The Plan

Alan and I went to my chemo doctor on Christmas Eve for a follow up after the attempt at surgery. We dropped Allie off at my mom's house and headed that way. The song "Oh Holy Night" was playing on the radio and it was rainy and dreary outside. I have felt pretty ok after surgery but for some reason riding in the car that morning and listening to that song made me fall to pieces. I cried all the way there and the whole time in the waiting room. Simply said, cancer is just sad. There was a Christmas program on in the waiting room and listening to that and observing all of the people in the waiting room didn't help the tears. It just hurts so many people...there was an elderly man with his wife, a young dad with his two boys, a grandmother with her grandson, and a couple of people just sitting alone in their wheelchairs. The saddest part is that we were all there waiting and wanting good news on Christmas Eve. I think I was anxious to get my plan and drive home as fast as I could to share the news with Mom. I certainly wasn't expecting what was about to happen. My doctor said that I would have to have chemo once a week for the rest of my life. He asked me what my thoughts were and I pretty much said that I hated it and didn't want to do it but I knew that I didn't have a choice. The drug of choice for this chemo is one that I had at the beginning of my first round of chemo. I was taken off of it because it made me so sick that I couldn't function. He told me that he knew it was going to be hard but that we had to pull out all of the ammo and that is the best drug to treat this with. He explained to us that the cancer would eventually become immune to the drug and it would stop working. At that point, he will switch me to another drug and the cycle starts again. We will just keep switching around.  I will have a scan in three months. I was excited and asked, "What if I get the scan and it looks really good, then what!?" He just looked at me and said "Then we just keep on going with the chemo." After that I threw out the question that probably everyone in my situation asks, "I know you cant predict the future, but how long do you think I will live?" I'm not sure why I asked because I knew that I wouldn't get an answer. He told me that I wasn't a statistic but a person and he couldn't put a number on my life. My mind was holding information from earlier and throwing it around in my mind as he was speaking. Earlier in the conversation when talking about my hair he said, "For the rest of your life, expect not to have hair." He also said, "You will do chemo the rest of your life." Later, after talking about doing the chemo, I asked him if I was living in 30 years if I would still be doing chemo and he said, "NO! If you make it 5 years with nothing then you are off of the chemo!!" So, throwing all of that together and coming to my own conclusion I felt like he was thinking that making it five years would be a miracle. From a medical standpoint I feel like everything is stacked against me. I feel like I will do the chemo, become immune to it all and basically have nothing else left to try. But, when I put all of the medicine to the side, and focus on God, I don't think any of the other matters. I know doctors can say that I will live 2 months and I could make it 30 years! God is the only one that can fix this. Many times this week I have caught myself doing things without realizing it. I've slowly let Alan and Allie work things out instead of barging in the middle of what they are doing. Instead of explaining to Alan how to play a certain game her way, I sit back and let the two of them figure it out. Allie was hollering the other night, "That's not how Mommy plays, that's not how Mommy plays!!" She wanted to play dominoes and apparently he didn't set his up like I did. So, I just told her that they could play it differently and that it was fine. In the back of my mind, without realizing it, I was taking a backseat to things because I honestly felt like there would be a time when I wouldn't be here and I wanted to make sure things would be fine.  Alan and mom get furious when I think like that but from time to time I cant help it! Wrapping all of this up, I will go back for one more visit before chemo starts. He said that I would probably start my first treatment around the 12th of January. Until then, I am going to be crazily happy and enjoy my last weeks feeling good and having hair! :)