Pills

Well Hi there,

I bet you were wondering what happened to me since I have not written in a long time.  Well as usual my life is never dull so shortly after my last post Pat and I came down with a pretty bad cold.  Pat is now over it and I am still coughing to the point of running out of air, needless to say I spend most of my day in my fancy chair sleeping or watching old shows.  Pretty exciting life, that is why when I get a surprise visit like from Linda and Charlie from Colorado, it makes my day (or night) so please feel free to come and see me any time.

There are two subjects I want to talk about today, first is my current condition which is not great, but want you to know that I am still not giving up.  If you could see me you would not recognize me, I truly look like a 70 year old lady, my hair is thinned out and no longer grows so the picture you see of little old ladies in a nursing home where they all have the same haircut? Well that is me now, pretty pathetic.  Also my skin, the treatment causes chemical burn so every part of my body and I mean every part of my body has that wrinkle that you get from too much sun, my underarm, my finger tips, even the bottom of my feet.  It use to itch all the time but I have learned to ignore it for the most part… but the skin, boy it sure looks bad.  So don’t cry for me, I can do that myself… I remembered what Randy told me back in the days when I only had to worry about breast cancer, ‘do yogurt baths’, so I have done a couple and will do another one today.  They are not fun but when you are done, you feel like a brand new person.  You get plain yogurt, a small little one will do for one bathing.  You put it all over your body like if it was lotion, trust me, it is cold so you have to be brave and just do it.  Have the bathtub going with warm to hot water; I know I know, I am not a bathtub person myself but no choice here. Get in the tub and lay down the best you can until the water starts getting cold, then shower and Vuala you are done.

This has helped with regenerating my skin but of course taking the medicine every day does not help with keeping my skin looking young…  The reason why I am telling you this is because anyone can do this to help with their skin, especially in the winter when it gets so dry.

Okay now to the next subject, ‘Pill taking’ you MUST drink at least one glass of water with your pills, regardless of what anyone tells you and the main reason is because you want to flush them down to your stomach and not let them stay in your trachea/esophagus/throat for any length of time.  Medicines are to be processed by your stomach and then distributed through your body like any other food/drink.  It has been known that pills with the cute rubber cover might dissolve in your esophagus and after a while might just open a whole in there.  I am not a pill taking person, well… was not a pill taking person and now take over 15 a day but the ones I take for the treatment must be taken really early with a glass of water and wait and hour, you can imagine me getting up ‘REALLY EARLY’ and then taking a full ‘GLASS OF WATER’ … nah, it was not happening and then I started having problems with my pipes going down and that is when I learned the importance of that FULL glass of water with all my pills.  You know me, I give advice and it is your choice to follow or not… this one I would follow.

Well, this has to be all for now because truth be told, typing with raw fingers that crack open like paper cuts ‘hurts’, maybe next time I will have Michelle do the typing.  For now I want to tell you that Michael’s meeting with the parole office went very well, next court date is March 16^th. And for those that are keeping track, our little miracle ‘Miss Maggie’ will be ONE year old this coming Monday… yeah.

Love y’all,

ME

Live or Die

What Mix emotions!!!  I am saddened that my mother is gone but happy she did not suffer.  And really I have not grieved yet as I think of it as if she was visiting another daughter.  It all happened so fast and then all the sisters and people and then all gone… puff, now what?

Ligia and I did what we know best, yesterday Pat made us appetizer/dinner and we had a happy hour together…  Today will be another day.

So here is the thing, where I also have mix emotions.  Mom in reality died because of cancer.  When she was diagnosed just a few months ago, she did not want to go through what I was going through and said no treatment.  Her cancer was less than 1 cm and we all agreed and joked that she would probably die of old age, heart or whatever before that little bit of cancer would get to her.  Did anyone tell us that it was located in a dangers airwave?  No. All along we knew (or thought we knew) that I was to go before Mom.  That thought really bothered her and she said to me many times, I do not want to burry a daughter; as well as many times in the past few years she would say, I am not afraid of dying, I have lived a wonderful life and I am ready to go any time.  So is my will to live keeping me alive and her will to die took her?  Can you really decide when to live and when to die?  My God, if there is any truth to this, please know that I have many things undone and will need another… let’s say 20 years to finish what I started.  Deal?

PS. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you my friends who have called, sent cards and messages of condolences.  Mom was greater than life and like Michelle said, this is the end of a Dynasty and we are so blessed to have been a part of it.

Love y’all,

ME

Did you know Betty?

If you didn’t meet her you missed out as she was one of the most amazing, unique, entertaining, awesome, happy…   I can go on and on.

