…from medical stuff if I can! First the good news, no, make that great news: we know that there’s no cancer recurrence in my brain, bones, liver or above the knees. Bad news for my readers: chemo-flashbacks are giving me a severe aversion to being online. This is the time last year when I was going through chemo, and the sight of my laptop almost makes me want to throw it out the window. Of course, I won’t, but the feeling is that intense.

The other good news is that my garden is growing so well. All I want to do is be outside. And I completely adore the fact that I CAN be outside. (Last year chemo made me photosensitive.) One of these days I’ll post pictures, but overall I’m pretty focused on planting and being social, so the best way to see the pics is to come visit. Be well, and make the most of every moment you have, even if it’s just lazing around the garden…. I’ll be back in the fall with updates. Until then, if you know me well enough to have my phone #, please call, or if you email, I may get to the email within a week, or two….. As there are very important things to do, like swimming! And getting Vit D the old-fashioned way.

Off to wash the strawberries we just picked…

I’ve been feeling nonverbal lately, so a trip to the country was perfect. And with tulip salad to boot.

Okay, minor suckage for the day - tamoxifen and I are just NOT the best of friends. I’ve bailed on it again, and now, 5 days later, I’m beginning to feel SOOO much better! That part doesn’t suck, that part rocks.

However, the part that sucks is feeling a) noncompliant and b) knowing that I’m giving up a 7% reduction in risk of recurrence. So while bailing helps me feel so much better, it also invites that cancer fear right on in the door and gives it a nice comfy chair to sit in.

But I HATE, with venom, the way that tamoxifen makes me feel. It’s happened twice now (tried in Oct/Nov and bailed then too) and I just can’t tell you how it makes me feel inside, like I’m filled with an icky black cloud that makes me achy so that I can barely move and then it sucks all the joy out. Stop tamoxifen, and the joy starts to find it’s way in again, light in all the corners, I can see it! And it makes me weep for the wonder of it, to care about the world again, to want to do things, to embrace the amazingness of what is (gardens and friends and music and so many fun things to do!), right? See the difference? No tamoxifen and I can be me. Tamoxifen and well, not me. I can’t be NOT me for 5 years, I just can’t. do. it.

So the alternative is to have my ovaries out, and again, I just don’t want to do it. So I guess what I’m accepting is that I seem to be willing to take that 7% risk, which is a doozie. But at least I’ll feel good while doing it! Scared, but me. And good.

There’s just no perfect solution. The brick wall of cancer treatment vs. quality of life is so incredibly frustrating, I just want to dance my way around it but seem to be blocked for the moment.

It really really is.  Feel like I got my life handed back to me.  Love that.

…but waiting for test results is just no fun. House is clean, taxes done (with $ coming back!) had a great time with mom, liver biopsy was thankfully uneventful but I am one stressed cookie. Weeded my new garden (love those last three words BTW ) to my heart’s content and now am so stiff I can barely walk. I assume it’s ok to take ibuprofen by now. I forget how much stress zaps energy btw - in past weeks I’ve been happy and bouncy and full of ideas, and now I seem to need a nap everyday. Also the body is healing from the huge needle they stuck in my middle. That too might be contributing to the nap need.

Here’s hoping for good news Monday morning and a week that’s back to normal and letting this whole liver deal be a bad dream.

PS At this point distraction no longer works. Last weekend yes, playing tourist in a convertible was lovely, but now I just don’t care about any of it. Will still try with the entertainment but really I could care less. If it were warm out I might care, but of course it’s ICY. In April. WTH. Yep, me thinks someone here is a little cranky. Hot chocolate here I come.

Looks like I have to go for a liver biopsy. Ouch.

On the upside, after being on the waitlist for 2.5 years, I finally got a community garden plot! Went out yesterday and dug in the earth and was just outside for hours and hours and it was supremely comforting. The plot I inherited is a weedy mess, but there appear to be a lot of flowering plants. And lavender, yum. It smells amazing. Gardening seems to be the only thing my mind really wants to think about. The rest, I seem to be supremely uninterested. Coping mechanism I guess.

There’s this wonderful thread on breastcancer.org where you can do a “cancer sucks in this specific way” sort of post. A place to vent and rant. And rant people do, and you know what happens with rants after you really get into them? Funny, funny stories. Nothing like some dark humor to lighten one’s day.

Here is my “this sucks” post from yesterday (note not a hilarious rant, sorry):

Think I need to file today under “it could be worse.” Right?! Small cyst showed up on my liver u/s, of course they have to c/t it. The doc calls and says “I’ll be here all day, call anytime.” Freaks my sh*& out to get that kind of super-nice message from a doc. So I go get a latte, try not to cry, take some deep breaths, call her, and her aide schedules the c/t for first thing tomorrow morning. For goodness sake, with that kind of urgency you’d think something was really wrong. Plus NPO I go again tomorrow….

All I’m thinking is nooooooooo….I want to live in ignorance……I want this week to be the week that I don’t know that I have mets or a new primary or whatever for a long long time, I want this week to be the week that I am still NED forever. I mean, why the rush, ya know?! Unless the docs are just bored…sheesh……

And for my loved ones reading - my PCP, who I do adore because she’s even more cautious than I am (can that be?!), said that it is more than likely a benign hemangioma. So let’s go with that theory for now. I’m just tired of tests.

I almost missed it, April 3rd a year ago this blog was born.

