It's Raining, It's Pouring

I am trying to figure out what life is about. 

Saw Our Town for the first time on Sunday, and it really touched me.  Made me want to pay attention to everything, each little twitch.

Saw the Doc today.  We decided that I'll start on Herceptin again.  Have to have an Echocardiogram before I start to make sure my heart is doing okay.  Hoping that the Herceptin will stop the growth of tumors in my lungs. Talking with the Doc is surreal.  He looks at me and sees that I am moving towards dying, and his goal is to give me the best life possible on that journey.  I just feel alive, right now.  Can't conceive of dying.  Give me a treatment that will stop this progression, and I can live forever, right?  But we talk about his plan, how he wants certain treatments in his 'back pocket' if and when we need them.  Don't really want to start using Tykerb yet, cause we might need it in the future.  Don't want to go to systemic, cytoxin chemo.  We might need that somewhere down the road, when everything else stops working.

What???

I refuse to live in that future possibility.  I am alive right now.  Nothing is wrong right now.  I am alive.  We'll deal with the other, when and if it comes.

In the meantime, great news.  I will go to Minneapolis and Milwaukee in June and see people I love.  Yay!

Thank you for letting me share these words with you, scary as they might be.

The Track Coach

It is funny to me how some things have stuck in my head, since so many other events, moments, movies, etc., have just disappeared. 

So this morning, I get up thinking about this latest challenge with cancer, not freaked out or anything, it is just on my mind.  And then I remember something the track coach said once, back in high school. 

"Don't slow down when you see the finish line." 

I remember at the time marveling over that, turning it over in my mind, having a private little 'a-ha' moment at 15. 

I loved running the hurdles and was fairly good at it for a fat girl.  I liked the rythmn of it.  "Step-step-over, step-step-over". 

But I would slow down in that run between the last hurdle and the finish line.  I would see the finish line and think "Ahhhh, relief, I get to stop". 

So I imagine that I needed that little moment, that thought, this morning.  Just my brain and my soul trying to take care of me.

Keep running kid.  Jump the hurdles.  Don't slow don't when you see the finish line.