To Shave or Not To Shave, That is the Question....

My hair just keeps thinning out. It's been over a month since my last Adrimyacin push, yet, it continues to fall. I guess I'm lucky that I have a lot of hair anyway. My awesome hairdresser recently told me 'now Dina, you have as much hair as everybody else'. I went to her to see what she could do with this, because obviously growing it out isn't going quite as I had planned. She cut it short again and I have to admit, it helped a lot. But it still falls out. The drain in my shower has this light covering of hair each time I shower. I've actually not showered for a day thinking 'maybe if I don't shower and wash it, it will stay in!'. Silly. I am hoping that if I wait long enough, it will stop thinning then start growing back before it is really noticeable. Now that I'm typing this I feel really silly. Am I really spending this much time talking and thinking about my stupid hair? I've done this once already - and I elected to just frickin shave my head when it first started coming out. This time, I just don't want to. My poor bathroom is just coated with hair. It totally affects my mood when I have to start my day putting handfuls of hair in the trash can. I wish this didn't matter to me so much, but it does. I've spoken to Madeline about it - and she is just so matter of fact about it. She says 'this cancer just needs to go away mom! cancer is NOT good!' Which of course brings me to tears that she knows this at age 5 - then she asks me why I'm crying and I tell her that sometimes when mommy is so full of love for her, I get so happy that I cry. She smiles and hugs me. This whole conversation occurred the other day as I was getting her out of the shower. So perfect.

Fall break has been lovely. Getting up on our schedule. I did have a run in with a rude employee of the YMCA where I work out - and I noticed something about myself that I found very interesting. Anyone who know me knows, when someone is disrespectful or rude to me, it is all I can do to not rip that person a new A hole. Seriously, I don't tolerate people like this very well AT ALL. So when this situation presented itself to me yesterday, I found myself going to that same place. I started getting all worked up inside, getting very confrontational, maybe a little bead of sweat or two - you get it. Then, something came out of my mouth that I swear I don't remember giving myself permission to say. I said "listen, I don't know what has happened here, but if I have come across rude and caused you to act this way, then I apologize, that was not my intent". wha???? Dina - back down? Dina - take the high road? Who the hell was this person talking? Now, this fell upon deaf ears, but the thoughts I HAD in my head did not come out, this did. Weird. I thought about this throughout my workout, and I think I realized, we, the collective women 'we', suck it up so much sometimes, we don't vent our frustration or anger or disappointments so often, that when the poor uneducated soul at the front desk of the Y gives us the stink eye, we totally unload all this shit on them. It all comes pouring out - like we needed an excuse to let it out, and this was it. I didn't do it this time, which was good. But I realized that I need to let out this frustration or whatever I have been feeling before it gets to this point. If something is bothering me, I'm going to say it. If I get hurt my something or someone - I'm going to tell them. It is NOT easy - it is easier to take down the Y employee - but I am seriously going to start working on this. Thank you - Miss Uneducated YMCA Employee for the self-enlightenment. (hey, I'm not losing my sarcasm - that would be pushing it)

I've had a great time hanging out with my kids. We went and painted pottery today - total blast. Total mess, but a total blast. Then grocery shopping, lunch - the normal stuff. So cool.

I spoke to CTCA about how I feel weird not to be taking anything now, and they said they need me really healthy for this procedure - so to chill and not worry about it. I breathed a cautious and semi relieved breath of fresh air - and I am trying to just embrace the fact that for the next month or so, I'm not going to be on any drug of any kind. I mean, I will be on chemo right after the procedure, but until that point, I'm really enjoying not being on anything. That hasn't happened since I was diagnosed - and that was almost 2 years ago. Wow. Isn't THAT crazy. I just want, so badly, to have an opportunity to have my life back from this disease. As much as I try to conduct my life and raise my kids and be a wife and mother and member of my community, I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm trying to be all of these things AROUND cancer treatment - and that is just getting old and tiring and frustrating. I am being realistic about this upcoming procedure. But my hope is, this therasphere will blow this metastatic disease out of my liver, then I will be able to control the disease with another estrogen blocker from coming back anywhere else. That is my vision, that is what I am holding onto - because that is what makes logical sense to me. Is cancer logical? No. But they know and awful lot about my kind of breast cancer, so I know I have that on my side.

I hope I'm not sounding all dark and serious, I'm not in a dark place at all anymore - thank you Jesus. Where I am mentally now is like night and day compared to where I was a month ago. It was difficult for me to switch my care to CTCA, very difficult. But I now know that I needed to move in the direction that felt right in my gut, and this just feels right. I sacrifice me a lot in this life over the guilt I feel for others, and this just couldn't be one of those times. There is way to much at stake here for me. I qualified for this protocol for a reason, I know this. I am where I am today for a reason, and I was where I was for a reason as well. I have no regrets with where I was, or where I'm headed. No regrets at all. I have felt led all the way. However, I also believe that we need to hear Gods voice (or our gut feeling, whatever you want to call it) and follow that lead, give it that push, then everything falls into place. It's amazing what one move on our part can cause - just one simple phone call can send us into a completely different direction. Just one move - sometimes that's all it takes. Sometimes that one move is the hardest to make of all. But that is where trust comes in, trust God, trust your gut.

God Bless -