Getting my brave on.

Last night proved to be a little harder than I thought it would be.  Despair was surrounding me and the faint smile had been slapped off my face.  Sometimes they way reality is presented is a little off.  That is what I am going to choose to believe anyways.

There are certain words and phrases I HATE.  I mean that.  I hate them.  I hate the words palliative, hospice, quickly, sooner rather than later, aggressive... there are more.  Of course if you were saying to me, "We better get to DQ sooner rather than later." I probably won't hate that.  But in the context of cancer - I despise these words.

So of course last night I was re-playing some of the words that were used during a conversation that I had had.  And they swirled and swirled around like a sick, black tar that stuck to everything... including my spirit.  I didn't sleep well.  I was in prayer/pleading with my Heavenly Father for most of the night. 

Finally my little man crawled into bed beside me and this 30 pound piece of reality settled my heart and I finally fell asleep.

When I awoke, I couldn't shake the feelings of despair that I was drowning in.  Usually in the morning I am ok.  Usually I have a re-gained focus and life goes on but I am a little more aware of the things I need to be doing.  Such was not the case.  I spoke to Ken.  Didn't help.  Called my Mom back.  Didn't help.  Talked to my Sis... same feelings.  I finally called the clinic back.

R (bless her heart) calmed me a little, telling me not to panic or cry.  That it would all be ok.  She put me right through to "Dr." as she calls him.  I love it!

Anyways, I tried not to cry to "Dr" and he started to talk to me about my results.  He said that the last scans results were as of April 12th.  So there was almost two months that had gone by before I even started treatment.  Then the last scan was from the past two months.  Like he explained that this wasn't really an accurate way to tell if everything was working or not because I didn't have a scan right before I went down for treatment.  He said that my next scan will be the one that we are anxious to see.  I completely agreed with him.  He said he wasn't alarmed and calmly told me I need not panic.  Do we need a little reminder here that he has been an oncologist for 40 years!  Yes, board certified... not just, "studied a lot of cancer patients", he's an actual oncologist.

He explained to me, like he has before, that you can't chase stage 4 cancer with a scalpel or a radiation beam.  He reassured me that I was doing well and told me to keep up with my maintenance protocol like I am doing.  He said that my counts were good and that I was to keep on doing the chemo.

Like he told me when we were in Reno, they have a blueprint of what will work best for me, and if what I am on currently isn't the best, they can switch it up and we can work from there.  I also brought up the fact that he as said that even if your tumors don't go away, many people live many years healthy with STABLE disease.  He said, "And Geneva, that is when you have to shift your mind set to living with a chronic illness." 

He, once again, let me know I could call him anytime.

When I got off the phone I felt the blackness slipping away from my body.  I felt that I could breath and that once again, hope shone as bright as it did before. 

Although it took me a bit to jump out of this slump, I have.  I think I would be great at hurdles.  I really do!  I have faith in my doctor and his knowledge to heal me.  I have faith in my body to do what it needs to do to keep me alive and healthy.  I have faith in my Heavenly Father and his ability to whisper to me what is right.  I feel what I am doing is right.  And I am happy with that.