I forgot to let you all know that my ultrasound was all clear. They actually couldn't find the lump the doctor had felt, so they said not to worry about it. Easy to say...maybe not so much so to do!
In the past few months, my mind has been filled with much anxiety over my cancer spreading. Why is it so easy for us to focus on the worst case scenario and not on living each day? Every new pain or feeling I have makes me automatically drift to the idea of my cancer growing in another area of my body. Dr. Webster continues to assure me that we are hopeful that we have killed all of the cancer now, but without the tests to prove it, I am having a hard time believing in hope these days.
So, I enlisted the help of a professional! I have been seeing a wonderful counsellor at the Cancer Center and she has helped me talk through this all. Although I'm not yet where I want to be, most days I can keep my mind focused on the now and not the worst case.
What is helping me stay up is Tricia. You have all heard me talk on and on about what a walking miracle she is, but seriously! Her journey through her third transplant has definitely had a few bumps and she's not completely out of the woods yet, but overall she is continuing to be an amazing inspiration of hope!
In my spare time, I have been enjoying being a celebrity. Investors Group chose Ryan to be one of 8 people across the country that they are doing a spotlight on. They flew a crew out to Calgary to spend the day with us last week and they literally followed us both around the city. It was crazy to be out in public and have a camera crew right there, I felt like I was in a reality TV show. Ryan's business continues to do very well and considering we both are fighting cancer right now, it's truly outstanding. The next day I had a brief phone interview with a freelance writer out of Toronto who is doing a story on the benefits of writing during illness. Although this was all very tiring, my hope is that it helps one person deal with something a little bit better and it will be worthwhile.
My radiation is officially starting next week and I am meeting with Dr. Webster later this week to go through our plan again. Unfortunately I suffered another "episode" last week, but this time it was while I was getting IV treatment at the cancer center. The fact that I was already in the place where I needed to be made the situation a lot better, but it still reinforces the fact that my body is struggling. It was again a terrifying experience where I wasn't sure if my body was going to recover or not, but after pushing through a bunch of IV drugs to counteract my reaction, my body started to calm down. I have now done up an excel sheet filled with each of my 7 episodes, the details of what happened and what drugs I was taking at the time. I will review this with Dr. Webster on thursday and hopefully come to a better understanding of why this keeps happening.
On the family side, life is mostly good. We are attending an orientation for Talyn's new preschool that he starts in the fall. He is pretty proud of going to school! We have also been lucky enough to have some family come to help us out lately. Talyn's Uncle Chad & Baba (Ryan's mom). So, Talyn has had the opportunity to try his "kung fu panda" moves on someone other than his mom and dad.
One question that the interviewer asked Ryan and I that caught us both off guard was "how do you do it all?". It was funny because it left us both speechless. You would think we would have a great answer, but really all I could say was "day by day". No one knows what tomorrow will bring and we all have enough going on today, so we just deal with what we have to today. I am still learning this with the help of my counsellor, but I think it's an important lesson for us all.
