Sounds like a promising movie or book title. Only I don't want to write it. But it does fit the blog post today. It's a little long but it's been a fun-packed two days & I didn't want to leave anything out. Including a picture of my henna'd hand! There was a great woman/excellent henna artist sitting next to me yesterday who kindly offered to henna anyone who wanted to be designed upon. Of course I wanted to. This is a picture of what she did to me. I'm hooked!
The workshop itself was pretty amazing....hearing lots of cancer stories was eye-opening. I had no idea how many kind of cancer, how many kinds of breast cancer, how many diagnostics and how many treatments there are. And am finally getting it how nasty cancer can be. I read something today that I will quote here:
"The tumor is a foreign entity that does not respect him and finally destroys him, without even respecting structures such as blood vessels, muscles, lymph nodes. It grows by transgressing every structure, every border. We can easily understand what happens when we compare the patient to a country that has borders and an army to defend its integrity as a country. If an enemy soldier crosses the border and establishes himself inside the country and the army is not well-trained enough to capture the enemy, to imprison him or to kill him, the enemy will call his friends and other soldiers will pass the border and settle down. Their base will be stronger and stronger. Without any respect for the original people, they will destroy everything around them which is not to their own advantage and will take all the food that was intended for the indigenous people. They will send soldiers to other places in the country (metastasis) to take over all the power of the country. The only possibility the country has finally is to ask other countries to help it and to attack the enemy with heavy weapons (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy). But such a massive fight greatly weakens the country and the outcome is very uncertain.
On the cellular level the same process takes place. The membrane of the cell is unstable and weak and the cell is ingesting toxins, not able to defend its integrity. These ingested poisons damage his normal functioning, creating anarchy and estranging himself from his own essence."
Up to that time I was trying to be "nice" to my cancer...telling it that I understand it likes being in my breasts (no jokes, here, OK?) but that it could kill me and could it please just leave? Reading the above made me feel like looking for an Uzi.
So anyway, the workshop gave me a good perspective and info I need desperately about how to relax.
The birthday aspect was good, too. Everyone seemed to want to celebrate with me which made the weird juxtaposition work a lot better. Lara took me to dinner at a funky little Mexican restaurant right on the water at Hoodsport. That was perfect. If you don't already know Lara, she is the most amazing person/daughter/friend/massage therapist anyone could have. I couldn't be more honored/grateful/happier to have her around. I told her I didn't know what I'd do without her and she said I probably just wouldn't laugh as much. SO TRUE. She's funny!
Today: MRI biopsy. Piece of cake. I did learn NOT to look in the little tiny mirror as they wheeled me in and out of the Tube. (Why it's there I don't know, but it gave me a tiny view of what was directly ahead of me.) As long as I ignored the mirror I was fine and really could have dozed off. They gave me a bunch of lidocaine injections which were hardly noticeable, and then I absolutely felt nothing from then on. Amazing.
By the way, don't ever assume that that any medical team knows what you know about your own medical history. I make sure to always mention to anyone giving me shots of anesthesia that I can't have epinephrine. Did that today, and they said, "Oh, we did not know." I don't ever blame anyone for that and just think that I'm part of the team (no matter what some snooty doctors might think) so it's my responsibility to provide crucial info like this.
Drum roll: results Thursday. Let's all hope it's good. ( Although I happen to know that "suspicious" in doctor-speak means they think it's cancer. I also know that they can't know for sure until they look at the biopsy...so I'm keeping an open mind.)
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