An exchange of blood

So I have had a bit of an easier week this week although last week was hit and miss.  I still have moments of nausea but I have decided that I will continue to feed my tummy if it grumbles and I feed it,  it will do one of two things, either stay down or come up.  The problem is that when my tummy grumbles I’m not sure if it’s because I need to throw up or if it’s simply because I’m  hungry.

My body is still crawling and it hurts all over.  My blood levels were checked yesterday and they are all low especially my red, white and platelet levels so today I went in to get a transfusion.  I learned that my blood type is A+ and I learned that my platelet level being so low is in fact what’s causing my ‘bruised feeling’ so now I have to have my blood drawn every other day.  This doesn’t make me smile too much because that means more needles.  But whatever they need to do to ensure I feel better I’m in for.    So as it stands right now, I will have an MRI within the next four weeks and after that and they get the results we will discuss the next course of action.  But I am off the chemo  that made me so sick, as it turns out most people go two  rounds at a reduced dose and my body took five rounds at a full dose, it may seem a little arrogant but I've been feeling so crappy it was nice to be reassured that the body wasn't failing me which was my concern .

So needless to say I am feeling a bit better mentally and its funny how that seems to pull everything in line.  I feel more in line with God and even closer at the thought of spending the weekend with Him at the retreat I am going too barring any problems with my blood results.  If anything does not line up with the blood results then I will have to give up the weekend and get another transfusion…nothing I can do about it though but pray all is ok.

Best part of this week;  My daughter turned 19 today!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVzIGMqRznk

God and I

My sleep is still whack!  Some nights I’m lucky if I sleep and only wake every 2-3 hours other nights I’m lucky if I’m not up at 1:00a.m for the day.  That is getting itself in line slowly but it is.  But my spirits are high (I think).  Don’t get me wrong I am doing my fair share of complaining but I think the high spirits are out weighing the complaining…my family and friends may disagree but I doubt it.  I get pity and people don’t always want to say things that may upset you, it’s just a perk that comes with the disease.

It’s been just a few days since I last blogged but I thought it was much longer.  I am having this problem with crawling skin.  Sometimes my forearms feel like someone is rubbing sand paper on them and I have to remove whatever clothes are touching them because it is so painful.  I refer to it as ‘skin crawling’.  Well I think my legs got jealous and felt left out because they started to do it as well.  Difference:  they are way fiercer and have really affected the top of my feet and hurt, not just skin crawling hurt but they literally hurt my right one especially and in the joint it aches.  It’s not a constant pain; it comes and goes like most aches and pains.  I’ve considered just cutting the leg off at the knee but I thought that may be a little extreme.  But… I am in the market for a new brain if you happen to come across one.

I am still not feeling 100%.  I don’t think I’ve thrown up in the last few days.  My tummy has been uneasy though so I am staying on the Dexamethasone longer and am definitely not doing chemo on the 30^th.  I continue to push myself to eat every meal time even if it’s just a yogurt.  It’s hard but I have to keep my strength up and start getting my weight back.  So overall I do feel like I am on the upswing of all of this horribleness.  I just keep praying for healing and patience through this pain both physical and mental.

I don’t feel like I am on the same page as God which is probably the hardest part for me right now.  I don’t think it’s as easy a thing to fix by just picking up the Bible and reading.  Please don’t tell me that He is right beside me, I know that.  It is I who feel the distance by walking on my own.  I don’t know how I end up in this place.

So there’s my new prayer request.  This blog is called ‘God, Cancer and I’ so please pray for the God and I part of that title.

Even in times of feeling lost the following song rings truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkESX4EyUZE

Bless you all and thank you for all your prayers and support.  I am truly blessed to have such awesome people in my life and I am thankful every day for you.

Mel

Finally sleep...

As I mentioned previously I had my appointment with my new Dr. and his nurse  on Wednesday.  I have gained 3 lbs. back from the 12 I lost so that is definitely a great thing.  He also said that he has absolutely no doubt that all this crap I am going through is 100% chemo related and those 5 rounds of full doses isn’t usually tolerated by the body, most people go 2 on a reduced dose.  That made me feel good because I was so worried my body may be on a decline, as I mentioned in my previous blog.  On the 29^th I will have my blood work done again and then another appointment on the 30^th to decide what’s next.  (Another full dose or reduced dose) Ooooohhhh, the excitement is building as the day approaches.  I just can’t wait.

