And Every Day Is Halloween!

Goodbye Pinktober. Yet the pink crap hangs around. Sure the big displays on endcaps and in aisles will be packed away, but you can always find pink ribbon crap around in stores, all year long.  It makes a bit of a comeback in the spring also, for some reason. But I'm glad to see the end of the pink party. Buh-bye Pinktober!

I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. It's full of scary, spooky fun. But there is that "fear" that is part of my life, and I totally hate it. "The fear"....the bc fear. Fear of recurrence. Fear of metastasis. Fear of having to do it all over again, be bald, feel shitty, wonder if I'm gonna live through it. It sucks, but it's part of the "new normal" for most bc people. And sadly, so far, nothing from all that pink awareness has done anything to even begin to corrected that. 

Anyway... I appreciate (every day) that I am one who is so very fortunate that I can choose to not allow that effin fear be part of my day today. (So many are not. And no thanks to the pink awareness.) 

It's Halloween, I love it, and I'm going to enjoy it. 

And I'm going to try (harder) to make every day like Halloween...

Buh-bye Pinktober! 

Learn To Swim

Yeah...it's one of those days....The ones where "the fear" rears it's ugly head more than the usual. Feel like I'm drowning in it sometimes.

Learn To Swim...

And there's gonna be lots of days like this in the coming weeks as my "Tour d'Oncologie" is looming ever closer on the calendar.  And I'm pretty fuckin sick of it.  *Pardon my French*

Ugh.  I dunno....and with all this newish controversy surrounding mammos....I considered (still?) just skipping it this time.
Fuck a mammogram.  *Pardonnez mon Français*
Mammo didn't even SEE my VERY palpable tumor.  But, since it is the last diagnostic, and marks the (useless milestone) five years out, I'll go ahead with the fucking mammo.

Learn To Swim...

And then the visit with Dr V (Surgeon).  And then a physical with Dr C. And then Dr W (Oncologist).  And then I can breathe again for another year.

Unless I get an ache.  Or a pain.  Or a pimple.

Learn To Swim
Learn To Swim
Learn To Swim...

Grease Is The Word...

Ok, so y'all have seen blog after blog about our issues tryin to get something to eat.  Especially when we've had to work late & have to eat out or pick something up.  Well here we go again.  We work with a wrestling show to produce their monthly show for TV (still waiting to be picked up) & DVD.  Sometimes we don't get outta there till after midnight, & at that point, our food options are limited.  So this particular evening we chose Jack In The Box...one of two twenty-four hour drive thru joints between the wrestling show & our house.  Ok, now I do love me some JIB Tacos.  I know they're not "real".  I really don't care what the fuck they are, cause I just totally love em.  Or I did. 

Jack In The Box Website Image

Anyway, here is what JIB has on their website to represent their Tacos.  Ok, now I've never ever gotten Tacos from there that look like this.  Ever.  But it's fine, cause they taste awesome.  Until this past weekend.

Ok, so it's late, we're tired.  We're hungry.  I've looooong since learned my lesson about orderin a salad from a fast food place late late at night.  Trust me.  Just don't do it.  So I figured on a breakfast sandwich & a couple of their tacos.  Normally this is just fine.  Now again, I never expect the tacos to look like that picture there on the right.  Yes, they are usually kinda greasy & the filling a bit of an unrecognizeable mesh of some sort of meatish paste with lettuce, cheese & some taco sauce.  And I've totally been fine with that.  Until I got these babies home.  OH. MY. GAWD.  I mean, I've had greasy JIB tacos, but wow. 

I was nervous before even takin them out of the wrapper.  So we took em out & this is how they looked. 

So, just had the breakfast sandwich.  Tossed the tacos, cause I was CERTAIN that if I ate this, I would DEF "toss my tacos" if ya know what I mean. 

