Hi.
Thanks everyone for all your prayers and support. It means a lot to me. I'm sorry I sound so pessimistic and pathetic in recent posts. I just don't know what to do anymore.
There are moments when I feel like maybe prayer will work and a miracle will happen, but then something happens and I can't help but thinking that there can't be a god out there because what kind of god would let this happen to people if he had the power to stop it? I mean, I would like to think that if even a normal human, born prone to sin as we are, were given omnipotent powers, he/she would feel inclined to cure people of disease. I know if I had powers like that, the first thing I would do would be to conjure a cure for cancer. Wouldn't you? I know I am not explaining my thought process well, but this post would end up far too long if I tried to thoroughly explain what I mean. Hopefully you can understand what I'm getting at...
Dr. Pitot called today with the results of my MRI. There is a tumor on the left side of my spine, about level with my shoulders. This is what is causing all the pain in my left arm. There is another, smaller growth somewhere lower on my spine, but Pitot was a bit vague on its exact location. I am scheduled to meet with the radiation people tomorrow. We'll get another simulation and treatment schedule set up, probably for next week.
Which royally sucks. Radiation is rather inconvenient since you have to be there everyday. I'm contemplating asking my parents to get a hotel room for me downtown. Then I can just chill out there and walk to my treatments. In my spare time, I could walk to Barnes & Noble, go swimming, go to the library or the park, and so on. It's just an idea. Definitely not necessary since we live so close, but at least I'd get to go swimming everyday. Maybe I'll just do it for a couple days. Any excuse to go swimming.
Swimming is my favorite outdoor activity. It's the best form of exercise I can get. I don't swim laps or anything, but it's nice since I can easily move around and don't have to worry about stress on bones and such.
I know this is random, but if anyone has any spare time and enjoys sci-fi/fantasy books or is a teenager (or one at heart), I recommend you read the book Wizard's Dilemma by Diane Duane. It might not move you as much if you haven't read the other books in the series because you won't be as attached to the characters, but it is still a good read. It makes me cry every time I read it. A quick explanation of the plot: the main character, Nita, is a wizard who is desperately searching for a cure for cancer once her mother is diagnosed with a brain tumor. The Lone Power (the Devil, if you will) has bargained to cure Nita's mother, but is Nita willing to lose her wizarding powers, which allow her to save millions and slow the death of the universe, in exchange to save one person she loves?
Oh, I forgot to mention this before, but I am starting a new blog. It's not a blog to replace this one, rather it will probably add to this one. When I write for this blog, I try and watch what I say so that I don't offend anybody (unless I'm really upset and just have to say something). My new blog will be uncensored. I will write anything I please and not give a hoot about what people think, which is why I won't allow people to comment on my posts there. I will continue writing on this blog, as this one provides a place for me to update people on what I'm up to and my state of health. The link to my new blog is in the sidebar. There are no posts there yet, but expect some soon.
I think that's about it for now. I'm going to go see the new Harry Potter movie in about half an hour and need to go get ready.
I'll post more when I know more about what will be happening in the upcoming week.
Much love,
Cheryl
"Gethsemane"- Jesus Christ Superstar
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Monday, July 09, 2007
Time for another update.
I got back from Hawaii on the 17th of June. Right away, I had another chemo treatment. It was my first time having CPT-11 in my regimen. I guess the treatment went well. It was nice not having Oxaliplatin, so I wasn't cold sensitive. The side effects of the CPT-11 were tolerable; it made me nauseous, but in a different way than the Oxaliplatin, and it made me have hot flashes and night sweats, which wasn't all that pleasant. It took me longer to recover from this treatment than other treatments I had. We figured it was because I had such a long break from chemo that my body had to re-adapt to chemical bombardment.
My Australian friend, Veronika, came back from Hawaii with us, so I have been hanging out a lot with her. Some days we would just hung out at my house and others we were running around. We made a trip to Ikea last Friday so I could look at new bed frames and see if they carried pots suitable for orchids, which they didn't.
On the 4th of July, my family traveled with Veronika to Stewartville. We spent the day with my mom's side of the family. It was unbearably hot during the day, but luckily it cooled off in the evening so we could enjoy the parade and fireworks. Stewartville had an impressive firework display this year and Veronika got several interesting photos of different fireworks.
Veronika started flying home today, so last night I had friends over to say goodbye to her. We chilled in my basement (since it was storming outside) and watched The Blues Brothers. Hopefully I'll make it to Australia someday to visit her since it was so much fun having her around to hang out with.
Today I had appointments again, a blood draw and a visit with Dr. Pitot. I'd like to say everything came out all pleasantly, but it didn't really. I have to get an MRI to see if the pain that's been in my left arm is being caused by the spread of cancer into a nerve near my spine or is something as simple as a pinched nerve. My MRI is tomorrow and I think Pitot said he'd leave me a note when I came in again on Friday for another round of chemo.
