Honesty is the Best Policy

Honesty is the best policy.  I've learned this lesson many times in my lifetime, but I'm not sure why my initial reaction was to hide this time.

Maybe to shelter all of my readers?  Maybe to protect myself from additional questions about my prognosis?  Possibly I just needed to process it myself and attempt to get my immediate family and close friends through the news first.

Today I told my bosses that I can't keep up. I can't handle the taxes and probate and I'm not even entirely confident that I can manage the books.  (They took it well and want me to work as little or as much as I want;))

But, I'm exhausted.  Not tired.  I sleep 8-12 hours a night.  I'm exhausted.  It's entirely different that tired.

My blood work explains a lot of why I am so tired.  Out of about 30 things they test for, I'm in the normal range in about 2 categories.  Number wise, I completely qualify for a blood transfusion.  Since I'm not having symptoms other than fatigue, my doctor wants to hold off on the transfusion if at all possible to see what my young body will do with the treatment.  He doesn't want to put foreign blood in my system IN CASE I would react poorly to it.

WHY are my numbers so whacked out? Well, here's some more of the honesty.  I have cancer growing not only in my bone marrow, but the additional testing done on Monday confirmed that I have spots on my liver and lungs as well.

We are not telling the kids that it is growing other places.  We have decided not to tell them because the treatment is the same and the prognosis did not change either.  According to my doctor, either the cancer will quiet with the chemotherapy or it won't.  Either it will shut up and stop screaming at me or I will move on to another treatment to see if that will shut it up. 

I did start the clinical study yesterday.  I take 6 pills in the morning.  I take 6 pills in the evening.  I gag the entire time I'm taking the pills.  That's A LOT of pills.  The side effects are similar to chemo side effects IF I'm getting the clinical drug.  I can't tell if I'm having side effects because I feel like poo anyways.

Mentally and emotionally I am coping well, I think. Although this is not fun/fair/wanted, I do feel so very loved and blessed.  We are trying to live our life as normal as we can during this crazy roller coaster and trying to shelter the monsters from any pain we can. Aaron has been amazing and I have no doubt he will continue to be a rock when I need to lean on him.

I still haven't made it through all of my messages and I'm sorry if I haven't responded.  I try to answer a few at a time when I'm feeling strong enough to read all of you kind thoughts and love, but sometimes I just want to pretend this isn't happening instead.

I am very excited to start the lent Bible study.  At our kick off meeting it was refreshing to see the vulnerability of others as they expressed their prayer requests. I constantly feel so blessed to have such amazing people around me as we pray for each other.

So, there is the update.  I am still scheduled to have my first chemo treatment on the 17th. I am still planning to shut this stupid cancer up and regain some of my energy.  I am still very hopeful for treatment options to be discovered.  I am still hopeful that we can move mountains.

Oh, I'm still VERY hopeful that I can help my babies so they never have to go through this.  My doctor anticipates a study being released soon that will attack the BRCA gene mutation that I have.  He is aware that I want to be a part of any study that can alter this pain in my ass gene and will happily continue to be a lab rat in any experiment that will gain knowledge and power against this gene.  BE READY AND CANCER AWARE.

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD. Psalm 31:24

Lots of love,