Busy Day, Scary Thoughts

I am running errands today. Fedex for sending boxes (Bill will load them in the car, the clerks will remove them from my car), and lunch with Melanie, and maybe even a short trip to the mall for some Christmas shopping time? I'll have to see what my energy level is after lunch.

Bill and Mom are on the mend, having made it to the "Hacking and Coughing Incessantly" stage. Bill will be leaving on Sunday to start his working life again, halfway around the globe.

I spent yesterday resting, and doing research on the Oncotype DX Breast Cancer Assay Test that Dr. DaSilva ordered. From there, I was able to link to reading monographs on chemotherapy drugs and side effects in medical journals. I am trying to get educated enough to eventually make a decision about my future treatment and also decide how I want to live the rest of my life with the "shadow" of breast cancer always in the background.

This is what we "bosom buddies" all think about, and rarely voice: "If it comes back..."

If it comes back, the options get more and more limited, your life becomes less your own and really all about the cancer, because now you know that this disease is what will kill you. From that point on, you go from treatment to treatment, trying everything, trying to eek out somewhat of a normal life, in between treatments. The drugs eventually stop working, you switch to other drugs, which also stop working. The only defense is to make the right decision at the point where I am, and hope for the best. And just how does one do that?

The temptation is to err on the side of overkill. Do everything, as aggressively as possible, even if it only means a 1 or 2 percent improvement in your statistical chances. The emotional side is that already, I want this to be over and done with! The objective truth is that no one can predict who will never have another problem (with or without further post-surgical treatment), and who will have a recurrence, despite the most aggressive chemo and/or hormonal regimen. The Oncotype DX test is very encouraging, because statistically, it appears to be able to predict just that--within a 5% margin of error, of course, because no one really knows. But it's all just numbers--they can't really tell YOU what is going to happen with YOU.

It occurs to me that every woman I know who is going through this or has gone through this, lives with this knowledge all the time. Friends who are on the far side (beyond 5 years, even 10 years) tell me that eventually, they forget about it, or at least don't think about it everyday. That's hard for me to imagine at this point, but I trust their experiences. What courage it must take to live like that, courage that I don't have right now. I'm just slogging through the process, doing what I'm told to do--getting stronger, keeping positive, trying to make the right choices, trying to live life normally without cancer suffusing EVERYTHING.

My niece, Bonnie said to me a few nights ago, "How come you're so brave, Auntie Pam?" I told her, "I don't feel brave at all. I'm just doing what I have to do because I really don't have any other choices." It's the truth. I'm just a passenger riding the bus to wherever it goes.

I suspect the hard part comes later, in the dead of night, when you have to live with the unthinkable thoughts trying to push their way into your head, and consciously make the effort to stuff them back down again, lest they turn your life into a constant worry over "what if it comes back?"