Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

Getting back into the swing of things at work has been easier than it was last year (I was on medical leave during the fall of 2013 as well), for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, despite the broken ribs and SBRT sessions, I feel much better than I did last January, because the fall of 2013 had begun with major surgery - my liver resection, during which my medical team removed a little over half of my liver in order to get rid of the metastases that had formed there - and the complications that had followed - as readers of my blog might remember, the surgeon accidentally stapled shut my IVC (inferior vena cava) and the mistake had not been discovered for three weeks. So that was fun. We followed that rodeo up with five more grueling rounds of chemotherapy, which concluded right around Christmastime. The chemo sessions actually had been cut short - I was supposed to have 8 rounds - but my counts were so low, so consistently, that it took three months just to get five rounds in...

As the calendar moves closer to my two year "cancer-versary," I'm finding that I have a very different mindset about my illness than I did upon diagnosis, or a year ago - or even six months ago. More and more, I feel like I'm in this for the long haul. On the one hand, that's reassuring, because I'm feeling very healthy (relatively speaking)  and enthusiastic and confident about reclaiming the "normal" activities of my life prior to diagnosis - teaching, tidying my kitchen, knitting, taking yoga classes, arguing with some of the people I love the most. But it's also disheartening, because cancer is unpredictable, and what feels like stability of sorts now could be completely discarded following my next scan, or the rise of some new and unexpected sympton, and so on. And even if the lesions that remain continue to be stable, I have a  host of other conditions now that originated from my disease and its subsequent treatment - my blocked IVC, seriou...

Happy New Year from our family to yours! I know, I know - it's been a really long time since I posted. Why so quiet on the blogging front? Well, I don't know. In the last six weeks, I've turned forty, celebrated the holidays, had several out of town visitors for extended stays, tried to prep for my return to teaching this semester, broken a couple of ribs, and discovered that I have to have more SBRT sessions. Perhaps I should explain. The turning forty part was amazing and fun - for many, many years, I dreaded the idea of turning the big 4-0. It sounded to me like the beginning of the end - could grey hair, varicose veins, a saggy butt and papery skin be far behind? Since my diagnosis, though, I've looked to the possibility of making it to forty as a challenge and a potential cause for massive celebration. (Plus, by the time forty rolled around, the prospect of grey hair and a saggy butt were far down my list of bodily concerns.)  It's amazing what the p...