A New Year

I haven't written in a week or so because I have been so overwhelmed with everything going on. When I started chemo back in 2009 I met a lady who was 37 and battling breast cancer. We quickly became friends and started the journey together. We stayed on the same schedule so every three weeks we would sit side by side and chat about anything and everything in the world. After chemo we stayed in touch and called each other when we felt that no one else could understand. We talked about our fears, family, dying and recurrences. It was just so nice to talk to someone that could complete my every thought! In the spring of 2010 we were both ecstatic about clean scans. Shortly after, hers came back and she started fighting once again. I just couldn't believe it. Months later, I learned that my cancer was also back. She was getting well, her tumors were shrinking and things were turning around for her. She even got a clean scan in December! The week that I went in for surgery, she was admitted to the hospital after feeling very ill. She later learned that the cancer had spread to her brain. I went to see her at the end of December and I cannot explain the feelings that I experienced. I walked to her bed to see her suffering and fighting for her life. She could hardly speak but her first words were "How are you? How did your surgery go? I love you." She was laying in bed hooked to machines fighting but worried about me. As I talked to her and stared in her eyes, it was like I was seeing myself laying in her bed and MY family standing all around. Suddenly, I realized what I haven't in the past. Here was a beautiful wife and mother that fought with everything she had but in the end she was still taken too early. She died on New Years Day. I saw first hand that things can be completely wonderful and three weeks later life can end unexpectedly. It's hard to have hope when you see a friend go through something like this. I miss her smiling face!

After all of that, I had a super hard time dealing with my diagnosis. Every time that I thought things were ok, I would think about Diane it would set me into a full blown panic attack. It's just hard! A friend of mine brought me the book "There's No Place Like Hope" and it has helped me SO much in the last couple of days. There is a line in the book that I love and I try to think of it every time I get scared. "Never place a period in your life where God meant to place a comma."  God knows how long I am staying here, the doctors do not! I got a port put in yesterday and that went really well. I am healing well from my incision from surgery and trying to get back to normal. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to get my chemo schedule but I am pretty sure it will start again this Monday. I have had so much support from family and friends. Allie has had tons of play dates and she loves it.  Alan and I have stayed up talking until after 2 in the morning some nights and that has also helped. I love it when I can say whatever is on my mind and ask and say the same thing 100 times but never have to feel stupid about it! Allie told me that she was ok with my hair falling out again because I was going to look just like Calliou! Calliou is her favorite cartoon and the little boy is bald. :)  She was playing birthday party the other day and pretended to blow the candles out. Right before she said, "I wish that mommy would feel better." Although she has a mean streak and can be hard headed at times, she is the sweetest little girl in the world!