Positively Phoebe

Yeah. That whole multi-part catch-up idea sort of went out the window with the stress of the holidays and all  that came along with them. So, to hell with catching up. You don't really need to know every stupid detail of what I've been up to over the past couple months, right?  (I promise you, it hasn't been thrilling at all.) You know what IS thrilling, though?  At least... as far as I'M concerned?  Tomorrow. Yep.  Tomorrow I go for my next 3-month check-up with my Gynecologic Oncologist, Dr. Kebria.  This will be my 4th 3-month check-up.  You guys are good at math, right?  You know what 4 times 3 months is, right?  Yeah.  That's it.  A YEAR! Since my last post, I hit a lot of my little "anniversaries".  A year since I finished chemo on December 12th.  A year since I finished external radiation on December 14th.  AND, a year since my last brachytherapy (read: last cancer treatment EVER) on January 3...

Just a quick note here... I sent out a few Thank You notes to folks that sent me donations (or soup or something) the other day.  What I realized AFTER I sent them was that I did not really fully explain them... Each note has a small print of my most recent art piece in it.  A piece that I made SPECIFICALLY as a thank you to you all for wishing me well.  So yeah.  That's what that is.  If you open your mail and are like "Why the hell am I getting this weird-ass little print of some weird-ass collage?"  That's why.  Because you are awesome and I have chemo/menopause brain and forgot to tell you. Love love love, Phoebe PS - Also, if you are Gary Sindall, you are the only donation-sender whose address I didn't get and whose email seems to go nowhere.  Please send me your address?

Over the past week or so, I'm finally starting to get OUT and see people again.  (Well... people other than Ryan and my parents - who have been my entire social world for a couple months now.)  And getting out and seeing people has made me more aware of how I feel.  It took seeing various friends to really get that I am looking and doing a lot better.  But it's also hard because, as this post title says, better is a long-ass way from normal. This is something that I had not realized would be so difficult to convey to... well... everyone.  I think it has to do with the fact that the people in your life who love and care about you - they WANT you to be "OK."  They feel better if they think you are better.  And that's not a bad thing, but it IS a difficult thing to try to live up to. I mean, sure.  I didn't lose my hair, so when people see me and I look relatively like me old normal self, they are happy.  I keep hearing "You look so good," ...

Tuesday was, as I posted, my final brachytherapy.  I am officially DONE with my cancer treatments. And now.  Now I'm friggin' terrified. During the treatments, I had a goal.  I felt like I was contributing to kicking the tumor's ugly ass right outta there.  I got up every day, and no matter how busted I felt, I went to chemo, I went to radiation, I went to brachy.  And now... now I do nothing.  I wait.  And god help me... I THINK. As of right now, I have NO idea WHEN I will find out if everything we've done, you know, WORKED.  I have "follow-up" appointments scheduled over the next two weeks with Dr. Kebria and Dr. Mastrioanni. But I don't know if either of them will tell me what's next?  How long?  Did it work?  Yadda yadda.  And I'm scared.  And I hate it. I know we have to wait a certain amount of time until they CAN re-scan me to see if it's gone or dead or whatever.  But I don't know how long that is. ...

Through all of this, I had actually only seen Dr. Kebria, my gynecologic oncologist, on day one of this whole thing when he performed the emergency biopsy and sent me to the hospital for tests.  He did call me in the hospital to discuss the treatment once I'd been diagnosed, but up until this afternoon, I had not seen him again. Needless to say, then, that everyone was looking forward to our meeting with him today.  Lots of questions were asked and answered, more by Ryan and my mum than by me, as I continue to be in some sort of indescribable fog surrounding this entire experience. First off, I'm glad to say that I still like him and feel very comfortable with him.  He is warm and nice and I trust him.  Which is good. Questions answered (that I remember): - The "normal" PAP results letter is generated automatically.  Not that they don't look at the results, but with all of my bleeding, there was really no way to get a CORRECT reading ...