Will I Be Old? (one day baby?)

will I grow old with my beloved?

 What am I thinking right now...? Last time I wrote, I was about 1 week post-op and all I could think about was my wonky eye. I was still on heavy pain killers and embracing the need for a slow yet steady recovery from a pretty big operation. The incision is healed. I still have deep pain (not from the actual cut) and I'm keeping it under control but way down from 4 Percocets to only 1 at night, before bed.

I've prided myself on being strong and healthy my whole life; as a child, rarely missed a day of school for illness. Even when I was in the thick of chemotherapy, nonexistant immune system, I still (thank G-d) managed to avoid fever, infection, and illness. Now I find myself feeling vulnerable and fragile for the very first time in my life. The list isn't short. Emotionally, I know I have active cancerous tumors in my body including my liver. Walking around with (currently untreated) cancer is beginning to FREAK me out! Now, I look strange too... with my wonky right eye. Yesterday, I started getting sick - perhaps it's "just the flu" however it feels like Death's Door (G-d forbid!); blocked sinuses, coughing, dizziness, weakness... If it weren't for the cancer, I'd probably climb into bed, sip some hot tea, and be cured in 7-10 days like all the other millions of people who get the flu in the winter. Gather up your tears, keep 'em in your pocket. Save them for a time when you're really gonna need them....

Not me.

I don't DO sick.

Yes, I'm aware of the irony.

On the way to Terem (walk in emergency room) to have a routine chest X-ray for my surgical follow-up, with my mom driving me, we were rear-ended by a driver who wasn't paying attention. The impact felt like a truck hit us... to me. My mom said it wasn't so horrendous. I can feel it now, close to 2 hours later, deep pain beneath my ribs, on the right side, and lower back. Believe me, this wouldn't have phased me a couple of years ago. Here I go again the blame. The guilt, the pain, the hurt, the shame. The founding fathers of our plane. That's stuck in heavy clouds of rain.

I'm scared.

I'm sooooooo scared. No, not about the flu or the fender bender. I'm scared about my life. A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell 'em for a dollar. They're worth so much more after I'm a goner. And maybe then you'll hear the words I've been singing....

These are the songs that are haunting me right now... the first one is beautiful and touching yet so very sad - makes me cry just listening to the lyrics. The ballad of a dove. Go with peace and love....

The second one... the chorus just keeps replaying in my head. Since my diagnosis in July, 2012, it's been emotionally difficult for me to see pregnant mommas, newborns, babies.... now I'm so over and beyond that. You know what cuts my heart up today??? Seeing elderly couples together. Just now, in Terem, I watched an elderly man of around late 70's or early 80's with his similarly aged wife. He held her purse for her and got her a cup of water as they waited her turn for ultrasound or X-ray. Will that be me and David someday? Is it possible? One day baby, we'll be old, Oh baby, we'll be old. And think of all the stories that we could have told

Patience is a Virtue - *wink* *wink*

1 week after surgery selfie

The good news is, the surgery went well and I'm recovering. The goal of the surgery was to remove a cancerous lymph node from my mediastinum - between my right bronchus and my heart. The surgeons successfully removed the 2 cm mass and a second smaller mass was discovered and removed from my diaphragm. The cancerous cells were then handed off to a private company called,  Champions Oncology, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins, to be grafted into mice, and studied in order to develop a treatment for me. That's VERY good news to begin with. It will take about 6-8 weeks to know whether the tumors are growing successfully in the mice and a total of 14-16 weeks until we know more about the treatment plan and schedule. This surgery was NOT the treatment in any way. There are at least 2 or 3 tumors, that we know of, in my liver, chest, and abdomen. Surgery is not the treatment, it's (hopefully) the key to beginning my treatment.

The experience was overall a very positive one. The care I receive at Shaare Zedek Medical Center continues to be excellent. Every member of the staff; surgeons, doctors and nurses, technicians, volunteers, and everyone in between showed care, professionalism, and kindness. A thoracotomy is a pretty big procedure. My right lung needed to be partially collapsed for the surgery. The incision is along my 6th rib. Before being put to sleep, I had a high epidural inserted for pain control after the surgery. When I awoke, I had a lot of tubes and wires to get tangled up in including a chest tube. The first two days after surgery felt surreal. Now that I'm back home and slowly coming off of painkillers, I can really reflect on how many fairly large things I should never take for granted again... like being able to breathe or roll over unassisted.

One of the first thing I noticed, when I woke up from the operation, was my right eye. It didn't feel right. With each day that passed, it became annoyingly apparent that the "eye thing" wasn't going away. There are many many possibilities for complications during thoracic surgery. Unfortunately nerve damage is one of them. I don't know if this is permanent but it might be. The lower right half of my face was already numb from a surgery I had in 2011. I didn't know that  Horner's Syndrome was a possible complication but it is and it's done. My right eyelid droops, the right pupil is constricted, and supposedly the right side of my face no longer has the ability to sweat. With all this cancer stuff going on, you'd think a little droopiness of the eye would be silliness but we are all taking it very seriously. Personally, it's all I think about every waking second because it's very bothersome. I'm almost 100% sure that I would have done it, no matter what, in spite of  this highly irritating yet non-threatening complication. If we come up with a successful treatment plan- THIS was my best option and I suppose Horner's Syndrome is a small price to pay.

The bad news is, patience is a virtue that we don't always have the time for.... *sigh* One breath at time.

The Other Side

Tomorrow is the Big Day. Surgery to remove a tumor from my right lung. It's not a treatment; it's to hopefully create a treatment.

My oncologist has coordinated with both a thoracic surgeon and private company that will attempt to graft my tumor into mice. We hope that they will be able to pinpoint and treat the mice with specially tailored chemotherapy drugs that will be just right to kill off the type of cancer that I have.

My anxiety level is through the roof right now! It's not the hugest surgery but it's a pretty big surgery. I probably just ran my last 10 K for a while... Though I really hope my recovery from this will be speedy and I'll be out there running again soon!

I'm being hospitalized this evening. My parents are coming to be here for the kids, my DH, and me. My family and friends are gearing up....

Please pray for me. Pray for the success of the doctors, surgeons, scientists... And the mice.

See y'all on the Other Side!

What Can I Say?

If you are a person with a lot of faith, you'd say that I'm being put through quite a "test". Many people who love and care about me keep reminding me that I'm "a warrior" and a "fighter". What else can you say? If you're in the age range of social media usage and text lingo the only "word" to describe it is, WTF?!? ...Because I have officially run out of answers. Perhaps that's the test? To have many questions, no answers, and only miracles. I'm holding onto everyone's prayers, tehillim (psalms), and just... hoping.

I need some miracles. Let's pray that the Almighty Above says, "YES!" to our prayers. Metastatic cancer in the liver and lung isn't good. I'm scared because I don't want to lose my hope. In my somewhat short life of 38 years, I've never felt so close to drowning as I do now. For two whole days, I was lost beyond return. What's going to happen??? Nobody can answer me. We are trying to find reasons to feel hopeful about a bad situation now.

I feel physically healthy and strong enough to go out on 10 KM runs every other day... so how can I have stage 4 cancer? It doesn't make sense. I know, I'm supposed to enjoy every moment that I have now and hope for the best. Hope that we can create a treatment that will work.

This week, I'm having surgery to try to remove a tumor in my lung and have pieces of the tumor grafted into mice. Personalized oncology, designer chemotherapy... whatever you want to call it. I need this to work but we won't know for a few months. Those mice are going to have to travel to the United States and hopefully they'll stay alive for a very long time with some successful chemo drugs!

For now, just keeping things real... and trying to keep on moving forward.