Saturday, September 27, 2008

I forgot my hat!!

Yesterday was the first day that I forgot my hat in public.

I made a choice - I either hunch my shoulders and hide myself (which is hard to do when you are 5'10") or I drop into my beauty, elongate the neck and Rock It!!

No one in the pizza shop knows that I'm having chemo. For all they know the girl in the skinny jeans is just a wild child who boldly cut her hair off as a fashion statement!

Who knows, I might be starting a whole new trend!!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

More proof I am on the right track...

It took a LONG while, but we finally I have the definative results for the cancer. I do not have lobular cancer, I have ductal cancer with lobular tendencies. (YEAH! - this means a better prognosis!) Ductal is more 'garden varitity' cancer. It is not all over the place like lobular.

That is the good news.

The strange news is that I am triple positive: HER-2 positive, Estrogen sensitive and Progesterone sensitive. What does that mean exactly? Well, the good news is the HER-2 has its own drug that I take after the chemo that takes care of that protein. And on that drug I can NOT get pregnant. And then I will take more drugs after that to deal with the ER/PR positive. The bad news, it is more aggressive. The slide confirms what I knew to be true in my body... having the chemo in my body ASAP was not just an emotional urgency, but also a physiological one. The aggressive immediate chemo was 100% right on. The cancer was moving fast.

And even though we picked the right protocol for the mistaken 'lobular' cancer, it is the perfect protocol for agressive ductal cancer.

For me, this is yet another sign in the road I may 'not know' but I when I listen to my intuition, I am right on track.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Feeling myself going down....

This round of chemo I actually felt myself 'go down'. It is bizarre to feel the white blood cells in the body bottem out.

I felt myself moment to moment get more tired. I cancelled my afternoon and by noon my eyes were shutting themselves and I was in bed.

The think yellow coat on my tongue was nasty to look at and taste. And I felt my body start to use up the fluid reserves that it had.

So, I drank lots of coconut water to make sure I was staying well hydrated and got some deep shut eye (with out the need of ambien, thank you very much!)

By about 4pm I could feel that I was on the other side of the curve. And at 5pm I checked in with my body and slowly got out of bed. I knew I would be fine teaching class, as long as I did not do a ton of moving around.

This round I was on Levaquin (and antibiotic). I am so grateful for it! It has given me a sense of security as it offers support for my body as the white blood cells bottom out.

I'm really proud of myself for how well I am learning to hear my body. 2 points for E. Bachner!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Out with the old (job) in with the new (job)

As I don't spend any time reading the papers, my friend have to let me know that America is something like: 700 million - or is it billion? dollars in debt. And that the trickle down place of the debt might put us back into "the depression" of the 30's.

I'm 'aguffing'. (that is a word? yes?)

And I don't get it or my life?

If people are truely in alignment with 'god' by listening to their intuition and hearts, and living creatively expressive lives, and loving their jobs, and celebrating life, and appreciating this physically beautiful planet, and taking responsibity for their choices, and doing some healing work on the self to love self and others, and are grateful of the time we have here.... why are we in this financial situation? Oh, that's right, I keep forgetting that not everyone lives or strives for those ideals... we have created a government that perpetuates fear while it offers no support for health and a lot of people on this planet (including our government) have this funny belief that 'god' wants us to fight and kill each other... in god's name!!! Bizarre to me....

So, here I am with cancer and chemo on one hand, and a wonderful job that I love to work at on the other (that is a picture of me at 'work' with a big huge smile on my face :) . Problem is, that my job has ungodly hours and this healing process demands sleep. I am not working, not because I don't want to work or I don't have business (I have a recession proof job - people will always have babies), I physically can't!! And that is very very frustrating to me.

Next, in my eyes, my job is a big fat ZERO as far as monitary/health benefits are concerned. (for all those concerned, the spiritual and emotional benefits are off the chart fantastic!!) It is very simple and old school in it's philosophy: I work, I get paid. I don't work, I don't get paid. I do 5 births a month, I make descent money and am physcially, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. I do one birth a month I make not good money and I have a 'life'. Where is the passive income in being on call 24/7 and catching babies? (redundant question, please don't answer in the comments section)

What do I do now that I can't work? Apply to Starbucks and serve coffee??

"Hi. I'd like a part time job at Starbucks with benefits. Oh, and I'll need days off when I feel like it because I'm going through Chemotherapy. And it isn't that I'm slack and don't want to work, but sometimes I need to sleep because all the healthy cells are being killed by the chemo, so I need to sleep or I will get sick and end up in the hospital for a few days - and then it will really cost you in sick days. Do you have any openings?"

And I don't have any problem with 'J.O.B.'. I'm the girl that ran out of money while back-packing in Israel and proceeded to wash dishes at a fancy restaurant to pay for her room and board.... I'm the gal that bought duty free 5 dollar vodka on her way back to England from Turkey and sold the vodka jello shots at the London Youth Hostel for 5 pounds each.... I'm the person that went back to school full time at 30 and put herself through two post graduate schools by babysitting, selling jeans out of the back of my car, gift-wrapping at a fancy store at christmas.... Basically, I have no problem working when I need to and I make the money that I need. It is VERY frustrating to not be in control of my income and just trust the universe that it will all work out!! I like to plan how it works out, and I literally and physically can't!! I have lived from hand to mouth before, so this is nothing new on the learning curve... it is just that I thought I had grow out of it when I got my last (of 2) medical board licenses.

Okay, so I can't get a J.O.B., so I'll spend my time resting and healing myself. Taking it easy. NOT! My 'healing time' is now being occupied by my new J.O.B. - insurance paper shuffler/medical bill translator. And quite frankly, I'm really not good at it.

'Insurances-esse' is the most ludacrist language. I think they write it that way so people just 'pay the bills' as apposed to question why insurance is not paying for me to get 'cured'.

I need a personal assistant to help me with the OVERWHELMING NEW paperwork that is a result of the cancer - BUT - I don't have the money for an assistant because I can't work!! And if I could work - I WOULD!! but I can't!!

And to top it off, everyone keeps telling me to be prepared for insurance to fight me on the claims for me to get cured of cancer. So then I'll have a new 'unpaid' job of writing letter to the health insurance to get paid? Like I have the time??

So basically, the insurance that I bought to help pay for me to get treatment won't pay for all of the treatment and I don't have any income - and if I did, I certainly could not afford the treatment on my income.

And instead of being able to spend the day supporting families or watch a childing being born - where I get paid an energetic exchange called money, or even relaxing and resting so my body can heal - to feed my body healing energy, I have a new job that doesn't even have shitty pay - it actually costs me in time and energy!

How did we co-create a world that works this way? I think this is the definition of insanity.

This makes no sense to me!!!

I am sitting in that place that I have heard so many people complain about. I am one of those people who now knows from the inside out that our health care needs to be revamped so that it actually Cares about Health!!

And what can I physically do? nothing. I can't physcially do anything to solve this riddle. As I said in my first page of the blog, I was tired before I started this journey. And worrying is not something I do in my life. I trust. Trusting is the only thing I can do.

sigh

So once again I surrender. And I have to trust that whatever cosmic alignment has gotten me into this absurd situation will also offer up a mgaical solution to the connundrum. As a midwife I witness this over and over and over again. Yes, miracles do happen, we just need to make space beyond our limited minds for them to come in. So, I do what I know how to do best: make space to be shown something greater than me, beyond what I could ever think of, because I know that what I could come up with is limited, and not an option in this moment.