A Day of Rest

Almost...I have a little girl who wants to talk nonstop this morning, and I think I have a cold. No picnic at the lake today, because others are ill too, but the last thing I need is a cold. However, this means another free day to sit in front of the television and take naps. Cancer stuff is banned for the day. I may have to feel it, but I don't have to think about it or do anything about it.

Today I am sick. Blurgh.

The Mood Meter

I think I've found a way to rate my moods. We'll see how it works out.

Today, I feel like hiding from the world and resting a lot.

A new doctor, happy day!

Thanks to Aimee ordering me to go see her doctor (yes, you so did "order" me!) I am a happier person today. Dr. Davis (not to be confused with UC Davis) is very calming and comforting, and I'm officially switching to him as my GYN. He's nice, unlike Dr. He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Having done a pelvic exam, Dr. Davis is guardedly optimistic, saying that because my cervix moves around very easily, it's *less* likely that tissue other than cervical tissue is *too* involved. There are a lot of qualifiers here-no one can say anything for sure until they cut it all out of me and chop it up. But it's a start.

So, the upshot is, I am having my CT scan and also a chest xray on Tuesday. The oncologist in Mt. View should be able to see me on Thursday (can't find that out until Tues-damned holiday weekends!) and assuming that is so, I'll be heading down to the Bay Area Thurs, big piles of CT, xray and ultrasound films in hand.

Dr. Davis felt that if all of this goes as planned, I could possibly be scheduled for surgery as early as the following week. I, however, have nixed that one. Anna's birthday is the 14th, and we all have circus tickets for the 13th, and I'm not disrupting all our plans for that weekend. This is going to be disrupting enough! We get one last weekend of normalcy, and she gets her day. So there. The week after, that's a possibility.

The stupid holiday weekend is also putting life on hold in that I can't find out any information about the possible financial assistance programs available to us, and that is stressful, but I'm dealing. Today is for resting and relaxing only, not for being a professional cancer patient, which kind of feels like a full-time job.

Overall though, I feel lots more confident today that things are going forward, and that it'll all be handled and over soon, instead of feeling like I'm just sitting with a cloud over my head. That alone helps a lot.

I'm still working on that rating system. While I love my darling auntie's idea of the Bush monkey faces, I'm really not sure I could stand to look at him any more than I already have to... Maybe I'll count elephants or something. We'll see. If it were an elephant scale, I'd say today is about 6 or 7 elephants. That's not bad, all things considered.

Pretty flowers!

Look at the gorgeous flowers! Thank you Darcy!

In other promising news, I've found out that I *may* be eligible for some California state-based medical programs, specifically designed for people with breast or cervical cancer, where owning a house will not automatically disqualify you. Maybe. We'll find out.

The fact that I have appointments scheduled for some things, medication that works to keep me calm, am making progress on learning how to treat all of this, get to see Aimee today, and pretty flowers to look at means I'm feeling pretty good today, overall.

I need to come up with some sort of personal ranking system to rate my daily levels of good and not good. Hmm. 1-10 is just boring. I'll have to give that some thought.

Hopefully today's doctor's appointment will mean I have more information to put up here tomorrow.

Hello, I have cancer. How are you?

But you probably already knew that. I'm starting this blog so that I can keep lots of people updated all at the same time. The good news part of that is that I have a lot of people who want to be updated and care how I'm doing.

Thank you all. I can't do this without you.
I really mean that. I never imagined I'd have this kind of support.

Yes, this is entirely public, readable to anyone on the internet, but I don't care. I'm not posting anything "personal" here, and if descriptions of my medical hell might help someone else, great. Frankly, I have better things to worry about than caring if strangers hear about the state of my cervix.

Please feel free to email me, or post any comments you have--just not anything you don't want the world to read!! :-)

And please, please, no walking on eggshells, no losing our collective sense of humor, 'k? I'm not laying around feeling pitiful, I'm watching CNN and making snide comments....

PLEASE subscribe to this blog if you want my occasional updates on my test results and conditions. I'm not going to drive you all nuts with incessent posts, just the stuff that you might care about.

You can subscribe to this blog by clicking on the subscription button up there on the right and new posts about how I'm doing will come to you, or I can manually sign you up if you need me to.

The basics so far:

• My prior Pap test, in March of 2007 was negative.
• For more than a year, I've had unspecified pain in my lower-lower back and entire pelvic area.
• Seeking some sort of answers for that, I had CT scans and ultrasounds and an OB/GYN scheduled me for a hysterectomy to remove my evil cystic ovaries and everything else, despite the fact that I have NO health insurance.
• Well, almost everything......we left the cervix in, because at the time there was no reason to take it out, and by leaving it, I could have an outpatient procedure, saving lots of money.
• Had some random spotting months after the surgery, which the doc couldn't explain, just that I was bleeding on the outer surface of my cervix.
• Turns out, I should have had a Pap done right before the procedure...
• I had my annual exam in August, and got a definitive "F" on my Pap test. Still bleeding.
• Developed severe panic attacks. Oops.
• Went back for a colposcopy and biopsy on August 20, and I was able to see on the monitor that there was some very, very unhappy looking tissue on my cervix.
• The biopsy came back positive for an aggressive, invasive squamous carcinoma.
• I am now scheduled for an appointment with a new OB/GYN tomorrow.
• CT scan on Tuesday.
• The current idea is that I'll be receiving most of my treatment down in the Bay Area, but all of that is up in the air right now.

That's pretty much where we stand as of right now...I am happily calm thanks to the miracle of Xanax. I'm managing to keep down at least the equivalent of one small meal a day, which is also an improvement. I'm working very proactively to find answers and resources and help.

And, today, I'm taking a big break. I've made phone calls and dealt with paperwork, and set up this blog, and I'm absolutely exhausted. My throat is sore from talking. The persistant pain in my far lower back and lower right pelvic area woke me up this morning and has been making me buggy ever since.

So now, it is time to rest, and to take a nap and try and feel a little better so I have energy to run around picking up CT films and other errands before my appointment tomorrow afternoon.

Again, thank you.