Here is a poem I picked up somewhere along the way that is comforting to me at times. I do think about Gessner often and even talk to him. I miss him every single day.

Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way you always used

Put no difference into your ton

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we always enjoyed together

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was

Let it be spoken without effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind?

Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well

Nothing is past; nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Preparing to Live or Preparing to Die

This has been a rough week. I can't stop thinking about the possibility of having Stage 4 cancer and what that means. Well, or at least what I think that it means. Even if it is stage 4 there is no guarantee that I will die soon, it is even possible that I can be "cured" (with cancer you are considered "cured" if you are "cancer free" for 5 years). But, if I am stage 4, the odds are against me. So, what is a girl supposed to do? Should I start making a bucket list and doing those things? Should I spend all of my money traveling and doing things that I want to do? Or should I plan for a future? The reality is that for now I am in a sort of limbo and have to just wait and see. I will wake up in the morning and go to bed at night. I will take each day as it comes and just try to make it through one day at a time. As cliche as that sounds, it is the only way that I can get through this right now. Perhaps I will get some guidance from the doctors at some point or my body will tell me what is going on. So for tonight I accept that there is nothing that I can do about this and I'll pick up the battle tomorrow.

Update

Well, it's been just over a month since I had my bilateral mastectomy. The surgery went well and I am actually feeling really good physically right now. Probably because Gertrude is no longer trying to suck the life out of me and the doctors are not giving me regular doses of poison. My wounds are not healing as quickly as we would like, however, so radiation has been pushed back a couple of times. The soonest I will start is in 2 weeks, but my guess is that it will be longer. While I enjoy having days when I feel good and don't have to do treatment, with each day that I wait, the end date of active treatment is pushed back. I was hoping that I would be done by the end of the year, but after talking to my oncologist today, it is looking like February will be the earliest.

As soon as my chest wounds heal up I will start radiation along with an oral chemotherapy agent. I will do radiation 5 days a week for 33 treatments and will take the oral chemo every day one week on and then one week off. After radiation, I will start additional chemotherapy, adding two IV agents to the oral one. The IVs will be two weeks on, one week off for about 3 months.

The big wild card in all of this is a spot on my rib. Before I started chemo the first time I had a PET scan to check to see if there was cancer anywhere else in my body. The scan showed a spot on one of my left ribs. To give the doctors a better look I had an MRI, which was inconclusive. I had been skiing a few weeks before and had fallen A LOT (it was my first time) and so we thought that it was possible that it was a bruised or fractured. So, I did chemo and had surgery and then we did another scan and the spot is still there.

I had an MRI on September 9th and the report states: "Signal abnormality and surrounding edema persist in the left anterior third rib. Given the persistence of this finding and the bone scan abnormalities and the time, the possibility of metastatic disease to the rib is very real. I would have expected the healing process to have substantially resolved during this time, and the signal abnormality within the medullary portion of the rib is worrisome." What this means is that the cancer may have spread to my rib, but we aren't sure. One of the problems with this is that there is no easy way to test to see if it is cancer. In order to take a biopsy, I would have to have surgery. And right now, surgery would not be good for me because it would further put off treatment. Also, the treatment would be the same if we did find out that it is cancer--we are going to radiate the area and hope that it goes away.

The hard part for me is that if this spot is cancer, then I have Stage 4 cancer and that is very difficult to cure. I asked my oncologist point blank this afternoon if I was going to make it out of this alive and he said that there are no guarantees, but that he is encouraged by the surgical findings. He said that if it is Stage 4 we may not be able to cure it but that I might still live for several years. Cancer is considered "cured" when you are cancer-free for 5 years. I really do hate not knowing if this rib thing is cancer or not, but surgery just isn't a good option now. And I'm not sure how I would deal with that information if it came back as cancer for sure. I've been able to fight, in part because it seemed likely that I would be cured. When I was first diagnosed, we thought that I was Stage 2, which has a good survival rate. Now we know for sure that I am Stage 3 and possibly Stage 4. I know that these are only numbers and I shouldn't focus on them, but it is hard.

I'll have another scan after radiation, so we'll have some more information about the rib then. But for now I just have to wait and hope that it is not cancer or that if it is I can still beat this. I told my oncologist that I am going to be pissed if I went through all of this and still died and he said that he will be too. I am thankful to have so many people pulling for me and to be in really good hands.

Changing

I find myself changing in so many ways. I wonder if my friends can see it. Of course there are the obvious physical changes. From my signature long, blonde, curly hair, to peach fuzz and from DD to nothing...those are obvious changes and you would have to be blind not to notice them! Some are more subtle--the lumps under my arms, near my back where the incisions have pushed tissue together in an unnatural way. The swelling that is subtle, but annoying. The gnarly incisions that sometimes peek out of the top of my shirt. The mastectomy camis (that are so unfashionable) that I wear to house my drains (and those drains that hang around my midsection. I'm having a harder time with the physical changes than I had anticipated. Perhaps because before I would have had Gessner by my said tell me that he loves me know matter what and that I am beautiful to him. I'd have a hard time thinking that even he could find this mess attractive, but would take solace in knowing the his love for me was unconditional. I do wonder if he saw me on the street today if he would recognize me. My hope is that my face was so ingrained in his memory that he could never forget me. But at the same time, I feel so disfigured that I don't how anyone could look at me with love.

