Update: Stable. Discouraged.

Just got back from CTCA last night. The CT and bone scans show "no indication of new sites". In other words, I am still stable. My blood counts, which I so excitedly reported on last visit, went back up 5 points. However, my doctor sees this as still being stable. So technically this is great news! And I'm relieved and happy.

Yet, I'm also rather discouraged. I just want it to go away!! Yes, I'm soooo glad that it's stable, and I'm soooo glad I have a form of cancer with one of the longer longevities, and I realize that none of us really know when our "time is up". But I can't help wanting the pressure off and I can't help wanting a fresh chance at making it to old age. (I promise to eat healthy for the next 60 years if I can just have my life back!)

I've been hoping that with enough determination and hard work and luck, I'd eventually beat this cancer. And that after 2 years of battling, with super healthy eating and lots of holistic efforts, that I'd start seeing evidence of the cancer receding. But there is no evidence. Oh, sure, maybe all my efforts are keeping the 'stability'. But which ones? Do I keep them all up? Do I try more? Can I go back to eating pizza?! Do I fight harder? Do I relax? Do I accept my fate and just enjoy my last few years?

This cancer fight has me feeling lost.

Thanks for the WHOLE plate

Parents, tell me this has happened to you too!...

Last week I prepared dinner for my 3 children. Balancing my desires to serve healthy foods with foods they will actually eat, I plated up the following: Costco canned chicken (usually a LIKE), baby carrots (usually OK), apple slices (always a LIKE), fresh pineapple (new, but a sure LIKE), a few spinach leaves (usually a DISLIKE that gets ignored). I called my children to the table and set their plates in front of them, a little excited for them to try out the new and delicious pineapple offering. Here's their reaction...

7-yr-old: Pointing to the pineapple, "What is THAT? I hate that!" Then melted out of his chair and onto the floor.

5-yr-old: Whining/shouting, "Why do you make us eat disgusting things?!" Then flipped the edge of her plate and scattered the contents all over the table and floor. She was sent to her room.

2-yr-old (Who had previously tried and liked pineapple): Upon seeing big brother and sister complain so loudly, shouted, "Me hate this!" grabbed her chicken (obviously not getting the complaint) and plopped it on the table.

Maybe it was overreaching to hope they'd like any brand new food, but I certainly wasn't expecting that! After calming down and cleaning up, I asked myself, what reaction did I want? Assuming that my children were emotionally mature people, but they didn't like pineapple, what would be the ideal response?

"Thank you for the food mom. Thank you for hearing my cry of hunger and for not neglecting my need, but for loving me and taking care of my needs. Thank you for trying to keep me healthy and trying to teach me about healthy eating choices even though I don't yet understand and all I ever want to eat is sugar. Someday I will understand and fully appreciate your efforts. Thank you for this wonderful assortment of food. I love apples! And carrots make me strong. And chicken is ok. But about this weird yellow stuff... I don't like it, but it was interesting to try. Thank you for giving me new things to try so that I can find out what I like and what I don't like. Is it ok if I don't eat the  yucky stuff?"

As I thought through the "ideal" response I reflected on a Christmas gift I received the year before...

The Christmas following my mother's death and my diagnosis with cancer, my dad wrapped up several gifts for us from my mom's gift stash. Though most were not for anyone specifically, I valued them as little love notes from mom.

The most intriguing gift I received was a blank book titled, "The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude". I wondered to myself "If my mom could send only one word of advice to me from heaven, considering her experience with cancer, her new perspective in the spirit world, and her motherly love, what would that word be? Love? Peace? Truth? Or maybe Gratitude?"

As children usually do when being taught, I assumed that I already "got it". I already realized it was important to focus on the many many blessings I had instead of magnifying the one problem. I already realized that things could be far worse. But I decided to try the advice and made an "Attitude of Gratitude" an early watch-cry for my cancer battle.

As I wrote in the journal, or said my prayers, I found it easy to be grateful for the health I still had, for my supportive relationships, for financial stability and for my usual comforts and joys. But when it came to thanking God for the cancer, it usually came out like, "I have received so many amazing blessings because of cancer that if I overcome it, then I will be grateful."

It was as if God fed me dinner and I  was whining to him that I would only eat it if he took off the pineapple. I readily admit that my spiritual maturity level is probably that of a 5 year old. After witnessing this dinner disaster with my kids, I wondered, "If I was spiritually mature, how would God want me to react to the FEAST of life experiences he's set before me?"

