radiation treatments

Life After Cancer: A Fender Bender

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I know, I know, I’m supposed to be off of the Internet for a month. Well I interrupt this regularly scheduled experiment with a (quite literal) bump in the road.

We were in fender bender this morning, well yesterday morning by now. It was a minor accident, we were hit from behind at a red light. But because I have a titanium mesh plate in my head, had a blood clot in my brain after that surgery, a TIA from that blood clot and have had multiple skin grafts and 32 radiation treatments I decided a trip to the ER was warranted when I could not get my neurosurgeon on the phone and he was not in his office. I was scared to death the jarring from the accident could have caused damage to the plate.

No airbags were deployed and I didn’t hit my head or anything like that but I didn’t know if the force of the accident could possibly move or jar the plate. I knew I felt fine but there have been so many set backs and so many unexpected twists have popped up during this journey that I didn’t really know how to feel and I didn’t want to take any chances. As someone else who has experienced and lived with cancer said, minor doesn’t really mean anything when you’ve found yourself on the wrong side of the odds. I was terrified they’d find something wrong and I’d end up back in the hospital again for something I thought was minor.

Thanks be to God, I didn’t need a CAT scan or MRI. All of my neurological tests/reflexes were fine and we were out of the ER in less than 2 hours, which has to be some sort of land speed record for ER visits.

We are both fine, I’m sure we’ll be sore later but for tonight I find myself fighting anxiety and feeling blessed that the accident was minor.

Because I Promised I’d Always Openly Share My Truths

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I’m feeling a little raw tonight. When I ended the 365 Days of Carol Anne blog on December 31, 2011 I decided not to write about my health and/or assorted medical hijinks. I suppose I was a little delusional that with that declaration that the cancer journey would slow down or come to a close. When I started writing about my surgeries and my cancer I promised I’d always share my real and honest truth so tonight I share with you my real truth at the 2 year, 8 month, and 2 week mark. Things are not perfect and I’m feeling tired and a little ugly.

It’s been 2 years, 8 months, and 2 weeks since I walked into the ER on October 11, 2010. It’s been 2 years, 8 months, and 12 days since my first surgery. Since October 11, 2010 I’ve spent 20 1/2 days in the hospital and 4 1/2 days in a rehab (aka nursing home), I’ve had had 6 surgeries, 32 radiation treatments, I’ve lost count on the total of MRIs, blood work, and doctor appointments I’ve had since that day.

I’m tired, tired of feeling like I live in doctors’ offices, tired of scheduling my life around doctor appointments and medical tests, tired of being bald, tired of not being able to wear a wig and sad that my hair will never grow back. It’s been 2 years, 8 months, and 12 days and after 3 skin grafts and 1 muscle flap surgery that leaves me with limited use of my left arm there are still 2 spots on my head where the skin has yet to fully grow back. I saw the plastic surgeon on Monday and the advice is always the same, just keep babying it along, it will get better, blah, blah, blah.

I’m so grateful to be alive and to be cancer-free, but there are days when hope for better days isn’t enough. It’s hard to keep fighting, it’s hard to keep trying to be positive, and it’s hard not to feel ugly or disfigured.

Learning to Dance in the Rain (a new wholeness & healing)

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“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
—  Vivian Greene

Stormy Wildwood Beach

I don’t know why I’m finding this so hard to write. Last year I bared my soul to you, last year I shared every gory detail of every procedure and here I am unable to write today’s post.  I’ve been thinking about what I want to say for days now and I am coming up dry.

I know I want to tell you…

  • Today is 1 year since my (please God) last radiation treatment.
  • I had a moment on Monday on Wildwood’s boardwalk that reminded me that it really is about learning to dance in the rain.
  • I am in the middle of my 2 quarterly MRIs.
  • I am scared.

I said to you on December 31, 2011, “We are all still here, we are all still standing, and 2012 brings with it the promise of hope.”


it's about learning to dance in the rain

(totally clunky segue) You’ll have to forgive me, I’m all over the place today. I’m struggling with how to tell you that I was furiously happy and completely in the moment Monday as we stood on the seawall and listened and watched and felt as a thunderstorm passed from one end of the island (Wildwood) to the other. I’m struggling with how to tell you that I had an aha moment while huddled under an awning on the boardwalk waiting for the storm to pass. And I am struggling with how to tell you that I am scared.  I want to tell you that I am 1 year cancer-free, but I won’t know the results of the 2 MRIs until July 6 when I see the neurosurgeon and oncologist.

