Bench

Both Gess and I were against having a traditional cemetery plot, so he was cremated and his ashes have been in my closet ever since. I don't quite know what to do with them, but I'm not too worried about it. I figure that when the time is right, I will know it and I'll act then.

My best friend told me that one of the things that upset her when her foster parents died was that there was no place for her to go to "visit" them. I thought a lot about that and there were times when I thought that it would be nice to have a place to go for Gess too. After I got my cancer diagnosis, I decided that I wanted to do something about that for

my friend so that she will have a place to go to visit me and I didn't want to leave that to her or anyone else.

The city of Seattle will l let people buy benches in city parks and I bought one. The park I chose is one that is close to us and the last park that we visited together. He also took his mother there several times in the months before his death and she said that he seemed so there. It is a goregous park on the beach--Golden Garden Park in Ballard.

(the City doesn't allow "memorials" so the bench is dedicated to us).

Today was Gess's 35th birthday and also my 1 year cancer-versary. My good friend Sandy was in town to be with me and asked if I could show her the location. I wasn't exactly certain, but got out the map and we went looking for it. To my surprise, the bench was up! It really is beautiful bench and I look forward to spending time there while I can.

(view from the bench)

Happy Birthday Gessner!

New Tumors :(

I got the results from my PET Scan today and they found more tumors. They are in my breast bone. The bad news--more tumors. The good news, is that the doctors think that this is causing my horrible pain and they think that it can be fixed with radiation. I see the radiation oncologist tomorrow to get everything all set up. I am so glad that my team moves quickly all of this and takes my pain very seriously. I'm so excited about the prospect of being out of pain, but nervous about the whole process. I'll know a lot more tomorrow.

Update

I haven't updated in awhile, so here's a long over due one!

I've started a new chemo about a month ago and I we are waiting to see if it will work. So far it has been okay, but it makes me extremely tired. So, I am sleeping a lot.

The biggest issue going on right now is pain in my chest/lungs. At first it was only on my left side, which we attributed to the tumors in my lungs causing inflammation. But about a week ago, the pain moved to the right side too and has been excruciating. I'm on pain medication, but the pain is still nearly unbearable. This is certainly no way to live.

On Friday I had a PET Scan to see if we could locate a cause of the pain. I just heard back from my oncologist and he thinks that they have identified the cause--I have a couple of small tumors in my breast bone. He said that this would explain the pain and the movement of the pain into the right side. I am glad that a likely cause of the pain has been identified, because it means that we can treat it. The treatment will be with radiation. I am going to call my radiation oncologist tomorrow morning and will hopefully get that ball rolling ASAP. Radiation was pretty painful and not at all pleasant the last time, so I am not looking forward to the treatment, but I am excited that there may be relief from the pain. I leave for vacation in 24 days, so hopefully most of this can be resolved by then!

I will start my third cycle of the new chemo next Thursday. At some point, probably after my trip, we will rescan and see if the tumors are responding to the chemo. I can't really think about that right now. I just need to wait and hope for the best.