I don't know why, but today I asked Pitot again what my lifespan is looking like. I knew it was going to ruin my day, but I did it anyways. I told him I wanted to see my boyfriend graduate in the spring from high school and Pitot said he wished the graduation was in the fall. It all reminded me how fast time is passing by and how my cancer is just tearing through it like it's nothing. I'm going to die soon, and I'm sad and scared.
I don't want to write anything more now. I don't have anything more to report anyways.
~Cheryl
If this stupid site would let me post a title, it would be:
"Farewell for a while, I'm going away..."
"10000 Miles"- Mary Chapin Carpenter
I got back from Hawaii on the 17th of June. Right away, I had another chemo treatment. It was my first time having CPT-11 in my regimen. I guess the treatment went well. It was nice not having Oxaliplatin, so I wasn't cold sensitive. The side effects of the CPT-11 were tolerable; it made me nauseous, but in a different way than the Oxaliplatin, and it made me have hot flashes and night sweats, which wasn't all that pleasant. It took me longer to recover from this treatment than other treatments I had. We figured it was because I had such a long break from chemo that my body had to re-adapt to chemical bombardment.
My Australian friend, Veronika, came back from Hawaii with us, so I have been hanging out a lot with her. Some days we would just hung out at my house and others we were running around. We made a trip to Ikea last Friday so I could look at new bed frames and see if they carried pots suitable for orchids, which they didn't.
On the 4th of July, my family traveled with Veronika to Stewartville. We spent the day with my mom's side of the family. It was unbearably hot during the day, but luckily it cooled off in the evening so we could enjoy the parade and fireworks. Stewartville had an impressive firework display this year and Veronika got several interesting photos of different fireworks.
Veronika started flying home today, so last night I had friends over to say goodbye to her. We chilled in my basement (since it was storming outside) and watched The Blues Brothers. Hopefully I'll make it to Australia someday to visit her since it was so much fun having her around to hang out with.
Today I had appointments again, a blood draw and a visit with Dr. Pitot. I'd like to say everything came out all pleasantly, but it didn't really. I have to get an MRI to see if the pain that's been in my left arm is being caused by the spread of cancer into a nerve near my spine or is something as simple as a pinched nerve. My MRI is tomorrow and I think Pitot said he'd leave me a note when I came in again on Friday for another round of chemo.
I don't know why, but today I asked Pitot again what my lifespan is looking like. I knew it was going to ruin my day, but I did it anyways. I told him I wanted to see my boyfriend graduate in the spring from high school and Pitot said he wished the graduation was in the fall. It all reminded me how fast time is passing by and how my cancer is just tearing through it like it's nothing. I'm going to die soon, and I'm sad and scared.
I don't want to write anything more now. I don't have anything more to report anyways.
~Cheryl
If this stupid site would let me post a title, it would be:
"Farewell for a while, I'm going away..."
"10000 Miles"- Mary Chapin Carpenter
Thursday, July 05, 2007
"Set your spirit free and sing along with me..."
I’m sorry this post is so late in coming. Life has been pretty busy (a post will soon be up regarding that) and I was having problems determining how to write this post so it didn’t turn out to be a mile long. But I think I have figured out a solution: I will write this post in a Question/Answer form. Lots of people have already asked me about my trip to Hawaii and have thus supplied with the questions I believe people are most interested in knowing the answers to. So here we go…
How was your trip?
Fantabulous! It was definitely the best vacation ever.
Where did you stay?
At the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on the Big Island. It’s a really, really nice place and we were lucky enough to get great rates on the rooms, thanks to my aunt. You can check out the hotel’s website here: Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. I didn’t get any pictures of the resort, but my boyfriend did. When he gets back from his mission trip, I’ll post a link to his pictures.
Who went with you to Hawaii?
My dad, mom, brother, boyfriend, and my best-est Australian friend, Veronika, met us there. =D
What was your favorite part about Hawaii?
Swimming everyday. I loved being able to walk out our hotel room and go down to a white sand beach with no crowds and just swim around for the afternoon. The hotel had a great pool too for the days when there were jellyfish at the beach. On the last day we rented snorkel gear and explored around the rocks at the beach. There were tons of fish there! It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. We got to swim with turtles and everything! There were even more fish there than when we went snuba-ing in Kona.
What’s snuba?
It’s like scuba diving, but instead of having an air tank on your back, it floats on a raft above you and you’re connected to it by a 25 ft. hose. It’s really fun, albeit it was scary at first. You have to stay calm and trust the equipment to give you air. The easiest thing to do is just to keep moving and then you don’t think about it much. I would definitely snuba again if I could. It’s an interesting experience and it’s a great chance to see things that live a little bit deeper in the ocean.
What else did you do in Hawaii?
Lots of stuff! A couple of days we drove to the rainy side of the island to browse through shops, visit a botanical garden, and lookout over a black sand beach.
Did you swim at a black sand beach?
Nope. You needed some serious four-wheel drive to get down there, so we spared our rental van and decided our white sand beach was just as good to swim at.
How was the botanical garden?
