Looking for a better solution to Breast Cancer

Thank you, all for encouraging me to blog again.  I told you I was back and then I wasn’t.  Mentally I was struggling, not coping well with the memory of chemo, the surgery, the radiation … it was difficult to remember all that and write about it.  Cancer seemed to be on all sides.  It had taken over my life.

I struggle to find the new normal and am realizing when I find it, I will struggle to accept it.  Normal, probably isn’t coming back, acceptance is on the frontier.

Life is good, truly it is!

I have had my last check up at the BC Cancer Agency and I am still doing well.  I was experiencing a lot of bone, muscle and joint pain so Dr. D has changed my medication and  it seems to be subsiding.  I hope that continues.  They told me to expect to sleep another 6 months.  I am also part of a study so I will have 6 months check ups and lab work.  So it was my last check up … if I wasn’t part of the study … but I am … so … etc. etc.

Interesting at the Lab that morning.  First of all I didn’t bump into C.  C. passed away Sept 9/12 of Ovarian Cancer.  I will miss you C.

There was nobody there, that didn’t last long.  Two other women and partners filed in behind me.  The one lady, an east indian lady, wearing a scarf draped over her head wanted to talk to me.  It took me some time to understand her … she wanted to know why I still had my hair.  Hair … it’s always about the hair.  I told her that I had lost my hair and now it was back; I have had 3 hair cuts, although still waiting for brows and lashes.  She was so sad and pulled back her scarf to expose her mostly bald head.  The other lady, much older, had on a cute blond wig with a tiny braid on the side.  She was also interested in my hair.  She had recently shaved her head because of the hair loss.  There we were 3 women, stage 3 lung cancer, stage 3 ovarian cancer and stage 3 breast cancer … all talking about hair!  Too funny!

Later, at the oncology offices the east indian lady found me, she couldn’t help herself.  “Do you have any breasts?” she asked me.  “No, I don’t” I told her.  She looked horrified.  She knew at Stage 3 there would have been surgery, she had had surgery but not her breasts, not something visible, not something so defining.  “It was in my nodes” I offered, thinking that would help, it didn’t and it doesn’t.  We need a better solution to Breast Cancer … really we do!  I would like see a new and better solution to Breast Cancer in the future and I would like to be a part of it.

Rochelle is “Running for the Cure” in Vancouver on Sunday the 30.  I think the money raised there mostly goes to the employment of the nurses and technicians at the Cancer Agencies but I have done no research on this.

If you know of any organization committed to solving Breast Cancer, let me know … I am going to be checking things out on that frontier.

I believe we can solve this puzzle!