Ok, abrupt subject change.  For those of you wonderin, where the hell is all the cancer convo?  What's with all this food chat & political ranting?  Well, I'm right smack in the middle of my Oncology appointments, so there's not much doin in the cancer biz these days.  Oh, except for the everlasting paranoia.  I like to call it "The Fear".  It's that thing that now lives in the back of my mind & scares the ever livin shit outta me every time I have the slightest ache or pain.  And GOD FORBID I ever get a headache.  I woke up with one such pain this past Monday.  My right hip was totally hurtin.  Like throbbin, ache, fuckin shit this hurts kinda pain. And my mind is off to the races, thinkin the unthinkable.  But then an NSAID took the pain away, I slept differently in the bed that night, & I'm all good as new again.  Thankfully.  But then, that's the fucked up nature of bc isn't it?  There really is no Remission. So I'm still learnin to live with the New Normal.  How am I doin that?  Well, that's another post, cominatcha Very soon.

It's A Livin' Thing....

Soooooooooo....y'all still with me?  Yeah. Sorry bout that long break from postin.  Some folks worry that when I drop off the bloggin map, that it must mean bad things are happenin.  BUT, please let me assure you that nuthin could be further from the truth.  In fact, it's the exact opposite.  We've just been super busy Livin Life!!! Yay!!

Ok, I do have a confession to make though.  I have been lettin myself get a bit too carried away with anxiety in the last couple of weeks.  Ok, pretty much ever since Dr W opted to NOT run the CBC / MP labs last month, cause for the first time, I left his office without knowin that my blood was "beautiful." BUT, I say to you dear readers, that I am through with beein / feelin that way.  I had a very nice friend, who is in the medical profession, say some things to me today & the lightbulb just totally came on. Finally.  Yes, we reach a point in our recovery where certain tests/labs/scans are done less & less & less. And the farther out we get, even less & less stuff is tested & watched out for. And this is a good thing.  And what I should take from that is this:  Dr W sees all kinds of cancer all the time.  And he's (apparenly) not worried in the slightest about me right now.  I look fine.  I feel fine.  Blood has been beautiful for right about 3 years.  And the Oncologists don't want their patients to live a life that's just consumed with cancer, thoughts of cancer, fear of cancer, etc.  Especially when you're one of the ones lucky enough to have beaten it.  (And beat it, I have.  I have beat the ever livin shit outta that bullshit!) No. Rather, they want us to get out there & get ON with Livin Life!

43 yrs old-2 1/2 years post chemo

So yeah, been kinda busy livin life, which included my birthday.  I turned 43 this month.  Normally I do a Birthday post, but really didn't have much to report, cause we were kinda busy wrappin up stuff for a Banquet to honor our movie actors.  And we've been watchin our favorite summer tv shows, workin on scripts for new projects, havin lunch with friends & just generally enjoyin a bit of a slow down to just enjoy the simplicity of havin a pretty decent life to be livin in. Because, (& I can't believe this is just now occurring to me) to do otherwise is not livin.  Not at all.  In the words of Jeff Lynne -ELO: "It's a Livin Thing...It's a terrible thing to lose."  And I'm not losin another minute to something that's over & done with. 

Don't get me wrong, I totally will become a complete (typically me) freak when September rolls around.  Now that Dr W has given me 4 months till I see him again, looks like I will see every-single-doctor-of-every-kind all within a 10 day stretch in September.  And that's fine. Let's get all the worry/panic/anxiety all over & done with all at once, rather than spread out over 6 - 8 weeks, as has been the case over the last 3 years.  I think it's completely normal & natural to have those feelings when you see these kind of doctors.  And I can also tell that, the farther out I get, the less & less that is & it really does get easier.  (Yeah, remind me of that in September, would ya?)

Today, as I type this, it is the Summer Solstice.  The longest day of the year.  First day of summer.  Most hours of daylight.  So when I drove by this field of sunflowers, I just HAD to grab a pic.  Sure do wish my phone cam could even come close to doin justice to these fields & fields of Sunflowers.  As far as the eye can see...

 So again, sorry I've not kept up with bloggin much lately.  Nothin wrong.  

It's A Livin Thing. =)