 So yesterday; my daughter came home for dinner and I was hungry but she hasn’t been around and I’ve not been well so we have no food so off to my mum n dads to poke thru their cupboard and fridge.  Well I was excited because my tummy was growling because I was hungry…guess what comes next…I get to my mums and my stomach starts to growl a bit more and I had one shoe off and it in fact was not hunger pains so off to the washroom I ran.  Just in time.  Uggggggghhhhhhhh sick again.  Well I was still hungry even more so now, I’m just going to say that I am glad that I drank a lot of water.  So it was a 7 cracker dinner. 

But tonight I am craving pizza so that’s what we are having.  I don’t care if it’s good for me or not, if I’m sick or not, I’m craving it and I’m hungry!  Maybe risky but it’s worth the risk, after all I am a risk taker. LOL I have cancer don’t I and that’s risky.  Dinners just arrived now waiting for Alex and then some fine dining.

Thanks for all your support and I’m going to end on this answer to prayer.  I went to bed last night at about 10:30 pm and I didn’t wake up until 8:45’ish.  So thank God for thatJJJ

Bless you all and may WE all sleep with angels tonight.

Mel (no song today, sorry)

Its been a bit of a rough patch...

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged.  I have been off work since my last chemo which was March 18.  My body was not happy with this round to say the very least.  I have been nauseas or sick to my stomach since then as well as not sleeping which really sucks.  I have felt like I’ve been in a constant rotation of crap.  I can’t eat because I feel so nauseas and I feel so nauseas because I haven’t eaten.  Well it just didn’t seem to end.

I had my blog open a few days ago with the intention of  blogging to you all but I just didn’t know what to say, and felt I needed a better handle on things myself first.  When I go back over what’s been going on it really doesn’t seem like such a big deal.  At the time however it felt like I was always going to feel this bad. 

Ok, so here’s the short and skinny of it all.

For 3.5-4 weeks now I have not been eating well if at all and have dropped 12lbs.  I was happy to see that my ‘jiggy jiggy’ tummy is gone.  Not the way I had anticipated but heh who am I to look a gifted horse in the mouth?!

I’ve started back on eggs and I seem to do fine with English muffins.  Figures, English. (I’m English)    I spoke with a special nurse at BCCA who works with my new Neuroncologist.  Poor lady I called her so much last week complaining about how bad I felt that I got a personal invitation to come and see her tomorrow at 2:40.  I personally think she must think I’m some psycho seeing as this is nothing new for me and yet here I am calling every day.  Truth be told…I have been spoiled.  Since Easter April 7, 2007 when I was first diagnosed I have had great care.  A great neurosurgeon, and a fantastic care team but even better than that my body much like my tumor has responded in the complete opposite direction to how I was told it will.  Even during radiation I worked, my body took all the chemo and radiation like a trooper, even with the death sentence my body held strong.  My body has held up like a super star, all thru God and much prayer.  So when I started to feel this horrific so fast at this phase of my treatment I was a bit freaked out.  Ok I was a lot freaked out and thought… “There must be more cancer, my stomach hurts what if there’s cancer there, would they catch it in my blood work or would they miss it?  What if that other Dr. was right and this is my slow decline?”  There’s one thing about being positive and then there’s another thing about being blind, then there’s the degree of scared and straight up trembling in your shoes.  Who can you tell this too?  I don’t want to upset or scare my family even more than they already are.  Oh the madness!!!!!!!!  So I do what I can.  I pray and try to let go and give it all to God only to take it back almost instantly.  So it was in this one agonizing moment between me, the toilet and God that I decided medicinal marijuana doesn’t actually sound so horrible now (as I once thought in 2009).  I’m going to check it out.  That’s what I did. My Vancouver Dad drove me down to the Compassion Society as I was sitting there waiting an elderly lady came in with her walker and went and sat down and as she was waiting she asked a young girl to roll her marijuana for her.  I giggled and thought WOW; I would never have ever thought I’d ever see this.