Betty was my mother and the mother of my 6 other sisters plus the grandmother of 9 grandchildren and the great grandmother of Maggie the Great.
She had an amazing life, so for her services I wrote the following poem:

MOM

What an incredible mixed of emotions

Sad to see you go
Glad that you got there
Are you Happy Mom?

You lived life to the fullest

You laughed hard at it all
You loved us more than life
What a woman, you were wise

Mom you were awesome

To have had three lives on earth
Who else can claim such victory
But you…. who did it all

As a child you were mischievous  

You were poor and didn’t even know it
You were happy, you were fun
You just wanted to play under the sun 

As a mother you were great

Seven daughters, what can I say
You weren’t the kissing and hugging kind
You were the proud and LOVING one

As a widow, that was hard

You missed Daddy and it was tough
But you lived through it with us,
With a smile and party time

So now is time to say goodbye

Boy it hurts, I’ll miss you lots
You were awesome you were great
You will always be the best

Yesterday we celebrated her life, we have actually been celebrating her life since the night she died and will probably continue to celebrate for a very long time.

We will miss you…   Love you forever.

ME

PS. My test at MDAnderson shows that I am responding to treatment, although the cancer did not shrink, it did not grow either.  So for now, I will continue with the treatment and pray.

A New Day

So here we are and it is a new day, duh each day is a new day, as you can tell by my tone that I am feeling a lot better.  I am still sleeping a lot and my skin is a mess and a few things here and there but for the most part I am ready to continue the fight. Thanks to Randy who was here giving me energy and pocking and whatever he does to have my pains go away or to the side. 

To pick up where we left off –

My liver enzymes were better so I resumed treatment at a lesser dosage. This week I go back to Houston for standard testing plus the CT scan that will tell if the trial is working for me.  I pray that it is as I am running out of options, although they said last time that they have a plan B.

The court hearing for Michael went well but of course no answers or light when this will all be over but for now he has a meeting with probation on Feb. 21^st and next court hearing is March 16^th.

And my Mom, she is doing better today, one day better at a time is all we can ask… although I would love for her to get her sense of humor back…  I miss that.

Attitude will make you or brake you.  I have told my children for ever that a good attitude, a smile, dressing up and looking pretty or smelling good makes you feel good, and when you feel good you attracted happy people.  When you are down, the best remedy is to surround yourself with happy people, I know I know you don’t feel like it but that is because you are down so force yourself to ‘exercise’ and then go out and find happy people. Remember ‘Attitude’, something that you can control…  NICE

Wishing you, my family and I a Happy New Day,

ME

Accident

Can you remember 26? I can because that was the year that I was in loved.  I had found the man of my dreams which I married.  Life was good.

Well today my son Michael turns 26 and he can’t even plan what he will be doing this weekend, it is very sad.  As you all may know, he was in a car accident where his dear friend Mai died.  They had been out to comedy night and celebrating that Mai was leaving for Japan in just a couple of days.  That was Michael’s dream at the time, graduate with a Japanese degree and go to Japan to teach English. He had only one semester left, four classes.

This happened over 18 months ago and his fate is still in the hands of the California judicial system.  You see, in California they do not use the word accident so they have to make sure that he is guilty of something, and while they try to sort this out his life is on hold.  Some people would say, so what, Mai’s life stopped and that is true and it is also true that we can’t change that, that there is nothing that Michael can possibly do to bring back Mai.  We lost a life but does it make sense that the punishment be to destroy another life?   For how long?  How many more lives have to suffer?  I can tell you that Michael has as well as me, his father and sister and really all our family.

So here is what is even more painful, I have terminal cancer and my only wish left is to see my son free.  At one time I thought that I wanted to go to the beach for 3 months, I also hoped to go to Venezuela once more and see my old classmates and friends but none of that matter until this is resolved.

I would love nothing more than for the judicial system to accept that this was an accident and let my son go.

For now, I pray, we pray.  Today I say Happy Birthday son, my birthday wish for you is that this year is better.  And ask for you to pray or think positive thoughts for this Friday, January 13^th when Michael goes to court once again to request the reduction of the charges, just one step closer to ending this nightmare.

Thanks you,

ME

THIS TREATMENT IS KICKING MY BUTT

THIS TREATMENT IS KICKING MY BUTT

So I have not written in a while and I apologize but this treatment is kicking my butt.  And there is a lot going on around here.

