we have a lot of updates, so this is a very newsy post. i feel like a reporter.

3 weeks out of surgery, i got another fill up of the expander (kind of like a gas tank. fill ‘er up!). the needle slightly hurt going in today. maybe a sign i’m getting some nerves back. and, i finally got rid of my second drain. it’s a weight lifted, literally. i lost a little over 2 pounds, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when it’s 2 pounds swinging from a tube coming out of your torso, it feels damn good. my fluid output wasn’t technically low enough (needs to be below 30 each day, and it was hovering around 35 the past few days), but my surgeon really wanted it gone. so we have to continue watching for oozing and infection, and to be careful with the hole that remains in my torso (although the surgeon said, “oh, that should close up pretty quickly.” note to self: the body is still an amazing thing, even if i was mad at mine much of the last 7 months) (also, for any readers who may have to get drains in the future, the fluid output and emptying the drains 2x/day is gross, but not as gross as anticipated. probably more annoying than anything to pin them to your clothes and figure out a good sleep position and hide them from the public eye under puffy vests. the output is an orangish clear liquid, and they provide you with a cup to dump it into and measure, before disposing of it. the doctor keeps gauze over the hole where the tube comes out too, so it’s not too sci-fi to see it directly exiting your body.). mike laughed while watching the doctor pull out the drain tube – he said it was like a magic trick where the magician keeps pulling scarves out of the hat and the scarves just keep going. ew.
and in other ‘ew’ news, i get to shower tomorrow. sponge baths are sure getting old. man, the feeling of hot water hitting my head and shoulders is going to be amazing. if there was a doubt california was in a drought, it’s going to be 100% certain after my shower tomorrow.

we also checked in on my ovaries this week. and they are looking a-ok. incredible even. although that last description, when coming from the male fertility doctor, really bothers mike. especially when said during a vaginal ultrasound. there are some good signs (follicles? cells? hormone levels? dunno.) i’ll get ovarian function back, and now the long-term question is how much will come back (like, will just one ovary work? will it only work 33% of the time?). my oncologist and fertility doctor both agreed that i won’t need ovarian suppression. this is based on the tiny amount of invasive cancer i had left at surgery. i’m very happy about this. cheers to avoiding monthly shots and more side effects that take away my estrogen, a hormone which helps all sorts of things like joint lubrication and memory and being aliveness but is a delectable treat for my cancer cells! joking aside, my oncologist takes the most aggressive approach to everything, so if there’s even a slim chance it would help, she’d sign me up. onward, dear ovaries.

the last piece of good news we got was from my radiation oncologist. it’s good news but confusing news. she was so excited about my surgical pathology and the positive treatment response that now she’s uncertain radiation is necessary. she concluded that most radiation oncologists would recommend it, given my young age and to take an aggressive approach. so she will too. but it stumped her, like no-pope-black-smoke stumping. well, stumped her and excited her. it is good news, yes, but as it’s set in, i’m confused too and have started a list of questions for her. no one wants to be the guinea pig and not do the radiation, so we don’t really have statistics to fall back on for the alternative.

in a way that was similar to the mastectomy versus lumpectomy turmoil, i have to think in hypotheticals: if i have a metastasis in 5 years, would i look back and think i should have done the radiation? maybe it will be overkill. but, maybe it will complicate and cause my breast reconstruction to fail leaving me with a concave side. call me shallow but no one wants that. i get mad at the imperfections here. and some moments (fleeting moments), get lulled back into this false complacency that i’m fine now, cancer free, no chance of anything bad ever happening ever again in life, all stocked up on shitty things thankyouverymuch! that whole “i’m invincible” and “i’m young and healthy and resilient” and “maybe i never even had cancer to begin with” kind of thinking. frankly, it’s a defense mechanism for making it through the day and not being absolutely overwhelmed that there are a ZILLION things that could go wrong every moment of every day. but if we really fully recognized and processed this fact, we wouldn’t come out of under the bed (or in SF, we probably wouldn’t go under the bed but somewhere else safe from earthquakes). jeez. i’ll keep working this through with my care team.