Something like this:
"Thank you for ALL of my experiences God. Thank you for hearing my cry of spiritual hunger and providing for my need to learn and grow by giving me this experience of cancer. Thank you for loving me enough to teach me even though I don't yet understand and all I usually want is ease and comfort. Someday I will understand and fully appreciate your efforts. Thank you for this wonderful assortment of experiences. Thank you for the good things cancer has given me - a stronger, more fulfilling marriage, better friendships, more compassion, more confidence, a 'seize the day' attitude, and free trips to Arizona.

"But there are a couple of yucky things I don't like about this experience. I especially don't like having the fear of death hanging constantly over my head, or taking these nasty drugs. However, God, thank you for letting me experience those yucky things. I now know that I don't like fear and that I am happier when I doggedly choose to embrace hope instead. I also see the irony in finding narcotics revolting, but willingly ingesting foods that may have led me to this condition and I feel more committed to healthy eating. God, I may not like these things, but I am still grateful that I got to taste or experience them."

Isn't that still gratitude - you don't have to like something but can still appreciate the experience? All of these experiences - comfortable or not - add richness and flavor to my development. I'm finding out what I like and don't like. When I put fear aside, I can even find fun in tasting it all. And for that I can be grateful!

Yet still, now that I've taken a taste, "God, is it ok if I don't eat the yucky stuff?"

Update: Going Down Means Looking Up

The latest news from Cancer Land (my nickname for CTCA "Disneyland for cancer people"):

Every month they test my blood for a breast cancer tumor marker. This is a protein that all women have, but breast cancer patients have in higher amounts. "Normal" is 0-35 units/mL. I was around 60 when I first started with CTCA last August. After starting hormone treatment I dropped to 35. The past few months I've been hovering around 40. These last 3 months I've steadily dropped again. This month I was at 32!

I'm excited about this number, but my doctor likes to remind me that blood counts are only rough estimates. The scan (which is next month) is more telling (and even that's not perfect). But this is definitely encouraging and helps me keep up a positive, confident mindset!

Use the Rope

In my last two posts I made an analogy that having faith to fight cancer is like having faith to grow a garden. Maybe I was wrong...

The problem with the garden analogy is that I'm an amateur gardener! I have failed to grow peppers, planted peas too late in the season, forgotten to water cucumbers, let tomatoes over-ripen and all this with an overabundance of weeds. 

That's the problem with any skill - it takes a lot of time, effort, learning from the experts, and trial and error to get good at it. And while that's all fine and good for gardening, it's downright scary when it comes to deadly cancer. There isn't much wiggle room for trial and error; effort can easily be wasted in the wrong directions; and time feels like it's running out.

As for "experts" - there are way too many - from western medical doctors, to holistic doctors, to cancer patients who get excited about the latest remedy they're trying (myself included!). It's a dilemma: with all these "experts" and promises out there, how do you know who to trust? It's impossible to discover or to incorporate all the ideas at once (time, money, motivation, side-effects, etc). It's easy to feel lost and helpless in this fight... and I have. What's a girl to do?

While I like the analogy of faith being like a seed, this analogy is working a little better for me right now...

Recently I went to Trafalga with my kids and watched my 5-year-old daughter scamper up a rather high rock wall with joyful abandon; even jumping from one hand-hold to the next! This tiny little girl made it to the tippy-top multiple times; while kids twice her size chickened out about half-way up. 

I was so impressed with her I decided I had to try it myself. Before climbing, the teenage employee strapped me into a harness and attached it to a hydraulic-resistance safety rope. 

About 10 feet off the ground I began to marvel even more at my daughter's accomplishment. My fingers and toes already felt weak and there was absolutely no place to rest. I started to fear that I was going to slip and fall. I knew I was attached to a safety rope, but I panicked that either it might not work for me, or that slipping off, instead of letting go in a controlled way, would be way too scary. I wanted to give up right then. But then I thought of my daughter, leaping from hold to hold. And it suddenly occurred to me that she could do that because of the rope! She was so light that the hydraulics of the rope actually lifted her upward when she jumped. She could feel the rope and so she trusted the rope and used the rope to enable her climb. 

If I was going to make it, I knew I needed to trust the rope too. So I decided to test it a little and let go of the wall. I immediately felt the security of the rope; it's upward lift was much stronger than I'd realized from the ground. I realized that even though slipping might give me a momentary shock, I would be perfectly safe. I now trusted the rope. I grabbed the wall again and headed up. As I climbed I still felt afraid of slipping, especially on the trickier holds, but I pushed it aside and kept going, determined to reach the top. And I did!