My mother, who was diagnosed with lung cancer around October, came down with pneumonia right before Christmas and spent a few days in the hospital.  The main cause is the location of the tumor.  Crazy right?  She has one little tumor and it is located in the airwave to the middle lobe of the right lung.  So my dear mother who is usually strong in personality, who was doing aerobics 3 times a week at the senior citizen center, my Mom who loves a party and a get together is now seating on her chair, with oxygen, unable to care for herself…  crazy right?  And it all happened so fast, cancer really sucks.

I was moving right along with the cancer trial treatment when my face erupted in hives, not the ones that itch but the ones that burn, within two days my face looked like I had stuck it in an ant hill and it really hurt.  Now I have them all over my body and some itch and some hurt, I have one cream for the ones that hurt and one cream for the ones that itch and of course there is always Benadryl.  If this was the only problem I would suck it up but no, my cough which never really went away is back up to full swing so there is cough, cough, breath, cough, cough… again not the only two problems, when I went for my last checkup the blood test showed that my liver enzymes were five times higher than normal so they to pulled me off the trial for one week and then I will have a retest, if all goes well then I will restart the trial but with a lesser dosage.  In the meantime, I sleep, yup that is all I do all day because I do not have energy to do anything else.  I might get a load of laundry here and there but not more than one small chore a day.  And then of course there is also that visit to the emergency room because my temperature was 101.5.  Bottom line, I am falling apart and I do not have the energy to stop it from happening.  God better pull a good one while I still have pieces of myself to pick up and make better.

Please know that I am not giving up although at times I feel like I should, but that it is important for you to know that with cancer, there are weaker moments that really suck and although many of you view me as this very strong person, I am not.  What keeps me going is my family, wanting for Michael’s ordeal to be over with a positive outcome, and all the friends that are counting on me.

On a side note, I wanted to tell you that because we pray and ask God for things is not a guarantee that we will get them.  It also does not mean that he is not listening, sometimes the answer is NO.  Right before Christmas I went to Michelle’s church to listen to a special guest speaker named Alan Vincent (fascinating man), during the ceremony the pastor’s wife asked if she could pray over me and I said yes.  It was a loving prayer and it gave me a sense of comfort.  After the ceremony, Michelle and I along with the pastor’s wife and several other church members approached Alan and ask that he and his wife Eileen pray for me and they did, again I had a feeling of peace.  A few days later, I received a prayer cloth that I was to wear by my adrenal gland for three days.  I truly believed in my heart that I would get another miracle, that this would clear me of cancer.  Sadly it did not but I do not believe that the answer from God is NO; I think that the answer is ‘LATER’.

So with that I say goodbye today and will write again LATER, and don’t forget to exercise like David Haas wrote in the previous post.

Love y’all,

ME

The Benefits of Fitness when dealing with Cancer

The Benefits of Fitness When Dealing with Cancer

Written by David Haas

Dealing with cancer can be an overwhelming task. Aside from the physical aspects of treatment and surgeries, it can also be emotionally and mentally exhausting. Frustration, depression and exhaustion build up over time, making it difficult to keep happy and positive around friends and family. Exercise is one of the key ways that cancer sufferers can deal with the influx of emotions that such a devastating disease brings about. Here are just a few of the benefits that exercise throughout the various stages of diagnosis, treatment and remission:

Improved Mood: Many men and women report having what can best be described as a "cloud" hanging over them after receiving a cancer diagnosis from their doctor. This might persist well into treatment. A proven way to lift the spirit is through physical activity. The endorphins released after a tough workout will make anyone happier, and can help to improve the mood and perhaps even bring a smile to someone's face.

A Sense of Control: Having cancer means for many people an increased reliance on others. You might need you spouse to care for you, your parents to drive you to and from countless appointments, or your friends to bring you meals and check in one you. Over time this can make someone feel less then capable. By incorporating exercise into the daily routine, a patient is able to have a sense of control about their situation. Even a short walk around the neighborhood can make someone feel as if they are in charge of their own life.

Improved Self-Esteem: Both cancer and the various treatments for illnesses like lymphoma, mesothelioma and ovarian cancer, among others, can be devastating to the interior and the exterior of the body. Surgery might leave scars, and lack of exercise or appetite might leave a once strong body weak or overweight. Exercise results in more lean muscle mass, and helps the body to look and feel better. By including even a short amount of moderate exercise into the day, a cancer patient will be able to have improved self esteem when they look in the mirror.

Can Control Nausea: One of the most dreaded side effects of cancer treatment is the nausea that accompanies chemotherapy and radiation. Exercise can reduce those effects, bringing a higher quality of life to patients.

By including exercise in the daily routine of a cancer patient, they can reap major benefits and feel better about themselves as well as their chances for recovery.