even though i’m not working this month, our calendars are full. i started physical therapy last week to get range of motion and strength back in my arm. i’m at 150 degrees with a goal to be at 180. they are making sure my chest doesn’t fully curve into itself after surgery, and taught me how to drain my arm since removing lymph nodes took a lot of that natural drainage away. julie wong is the PT person, a breast cancer survivor herself. she had a change of career after diagnosis when she realized there were so few resources to help women get back to their quality of life. i’m fascinated by how pressure on various points of the body can help so much. they massage my gut to reactivate the digestive tract after chemo/surgery; my pectoral muscle to shift it down on top of the expander; and my whole chest to help smooth out scarring. sounds intimate, but it all feels pretty normal. and super good.

the few days following PT though, i am exhausted. like exhausted in a bone tired way that i never really had during chemo. i can’t shake it either. it smacks me that maybe it’s all finally catching up, physically and emotionally. i wish my time off were spent on all these wonderful things i’ve always said, “if i had a month off, i would [insert fabulous adventure here].” but i’m not doing them because i’m just…tired.

my hair is starting to come in, as you can sort of tell in the picture (mike wanted to get fancy for the portrait). he thinks, from a distance, i still look bald, but up close, it’s a tie between an old man and a baby. he’s pretty accurate. with eyebrows and eyelashes making a reappearance, i’m starting to feel more human, less cancer patient.

my parents are settled back in Illinois now, and they were an extraordinary help. doing all kinds of odd jobs – beyond the laundry, dishes, and cooking, things like patching up holes in our house, sewing a christmas tree skirt, widdling us a coat rack from reclaimed fence wood. standard stuff, you know. kind of amazing when it all adds up. so thanks #1 mom and dad. whiz misses you too.

a lot of newsy bits. yadda yadda yadda.

i’ve been wondering when i get to say i’m cancer free. my care team hasn’t mentioned it yet and won’t, it seems (the fertility doctor and my nurse practitioner both said something like, “yeah, let’s see how this next year goes for you.” it was in reference to the kid thing, like maybe we’d get the green light if i don’t have a reoccurrence or metastasis in the next 2-3 years). i don’t think i have cancer any more. but who can truly say that? who knows if i have a cluster of cancer cells hanging out, or others just waiting to mutate? am i a cancer ‘survivor’ yet? i’ll be in active treatment for at least another 5-6 years, and possibly up to 10 if the long-term tamoxifen pill studies play out this way, but technically i’m alive so surviving…? there are no right answers, so like many things, the decision will be up to others but also up to me.

thanks for still being here and helping me work through it.

xom

and ps, andrea, welcome home from the hospital!!!

i have a lot of time on my hands now, which is both good and bad. good that i’m starting to process a lot of what we’ve been through, whereas it otherwise feels i’ve mostly been levitating above the experience. bad that i can get a little mad. which actually is not bad, but natural.

children, babies, kids, etc tend to be on my mind a lot. not so much around wanting them, but they are just present. maybe it’s because our nephew jonathan turned 6 yesterday and niece brecken is turning 9 today. i also looked back over the past few weeks and realized there were quite a few more welcomes to the world to offer up: evelyn to brian and clare; ann monroe to mary and eric; joseph to susan and joe; and chocorua to jill and jason. a quick count adds up 9 other friends who are going to have a brand new baby in the house over the next few months. it’s the time in our lives when this is, and should be, happening. and, i couldn’t be more happy to see friends become parents, especially when it’s something many have wanted for a long time and identify with, to see the miracle of a baby being born, to feel as though these new little people have always been part of our lives in some way yet simultaneously be amazed that they are immediately in the mix of the world. it is, simply, cool.

the jury was still out for mike and i on whether or not to become parents one day. i never grew up dreaming about becoming a mother. mike always saw himself as a dad, coach, mentor. i love kids though and taught and tutored middle schoolers through and after college; mike did similar things too. childbirth freaks me out (despite the millennia of it happening) and have always been open to adoption; mike was never sold on adoption solely. we both find kids clever and cute and hilarious (like jonathan, pictured here, and his insistence on wearing a tie to school for his birthday to look handsome).

when i shared our perspective on kids ~5 years ago with our friend mike visiting from portland, he said something sarcastic like, “yeah, good work. way to give back to society. it’s not like 2 smart people could have a smart kid that could do something amazing one day, like cure cancer.” that comment has so many layers i can’t even touch it.

something that i never realized, until now, about cancer in young adults or children is that chemotherapy risks taking away fertility, because chemo targets rapidly dividing cells, like some of those in my ovaries that surround my eggs. my heart breaks for so many kids–in the true sense of the word–who become infertile even before they have their first girlfriend or boyfriend.

