My Own Double Rainbow

Lately I’ve been fluctuating between happiness that my mammogram came back all clear and the sadness and fear that the cancer will come back. Today has been a little harder for me.

It all started when baby girl and I started watching the movie “UP.” Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, I always cry (those of you who’ve seen it know what I’m talking about) and then towards the end, I cry again. There is this scene where Carl (the old man) looks through his and his late wife’s scrapbook reliving their life together. At the very last page, his wife wrote to him: “Thank you for the adventure, now go and have a new one.” She’s telling him to move on with his life after she’s gone.

I had not watched this movie in some years; and I’d forgotten about that scene. It made me so sad to think that one day I may have to tell baby girl and hubby to move on if I’m gone. How I may not see her grow, graduate from college, start her own family or celebrate any milestones in her life. When hubby came home, he noticed I was melancholy, but allowed me to be with my thoughts. After dinner, he and baby girl went to bed early and I was again stuck in my head about dying. To make it worse, there was an article in the paper about a local newscaster who battled breast cancer for 16 years and then passing away at age 56. That means she had started her battle against cancer right at 40 and I’m in my 30’s. Is that what I have to look forward to?

I’m finding it hard to be joyous tonight, even though I know it’s better for my health and my mind to stay positive. To be happy that I beat the disease. I’ve recently met several people with stories of survival and some who are just starting the battle. One woman I was chatting with is BRCA+ (meaning she has the genetic form) which has a lower survival rate than the type I have. She is a 6 year survivor and is going strong. I told her I couldn’t wait to hit my 6 year anniversary. She told me to stay strong. Sometimes, like tonight, I can’t be strong. I feel scared, and weak, and alone. I find it hard to take life day by day and there are times when even minute by minute is a struggle. I worry that it will affect my ability to be a good mother to baby girl. The fear and worry are gnawing at me.

This past weekend hubby and I had a short but meaningful conversation about children. I decided to not go through with seeing an onco-fertility specialist. Hubby had started to set aside money for in-vitro and egg harvesting, but I told him I had come to peace about not having another biological child. He hugged me and told me that he’d rather have me, his wife, than another child and that he was perfectly happy adopting. I think we may start the process, even though we’re not really ready for another child just yet. My heart has still not given up hope that one day I will be pregnant with a child again, but I am also glad that I finally got over the hurdle of being emotionally tied up over it.

This week, tomorrow, the next day, soon, really…I hope to be back to my normal self. The one who is still ecstatic over a one year cancer free diagnosis. I want to get to the point where I stop thinking about cancer everyday. It’s been a year and yet it still occupies my thoughts as if it where yesterday. A year ago, I was suffering through an episode of erythema nodosum and my breasts were still healing from surgery. I was getting ready to start to chemo and I was battling an infection. And now here I am, healthy and whole and yet I can’t be happy. I’m trying to find my own double rainbow.

Happy Second Birthday To Me!

It’s not often that you get a second chance at life, and that’s exactly what I got. HURRAY FOR ME!

As you can guess, I made the one year cancer survivor milestone! My mammogram came back all clear with no traces of cancer. I have been diligent with taking all my meds and I’ve been working on losing weight. The night before the mammogram was not a good one for me. I was tense and crying and nervous. Honestly, I was completely freaking out. When the tech began my mammogram, we started talking and I could not shup up. I was so nervous and so upset that I just kept talking and I told the tech that I knew I couldn’t shut up. She laughed, gave me a big hug and kept on with the process. Once she was finished, I told her I knew she couldn’t tell me anything so I asked if it looked like I was going to get a letter in the mail. (A letter in the mail indicates that the mammo is all clear.) I think because she knew I was anxious about my results, she actually told me what she saw on my mammogram. She said that she didn’t see anything, however, a radiologist would blow up the image and look more closely at it. She also said that no one was available to look at my images that day and to expect someone to look tomorrow. Her words immediately calmed me down and I was able to meet up with hubby and baby girl for a late lunch.

So imagine my surprise when during lunch, I received an email from my oncologist with 4 simple words: “Hello, no cancer seen.”

I cried in the middle of a Vietnamese restaurant.

The weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Hubby and I decided to have a special dinner for my new second birthday. We even opened a very special bottle of champagne that was given to use when we got engaged. It was one of the best dinners of my life.

I still have fears in the back of my mind about the cancer coming back, or even becoming metastasized, but then I check myself to continue to think positively. Nothing good can ever come from stressing out over an unknown situation. I feel like the media is now starting to really pay close attention to metastasized cancers and that’s why I keep seeing it online and on the news. At the same time, I keep seeing more and more information on survivors (like little old ladies who have been cancer free for 30 years!) and I tell myself that life is too short as is, stop worrying!

So I will end this on a happy note…Happy second birthday to me. 🙂