girl at large

“Mom Tries” Award Winner

 

I’m processing last week’s good cancer news, though it’s been a confusing jumble of emotions. Switching from crisis mode to maintenance mode is not speedy. I feel that I am experiencing many of the emotions I set aside in the past sixteen months, unleashed all at once. Also, I have medically induced PMS (another story for another day). So, I’m fun.

The kids are continuously processing their losses and fears as well. Some days are deep discussions of death and questions about religion; other days are equally emotional requests for pizza and Mario Kart.

The world is also a tumultuous jumble of loss and fear…and war.

I’ve been extra careful not to talk about scary world events around the kids, so instead today I decided to tell them that the neighbors dog died.

🤦🏻‍♀️

The Cheese is Free (for now)

Cheesy triumph pose, Bayfield Wisconsin 2021

It’s cliche and cheesy, the breast cancer survivor photo. This one was taken after I made it up a steep walk through a root-covered woodland park in Bayfield this September. I was celebrating using my last squeeze of strength that day, and most satisfyingly, having surprised my family. They thought I was resting on a bench waiting for their return. I thought I was resting on a bench waiting for their return! But after they disappeared into the leafy ravine, I willed myself to get up and try.

I was only five months out from the double mastectomy surgery, about two months out from the end of radiation. I had extreme radiation-related fatigue (intense!], trouble breathing, and was not even half way through fourteen rounds of Chemo Lite™️. It was a little dirt path, more closely resembling a shortcut trampled into the vegetation than a trail. It was not designed to be hiked. I, too, am not designed for hiking. But I did; I gathered my strength and slowly made it through. 
     
In all it’s corny, cheesy, arms up glory this shot is also a fitting image for today’s news.

Yesterday’s PET scan shows No Evidence of Disease. No lesions, no spread, no enlarged lymph nodes…there is no detectable cancer activity. NED—No Evidence of Disease the doctors say. Sometimes called remission.

I call it the top of a very long, very tough climb.