when we got my diagnosis, it was one of the first things asked of us: do you have children? do you want them? um…what? we were too busy wondering if i was going to live to think about that kind of future. when we mentioned adoption, one doctor said we might not be a “good adoptive family,” now given my health history. once we were told my prognosis is good, then the wheels really started going. do we preserve our options as an insurance policy, on the chance that the chemo permanently shuts down my ovaries? do i have time, in the most literal sense of the word, to go through a few weeks of daily hormone shots and the egg harvest? will those hormone shots speed up my cancer growth? oh, and do we want kids? (side note: hearing things from acquaintances after diagnosis like, “thank god you don’t have children!” actually sucked. whose to say it wouldn’t be a blessing to have children as a beacon to keep a person going through all these treatments? i try not to preach from a blog pulpit but that one really got me, even as a person who wasn’t sure about the kid thing).

we agonized over this decision. no one could make it for us. we met with a special fertility psychologist at UCSF and asked all sorts of questions.
Q: why wouldn’t someone freeze embryos? A: for financial or religious reasons, beyond not wanting children.
Q: why does it feel a little dirty to put a price tag on future options and shell out $14,000 to preserve embryos (and that including a 50% off special for cancer patients!) A: you didn’t ask for this.
Q: what happens if i die before we use the embryos? if mike dies? A: you have to confirm and decide that now, signing it in legal paperwork. the surviving partner could still use them, you could donate them to another couple, or destroy them (this one caused, as you can imagine, a lot of discussion. would mike want our child, through a surrogate, without me and vice versa? we have different opinions on it. i would, he would not. or at least that’s what we concluded in august. i frankly can’t recall what else we decided. to us, destroying them doesn’t feel awesome, but knowing that our biological child is out there being raised by another couple, beyond the amazingness of fulfilling someone’s dream, is also upsetting).
Q: what if my ovarian function returns? A: we would want you to try and have a natural baby, having you go off cancer treatment/the pill tamoxifen for a few months. if that doesn’t work, we’d implant the embryo (or embryos…our doctor said don’t worry, no octomom in our future. twins at 40 doesn’t sound particularly energizing anyway. but, we’d cross that bridge on how many to implant if/when we get there. and then figure out what to do with the rest of the embryos).
this is heavy stuff for anyone, yet alone a couple who just was wrapping up celebrating their first year anniversary in marriage. we decided to go for it and figure the rest out later, also recognizing that we were unlikely to do something without doing something (if that makes sense–like, if we’re going to freeze embryos, we’re going to use them dammit!). we had time, but not a ton of time, to make the decision. so after what was not an awesome 2 weeks of shots and the egg harvest surgery and fertilization procedure, 11 totsicles (er, fertilized embryos) remain on ice somewhere in an earthquake-retrofitted building (i had to ask) in SF. i’ll repeat, mike is fertile and his swimmers did the fertilization part just fine. as any guy would, he’ll be happy to hear that again and again (given our 11 potential kidlets, i entertained the idea of getting mike 11 one-sies or stockings for the mantel for christmas but thought a case of wine was even better this year).

today’s onion headline, “obnoxious friend won’t stop attaining major life milestones,” cracked me up and spurred this post. what all this adds up to, and why i’m sharing it, is that i’m mad. mad at stupid cancer. and especially mad at stupid cancer in young people. even though mike and i know we would not be having children now or in the next few years had i not been diagnosed, we don’t even have the option to have children right now (end emphasis). it would be against medical advice. we have to wait a few years and see how my treatment continues to go. bottom line is: you always want what you can’t have. grass is greener. etc etc etc. or, cancer sucks.

by sharing this, i don’t want friends to avoid us or avoid sharing their happiness. of the things that are certain: mike and i remain steadfast in our happiness, excitement, and support for all of our friends who are moving to this life step, so please keep sharing the good news with us.

i just wanted to share some perspective on this whole fertility thing that is growing in recognition in the medical field but among a patient’s social support, isn’t necessarily widely known.

in other updates, i got my expander filled today for the first time. it’s pretty amazing – the doctor uses a little magnet to find the matching magnet/entry point of the expander inside my breast. he inserts a needle through the magnet and slowly injects whatever amount of saline is appropriate for the day (today was 50cc). because all the nerve endings in my breast are shot for good, i didn’t feel the needle go in. i did, however, feel the liquid stretching out the expander, thereby stretching my pectoral muscle on top of it. and looking down, my boob has grown. it’s like the turkey is almost done! it’s like he watered my boob (thanks for that image, matt)! science! as the saline flowed in, mike and the doctor chatted about their membership at the olympic club, golfing rounds, and the like. totally normal wednesday.