My end goal - to be cancer free - appears dauntingly high. Who am I to think I can beat cancer when so many others don't? The farther I climb the more I feel both exhilarated and scared. Exhilarated by the view... of this amazing world of physical and emotional health and the beauty and strength of the human body and spirit. Scared by my own weakness and that I might slip up and make choices that are a waste of time and money; or worse, harmful. But any athlete can tell you that to be at your best, you can't be afraid. Fear will lock up your muscles and your mind. To perform you have to stay loose. You have to trust your rope. 

For me, that rope is Jesus Christ. I have come to realize that I don't have to be the poster-child of beating cancer; nor do I have to find the cure for everyone. I have talked to dozens of patients at CTCA and discovered that everyone's cancer story is as unique as they are. I have also been told a dozen stories of people who have been able to completely beat it. So I know it's possible and it's very individual. I have also come to believe that I have the best chance of success if I use my safety rope; if I just keep climbing (even joyfully!) and let Christ guide me to the experts and the remedies that are particularly right for me. I believe this is possible because I have felt awed by the serendipity of helpful events during other trials of my life. And even if I don't get to the top, if I don't completely eliminate cancer, I will climb my furthest if I keep trusting my Savior-rope.

I realize that being anchored to Christ is not tangible the way a rope is. But the fascinating reality is that both require belief!! Asking "Is Christ real?" is just like asking "Is my rope actually going to catch me if I fall?" That rope can be working perfectly, but if I don't believe that it is working then I might as well not even have it because I'm too scared to use it. My first attempt up the rock wall only got me 10 feet up, while my second attempt got me to the top. It was the same wall and the same rope. It wasn't until I chose to test it a little and then continually reminded myself to trust it as I climbed that I was successful. The belief is what matters.

During my cancer fight, I've done some similar testing. And I've come to know for certain that when I choose to disregard faith, my emotions are full of fear, depression and anger. When I choose to embrace faith, my emotions are full of empowerment, enjoyment, determination and gratitude. Is my trust in my Savior-rope something I can really rely on? I'd much rather make the climb believing that it is! Plus, the very fact that such a belief can have such a lifting effect, inclines me to believe that it is indeed real.

For anyone who read this far in my post - do you have a favorite faith analogy?


PS. My garden is thriving too!

See!

I was a bit nervous after that last post that I might have to eat my words. But look what I found in my garden this very afternoon! Green! This one is lettuce. And some beets and peas are showing too. See what a little faith can do!

It'll Come

I have a tiny half-size square foot garden. I was exhilarated to plant it this year. New life. Organic veggies. All that.

Last Saturday I planted spinach, lettuce, kale, onions, beets and peas. Sunday morning I started looking for little green shoots. Nothing.

I realize that seeds, like all good things in life, take time to develop. But I get wonderfully excited for that first sign of life and I can't help myself. This picture, taken today (9 days later) shows that there is no growth yet. Part of me wonders if I'm doing something wrong - planting too early, over or under watering, etc. But a bigger part of me believes that in a few more days there will be new life. I believe it enough to claim it publicly and I will post a picture when it comes.

Cancer is no different. Inspite of concrete evidence just yet, I also believe that I WILL BEAT CANCER! You'll see! And when it comes, you are invited to the celebration!

Cancer Update

I've decided to update my blog more often (at least twice a month hopefully), so if you want to hear my ramblings about life, death, faith and cancer, please check back.
Today's cancer report... Stable!! In my book, that is great. No spread to other organs. No sign of new growth in the bones. My blood counts are stable too (down by one point, which isn't much to the doctor, but still feels great to me). So we are going to maintain the course and continue with the current hormone therapy.

While I'd love to hear the doctor tell me the cancer is gone, I've come to realize that may be a near impossibility with bone mets. The bones are just a difficult organ to assess. Mostly they look for holes in the bone, but they can't really see tumors like they might see in other organs. It's a bit daunting to fight an invisible enemy (even more invisible than other cancers), but at least this gives enough encouragement to keep fighting!

I was wondering coming into today's scan if my efforts are worth it, especially my diet. Talking to the doctor about the limited info these scans offer, I'm realizing that the best assessment is actually how I'm feeling. And I feel good. Not awesome, but good. And slowly and steadily improving! Plus I am almost entirely free of a whole long list of common cancer symptoms. That's enough for me to carry on.

Footnote: We shared a ride to the airport with 2 other cancer patients today. Both have been fighting stage 4 cancer for a couple years. Both got bad news this visit that their cancers have spread to additional organs. Both were discouraged. Sure makes "stable" sound that much better! But why does anyone have to go through this?!