She's Alive...ALIVE!!

Greetings from my home after just an oh so wonderful vacation in HELL. Sorry you couldn't join me but I believe it's a very popular spot and tickets and accommodations are hard to come by. Want to hear about my trip? Okay, check this out...

I was going along just so happy to get to my last chemo and go on to healing because it's been a looooong year since I started doing chemo and I am telling you I was so ready to move on because I was so sick and just getting sicker. Well, two weeks before the end Dr. Shaum tells me in her very calm voice that Houston, we are having a problem. Seems like a tumor marker was elevated way beyond what it should be. Let's say it was at a six last week, well, this week it was around thirty five. And that is no exaggeration! So she checked it again and it had gone up even a bit more so the decision was to stop the chemo before the end because it was not working on this one particular tumor. The same one that started this whole thing. Meanwhile, I was so sick from the chemo that I was taking pain pills all day long and got to such a painful place that all I could do was sleep. At one point I slept for five days in a row. Could not get up. I don't know how I did it but somehow, with a little help from those friends of mine I got to Dr. Shaum's office and she checked me into the hospital where I slept for another day until the pain meds kicked in and I finally started to feel like a human again. And everything seemed to be on track except I started thinking about this tumor that would not let go and for the first time during this whole ordeal I started to have a panic attack. In the hospital. And I can tell you how it started. A doctor whom I love and trust and looked at me in such a frightening way that I read her face as saying..."Oh, poor Trish, poor, poor Trish. This could be it. The end. It's over. She's a goner."

Now mind you, she never said this. She actually told me that the cat scan they did the day before looked pretty damn good because all the vital organs were clean and untouched and only that damn little tumor was the problem. But I read her face as nothing but grim and negative and I was a goner. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and next thing I knew they were putting ativan through an IV into my veins and in a minute I was relaxed. So Dr. Shaum had to immediately go off on her three week summer vacation and said we would decide what treatment to try when she returned, all suntan and RELAXED and happy and of course I hated her for a few seconds because how come I wasn't on a vacation with my family and getting tan and swimming and why did I have to have anxiety for three weeks and worry about my future and WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING TO ME and of course there is not answer to this question...It just IS. That's the way things go.

I forgot to mention that before the hospital stay the other thing I was doing aside from sleeping was throwing up. Six or seven times a day. It was endless. It was awful. It was exhausting. I was so unhappy. And dare I say, lonely. There are a lot of things you can do with friends but throwing up is not one of them. You throw up alone.

But I'm happy to say that that seems to be over now. I have stopped chemo and I am feeling so much better. No more throwing up. My energy seems to be coming back. So nah nah nah while Dr. Shaum is away in Hawaii or Mexico or anywhere I will be healing just here in my neighborhood and maybe it's not so glamourous but I won't be vomiting and I might even, dare I say it, swim.

Now here's the thing. I still have some panic. I'm a little scared. But I am not going to let this thing get me. It's 2008. They come up with new stuff everyday and I am willing to try any new experiment they might throw at me plus I'm going to do those vitamin drips and I'm going to do my acupuncture and I am going to zap this little sucker from all sides because I want to be here to watch my son grow old and older and I want to be here to move to my own house and I want to be here to have dinner with friends. Hey, Dennis made me a martini tonight!! A MARTINI. Small, yes. But it was vodka,, which I haven't had for a year and it went down nice and smooth and I relaxed and I laughed and damn is that not what we're supposed to do if we're lucky, which I feel that I am? We're supposed to have dinner and drinks with our friends. I repeat, if we're lucky. I am not unaware of how lucky I am, believe me. On my worst days I know I have more than most people in the world.

So that's where I've been. Not sure where I'm going but it's going to be another adventure and I'm ready to fight and I'm going to win dammit and I am not going to vacation in Hell again because it was not a good deal and the accommodations sucked.

And you know what else...My hair is going to grow back. Won't that be a trip.

You know how it is with vacations...You've got to lie down to recover from so much fun. That's what I'm going to do right now. Nice to see you. Hey, maybe we could take a cruise sometime. Think they take IV's on board? I promise I won't throw up. Good night.