Month: May 2015

May 12, 2015

I peed my pants, thoroughly but it was worth it because the scans are clean.

Grateful.

Incredibly.

Grateful.

May 10, 2015

It’s been a while…3 months to be exact. How did 3 months go by so quickly? Usually the 3 months I have between scans seem like a good amount of time, but not this time. I think it’s because I have so much scanxiety. Oh, not familiar with that term? I wish I wasn’t either. It is the gripping fear you have before going in for regularly scheduled scans. The incessant thoughts and physical sensations that loop through your meditated, bath salt soaked, yoga stretched, green juiced mind and body that something will show up that will blow the pants off your life once again.

I will not lie, it is crippling. It is the proverbial “waiting for the other shoe to drop”. Oddly, during chemo I had these same scans every 3 months and although they were terrifying they lacked the intensity I feel now. There’s a simple explanation for that. During treatment I knew I had cancer. When I got scans I never expected for it to be gone because I was told this doesn’t happen with my particular breed of cancer. The best and most I hoped for was shrinkage. So good scan news still included cancer. Now when I scan we are monitoring my body to see if the cancer is going to “come back”. Good scan news no longer involves cancer. Much different. Better, yes, most definitely. Not, I repeat, NOT easier. This doesn’t mean I am not grateful for where I am today. I am; truly, deeply, ugly cry, crawl on the floor and kiss the ground grateful to be alive and doing well. After doing all that climbing to reach this point I am teetering at the top, the feel good rush of having accomplished the goal vanishing like vapors before I even got a chance to relish them. There is so little oxygen here at the top. Everyone is so far away and now I am worried about blazing a trail back down to my new existence. The path I journeyed on to the top was the path of the innocent. The Before. I am not that same girl. Except I kinda am.

I asked someone I respect very much about how to handle this post cancer treatment stage. She’s a stage IV Colon Cancer survivor whom I have mentioned before in other musings. Her name is Tara and she told me based on her now 3 years of living this way and on the other survivors she knows that this doesn’t go away, you just get better at managing it. As I sit here typing at my dining room table with my beautiful 7 year old daughter eating her dinner next to me and meal preparation clanking noises in the kitchen from husband I am trying to appreciate this normalcy, these blessings. My ribcage hurts on both sides, I have pain in my chest and upper back and I fear it is cancer in my lungs. It sucks. Then I chastise myself for thinking negative thoughts and giving my cells the idea that they get to misbehave.

Friends, this is really fucking hard. There is no pretty way of saying it. Tara sent me a great article on this stage which the writer refers to as the Fifth Stage of cancer. It is where I am living now. Here it is if you want to read it. I think there is a real need to focus on this stage of cancer treatment and it certainly makes me feel better that I am not alone in facing these challenges.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6574712

Switching gears I hope you all had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend. I felt very honored and loved by my people. I just tucked my sweets into bed and went over the plans for the next two days. They know the drill now and it’s less traumatic for them because this is our normal now, us going to Houston overnight every 3 months. It doesn’t sound like a big deal but obviously this trip is loaded and although our children don’t know the extent of the load they sense it’s importance. They want us home, under the same roof, close by. Bless them and all their childhood neediness. It is good to be needed. I am grateful. I am determined to be here under the same roof for a long long time.

Please continue to send prayers my direction. I scan tomorrow at 1:30 at Baylor this time instead of MDA followed by an 8:30 appointment with Dr. Curley, my surgeon on Tuesday morning. Dr. Javle, my MDA doctor suggested I do scans this time at Baylor with Dr. Curley and then see him at MDA for the next 3 month interval in August.

We had a really lovely trip to North Carolina’s Outer Banks 2 weeks ago. Here are a few pictures. Thank you Dana, Todd, Jenny, Jim, Roxanne, Russ, Lindsay, Jeff, Shanley and Gary for another memorable week with you and all your sweet kiddos. Dana and Jenny – being with you is like getting oxygen at the tippy top of that mountain. Thank you for 40 years of friendship, for your awesome husbands and amazing children.

Big hugs to all of you out there that continue to keep us in your prayers and hearts. Thank you.

Time for bed. Nite, Nite.
xoxo Hilary

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Phin and my Godson Leo

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Dana and daughter Lulu, Charlotte, Hilary and Jim, Hilary and Todd

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Phoebe, Charlotte, Sophie, Lulu, Lily and most of our crew on the beach
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