I’m finally putting the pieces of my life back together. I am out and seeing friends, I’m taking photos and reasserting my independence. I am writing a freelance story for my former editor and I’m volunteering to be part of something that I believe helps people. I meditate on wholeness and healing. I am working to put Humpty Dumpty back together again but I’m not quite sure where all the pieces fit now.

Where do audacious, smart, and independent fit?

Where do anxious, terrified, and afraid go?

Can I dance in the rain while I’m terrified?

I don’t know, so I suppose for today I’ll just say that it is all about learning to dance in the rain.

standing on the seawall in my gone fishin' hat

Love & Pink Rubber Galoshes,

~ Carol Anne

I Put the Christmas Tree Away (thoughts on normalcy & moving forward)

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Christmas Tree circa 2009

I took the Christmas Tree down yesterday. I know, you’re saying, “You took the Christmas Tree down in May? What were you waiting for?”

Well actually, I normally keep our tree up all year long and decorate it for each season. Unfortunately, for the last 2 years I haven’t felt up to changing the decorations with each season so it has sat there with only its Christmas lights on it looking sad and neglected with half of the lights burned out, but I’d faithfully turn it on every night. In a way it became a security blanket for me. To me it represented normalcy even if it wasn’t what it once quite was.

I took it down yesterday. I talked about taking it down for months but yesterday was the day. I don’t know why yesterday was the day I finally got the gumption to take it down, but it was. The poor tree was covered in dust and filthy. It had sat there for 2 years unattended to but loved so very much. It was my comfort item. In a way I’m sad that it’s gone but then I look around the living room and I love the space it being gone frees up. It feels like letting go.

I suppose I should also tell you that I spent the other part of yesterday making my next round of medical appointments; blood work and 2 MRIs in June, follow-up appointments with the oncologist, neurosurgeon, and plastic surgeon in July. I’m coming toward the end of my 6 weeks of physical therapy and I am feeling good. As I’ve noted in my many late National Photo Month posts I am sleeping through the night, which is incredible. I’ve had epic runs of insomnia over the past 2 years with patches of less than fitful sleep in between. But now I’m sleeping soundly almost 8 hours every night and I feel great.

I’m feeling good. I feel like a fog has lifted, like I’ve come out of a coma or maybe a deep depression. The physical therapy has given me the use of my left arm back. I’m feeling stronger. I wish the doctors had prescribed physical therapy of some sort when I came out of the hospital in October 2010 if only to get me moving. The physical therapy is helping in so many other ways than just fixing my shoulder. I feel like I’m accomplishing something. I have a sense of purpose. I feel like I’m doing something to help make myself better.

1 biopsy, 4 CAT scans, 4 MRIs, 5 surgeries, 6 weeks of physical therapy, and 32 radiation treatments (not in chronological order) later I am starting to feel normal. But then a day like yesterday arises; a day when I vacuum and I do laundry and I take the not-quite-itself Christmas Tree down just hours after making my medical appointments and I wonder what is normal? For the next 2 years I will have to have MRIs every 3 months to check if the cancer has come back. It’s been a little over a month since my last follow-up with the oncologist and I’m feeling good so I have moments, days, weeks even when I can sort of forget and let go of the fear and the anxiety and then there are days like yesterday when I face forward, put my security blanket away and hope for the best.

I put the Christmas Tree away and for now that has to be enough.

Surgery #5

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I’m home. Thank you for all of your good thoughts and prayers. I got home around 3pm. This was my first unsatisfying experience with Cooper. I’ll never go back to the surgical center. The people were very nice but they do thing differently at the surgical center. There was no sedation before surgery. I had to walk to the operating room >insert major meltdown here< where they did not have a step stool high enough for me to get on the operating table. In my hysterical state I had to pull myself up on the table and schooch and schooch ’til I was up on the table. I was awake a long time in the operating room with an oxygen mask over my face and no matter how many times I told them I was claustrophobic they just kept putting it back over my face. My surgeries at the hospital were by far better experiences.