even though reconstruction is far from over and there are a lot of risks still left to navigate, i’m glad i’m doing it. i am bothered by how flat one side of my chest is, both with and without clothes on. i have images of my grandma GG who didn’t do reconstruction and didn’t wear a prosthesis in her bra (everyone has reasons to or not to…hers likely being that she was 80 and facing a lot of other treatments for stage iv cancer. oh the things i wish i could talk to her about now). my grandma nana didn’t do reconstruction either but she wore her prosthesis so things were balanced.

one. day. at. a. time.

thanks for listening in today…and what feels like every day really.

xom

i have surgery on tuesday. at 730am i’ll go under, and they’ll remove my breast, replacing it with a plastic expander that i will have for up to a year after radiation, until my skin is healed enough for the final implant. they’ll remove as many lymph nodes as makes sense given analysis of invasive cancer during the procedure, and if i’m lucky, my skin and nipple will be spared. i’ll lose all feeling in the breast no matter what. i’ll be in the hospital for 1-2 nights and come home with surgical drains, pain meds, and a lot of instructions on not lifting/bathing/doing much.

just the facts.

surgery is scary, and shifting from a set schedule with weekly chemo to an unknown schedule that all depends on how the procedure goes and how i’m healing is tough. it’s also adding the idea of pain into the mix of still-chronic side effects of chemo (read: most all bodily functions). it’s been my last week of work until april, and in my busy-ness to get everything done, i’ve been pretty successful at blocking all the scariness out and when asked, being able to be very clinical about it all (x is happening, then y, then z). but fear is definitely there, lurking in the corners of my mind, mike’s mind. our dry run to the hospital for my bloodwork today prompted some serious calcari-sweathands.

the regular parade of doctors appointments continues (one including a bone density scan to see if i’m osteoparitic, a common side effect of chemo and especially in young women…stay tuned on what other characteristics make me 90 years old). i also restarted the herceptin, the targeted therapy, infusions that are to happen now every 3 weeks to round out a full year of getting that drug. it was a romantic valentine’s day in the infusion center. i’ve been trying a bunch of homeopathic remedies to get my core biopsy bruises and contusions to go away, but they persist. my therapist made me a guided imagery cd that they will let me take into surgery, so i’ve been playing that to imagine what a good outcome will be and how to continue trusting the team of doctors who are also invested in my outcome. and then, i’m trying not to beat myself up on what other things i should be/should have been doing all this time to get ready for surgery, like some hard core stretching and iron eating and water drinking. oh, and i just picked up latisse to hopefully help sprout some eyelashes so i look and feel less like a cancer patient (don’t get me started on my reverse soul patch on the back of my head, where a band of hair is showing up strong…and alone).

all this stuff happens and we try and detach from it and lead a normal life, with dinners with friends, snowshoeing in tahoe (such a wonderful mastectamoon to be away with good people and scenery, helping shift our energy completely), and drinks with my hairdresser at the lookout…you know, a normal tuesday night kind of thing.

mike will keep you posted on how surgery goes, and once we’re home and figure out what end is up, we’ll update the mealtrain with things like walks/meals/etc. in the meantime, 2 favors from the crowd:

1. please continue to send your good vibes, prayers, and thoughts my way, especially so tuesday morning. i’ll be thinking of all of you as my immune system.
2. if you have some funny youtube clip or other link, please email them to maureen (maureengeesey@gmail.com) by monday, who is going to compile and send them to us for my stay in the hospital. laughter is good medicine.

the picture attached to the post is a mural outside of our house. we had it commissioned by an awesome woman, meagan. she sketched it after talking with me for awhile in the fall. it’s a wall full of flowers and butterflies….butterflies who undergo a transformation. a goodbye and hello. sort of like me and what i’m going through.

a couple other goodbyes and hellos go to meredith who is en route to phoenix and wee joe who was born to joe and susan + freya who was born to dan and kristin – much love to you all.

i look forward to reconnecting in a few days. until then – i’m sending you all some of SF sunshine.

xoxo

m

the core biopsy machine!

