Cancer

Today is the first day I thought that maybe I won't make it... I feels like I'm a breast cancer survivor but what if I'm not. :(

Last week I started radiation and I was excited to move on to the final stage of treatment... 33 days of treatment and I'm done and cancer free and can move on with my life but on Wednesday I met with my oncologist and she explained that my treatment is far from over.

Tamoxifen... I already knew that I would have to take that. It basically keeps all the estrogen in my body from making bonds to create tumours. No real insane side effects with that. Then, this is news, a drug called zoladex. Its an injection every three months that keeps my ovaries from functioning at all. Basically putting me through menopause every three months. She asked me if I planned on having children because the zoladex was gonna make it impossible. I'm 28 and why do I have to decide if I want to have kids right now. I hate this and it never ends. The zoladex costs $1200 per injection but luckily I'm poor enough to have that covered by the Trillium drug plan... however the other drug, Zometa, is not. Its $1200 a year and we, the oncologist and I, haven't actually discussed what Zometa does. She plans on discussing that next month.

This all freaks me out... I thought okay, chemo then radiation then done.. normal life but far from it. Everyone seems freaked out about it coming back and its freaks the shit outta me.

Sorry to sound so selfish, but fuck this sucks. I suppose I should just accept the fact that my life will never be normal again and my time on this earth may be limited. I'm not being morbid, just realistic.

What if all the cancer isn't gone?
What if the chemo and radiation doesn't work?
What if the new meds I'm going to take don't work?
Or what if if the new meds that can be taken for a maximum of 5 years just lay cancer cells dormant and given the opportunity of no suppressant drugs, a new tumour forms.

You know, I think about my life and I never, ever envisioned being a statistic like this. The thought of chemo and radiation and cancer was never something I was concerned about it. Its fucking crazy!

I went for genetic testing and my results will be back in about a year. This is to determine whether or not I have the 'cancer' gene. Given my family history the genetic counselor made it sound like there must be a link and regardless of whether I have the cancer gene or not I will be the genome for testing for new cancer genes... people this young don't get cancer.

My family history includes three women on my paternal side that were diagnosed and died of breast cancer young. Its not so comforting thinking about that.

I'm just going on and on but the bubble of strength I just had burst on my way home from work today. I am still thinking positive and I really really hope everything turns out well in the end but right now I feel incredibly mortal.

I can't believe I have cancer... I still can't fucking believe it. Its like I was living in this crazy dream world these past 6 months and expected it to be over and then I would be normal Angi again but I can never be normal Angi again.

At the very beginning of this my nieces were over and they were making up little pet names for everyone... for example... Jan was Mr. guitar and mum was Ms. England.... guess what my name was... Ms. Cancer! I fucking despise it. I fucking hate that I am Ms. Cancer now. The girl that walks into the room and everyone whispers to each other "oh look, that's the girl with cancer". It fucking defines me... as much as I don't want it to define me... it does. And everyone asks me in these serious voices "How are you? I mean how are you (implies you have cancer and are staring death in the face)... how are you?... "great" I reply to fuck everyone up.

Actually, I am great. I love my husband and my doggies and my totally supportive family and my awesome friends... I'm just ranting. I do feel great but this whole thing makes me feel like I should start to feel shitty or I should feel shitty. Why don't I feel shitty? Its like I'm just playing a waiting game just waiting for it to come back with greater vengeance then it had this time. Then maybe I'll feel like crap.

I really need a vacation and my fucking hair to grow back. Nothing screams cancer more then a fucking bald chemo head.