Three tidbits of news:

Remember that retreat in the Caribbean that I applied for? Looks like it might be a go, social worker called on Friday. Knock on wood. I will believe it when I have a plane ticket in hand, but we’ll just keep fingers crossed for now until that ticket arrives. “All expenses paid” is what the social worker said, but it sounds too good to be true to me. Ah yes, old cynical me. But I did get excited for a whole minute and start thinking about summer clothes (starting with shoes of course)!

And the other bit of news - my estradiol was HIGH (176). Which is not good, means there’s lots of estrogen in my system (remember, I had estrogen positive cancer), so can’t take femara any more. Being forced to switch back to tamoxifiend (warning about the link, it’s a cartoon but if you’re a guy, it might be tmi), which can also cause uterine cancer, which if we remember my mom got, and even if the docs say my risk is not increased I don’t believe them. So I’ve been stomping around, grumpy as all get out.

Finally, my liver enzymes, ah well, the trend for the last 3 months is not great. Albumin is low (meaning my liver’s not holding onto protein so well), ALT (SGPT) (marker of liver injury) is twice normal. So Monday afternoon I go for a liver u/s which means I can’t eat for 8 hours before hand. Plus I have a dental appt. So I guess Monday I get to be grumpy some more. Today I’d live it up, but I’m darn tired. So stomp stomp stomp.

And it’s nice that my docs are on it and call me at home (my onc. on Thurs re: the estrogen debacle; my PCP on Friday re: liver labs) but at the same time, sheesh. Enough already. Let’s be done with this cancer nonsense already, ok?! Ready just to have a normal life here!! Which means no (reason for) doctors calling me at home.

I may just have to go buy a travel book with pretty pictures of the British Virgin Islands, as there’s a chance that I might actually get to go. That is, once I finish my TAXES. Which means revisiting all the medical bills (=trauma) from the past year. I’ve already spent 30 - yes THIRTY - hours putting the 15 inches of bills into a spreadsheet, the home stretch is all laid out, but looking at it again = trauma city. No wonder I’ve been dragging my feet. I even get money back which would be exciting EXCEPT, where does it all go? A CROWN for my tooth and more medical bills. Insert choice swear words here. Of course I’m grateful that I have insurance, and tax money coming back, and can actually afford to get my teeth fixed, don’t get me wrong, but I’d rather use the $ to pay off some other bills and maybe even get ahead a little. So harummph.

Anyhoo, happy birthday blog, and a good thing it’s here too - because without it, given chemo brain, I wouldn’t remember the half of it. Nice to have a record of the big ‘ol bump in the road.

She’s got it down to the t - what to say, what not to say: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/465030621.html

Of course, she would be from Portland.

This is the story of how I ended up in stranger’s yard in the middle of a hail shower, happy, and how cancer is around unexpected corners, how we are more connected than we may want to be.

The plan was to go to the tulip festival, but it’s been cold, so we decided daffodils were a better bet. The daffodil festival is next week, but what the heck, worth a try.

My uncle has been there before, so after a stop for coffee at the local Chatterbox cafe, we drive out to what he affectionately calls “daffodil hill.” There, on a hillside with an amazing view, is a field of daffodils. We pull up. The yard is in disrepair around the edges, the kind that happens when you have a hard year and all the non-essential falls to the wayside, but the daffodils shine, beckoning. We park, and walk out into the field.

Note that I’m not so sure about it - not sure they’re open, that visitors are welcome. But my uncle moves with confidence, so I follow. The view is breathtaking - a 240 degree view of fields and hills and a big tree, and the foreground is a swath of yellow, 150 different types of daffodils. It’s hailing, and chilly. I’m standing there photographing it in my mind, fixing it in the memory, soaking it all in. The farmer walks up behind me, and I jump. But he’s a gentle man, and kind, and he puts a tin can in my hand and starts picking flowers for me.

My uncle asks if this is a commercial farm. The farmer says, “No, I planted these flowers for my wife, her favorites.”

“How long ago was that?”

“15 years.”

So now I know - this IS his yard, not a formal farm, and we just drove up and walked into his yard. We’re trespassing, truth be told. Yet he’s being incredibly kind, showing off his hobby. This is a man who loves his wife. And the daffodils mean a lot to him, and he wants to share that.

We wander the hillside, and the hail bounces off my parka hood, and it’s cold and any sane person would go inside, but we’ve driven a ways and it’s beautiful and I don’t care about getting cold. It’s a year after diagnosis and I’m just darned glad to be here in the world. I can’t stop smiling at how truly beautiful it all is.

I finally feel compelled to tell him why I’m so happy to be standing in the hail in his field of daffodils, and explain, “I’m one year post-cancer. I don’t care that it’s hailing, I’m just happy to be here.”

He asks, “Breast cancer?”

“Yes.”

He says, “My wife had that three years ago. Did you have to do chemo?”

“Yes,” I say, taking off my winter hat, “Look, I even have hair.”

He takes off his hat as well and says, wryly proud in the way that men of a certain age are of their hair, “I do too.” We are neither one bald. His hair is longer than mine.

He explains that his wife only had to do radiation. When I finally turn to look him full in the face, he has tears streaming down his face. He looks worn to the bone, with dark circles, and I think about the state of the edges of the yard at the driveway, and I’m afraid to ask. You would think that with the year I’ve had I’d be able to ask, but no, that is precisely why I can’t. I’m already trespassing in his yard, not wanting to trespass in his life. I worry that I know why he’s sad, and I hope beyond hope that I’m wrong.

(And I wonder at myself - why can’t I ask that very human and very simple question that even a 4-year old would know to ask: “Why the tears?”)

He insists that we take more flowers, and for me the beauty of the place is enough, I don’t need to actually pick flowers, but he really wants us to take them. So we do, a bouquet in  a tin can.