A real look at living with Stage 4 Breast Cancer

A real look at living with Stage 4 Breast Cancer

14 hours

I just woke up from sleeping 14 hours straight.

I went to bed last night after Eric came home early from work because he could tell in my voice I was cracking from exhaustion.

He got home and made me go to bed, told me not to feel guilty, closed the bedroom door, turned out the lights and I was out.

Out for 14 straight hours.

I read all the stuff about BC month, and buy pink to support it but here is a real look at it.

My real look at.

I take 4 chemo pills a day. 2 in the morning and 2 at night for 2 weeks on and 1 week off. 

Xeloda are my chemo pills.

These pills make me feel very queasy if I don’t eat 20-40 minutes before taking.

If you wonder how I know that exact amount of time – well from experience.

Once the queasiness hits, there is no going back until I sleep it off. 

But I can’t sleep it off at 730 in the morning, so I deal with it.

These chemo pills also dry my hands and feet out so badly, I have cracks in my skin on my thumb, index and middle fingers.  These cracks are on the palm side at the joints – where my fingers move.

Once the crack starts to peel away is when it is more painful, BUT once it peels, I have about 4 weeks of normal hands again.

My hands – yes the very hands I depend on daily. 

Not only to love with, but to paint.

 Painting that heals my soul.

Painting that I hear from others heals their souls too.

This chemo also does the same to my feet.  When it gets so bad, I sometimes whence in pain every time I walk.

I isn’t like this all the time.  I have no hard evidence why it is like this some times and not others, so I can’t do anything to prevent it.

I also get an IV infusion of Avastin every 3 weeks.

This one makes me tired for a day or 2 after.

Sometimes it gives me headaches.

Again, there is no planning on how I will feel.

So I go into these treatments praying it won’t wipe me out.

This time it did. 

I knew it was coming…it hadn’t happened in a long time.

It doesn’t make it easier knowing it is coming.

It still sucks to come home Tuesday afternoon – after treatment – take a nap, barely able to get up to go get Ian, come home and not able to do homework with him.

I was “ok” Wednesday.

Thursday I couldn’t hold out anymore.  I napped from 11-1; had to ask a friend to get Ian from school; had to have Eric come home early then slept for 14 hours straight.

Once every 3 months I get an IV infusion of Zometa.  This one is to make my bones strong so mets cant come back. 

This one is ok.  Sometimes, it gives me bone pain for a day or two after.

I get brain MRIs every 2 months.

I have once next  week.

The anxiety of the results starts up as soon as I make the appointment for the scan.

I start to think I feel something different happening.

I wonder if that headache is something happening.

I think, I sure have been tired lately – is that something??

This happens every 2 months – like clockwork

I get full body PET scans every 4 months. 

I get the same anxiety before these too.

 

BUT

I am strong.

I am brave.

I am all that sh*t people want you to believe that it takes to “beat” breast cancer.

Don’t tell me I beat it once, I can beat it again.

I AM beating it every day of my life.

But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hit me below the belt and double me over every now and then.

So I respectively tell you all who think breast cancer is “beaten,” to walk a day in my shoes. 

AND my shoes aren’t even bad right now. 

Walk the year of 2012-2013 in my shoes. 

That was the time I had 3 brain surgeries within 10 months, had to relearn to walk, drive and trust in God that I was going to live.

This is my “pink” life.