The journey begins. Day 1 of vacation from obligation :)

I am now relaxing on the train to Tacoma.  I'm on my way to visit a friend that I haven't seen in almost half a year, even though she only lives two hours away.  Crazy how busy life gets sometimes.  I can at least give her her Christmas present now :)

It feels so good to be going somewhere where I have no obligations at all.  14 days of NO doctors appointments, chemotherapy, nutritional IV's, blood draws, or any of the other daily chores and routines.  I really need a break like this.  My vacation began about two hours ago.  As the miles from my home in Portland grow larger and larger my stress begins to shed like the layers of an onion.  I wonder what I will find in the middle :)

My cat was already mad at me.  She was protesting yesterday by napping in my carryon all day preventing me from packing.  Clark (the dog) was extra concerned this morning blocking me from getting to my bag and even following me more closely than usual giving me the worried eyes.  We had a talk.

If you haven't gotten your mobile yet, my apologies for being so lazy...it will be there shortly after I return...

Again, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU so much for the generous gifts from my Amazon Wish List (my supplements).  You have no idea how much this helps! It took me about 2 hours to organize and pack my vitamins and supplements for 14 days.

I am about 48 hours from Cabo.  I cannot wait! My uncle Casey is the generous person who gave my aunt, my mom and myself his air miles to use for our flights and we even get to fly first class on the way there!  I have never even sat in first class before! What a treat! Then my aunt has a friend who let us use their timeshare so we got a great deal on our lodging as well.  Basically a pretty much free trip and nothing really can beat that :)  We are loading up suitcases with good organic food staples so we do not have to spend a ton of money on eating, PLUS we will most likely eat healthier this way too.  That doesn't mean that I am not going to be indulging in some seafood and fruit every chance I get.  I am quite interested to find out how good the local food is.

I have been in the greatest mood lately in anticipation of my vacation.  As I was busy packing up and doing chores yesterday the phone rang and it was the nurse practitioner from my "regular" doc's office calling to give me my pap smear results.  (They do it by phone and contact you to give you your results even if there is nothing to report and the results are normal. Very friendly clinic.)  Well, she got a serious tone in her voice and I KNEW she wasn't going to give me good news.  Instantly my life flashed before my eyes for the SECOND time in the last 14 months.  I instantly flew into a hot flash and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest and my vision was narrowing and getting all fuzzy and I had all these thoughts going through my head as she told me that "my results were not normal".
Ok, FREAK OUT! No, keep you composure, its nothing, FREAK, NO, breathe! Ok she said, they tested for all the CHPV, HPV etc and everything comes back negative, even pre-cancerous cells are not present etc. *IM STILL WORRYING AT THIS POINT* Then she starts to calm me down, I ask a ton of questions, and she offers me an explanation that I accepted reluctantly but with enough evidence she pretty much convinced me that it was wonky because of the chemotherapy and pharmaceuticals I am on.  I buy that.  Sounds good.  PHEW!!  The last thing I needed was to hear "hey, you now have ovarian cancer", especially the day before my vacation.  But anyone who has ever had cancer knows that your little (or big) demon follows you around all the time making you think that every little headache is brain cancer, or every rash is melanoma, etc.. so the worry never ends.  I don't think that it ever will.

Humble Pie and Help

I really feel that need to share something with you all.

As you all must know by now the old bank account has been wearing very thin lately.  I've spent over 30K at the naturopath alone in the last year.  Crazy huh! I had a glimmer of hope that my state insurance would cover the supplements and IV's but alas, I had a feeling it was too good to be true.  Things have worked out since then though and for the moment it is no longer an issue....why you ask, well let me tell you what you need to know.

It took a lot of humble pie to do it but I did the absolutely unthinkable...
I asked for help.

There you go, plain and simple.  It was different.  I like to be the one helping others, not the other way around.  If I have it, I share it.  That is what I like to do, but you guys and gals, WOW!

I was sitting around late one night this week not being able to sleep from a treatment, looking on Amazon to order my supplements and realized "wait, I'd better check my account first to make sure there is enough money to cover this"  then I got all depressed, not wanting to even look at my dwindling account for fear that it would say "0" or worse yet, "overdraft"  lame.....so I decided to put my order on the "wish list" so in my late night stupor I would not accidentally click the "purchase" button.  I then decided to try to get some sleep (on the couch, my usual spot lately) and sleep I did.  I woke up and looked at the Amazon wish list again reluctantly but knowing that I needed to order my vitamins regardless of if it drained my account or not.  It was then that I saw the little "share this on fb" icon and so I clicked it.  The rest is history, I seriously could not post the supplements on my list fast enough, you all were so eager to help! I cannot even begin to tell you all how incredibly moving this was to me! You all are so incredibly selfless and awesome! Talk about help! Thanks to all of you who so generously purchased my supplements for me this month!  It was such a complete lifesaver! It came at the perfect time as well.  Lately I have been feeling pretty down in the dumps.  I have been really feeling the effects of having stage IV inoperable, incurable, your screwed cancer on just about every aspect of my life lately including everyone and everything around me.  I stepped on my cat the other day, TWICE in the same few seconds.  Really crushed her too, God I wanted to puke! I felt so bad, she was so hurt and mad at me and growled at me and hissed then went and hid in a dark corner of the basement.  Horrible! She even limped a little the next day! All because of my mushy chemo brain, ears, eyes I didn't even see her, nor was I looking because I was so focused on filling up pill box for the week instead.  Like another one of my blogger friends said "cancer affects everything/everyone around you...the plants animals and people"  too true.  I can't even begin to express how many things have been pushed to the side (and often forgotten completely about) because of cancer.  But that is not THIS story, save that for another time when I feel like complaining :)

THIS story is about asking for help.  Swallowing our pride, our reservations, our "but I don't deserve it's".  YOU do deserve it!   Asking for help is one of the hardest things for us to do, we have to swallow that giant lump, take a chance, feel a little uncomfortable for a nano-second then allow it to happen.  Put it out there to the universe and see what comes back to you, but just make sure you are ready and willing to accept it, then accept it graciously and with love and thanks.  You do deserve it!

Once again, you have all "made my day/week/month!" You constantly continue to teach me that I deserve it too.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! You continually inspire me, keep me strong, and give me the strength to kick some cancer ass!