my breast gained 2 more titanium biopsy markers and some bruises on thursday. in fact it’s super swollen and the color of eggplant still today, with the steri-strips caked on. all completely normal, but all completely BS IMHO.

the second opinion surgeon called at 10pm last night with the biopsy results (my doctors work crazy hours, which is both awesome and depressing). it turns out the distant calcifications sampled are cancer in the duct (DCIS) along with plain calcifications. my decision is made: single mastectomy with reconstruction.

the good news is that based on the tissue sampled, it appears the invasive cancer is gone. that means the chemo took care of the nastiest and most aggressive of the diagnosis, and according to the doctor, this is the best indicator we have for long-term survival. we’ll wait until the final pathology comes back from surgery to confirm this, but i’ll take a good news nugget for now. and since DCIS does not contain rapidly dividing cells, the chemo isn’t meant to kill it anyway.

thanks for all your support with this. straight up, i’m thankful the decision was made for me (on many levels, including the one where chemo has knocked the wind out of my decision-making sails writ large: what do i eat for dinner? dunno. which route do i take to my appointment? dunno. black yoga pants or black yoga pants? dunno.).

even though this piece of information was critical to the decision, i had to be talked into the core biopsy in the end by the surgeon. i wasn’t up for another invasive procedure, and by thursday morning, was leaning towards a mastectomy anyway. i also remember a woman telling me that the biopsies were worse than surgery for her, because you’re awake, nervous, and uncomfortable, if not in pain. you also can’t lift a gallon of milk for a few days afterwards and should limit activities for a week (e.g., no yoga). the surgeon convinced me with some cheesy line of “information is power” and used my name “information is power, meaghan.” i’m a sucker for that pithy and direct approach.

to tell you a bit about the core biopsy (disclaimer: all of this, as you know, is my experience. it doesn’t mean you would ever experience the same thing, so i don’t want to alarm anyone). it’s different than a fine need aspiration, which was the ultrasounded-guided biopsy i had when first diagnosed; that takes a handful of cells. the core biopsy is guided by a mammogram and takes tissue. so picture this: me (bald still, of course), laying face down on a table elevated to the ceiling, with my right breast dangling through a small square hole, compressed like a pancake in a mammogram machine for 2 hours, while a needle first gives local anesthetic and then goes in and out taking tissue samples and making vaccuum cleaner sounds, before making a popping noise when it inserts the little biopsy clip. all while i am to lay perfectly still. sure, the doctors were sweet and one even rubbed my back around minute 72. but holy shit that was uncomfortable and painful and alarming all at once.

when one of the doctors was holding my breast afterwards for ~15 mins to minimize bleeding, we got to know each other pretty well (i have zero dignity and/or privacy any more about my breasts…it comes with the territory). she was asking if what they said about the core biopsy being “uncomfortable” was accurate. um, yes. she was also surprised to learn it’s incredibly painful. in school and residency, they learn the bicarbonate in the anesthetic is supposed to minimize stinging (it didn’t) and that the anesthetic itself will totally numb everything (it doesn’t). not that i wish this procedure on her or anyone, but i do wish the doctors would know what their procedures feel like (my first opinion surgeon said clearly the whole contraption was designed by a man. agreed). even laying all contorted on the table and having the compression is damn uncomfortable. the lady before me had to cancel her procedure because she couldn’t even take the table part shoving up on her sternum (i got this tidbit when they told me what a good patient i was and i asked what a bad patient would be).

when they told mike it would be at least 2 hours and i got a hospital-grade wristband, i knew i was in for something. not my idea of an awesome afternoon. i was pretty unprepared for it and had planned this whole awesome and active weekend to celebrate being 2 weeks out of chemo and turning a corner physcially. instead, i came home with puncture wounds, gauze, ice packs, and an ace bandage around my torso.

i got mad. like really mad. like fuming and crying and snotty. and decided i wasn’t going to let cancer take away my weekend, because it’s already taken away so much else.

fuck. that. shit. (sorry mom and dad, but sometimes it really has to be said).

so i got a fancy dinner out, champagne at the top of the mark, dirty in a mudrun, our yard spiffed up, goldenboy pizza after more champagne at gino and carlo, and superbowl sweetness in the east bay, all with mike, friends, and cancer survivors (thanks for all the fun, y’all) (treat yo’self!!!). at the mudrun with BAYS, we danced and laughed and threw mud and did all the obstacles. the dude controlling the run’s heats asked if there were any cancer survivors in the crowd, and it was my first big public moment at identifying with this and being totally happy about it and screaming like a teenager (the dude was also super cute, so that helped….sorry, mike). sure i was ace bandaged up and sore, but feeling alive again counts for something way more.

