Chemo Day 1: 12/31 Ending the year with a bang.

Still Steroided out ...new steroid routine....new chemo lab, mostly new medical team...home town ... OHSU this time. Same old bad dream...Late stage 3C Ovarian cancer.  New twist ..... Reoccurrence. Not very encouraging.

They wear the hazmat suits here when they brining it all in and connect the chemo ...that just drives home what we are really doing. 

My nurse explaines to me, they wear them because if it gets on their skin it can burn right through, and as she doesn't have cancer....right. As she's pre hooking me up to pump this same dangerous poison INTO my body THROUGH my veins for the next few hours to kill the cancer trying to kill me I try to stare out the window and pretend I'm not thinking about dying while watch seagulls dip and dive...the steroids and premed  snow working their way into my bloodstream kind of give them tracers... My imagination lends them color.

We exchange small talk trying not to focus on what is and unintentionally I keep returning to the raw reality... Bucket lists what comes next ... Tears and I keep apologizing like. Some how I could have stopped this... I feel like I'm torturing them trying to hold on... So I could be here longer with them.

 Munkee gets to come with me now...and we had a private room service animal emotional support ...my nurse kind burst into the room hazmated from head to toe holding my bag if toxins out from her .. Suprized him and his cute lil less then 5 lbs decided she was dangerous and NOT touching me jumped up stood across me with every intention of protecting "mommy" with every fiber of his long tubular wennie body ....for 5 seconds he was ALL Doberman ...secretly cute for me ... So much love for me in his little tiny body.... Not as cute for the nurse she didn't admit it but I'm pretty sure she tinkled in her pants some. He sounded like a very big vicious dog.

 After convincing him she was ok ...he laid in my lap soaking up the sun coming through the window a for the next few hours...a luxury we don't have in our studio...  I then listened to him, and my papa snoring out of tune with the clicking whirling of the chemo pumps...noise from the rest of the lab and the seagulls outside the window all conducting strange melody I've gotten too familiar with .. The trying not to die song. 

At least for the MOment they both knew peace.

Reality Check... One two one two

Thank you all that are sticking with me through this .. Second round with ovarian cancer ....here we go ... again. 

Your support gives me strength and if nothing else ...may my battle give you knowledge so ovarian cancer will stop being known as the silent killer and some day maybe even curable. 

Dr appointment today to see if I've healed enough from surgery to start chemo... I'll update ASAP 

I'll start blogging more often soon... Documenting the battle helps me step back and observe so to speak 

However...for now the meds they sent me home on from surgery for this bad boy ...(filleted back open along the original scar chest to pelvis pulled tighter and then 8 other places in a square around my guts where biological mesh is sewn threw tacking it in place to hold my guts in. ...and 2 drain holes)

....have had me in and out of it sleeping 18/24... With some crazy ass stick to you dreams that seem SOOO real....I mean I'm an artist with a pretty vivid imagination but hairless/patchy translucent kittens ...too much!! 

These Meds got my brain all over the place... mad at people for things that never happened except in my dreams... 

Very emotional to begin with... Like my real reality isn't enough already.

The NOW

This isn't about saving my life anymore... I'm dying... Cancer is killing me....unless some pretty awesome ish happens in the next 12-24 months... That may be all I have left. I am dying in the way I have always been most afraid of long slow painful... Maybe on some sub-level I was so afraid of it because I knew it was coming for me? Who knows...

Now ... Is about battling for some MOre time...another day with my granddaughter....Being able to be here long enough to see my grandson be born ....if I'm really lucky to see him walk. A few MOre days to smear paint on canvas... MOre time to snuggle my Munkee...spend time withy loved ones ...Make a few MOre meMOrays ...before I exit stage right. 

Not a good look...micro growth.

Home from the hospital... Surgery went well ...3 hernias fixed...

Unfortunately more cancer found then seen on the catscan.

My pelvis is covered in a sheet of micro growths.

Not a good look for my long term life expectancy.

Round 2 chemo starts in a few weeks...not new news really...

Just more painfully real.