Spring Fever Infected...or Affected?

Blogging is not for the easily distracted. Shame on me for being absent for so long! Spring and sunshine and warm weather have caught my attention and my head has been turned from this computer and regular updates. For that, I apologize. I didn’t really think it was a big deal until I started getting emails from blog readers and total strangers who were concerned about me! I guess disappearing from a cancer blog can look pretty bad.

So, to these lovely readers, I apologize. I am fine and chugging along with treatments. No surprises (unless you count that one blood transfusion), no bad news (really), just a very irresponsible and spring fever infected writer.

At this very moment I am sitting in a vinyl recliner upstairs at Highland's Oncology and receiving my final round of Cisplatin and Gemcitabine (Gemzar). Hallelujah! If I’m lucky I can at least get one blog post written before the pre-meds knock me loopy.

I will have my last official treatment of Gemzar next Tuesday, then see Dr. Beck two weeks after that and be set free! As he said, he’ll “sign me off”…whatever that means. I guess they won’t be renewing my contract. (and I am praying to God that they never do!)

But then I get to learn a whole new game called radiation. I’ll be changing coaches and teams and playing a whole new sport. This sport will have a much shorter season, but I’ll get to play it daily. Good thing is, the injury list is much shorter. Other than some possible serious sunburn, peeling, and itching, I’m thinking it’ll be a breeze. Plus, the fact that I have virtually no feeling in the area that will be irradiated will make any possible tenderness irrelevant. I consider that a mastectomy perk…the first one I’ve been able to think of. When life gives you lemons...

If all stays on schedule, I should be finishing up treatment by the end of June. Sometime after that I will be scheduled for removal of the other breast and reconstruction. I look forward to reconstruction, because to me, that means hope for the future and for a mostly normal existence.

Removal of my port will be a huge milestone, too. As thin as I am, it really shows up and changes scoop necked shirts from cute to just plain creepy, so the sooner this thing is gone the better! The nurses have loved it, though. (I really should post a pic.) Sadly, the port will probably stay until my next round of scans in about three months…just in case.

Thanks for the queries and concern at my blogging absence. I will try and stay focused and keep up a bit better. I do have a lot to say…all in my head. In fact, it's been piling up in there and I'm running out of storage space! If I could just dictate a blog, that might work.