Some of the women on the cancer discussion boards I visit call it “dancing with NED,” which is also fine and celebratory. But I prefer smileycreek’s phrase from J Town Sunday, when I was still sweating it out.
Yesterday I had my fifth CT scan since my diagnosis with endometrial cancer in January 2010, 17 months ago. The scan took place at 12:30, and yes, I had my healing DKos quilt spread over me during the test. By 3:30 my husband and I were waiting in an exam room together, holding hands, getting through the last little bit before a resident came in with the test results. The end of the waiting is always tough, although it is better to have a very short gap between the test and the disclosure. Earlier, I’ve had waits of several days, which quickly became torturous.
When the resident came in yesterday at about 3:45, brandishing a printout of the scan results that didn’t even mention ONE lung nodule, let alone any stinkin’ lymph nodes or anything else out of the ordinary, our reaction was rather subdued. Neither one of us wept with relief (at least, not right then). But I felt enormously liberated. And validated, because in my heart of hearts I had concluded about a month ago that the old nodules were all gone. One never knows about these internal cancer-o-meters, but I felt pretty confident. And so it came to pass.
Being actually in remission is preferable to being really close to it, as I was last quarter. And being in remission is a whole helluva lot better than finding out that my chemo was ineffective last September, and learning that the disease had spread. My family and I can all literally breathe easier now.
Of course, my oncologist was delighted and relieved; she’s been in this business for about twenty years. I’m sure she was pleased that her latest recommendation for my treatment was effective to such an extraordinary degree. Now that I’m in this state, having shown such a great response to the hormonal treatments (and others, as far as I am concerned), momentum has been established and a new equilibrium achieved.
Just as children don’t get raised on their own, people with cancer don’t get better on their own. I have many—dozens!—of people to thank for my ongoing recovery. Please join me after the stylized uterus for my initial list.
I’ll start with my family. My husband has been impressively resolute and resourceful, especially since my diagnosis came only six months into our marriage. Yes, of course, when you make those “for better or worse” promises, you intend to keep them, but I suspect most of us think the “for worse” part will arrive much later on. Certain moments of devotion still touch my heart, and now that the immediate threat has been surmounted I am looking forward to resuming a sort of honeymoon phase that was truncated so brutally last year. I am sure that I would be in much worse straits now if he hadn’t risen to the challenges confronting us last January. He’s become the primary wage-earner for the household just like that, and while our bills have increased tremendously somehow he keeps us going.
My daughters have been as helpful and supportive as they could. My poor oldest daughter stayed overnight in the hospital with me after surgery, which was a much more difficult task to fulfill than either of us expected it would be. Afterwards, she has been extremely solicitous and a key back-up for her younger sister. I am very grateful that her academic choices were such that she wound up in our own town for law school. We’d all have been much worse off if she had been living far away. I hope that the sacrifices that she’s made seem worth while.
My sister made several trips to stay with us in the early weeks and months, bringing her energy and her talent for household organization (which unfortunately for me skipped directly to my older daughter). She was the driving force behind the redecoration of my younger daughter’s room last fall, just as one example of her help, which was an important morale booster. My brother has continued to carry the lion’s share of caregiving for our very elderly parents without complaint, as I suddenly went AWOL from even my modest contributions. My nephews and nieces have been enthusiastic boosters of my recovery from afar.
The other group of equal importance to my recovery is, obviously, my health care team. While I have had my differences with my gyn-oncologist, I’m grateful for her no-nonsense approach and for her early reassurance that this treatment I’m on now can be effective, not merely palliative. I did seek out a second opinion last September, but I decided to stay with my original oncologist, and I am glad I have. My long-time friend who is a doctor of osteopathy has been in our corner since the day of my surgery when my husband learned of the cancer’s spread beyond my uterus. It was she who observed, when the chemo treatments proved to be ineffective, that it was time for “witch doctor” remedies as well. And it was she who accompanied me to the detox center I visited last November, and helped to explain their approach as well as run interference for me there when necessary.
