nowhere. I am not a fan of this side effect. I've had this happen a few times and am hopeful it never happens again. My abdomen has felt bloated and constipated for a few days now. It's super uncomfortable. But there's not too much I can d...

I've been writing a lot about life with chemo and the challenges that I face. What I haven't really had the strength as of yet to write about is the impact this has on the ones I love. This is a tough one for me and is already making me fight back tears. I hate to think about how much this has impacted the lives of the people around me. I am so blessed to say that I have this amazing group of people that I am lucky enough to call friends and I have a wonderful loving family. I love all o...

I have to admit that this chemo has hit me pretty hard. Last week I had my flu shot and then went to my oncology office for fluids. Sometimes when I can tell I'm crashing from treatment I go get IV fluids and it gives my body a little boost. So, being a "do all that I can do" patient I tried to catch it early and get some fluids. Little did I know that the next morning I would wake up running to the bathroom to violently start vomiting. It was uncontrollable all morning. I had the hot c...

Yesterday was chemo day. I have a love hate relationship with these days. Obviously I hate the getting poisoned part - probably goes without saying. But, I love my family at the oncology office. This may sound strange, but my medical team has become an extension of my family to me. It's actually more than that, they are a new family for me. I've talked about many of my nurses before but it's been awhile. Michele is my super-nurse, my other mom. She's my oncologists nurse practitioner ...