Get Busy

So it was kind of strange for me that very quickly into a party I found myself in conversation with a breast cancer survivor who had recently completed a mastectomy and reconstruction but mainly wanted to talk about fear.
She had been given the option of chemo or not and choose not to have chemo. I think she was pretty happy with that decision but it was starting to leak into the fear zone.
Fear it was going to come back.
Tomorrow I go get a blood panel done that includes a check for a tumor marker. It's a 100% marker, but is typically included in well checks for people like me.
Then in January I will have a CT scan of my torso since sarcoma generally goes to the lungs next and that is where breast cancer may come back ( two birds - one stone).
With all this checking up, I should be able to put fear on hold and just wait for the results - the data.

I am more interested in re-establishing my confident athletic self. I am not training like Rocky though. I could find plenty to criticise my lazy self about, in fact.
I really need to get busy. Maybe pull out the Ipod and start doing sit-ups, too.

Fears

In his regular Saturday column Bob Lively writes:



"I have become convinced that heaven's consistent message to humanity is the three-word admonition: "Be not afraid!" "

I don't know if this is heaven's consistent message but it is something I am directly dealing with now.

http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/faith/2009/12/12/1212words.html

I just don't know if I am learning to live without paralyzing fear in the face of fatal illness or not. Having lived through more than a year of cancer treatment I came to think of cancer as a certainty. Now, although no one can or would say that both cancers are cured, it's not certain that they will come back.

Do I need to feel certain? In the midst of life, death comes. This was no better proven than the accidental death of Ed. We were all certain he was going to outlive most of his long time friends. I wonder if a certainty that life was going to be long and full made his life rich with friends and adventure?

I remember being young, certain, adventurous and barely touched with thoughts of mortality. What about this life I have now? Maybe I should just pick a stance and go with that? If cancer returns, then I will deal with that, if it does not, at least I wont have lived as though it's around every corner and under every cough.

A year ago my plan was to return to my life and proceed as though nothing had happened. That is really not possible. Cancer has left it's marks. Will I get the focused brain that recalls facts, names and organizes information? Chemo brain is no fun. I flat out do not recall events I should from the past and my short term memory is not that good either.

I am fortunate to have the love of family and friends. Although I have lost in areas our society uses to measure worth (money, possessions and position) I don't feel like a loser, just embarrassed on occasion. Although after hundreds of thousands of dollars of treatments, no one else seems embarrassed. We all seem concerned that there is not enough money to do the research and improved treatments needed. I recently read that treatments for osteosarcoma are twenty years old. No recent break throughs that have entered accepted treatment practices.

There have been many fearful and dark experiences and sometimes I feel pressure to cast myself as a victim of my experiences, but truthfully, I think I’ve benefited from them as well as fallen victim. Maybe I can build on that feeling to fight fear.



At 60 plus I know I am not immortal and that death will come. However, I would still like to not be home when death comes knocking.

Wondering Myself Into a Lather

I can spend more time standing and walking now.

The other day the big toe on my left foot hurt. What I would have blown-off previously now became a worry that osteosarcoma was coming back! I googled. It didn't help. I wondered about my DNA. Was it programed to turn on osteosarcoma again?
(TP53 and RB1, two well known tumor suppressor genes, are altered in Osteosarcoma )
I began to worry about the telomeres caps on my chromosomes. The visual from PBS "Nature" looked something like a Q-tip floating in space. But then I remembered that stress and aging both contribute to destruction of telomeres. Oh No!

About this time I realized my toe didn't hurt anymore.

So I guess I wont be having my foot amputated after all.

I better figure out how not to be so fearful.

http://www.medindia.net/news/breakingnews/Nobel-Prize-in-Medicine-2009-58977-1.htm

http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/november2009/11232009longevity.htm

http://atlasgeneticsoncology.org/Tumors/ConvOsteoID5344.html

Off My Chest - it's contagious

This had been a pretty good day even though Charley was ill this morning and did not come for breakfast.
My Mother planned to have the minister over for a visit. She came up with a menu which I followed. I made the split pea soup Monday and went to the store to get sour cream at her request and a few other items for the apartment.
Lunch was good. Mom got to talk a lot with the minister. A good friend of Mother's drop by for a short visit as the minister was leaving.
Then as I was mindlessly watching Letterman while Mother got ready for bed, she decided she had to unburden herself about how unhappy I was.
I guess she did not mean to drive up my blood pressure, but she did.
It was kind of a strange way from someone who said they had a happy day to act.

Life and Networks

Sunday the rain took a break and on a small hill in the country of hills we had a small service to remember a fallen friend. It's difficult to sum up the celebration of a life we did not want taken from us. I also find that my cancer experience and likely the effects of chemotherapy renders me easily over whelmed and wrung out by emotional events.

The event seemed to bring out the best in each of us. Great donated facilities, organization, music, sound system, photos, stories, food, drink and spirits.

There were lots of friends from many different phases of Ed's life. Artie and band played old time guitar and fiddle music reminiscent of the Alabama hills music Ed loved from childhood.
There were many friends hugging each other. There were some thoughtful words and good stories told.
I appreciated my RFR neighbor's Ed stories (trash-collector ambush, black powder log splitter and bringing his new love to the 'hood). I refrained from hobbling up to tell the story of Ed laying in wait for the Dog Catcher so he could explain that his services were not needed because we were a self sufficient neighborhood where some visiting dogs (like his dog Rocky) were welcome and the dogs that were not were shot. It should be noted that no dogs were shot and Rocky was in doggie jail several times.
Ed the friend, adventurer, father, uncle, husband, son-in-law, neighbor, and network center.
His family seemed in good spirits but missing a husband and Dad will go on for years.
I don't believe that there is a God in Heaven that decided it was Ed's time and not mine. My God may welcome us back to dust and spirit, but I believe is mainly a creator and connector of spirits. I don't have this God stuff, death stuff or life stuff figured out and likely never will.

I've been to the Dung Beetle Bar and found there seems to be more to life- another dimension so to speak.

I have felt lifted by the spirits and positive prayers of friends and family. I don't understand it but I know it helps me and sustained me through some very dark hours. Maybe it manifests through the social network scientist are studying.

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/editorial/stories/insight/2009/12/06/1206social.html

Nicholas A. Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James H. Fowler of the University of California, San Diego wrote 'Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.'