Life's Journey

"You can do this!" - I can hear the little voice in my head repeat those 4 simple words over and over again... "you can do this"...  Sometimes it's a whisper, but sometimes it's a scream that needs to be heard over all the other noise life has thrown at me.  It's that voice that encourages me and keeps me moving forward.  One foot in front of the other, baby steps at times and giant leaps at others.  "You can do this". 

There have been a lot of times when I feel at my worst and this thing gets me down and that's when the little voice has the biggest impact.  It reminds me that I'm stronger than this, that I have within me the courage and the conviction to get through this. "You can do this".  It would be so easy to slip into a deep dark place during all of this, to allow myself to succumb to the dark cloud that comes with cancer...  but that little voice "you can do this" keeps me looking toward the light.  I guess this is a voice that has always been there, pushing me along.  Encouraging me to try harder, do better, keep striving for more.  It helped me build my career, it helped me through tough times, it helped me become the person that I am today with 4 simple words.  It's helped my find my inner superhero!

Yesterday was chemo day.  My labs came back not in normal ranges but good enough for chemo again.  My WBC count went down a little from last week along with my RBC and HGB numbers.  But it is still higher than my major crash a few weeks ago.  I still need to be careful to not do too much or be around too many people as I can easily get sick - which I do not need on top of all of this!  Ugh!

Drip... drip... drip... as I watch the poison dripping into my IV line each week I find it amazing that this is the best way to fight this disease, this beast.  That after all these years of research the medicine is actually killing me.  Yesterday's chemo was tough.  It was a long day, started at 8:00a and didn't get out until about 5:00p.  And this one hit me hard!  I was nauseas right away.  I came home and crashed.  But I had restlessness like you wouldn't believe - in fact I'm still fighting it today.  It's like I'm tired and I want to rest but sitting still is driving me insane.  My body feels like it just needs to keep moving, don't stop, like I need to be in fast forward all day - but I know I'm tired at the same time.  So frustrating - "you can do this".  Sigh. 

Today Roy and I met with Dr. Borst (my oncologist) for a follow up.  Not much to report really because we won't know anything until the final PET Scan.  We did find out that the final scan will not be done until the last week of June.  Hurry up... so we can wait some more!  My last radiation treatment is June 2nd so he wants to wait a few weeks for all treatments to take full effect before running the PET Scan.  Then I will follow up with him on June 29th for the final results.  "You can do this!"  Fingers crossed that it shows no evidence of disease (NED).  If the results are NED I will follow up every 3 months for check ups and PAP tests with PET Scans every 6 months.  The goal is to go 2 years with NED!  If the PET Scan at the end of the month shows that disease is still apparent we will start looking for clinical trials to start.  But, I'm determined to believe that the results will be NED.  Last week I had a full exam with my radiologist and he gave me the good news that the area seemed less full - for now I'm hanging on to that and fighting this with everything I've got - "YOU CAN DO THIS!"

I am happy to report that I only have one more chemo treatment left - YAY - one more!!!!  I can't believe I've made it this far already.  Sometimes the days were creeping by while others (I think I slept through) went flying by.  As I mentioned my last radiation is June 2nd so I'm nearing the finish line.  I just keep looking toward that light at the end of all of this and running as hard as I can toward it.  I'm looking forward to getting back to work.  I really miss everyone!  And I miss the challenges and interactions.  I've always given myself 100% to my career and to not have that in my life has been tough.  I really do miss it.  And I get to come back to a whole new role which I am very excited about starting.  I'll still be in the world of the web but I'll be managing our internal web platform and applications.  This is an area of our web that has been neglected over the years due to lack of manpower and funding....  but I'm hoping to give it the overhaul it's been in desperate need of over the next year and a half!  It's almost sick how excited I am to get my hands dirty in this project. 

Well we have something to look forward to this weekend.  Roy and I are driving up to the Grand Canyon for the weekend.  We have some friends that are going to hike rim to rim to rim in a day (yeah, wack-a-doos!).  So Roy and one of the other spouses decided to go to the river and back in a day.  And I decided that I can sit at the Grand Canyon as easily as I can sit here so I'm in for the adventure.  Weekends are my best feel-good times and we were able to get rooms right on the rim so I can easily just go back to the room for a nap if I get too tired.  It seems like a good place to stop and reflect on life.  And it's a good break from the every day. 

I hope I have inspired some of you to find your own little voice in your head - listen to it.  Let it help you get through rough days.  Let it help you keep smiling and brush away the dark clouds that sometimes linger overhead.  "You can do this!"

xoxo - Sarah