A Moment of Weakness

The other day, I sat there and I thought of my own mortality. To be clear, I've been very positive in both thoughts and spirits ever since I received the cancer news. However, to be positive all the time can be exhausting so I'm allowing myself sometime to feel other feelings in the range of feelings that I'm allowed as a human. 

So I thought about my grandparents who have all passed away and all of my lovely animals who also had left me for the better world. I thought that maybe I've done good enough. Maybe I've helped people and animals enough that this illness is actually a blessing. A blessing in a sense that maybe I get to die earlier so I could meet all of my loved ones who had passed away. Maybe I'll see Suppy, Xammy, Bandit, Socks, Soy Sauce, Junior, Rocky, Curry, Junie, Smoke, Nashoba, Tanookie, Buster and so many other animals that I have met and loved. That made me miss them a whole lot and I cried. I cried with relief that my own mortality isn't so bad after all. That perhaps this is all for good. 

Then I went back to being positive and happy again soon after. But it was nice to be able to not have to hold up the happy face. Because I know that people who love me will instantly feel sad that I'm sad and will want me to be happy and cheery. But that is exhausting to have to hold up this cheery feeling 100% of the time. Sometimes, I just want to be able to be normal again and be okay with feeling sad once in a while. 

Here's a picture of Cocoa Bean back when his name is Cricket and he was a kitten at the shelter the first time I met him. He's the kitten in the lower cubby. He was adopted out then, was not being taken care very well by his adopter and was returned about a year after that. But since his return, we have adopted him and he's a very beautiful and truly happy cat now. He is the literal definition of happy because when he runs around and does his Cocoa Bean things, you can tell that he's a happy boy. Here he is now:

More good news than bad

So much have changed since the last update and I think there's more good news than bad news.

I've been put on a new medication called amebaciclib (brand name is Verzenio). It was recently approved by the FDA September 2017. It's supposed to be better than my previous drug since it's the only drug that is approved to treat HR+ HER2- metastatic breast cancer (what I have) as a stand alone drug. It's also supposed to be easier on my immune system than the previous drug. 

The bad news is that I experienced very bad side effects with this drug, mainly nausea and vomiting. The first two days that I was on the drug, I couldn't go 15 minutes without throwing up. I could not keep any sort of food down and basically was miserable the entire two days. I had to stay within 20 feet of the toilet or else bad things would happen. Priyanka was in Toronto for that whole week so I was very close to asking my sister to come and stay with me because I couldn't go anywhere on my own. Priyanka and Megan both ordered Amazon Prime delivery and got me some yogurt drinks because I couldn't handle any solid food. 

I emailed my doctor and said that I'm throwing in the towel because I just couldn't handle all of the vomiting. My doctor prescribed two anti-nausea medications. So I gathered all of my strength, prepared myself with poop bags in my pocket, which were great for vomiting, and drove to the pharmacy for the anti-nausea medications. Well, they worked very well after the first few tries because I kept throwing up the anti-nausea medications. Ironic, isn't it? After that I was able to get back to my normal life again. I went back to the office three days a week. 

My life has been normalizing slowly. 

One day, I felt like I could do some push ups. I talked to Lidia about it and she said: "If your mind is there, then your body is ready." So I went home and found out that I could do four push ups! I was so happy to know that after being non-active for almost a year.

Edited: As suggested by Indu, here's the video of me push-up-ing

I also went back to feeding my feral cats for the first time and managed it pretty well. So many little victories to celebrate. 

Recently, I was able to walk 1 mile somewhat comfortably. Somewhat because toward the end of the walk, my new artificial hip was hurting and being stiff so I had to kind of hobbled along. But that is also another small victory of me getting my strength back. 

The only thing that is still bothering me a lot is how gravity is hurting my back as the day goes on. I feel like that is the last thing I need to get over to get back on being my normal self. That is also something else to be worked on. I've been thinking on how to solve this problem and I think I would need to strengthen my back muscles a lot to 1) bring it back to its normal strength and 2) once it's strengthened it can hold me upright against gravity much better. So I'm going to embark on my slow and careful journey to strengthen my back again. I do know some exercises that specifically target the back muscles so I'll be working on that slowly. 

My plan right now is to improve myself slowly and surviving until the next drug is approved to keep me alive a bit longer. Then the cycle will continue. Someone on Quora who has cancer said "I know that I'll die someday, but today I am alive." 

Today I am alive.