I Have To Shave It.

A little different from my actual title - but this time I actually have to.

I haven't written in a long time. A LOT has happened since. I had radiation on my left lung, pancreas and right kidney. I was supposed to have ablations done to my right lung but I wound up with pneumonia as a "fuck you" gift from my lung radiation. All this was done in the last 6 months or so.

On March 17th, I wound up getting really sharp pains in my stomach and was throwing up and couldn't eat anything. This went on for a few days until I went to a local ER in WV on the 20th (since I was home at the time). My Radiologist wanted them to run some scans to make sure I didn't now have Pancreatitis as a "fuck you" gift from my pancreas radiation (something I am now wishing I had) so dry CT's were run and the answer has been a whirlwind since.

To make an incredibly long story short, a few days after the scans were run I went to pick up a reading of said scans - everything had grown and included a new, massive 11.9 x 9.3cm mass in my abdomen which was pushing against my stomach and my lung (causing the nausea, pain, coughing, etc.). I almost fainted in the hallway of the local hospital. How was this possible? I had JUST had scans not even 2 months before. This was all a horrific nightmare and I couldn't believe I was having it.

Both Sloan AND Johns Hopkins wouldn't see me until mid April. I decided to go to the ER at JH on March 22nd to see if they would keep me but that wound up being a wasted trip and nothing was done. I couldn't believe it.

Due to good fortune (for once) I had a contact who made calls for me and I wound up at NYU ER on March 26th. I wound up staying until the 29th after being told I was terminal and would have only a few weeks to a few months to live.

How could this be happening? How could this thing be growing so incredibly fast? How could any of this actually be my life??? I couldn't believe that I had to accept that I was dying.

My fiancé, Dan (we had been planning our wedding for Oct 2017 which was now looking to not be possible) said he wanted to get married, so on March 29th we planned a wedding from my hospital room and wound up getting married on April 2nd, 2016. I was in a ton of pain but hopefully no one could tell and it went off without a hitch. Of course, the wedding was nothing what I had wanted and half the guest list couldn't get invited due to the space we wound up with, but it was ours and it was good and now I am married to the love of my life who wanted to marry me at my worst moment. That really says something about someone's character, don't you think?

There was no room for a honeymoon because on April 4th we met with who would be my new Oncologist at NYU. He said there was a glimmer of hope with a combo of chemo meds. I was now facing my worst nightmare. Do I skip the chemo and possibly die? The mass was growing larger day by day. With gritted teeth I decided on the chemo and started Thursday, April 7th.

I just had my 3rd treatment today. I was told your hair starts to fall out the 2nd week...well, it's the 4th week and yesterday I was talking to a bunch of people about it. Low and behold, last night, "it" started. Now I have no choice but to shave it. I don't want to wait until it gets super thin and globs of it keep coming out in the shower or in bed. I just want to do it and get it over with. So with bated breath, this weekend I'll (along with my husband) be shaving my head.

I keep finding myself asking how this could possibly be my life and how it could've lead to this. Everyone has their own problems and trials and tribulations - Cancer is mine. Now I'm actually fighting for my life. It feels so weird.

My mom had Hospice come in when we thought we had no hope left and I sat there looking at the nurse like she was some extinct species sitting on my living room couch. Why was this person here talking to me about making me comfortable? It is all so surreal.

So, I wound up dying my hair purple, donating 9 inches of it to a children's charity, telling Hospice to take a hike, went on a minimoon to Newport, RI, and have just been dealing with the everyday hell of chemo. The nausea hasn't been super bad, but the HORRIBLE anxiety has been kicking my ass every day. I can never seem to get comfortable, I've started getting mouth sores (joy.), I can't eat very much (I've lost 15lbs so far since this whole thing started in March), pain, annoying, dreadful chemo.

Hopefully I'll be singing it's praises once my scans come back showing that everything has shrunk but I won't know for another 2 weeks at least. Here's me with my short, purple hair a week ago...

If you can, say an extra prayer for me. We're in the big leagues now...