I went in and spoke to one of the employees and they make sure that you are informed and leave with as much knowledge as you can to make an informed decision.   It’s amazing, it’s like a whole world that I knew nothing about has been opened up before my very eyes.  I am still having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around it only because it is frowned upon and although you and part of me says “whatever it helps me so hold your judgment for someone who cares” I can’t just say that.  I’m really trying not to think that because on our way home God showed me and spoke very awesome words to me.  I wanted to know why He is letting me feel so horrid for so long.  He told me that I needed to come to the place I’m at now.  A vulnerable part in this journey where I have to lay my own judgments and vulnerabilities on the line….go to the Compassion Club.  There, where people with all kinds of ailments, HIV Aids, mental challenges on many levels the chronically sick and many discarded by society, these are Gods precious children and here is where He wants me to pray, minister and share my stories and testimonies.  I started to get a little excited and then the ‘Piece du resistance’ (French).  He reminded me of a vision he blessed me with a while ago.  It was a blueprint and I was way off in the bottom left corner looking on, the blueprint was lit up from the underside and there were skinny lines, fat lines, criss crossing like streets, God was leaning over it like hands on a table leaning forwards.  There were pins coming from the underside up thru the blueprint and I don’t know how but I knew it was my blueprint, I couldn't see the beginning or end, I couldn’t see from side to side, it just went on and on however, there was one part, a big square patch that illuminated while the rest faded and I looked at it and it was the part of my life God has brought me into now.  It may sound a bit farfetched and a little out there but… God likes ‘farfetched’ and He does ‘out there’ really well.

Regardless how you feel about this it gave me instant peace and I thought “ok God if this is why then it’s worth it.  To help people find you and find peace, it’s worth it so thank you” I felt grateful that I was fortunate to see the purpose not just have to live the purpose.

So here I sit bringing you all up to date on me.  BUT, more importantly;  My wonderful daughter is turning 19 on April 30.  So there is much reason to celebrate this month.  It’s not time to look back and feel sad but I do still feel the need to revisit those hurts sometimes.  I just need to learn that visiting doesn’t mean they come home with me.  I’m working on it.

Thank you for all your prayers and here’s an awesome song for you.

Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYhH-9i8ifw

WOOHOO Praise God!

 

Well I spoke way to fast on the ‘no throw up’  up until yesterday I have been nauseas and thrown up a couple times.  At first my oncologist thought it was just a bug of sorts but it didn’t go away and it wasn’t likely the chemo because I took all the pills to prevent this and i've always been fine before.  So the end result I was sick from chemo day (18th) until my ‘guy’ at BCCA on Wednesday, April 3 gave me something to take.So awesome.

I don’t want to be a downer or anything but the last few weeks have been very tough for me.  I started to feel rather depressed and not connected to God and it’s really been an effort for me to stay focused on him or anything for that matter.  I barely worked.  I got possibly 4 days in 2 weeks in, which sucks because I love my job.  Didn’t help of course feeling like absolute rubbish.  There have been a few oddities, each day I was nauseas and it was EVERY day, I never felt dizzy, not once.  The other inconvenience that I’m now experiencing is that I can’t go from kneeling or squatting to standing without falling, always to me left (which if you recall it happened in my shower a few blogs ago)  Well this time it was not in the shower thank God.  If I had’ve been able to blog before now you’d be reading something entirely different because I was not in good headspace to say the very least.

A couple great conversations with some key people and its like i'm getting back to my old self again. Now here’s the great news…the second tumour is shrinking.  YAY.

And that’s coming from someone who interprets MRI’s and he showed me the picture.  It’s gone from 1.0cm to 0.4cm.  I am also going to be seeing a neuroncologist at the BCCA which is great because he specializes in the treatment of brain cancer and the seizure aspect, so he’s like a package deal.  I’m really happy about that.

 

So I originally had some hard core Christian songs picked out but I have totally toned it down.  Enjoy and bless you all and thank you so very much for all your well needed and appreciated prayers.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZzW0sIg2aI