I’m also very grateful to my Ayurvedist, who has been an enormous physical and emotional support since last September, encouraging me to believe in my body’s capacity and willingness to heal, and to my acupuncturist, who has been a reliably optimistic (and effective) healer as well. My integrative MD and his staff have been very responsive when I have had need for other care while in treatment. And my osteopath in town has been a great resource for advice on supplements and for manipulation, which I am sure has also contributed to my recovery.
The ladies who performed Reiki on me a couple of times last fall did more than they knew, perhaps, simply by sealing me off from debilitating fear. The news that my cancer had spread despite six months of arduous chemo was devastating and overwhelming. If I had stayed in the emotional state I was in last September, I don’t think I’d be here today. I owe them considerable thanks for their intervention.
I must also thank the staff and service providers at the Cancer Support Community in town. The cancer support group there has been very helpful to me all these months, as we ride through each other’s ups and downs. The CSC also provides regular yoga and meditation classes, which I have come to value very highly for the practitioners’ skill and for the positive effects they have on me.
I have also benefited from regular instruction in qi gong since last fall. Years ago, I studied karate seriously, and perhaps that early effort to integrate mind and body more effectively was helpful. This new discipline, however, is just what I need right now, and I am thankful that it is available, through such a proficient instructor, close by.
Last, but far from least, I have many more friends to thank than I can do here by name. Especially in the early days and weeks, we were blessed with many cards and notes of encouragement and support. Food—of course, for weeks during that first dismaying winter and spring. Flowers, unusual treats (fresh crab cakes from Maryland!), prayer shawls, hats and scarves, fruit, jewelry, books, music...dozens of people sent gifts to raise our spirits and to remind us that they care.
The most outstanding gift in that regard is still the DKos quilt that Sara and Ann made so lovingly with the messages that the community contributed. We sleep under it every night, summer and winter, and it accompanies me to all sorts of exams and ordeals. I cannot begin to explain how much comfort and love it manifests. If I can manage it when I do my NN12 diary, I'll also edit this one to include a photo of Coco, my healing cat, on my quilt. I am quite convinced that she has been a vector of health to me, so having them in one frame would be fitting.
My real-life, local friends have visited me in the hospital and at home, helped with gardening, taken me out for lunch or dinner, opened medical bills with me, and offered to help with fundraising (which, so far, we have not needed). They have been a blessing.
My on-line friends, especially here at DKos, have also been wonderful. Whether I have had the good fortune to meet you in person after extensive communication via Kosmail and email (as has happened so far with poe, Ooooh, Empower Ink, sharonsz, Chacounne, farmerchuck, Sara R and winglion), whether we met briefly at NN12 and have a boost therefore with our later communications (I’m thinking of you, belinda ridgewood, ramara and 4freedom), or whether we are still known to each other only by our virtual personae, I am still inexpressibly grateful for ALL your support. [I should also observe that, however belatedly, I’m still planning on posting a NN12 diary later this week—with photos, which has been the hold-up for me—and that document includes many more relevant thank-yous.]
The Monday Night Cancer Club crew is fabulous, every single one of you, and I do indeed hope to see more of you at NN13, if not otherwise. (The otherwise includes a visit to ZenTrainer if I can swing it soon.) And the J Townies are also a terrific community, a group very ready to offer mutual support. Dragon5616, figbash, arizonablue, Ooooh, p50 and smileycreek and mimi2three, Phil S 33, slksfca, Thomasina, Ebby, maggiejean, raina and nomandates—just to name those who replied to my comment on Sunday—your support was indeed sustaining to me. Believe me, I was engrossed in the Healing Pool imagery for some time before my test yesterday. It helped. That, along with my internal chant of “NED! NED!” thanks to Ebby. If someone manages to coordinate a Midwest Kossack meet-up this summer, I am all in!
Meanwhile—I am hoping to regain enough energy myself in the next few weeks to coordinate, and possibly host, a greater Ann Arbor meet-up. We’d have more than enough to talk about, and strategize about, don’t you think? We MUST reclaim at least one house of the MI legislature, and turn at least one more US House seat blue. And there’s nothing like experiencing a reprieve of the magnitude I’ve just known to make one motivated to keep on contributing as best as I can.
Thank you for celebrating with me. Thank you for being here during the rougher times. Thank you for being agents of positive change on all sorts of levels.
Peace and blessings to all! Yippie! Hip-hip-hooray!