Words With Friends

Phase II: Words With Friends: Phase III

It seems that my life has become (become?) somewhat of a roller coaster.  I have recently thought how my close friends must think, “what could happen next”, or even be tiring of the drama.  Others who know me a bit less intimately might even think that some of the things that have happened/or are happening in my life are fictitious, or possibly real only in my mind.    I suppose, even I, believe the latter to be true to some extent. 

With that said, I will recount this very odd week.

The last big news was the outstanding MRI results that I posted from my phone last Friday (3/4/11).  There is no sign of cancer at this time in either breast per MRI.  I thought it very interesting that all the men that I told these results to had the initial thought…”You’re done then….don’t go back to that place.”  I truly enjoyed indulging in that thought.  I can see it.  The surgeon and all the nurses scrubbed up wondering where the patient was. The oncologist’s office calling me months down the line to see what had happened to me, and me finally responding simply… WHuT?  What Cancer?  (Wha ha happen wuz……that chemo….it took that canca…) Despite this intrigueing idea, that 30% recurrence rate without radiation, with my particular aggressive type of cancer, kept creeping back into my mind.  Like Cancer can do.  So, I did go ahead and go back to my appointment this week.  I did, however, get out of doing the 30 minute dose of Herceptin this week merely by enduring 30 hours of puking and diarrhea between Sunday and Monday. The doctor simply didn’t want me in the infusion room with the other folks with low blood counts.   Funny how 23 weeks of Chemotherapy and months of stressful situations could not make me lose my appetite, or bring me to the porcelain God, but a classroom full of puking toddlers with a rampant virus could.

Fortunately for me, between my extremely stressful Tuesday and “Retching” Sunday Night, lied the interesting, and fun at times Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Wednesday, I did have to leave work early to pick up my puking toddler (hence the horrible Sunday Night) out of a roomful of other puking toddlers, and then go spend an hour and a half with the Radiation oncologist, but Mom made a rush trip down to help us out on Wednesday night so we wouldn’t have to take off Thursday.  Wednesday also happened to be our 12^th Wedding Anniversary.  We almost blew off dinner due to overwhelming situations, but I was glad we didn’t. Richie surprised me with a gift of his Grandmother’s Wedding Ring.  It is very beautiful, and I’ve never had anything like it.  I don’t really need anything like that, but it’s true that “Sparkle” is my favorite color.  And that, it does.  It did brighten my day and my week.   I do want to note also that I do like the radiation oncologist.  When I mentioned the DIEP reconstruction surgery to him, he did say ..”are you sure you have enough there? ( on the downtube?) “you look pretty thin to me”…Some of these doctors know the right thing to say.  Anyway, after long discussion with my new friend, he said that we COULD do the reconstruction at the time of surgery then radiation but that he thinks the outcome would be best if we waited.   The next day I called my buddy Ned (Plastics) and he too said that we COULD do it, but he thought that I would be happiest with the outcome in the LONG RUN if we waited.  The fact that this guy, who I believe to be on my side, said this, along with encouragement that I received from a woman who I had the opportunity to meet this week, who is my age who and who is currently 5 years out with similar cancer and same post op reconsruction, that I should be starting to prepare for the fact that I WILL LIKELY be ALIVE in 5 years.  The ODDS ARE that I will be alive in 5 years, and she recommended I get the best reconstruction I can get, which would mean waiting.  So with all the information I felt I needed on board, I decided to again stick with the method…or, the way of the oncologist, and keep the scheduled, surgery only, on the 21^st of March.

Thursday, I got to go see Downtube Shifter play at a Parking Lot Party, but the cool part of that was watching my son eat cake and slide down a huge bouncy slide.

Friday I felt pretty good.  In the morning, I jogged for 30 minutes and had my first of what I might call a RBC (red blood cell) spurt. Only lasted About 10 minutes, but I liked it. 

 In the afternoon I got the great MRI news, then in the evening got to go out to dinner with my friends from work, eat guacamole, then go see Richie’s  Band. 

 I had a great time until about 11:00 pm when I realized I had overdone it and hurt pretty bad that evening and most of the next day. 

Sunday morning started out great again.  75 minute trail run! and tacos! with my good friend Cindy R. who is the one who introduced me to the “Words with Friends” and Scrabble on my IPhone. 

Wait, that's Ace, and that was in the afternoon. Kinda looks like Cindy from begind though.

Watch out for that Crevice son!

Anyway, I mentioned in a previous entry how my grandparents loved crossword puzzles, but I was no good at them, so I did, can’t remember what I said, but… something else.  Anyway, now I can say Words with Friends, or Scrabble.  I do suck at this too, but it is much easier than crosswords and you can still be an idiot about current events and be entertained.  And you can pretty much make stuff up, which I like doing. My whole week has pretty much been “Sprinkled”  (Think… sugar cookie candy balls, or sparkly colorful sugar…) with this new found addiction.  My favorite is to have a little time with the words with my morning coffee.  (Oh my god, I AM my grandparents). Anyway, the gift of this simple time passer, or mind blocker has been more helpful for me in the past 2 weeks than Cindy, or anyone might be able to know.  So, in memory of this special gift from my friend (and some of you think I am being fecicious sP?   But my friend Cindy knows I’m being serious)…I’m going to refer to this extremely difficult period between phase II and Phase III (Surgery) as “Words With Friends”.  Due to this, I’ve made it a point, also, to share a few extra words, or moments with some of my friends, prior to phase III.   Wanna Play?

Just ask for a game with Powerhowell.