living with a secret

Someone told me recently that I could look at my life as though I'm living with a secret.  My chemo so far doesn't make my hair fall out.  I surprisingly do not look as though I'm dying, I look and feel healthy as of now.  I posses the knowledge of my future and those who do not know me, do not.  Walking around the cruise ship and looking at all the happy people on vacation was in a way a daunting experience.  Why do all these people who love buffets and to sit in the sun get to live "forever"?  But I always go back to, who knows what they've been through.  They could have their own diagnosis that they aren't aware of or that they're not visually sharing. 
    One night we were at dinner on the ship and we were sitting right next to a woman who clearly was growing back in her head of hair.  I immediately had this feeling, she has breast cancer.  Sure enough she struck up a conversation with us and it turns out her and her husband were celebrating the end of chemo for her by going on a cruise.  Now I don't ever see me being able to even celebrate that.  I am jealous of my aunts chemo schedule because she can now go every 3 weeks, and I have to go every other week.  How pathetic is that, I'm jealous of a chemo schedule, oh man what a life I now live.
    This woman who was celebrating the end of her chemo was the only person on the boat that we shared my secret with.  She didn't even acknowledge the information with any sort of response what so ever.  I mean, she literally didn't respond, she didn't say anything at all.  I don't know how someone who has been through something so similar as myself can just not even express any sort of understanding, empathic or sympathetic or anything at all.  Telling elicited nothing from this woman.  I know this is how many of you feel.  You don't know what to say or do.  I did a post a while back about this, about how doing something is better than nothing at all.  But then what should that something be?  I don't know that I have the answer to that, and I of all people should be able to give you some hint on that shouldn't I?  I can say that the number one thing that makes me feel heard and understood is compassion, so if you could just show compassion I think that's enough.
    I am not sure what we expected to hear from this woman on the ship, or what we expected her to say that would make us at least feel heard.  I think the fact that she did nothing made me think well she could have at least aknowledged what we said to her.  And I think in general thats what's helpful, is acknowledgement that you understand or at least try to understand what we're going through and again having compassion.
  So as far as secrets go, this is not the one anyone would chose to want to live with, but the word live is the key.  As long as I'm living I will have this secret and that is all I'm trying to do right now is stay alive.

young cancer conference

I got a flyer in the mail from Dana Farber advertising a young cancer conference at the end of March.  It is just a few hours on a Saturday with some interesting looking talks on nutrition and blogging and having cancer as a mom and all the fun stuff that comes with being younger and having cancer.  I am definitely going to go and I'm pretty interested to see what they talk about.  One of the main things was writing and blogging about your experience so I feel I can definitely relate to that one.

I had an increase in a few drugs this past time, non chemo drugs.  We are trying to find a way to make me less miserable the day I get treatment.  I think we had some success but of course all drugs have side effects and I didn't really care for some of the ones I experienced this time that were new.

I keep thinking about the cruise and how blessed we are to be able to have gone.  And how fortunate we were to have my mom watch the kids for us.   My mom went home recently.  I am doing really well and we want to see if we can use friends and family to help with the kids and some how manage without her.  I think it will be a tough adjustment as she was so helpful and supportive but I think it is manageable.  I would love for her to be able to work again and feel like she has a life other than raising her grandchildren.  She is so fabulous at it though!  she is teaching Elly to read and so many other things that I just don't have the energy for most of the time.  I will miss her as she kept me company and was a great help.

Bryan's mom will be coming out to help the next time I get chemo so that will be fun.  The kids miss her and do really well with her.  My brother has also been home but should be coming back soon. 

ok well I will end my rambling, not much to talk about, but feeling really good today, hope you all have a good day!

time heals all wounds

You know that old saying, "time heals all wounds," I have always found that to be so true.  This extra week off of chemo was the perfect time to go on vacation.  Most of my side effects had subsided and it made it so much more enjoyable and that much easier to forget what I'm going through and be able to just live in the caribbean for a week and enjoy myself, ourselves.

Every day was better than the last, it was an amazing trip.  It was like a second honeymoon and we did miss the kids because the ship was so kid friendly, and there were a few families with little ones.  They say you either really like cruising or you don't, and we really do and want to go again WITH the kids!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the fundraiser because we definitely were able to do more knowing we had those funds to use to help pay for medical bills.  We did a few fun excursions, kayaking and an animal park.  I am going to post a few pics.  Unfortunately my camera stopped working after day 2 so we didn't get as many photos as I would have liked.  We went to one park where they have monkeys that come sit on your heads and birds that sit on your shoulders, I was glad the camera was working for that.  The water was 80 degrees and so was the air, it was beautiful each day and we were so fortunate to have such good weather, no rain and it was so much fun.

We met a few people, no one that we really connected with.  I find it so hard to meet new people, when they ask if I work, I usually just tell them about the job I had and act as if I'm still doing it.  I never feel comfortable dropping the Cancer bomb on them when they're simply just asking what I do for work.  People never know what to say and then it just makes it awkward, so it's easier just to talk about the job I had, which I loved. 

Anyway, it was nice to just pretend for a while that everything is ok and enjoy ourselves.  Thanks to my mom for watching the kids!  and our friends that helped out, we really appreciate it!

 Beach in Costa Maya.  we did some snorkeling there, my favorite picture!

 sunsets from our window on cruise ship

fun rope bridge we had to cross

 orange iguana, they were huge!

 Monkeys!  They warned us to take off our hats, sunglasses and not have big bags or water bottles because the monkeys would just come up and take them from you!  and someone did bring a gatorade bottle and the monkey did steal it, figured out how to open it and chugged it!

When we docked in Tampa we had like 12 hours to kill before our flight.  I have a cousin who I haven't seen in like 9 years that lives in Tampa and he was nice enough to spend the day with us and show us around.  He lives on a lake and I got to go kayaking again!  Thanks Bill for making the end of our vacation awesome!

oh to be 5!

My daughter turns 5 tomorrow.  I had a conversation with her the other day.  I asked her if I went away for a long time if she would remember me.  She said yes and I asked her if she could try to remind Drew of me, incase he forgot and her response was, "yeah just remind me after breakfast."  My counselor told me this was a completely appropriate way to get the answer to a question I've always wanted to ask her.  Her birthday is hard for me, kind of like christmas, just don't know how many more I'll be here for.

Gotta love the 5 year old brain though.  She asked me the other day how you get to heaven after you die.  I can't believe she's asking these types of questions, I don't think I was that inquisitive at this age, but maybe I was.  Being on the other end and having to answer these questions is quite the challenge!

I love to watch movies and I try to find light hearted ones, with happy endings, especially when I'm having a hard time with my life.  I started one the other day and there was someone that was dying in it, and before they even told you what she had I just guessed cancer, cause why not?  That's what everyone is diagnosed with lately, it's crazy.  Anyway, that ruined the idea of me getting through it without crying!  So anyone have suggesstions of newish movies that are funny and heart warming??  Please!

We leave for our cruise on sunday, I hear we are getting yet another snow storm, but hopefully we will miss it.  Bryan and I picked out a few excursions to go on while we're in Belize and Honduras.  I am getting pretty excited.  We haven't ever been on a trip alone without the kids so this is definitely something to look forward to.  I will come back with pictures and stories for you all, just think of us when you're in the snow, out in the caribbean soaking up the sun!