Before I really didn't care much about how I looked. I wore clothes that were comfortable and go the job done, but really didn't think in terms of fashion. Now I am obsessed with fashion and want to be stylish--in my own quirky way. I yearn to have a sense of style all my own and own clothes that fit that style and that fit me--the real me, not just the physical me, but the essence of me. Perhaps it is because I never really had time to think about this before or because I always thought that it was a bit self-centered and vain that I didn't do this year ago. But for whatever reason, I long to find my style and own it. The irony, of course, is that I look worse than I ever have and so the chances of me actually achieving any of this are slim to none.

There is also a part of me that wants me than I have ever wanted before. I think that deep down I wanted these things when Gess was alive, but my need to care for him overrode those wants. Some of the wants we shared, but I think that we both knew that they would never come true. We knew that we were dreaming beyond Gessner's lifetime, but there was some comfort in that. I wanted to believe that we would be old, sitting on rocking chairs on our porch together so much. A times I think that I thought that if I believed it enough it would come true. But of course, deep down I knew that it wouldn't come true. But now, the world is open to me. Or, at least the world was open to me before my cancer diagnosis. I am not sure how I should feel about this one--if I should just assume that the cancer is a bum in the road and I will be able to go on with my life as soon as I get through these hoops or if I should believe that I am not going to make it and put my affairs in order?

Part of me wants to make a big move--do something BIG and take a chance. While another part of me wants to find a corporate job and maybe get on the partner track and finish what I started.

I am so young and have so much life ahead of me--assuming that cancer doesn't take me out--and I feel such heavy responsibility for the decisions that I will be making in the coming months. Cancer will eventually finished with me--with me being in remission or dead--and I need to prepare for that. I need to try to figure out what my next steps are going to be. But honestly, I don't know how. I am so used to having another person to help me make big decisions and to be my cheerleader once those decisions had been made. Gessner was an amazing cheerleader. I still remember the look on his face when I got the phone call about my first job as an attorney. He looked like a guy on a game show who had just won the biggest prize with his eyes wide open and is mouth agape in an amazing smile. His arms were wide open, waiting to embrace me and I think that he may have even jumped up a little. Right in the middle of the eye glasses store. Now I am on my own and have to cheer for myself. I know that true validation needs to come from inside, but it certainly does help to have someone on the outside to help you along.

Big changes are coming and I'm very scared. I feel like a failure in life and that I am floating around with no life vest.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today would have been my dad's birthday. Miss you!

The Beach

I love the beach, especially the Washington and Oregon coasts. I'm not a sunbather (I burn so easily), but there is something about the sound of the waves and the way the sand feels against your feet. The Washington and Oregon coasts are different from other beaches that I have been too. The Pacific Ocean is fierce and the water is cold. I think of these beaches in terms of fleece and fires as opposed to bikinis and crowds.

This weekend I decided to get away to Ocean Shores, Washington. I chose this location because it is close and there were available hotels for last minute reservations. It is relatively quiet here. I'm not sure if I would prefer to be in a quiet place or in a big crowd. Every place feels lonely to some extent, simply because Gessner is not here. I wonder how long that will last.

Today I ended up spending a lot of time in my hotel room because I had a headache. But I did get out in time to see the sunset at the beach and I'll admit, it was quite beautiful. The walk on the beach was bittersweet. I loved feeling the sand under my feet and the cold water rush up around my ankles. I love the smell in the air and taste of salt on my lips. But I missed having Gessner's hand to hold and missed hearing his laugh. The last time we were here we had a great time, just hanging out and laughing. We rented a moped and drove it down the beach. We built a fire at night and made smores and drank wine on the beach. Gess and I often took little trips like that--he was so spontaneous and really drew me out of my comfort zone to just get out. I am so thankful for that. He lived more in his 33 years than some people live in 50-60 years.

This picture is for your babe!

Ten Months

10 months ago yesterday I had to make that decision that no wife wants to make and instructed the doctors to take my husband off of the ventilator. I know that it was the right decision--his body was shutting down and he wasn't going to get better. But there is still a part of me that wonders if something would have changed if I gave him just a little more time. Gessner was always the "comeback kid." A couple weeks before he nearly died during a procedure and he was up ready to get out of the hospital the very next day. He was always beating the odds and surprising everyone. What if he just needed a little more time to comeback? I actually felt like he was already gone, at least his spirit was, but I can't shakes these doubts.

This week a friend asked me if it gets easier as time passes. For me, it hasn't. It is just different. I still hope that I am in the middle of some horrible nightmare and that I will wake up and find him in bed next to me. I still have nightmares about his death and I still plead with whomever is in charge to let him come back. I hope that it will eventually get easier--and I am sure that it will. But for right now, it is still horrible.

Emotional Mess

I have been an emotional mess the last week or so. I am exhausted from everything and am so tired of fighting. I have heard so many times recently that I am a "trooper" or an "inspiration" and I just don't get it. I feel like such a failure most of the time and am so tired of putting on the happy face. If I let people know that I am not doing well, it hurts them, so it is easier to just say that I am okay and cry alone. But, honestly, I am not really okay. I miss Gessner so much at times that I feel like I am suffocating. I cry every time I look at my chest and feel like I have been mutilated. The thought of going through more cancer treatment nearly causes a panic attack every time I think about it. And I am scared of what my future holds. I am scared that I am not going to be able to find a job when I am done with this and that I am not going to be able to make it without Gessner.