Your song

So I’m driving on the highway and I’m listening to a playlist I made this January from songs I found on my Mom’s computer.  Elton John’s Your Song comes on and for some reason I really listened to the words.  The music is beautiful but the words are really quite stunning.  And so I get this warm loving feeling and even start to tear up.  Not sure why.  Maybe it’s the song.  Maybe it’s because I made the playlist while I was still blissfully unaware of cancer.  Maybe it’s because I associate it with Moulin Rouge and and the sadness of that movie.  Dunno.  Anyway feeling all this love, I glance up in the rear view mirror to look at my darling little boy who is sitting peacefully in his carseat.  With his fingers in his ears.

OMG! Could it really be…

a new FO?  Why yes it is!  I told you I had been knitting.  I’m just embarrassed at how long it took me to finish this.  At least twice as long as it would have pre chemo.  Anyway, this is a Debbie Bliss pattern from the Pure Cotton/Stella book (available at Knit Knack) knitted for the shop, using Manos del Uraguay cotton.  Beautiful yarn.  I love the shading!  The pattern was pretty easy, only trouble I had with the yarn is it broke while I was seaming, but that can be solved by not yanking so hard.  Can I help that I was excited to be finishing?

pink bliss cotton sweater

 So let’s hear a Hooray Pink Bliss Sweater!

The last chemo Part 2

When I was pregnant with my babies, it was sort of like the entire world became those nine months.  I thought in terms of weeks and trimesters.  Even the time following their births were ticked by months and well baby visits.

Cancer is the same.  In my case, there was the biopsy/diagnosis, surgery, and chemotherapy, and then there will be radiation and hormonal therapy.  Although I had my last infusion Tuesday, I am far from done.  And that last dose was a doozy.  I feel worse than I’ve felt in weeks.  I think I had it in my head that I would magically feel better with that last Taxol, though my pragmatic side really knew better.  I’m on more pain meds than I have been on since starting chemo.  Ah well.  Nobody said cancer was easy.  Anyway back to my original thought. 

The other day a woman in my treatment group on the YSC board asked if we had life goals.  (Heh.  I actually just typed life goats.  I wonder if they need constant hugging? Um.  I blame the meds.)  I realized that once again, I’m living in short increments.  Five years from now, when I’m finished with Tamoxifen, I’ll be almost 40 years old.  I can’t conceive of that.  Both J and L will be in school.  I’ll probably be teaching again (provided music doesn’t get cut from the schools).  So what are my life goals?  I can’t seem to get out of the cancer shroud.  All I can think of is that I hope to God I’m still living and that it hasn’t come back.  It’s like I’m afraid to ask for more because that’s such a huge thing.  Huge.

The last chemo.

I love my oncologist and her office.  The nurses there are amazing and the office staff is great too.  What can I say.  I’m actually going to miss seeing them every week.  Not going to miss the toxic drugs.  You get used to a routine, I think, when you have cancer, and even though it involves something that may actually make you feel sicker, there is comfort in that routine and the people who become part of it.  I have always felt that I had exactly the doctors I was supposed to have.  I have never regretted not getting a second opinion.  (I am definitely FOR getting second opinions, I just felt that, in my case, one was enough this time.)  So anyway, here’s me and Becky, one of those amazing nurses, who listened to all my calls about constipation, nosebleeds, and pain with compassion and understanding, never once making me feel like a hypochondriac.  They got me a button to add to my collection that says, “I paid my oncologist big bucks for this hairstyle.” 

Perfect. 

Thanks to Dr. Caskey, Becky, Robin, Jenny, Nancy, and everyone else over at the office for helping make a time which could have been truly miserable, not so much.  You are all very special people and very good at what you do.  A couple of names have escaped from my chemo brain.  It’ll come to me.  At 3 am.  That’s when it all comes back.  And then I fall asleep again.

A record third post.

Ok.  I just had to stick this in.  Cracked me up.  Found it over at current.com

 

Bummer.  Apparently I can’t embed it.  Here’s the link.

http://current.com/items/89113716_target_women_feeding_your_f_ing_family

Hey remember when this was knitting blog?

I am actually still knitting, it’s just very slow.  Taxol has wreaked havoc on my hands and it hurts to knit (and type) for extended periods.  Anyway, I’m posting a little advert for my friend Ruth who has too much yarn on her hands and needs to destash.

So check out what she’s got.

Protected: The Friday Night Knitting Club

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Spoilers ahead

I was knocked flat on my behind this weekend with some sort of virus/chemo thing.  So while I hurt, I read “The Friday Night Knitting Club”.  I’m going to password protect the post if you haven’t read it and want to.

The password is :knittingclub

FFU!

I got so annoyed by that Time/CNN article I almost forgot it’s time for the Friday Feel Up!  So please, disregard that study and do yourself a favor, looking for lumps may mean false positives, but it’s definitely better than getting smacked upside the head by cancer.

What a load of crap.

CNN published an article reporting that Self Breast Exams may cause more harm than good.

I can’t say it enough.  Most of the time the ONLY way a young woman finds a lump is through a self exam.  I would rather have 20 clean “unnecessary” biopsies than one malignant one.  Wouldn’t you?