as my dad says, that’s the scoop boop.

one thing about this blog that delights and fascinates me to no end is that so much of my world is here. i am lucky to know all of you–from respected colleagues and partners to new cancer survivor friends, university roommates, high school coaches, and childhood and SF playmates. it’s kind of like the biggest wedding ever, if that makes sense. i hope you get as much enjoyment from each other’s posts as i get from them.

i also have so much to process and share that i miss the blog when i don’t post regularly. that’s probably saying many things, but mostly how helpful it is for me to have you all here.

i started surgery prep already today and am in the process of saying goodbye to my right breast. while it betrayed me in so many ways, i like to think of it apologizing at how it got confused and it messed up, for reasons that we will never understand. and it’s time for it to leave me and for me to let it go. while that may be too woo-woo for some of you, it has real depth for me and is helping me grapple with a permanent physical transformation. february 19 is the big day. we’re going to tahoe this weekend with friends to celebrate being done with chemo and to enjoy a mastectamoon (thanks, sarah–brilliant). then back and ready to keep gaining a distance from chemo and a closeness to being done with another big step.

see you again soon,
xoxo
m

i don’t like running. i’m not into races. the one 5k i did with mike and our friend derek a few years ago was kind of painful, especially to watch the people who warmed up with a 5k before the actual 5k pass me in their tiny shorts. show offs. 

despite all that, i have a great sense of a mile marker with my last chemo tomorrow (i was able to get the third AC even with a sinus infection, and i think the chemo helped clear that crap up. pleasant surprise!). it’s like i’m rounding the bend. i woke up with butterflies in my stomach about how excited i am to be done with chemo, and with the friday/saturday fluids and follow-up meds too. just too many hours over the past 5 months sitting in that infusion chair…approximately 126 hours by my count. 

i’m so amped to feel more alive, both literally and literally. while the anthracycline stays in my body for the next month, i’ll start to feel better a teeny bit every day. i’ll grow red blood cells and get some energy because of it, be able to eat and poop (btw, never take those 2 things for granted), give up my mouth sore rinse, enjoy lemons in my water, more quickly heal paper cuts, and be able to give up the guessing game each morning–what new side effect will i feel today? will my fingernail fall off? will my gut be tied in knots? the rest of my treatment plan is no picnic, but the uncertainty of chemo can be crippling. this top ten list of ways to get a taste of chemo brings some dark cancery humor to the whole mess. 

all the chemo guidebooks say to avoid your favorite food and clothes during treatment because you’ll start to associate those beloved things with chemo. i didn’t believe it would happen because of a mind over matter arrogance. but recently, even seeing my backpack, water bottle, and snackbag that we always take to infusions brings on a wave of nausea and anxiety. and i’ve buried a few sets of clothes deep in my closet that have been well-worn to infusions too. spring cleaning is coming early to the campbell household. 

i think whiz is ready too (thanks for the request, and pep talk, joanne!), just given his annoyingly adolescent behavior as of late. peeing on the carpet, eating my nexium acid reflux pill off the dining table, and otherwise terrorizing inanimate objects like pens and kleenax. he’s tired of my chemo moping. 

thanks for helping me get through these past months. i get a surprise (fill in the blank) from someone each day, and it’s so humbling to be surrounded by wonderful people who do and say wonderful things. at some point, i’ll synthesize the things that have most resonated on my toughest days, because some of you have asked what’s been the most helpful. at another point, if i can muster up enough honesty (because let’s face it, i’m honest here but only share about 75% of what i could), i’d also like to reflect on how cancer is crystallizing my view on relationships. 

for now, i’m still working on being nice to myself. easier said than done. i have a lot of negative thoughts about what i’m doing or not doing, what i did or did not do. that’s a longer work in progress. maybe that type of chronic background noise of negative thoughts and the associated stress hormones provided a happy petri dish for cancer to begin with. no one knows. but, more later on how to come up with a survivorship plan to deal with those things. 

but first, getting through tomorrow and the next week of side effects and then having a little dance party to celebrate passing this mile marker…!

xom