Awesome! I’ve never seen so many tropical plants. They had a whole section of garden for orchids; it was beautiful.
So what else did you do…?
One day we went on a helicopter ride around the island. We flew over the lava fields on the desert side, over the active volcano and spewing lava, then around to the other side of the island and over rainforests and valleys that were filled with waterfalls. The valleys were so beautiful; it was scenery that could make you cry with wonder (yeah, I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true).
Did the helicopter make you nauseous?
Nope. I took some of my anti-nauseous chemo meds beforehand and I was peachy keen through the whole ride. My mother was another story though…
Anything else of interest?
There was a day when Dad, Greg, and Ben went deep sea fishing; they didn’t catch much though and said if we ever went back they probably wouldn’t go out again, or at least not for as long. They caught a couple of fish called Ohno, by the way. We also went to the Volcano National Park and saw sulfur dioxide wafting out of the ground; there was a lava tunnel to walk through as well, which was neat. That same day we went to the park, we went to an orchid farm and purchased some plants. They’re very beautiful, though I do not have photos of them in bloom yet. My one plant, a Miltonia orchid (or pansy orchid), is not doing so well and I cannot figure out why. I think I’m going to have to cut the blooms off so it can focus on leaf growth since it’s losing so many leaves. I really hope it doesn’t die. Anyways, we also attended a luau. It was very entertaining and the food was great. (Pictures of the luau are also with my boyfriend since my camera didn’t have enough zoom power to get good shots of the dancers.)
I think that’s about it. Half the reason this post took so long to be put up was that I didn’t have a good place to load photos to. But now I found Google has a free photo album that easily uploads photos. So my Hawaii photo album can be found here: Hawaii 2007. I highly recommend you go through the album via the slideshow option, though if you just browse through the photos, you can see the general location of where each picture was taken.
Sorry again about the delay (which I just realized was about a month long). Enjoy the photos!
~Cheryl
"La Nova Alegria"- Cirque du Soleil's Delirium
How was your trip?
Fantabulous! It was definitely the best vacation ever.
Where did you stay?
At the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel on the Big Island. It’s a really, really nice place and we were lucky enough to get great rates on the rooms, thanks to my aunt. You can check out the hotel’s website here: Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. I didn’t get any pictures of the resort, but my boyfriend did. When he gets back from his mission trip, I’ll post a link to his pictures.
Who went with you to Hawaii?
My dad, mom, brother, boyfriend, and my best-est Australian friend, Veronika, met us there. =D
What was your favorite part about Hawaii?
Swimming everyday. I loved being able to walk out our hotel room and go down to a white sand beach with no crowds and just swim around for the afternoon. The hotel had a great pool too for the days when there were jellyfish at the beach. On the last day we rented snorkel gear and explored around the rocks at the beach. There were tons of fish there! It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. We got to swim with turtles and everything! There were even more fish there than when we went snuba-ing in Kona.
What’s snuba?
It’s like scuba diving, but instead of having an air tank on your back, it floats on a raft above you and you’re connected to it by a 25 ft. hose. It’s really fun, albeit it was scary at first. You have to stay calm and trust the equipment to give you air. The easiest thing to do is just to keep moving and then you don’t think about it much. I would definitely snuba again if I could. It’s an interesting experience and it’s a great chance to see things that live a little bit deeper in the ocean.
What else did you do in Hawaii?
Lots of stuff! A couple of days we drove to the rainy side of the island to browse through shops, visit a botanical garden, and lookout over a black sand beach.
Did you swim at a black sand beach?
Nope. You needed some serious four-wheel drive to get down there, so we spared our rental van and decided our white sand beach was just as good to swim at.
How was the botanical garden?
Awesome! I’ve never seen so many tropical plants. They had a whole section of garden for orchids; it was beautiful.
So what else did you do…?
One day we went on a helicopter ride around the island. We flew over the lava fields on the desert side, over the active volcano and spewing lava, then around to the other side of the island and over rainforests and valleys that were filled with waterfalls. The valleys were so beautiful; it was scenery that could make you cry with wonder (yeah, I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true).
Did the helicopter make you nauseous?
Nope. I took some of my anti-nauseous chemo meds beforehand and I was peachy keen through the whole ride. My mother was another story though…
Anything else of interest?
There was a day when Dad, Greg, and Ben went deep sea fishing; they didn’t catch much though and said if we ever went back they probably wouldn’t go out again, or at least not for as long. They caught a couple of fish called Ohno, by the way. We also went to the Volcano National Park and saw sulfur dioxide wafting out of the ground; there was a lava tunnel to walk through as well, which was neat. That same day we went to the park, we went to an orchid farm and purchased some plants. They’re very beautiful, though I do not have photos of them in bloom yet. My one plant, a Miltonia orchid (or pansy orchid), is not doing so well and I cannot figure out why. I think I’m going to have to cut the blooms off so it can focus on leaf growth since it’s losing so many leaves. I really hope it doesn’t die. Anyways, we also attended a luau. It was very entertaining and the food was great. (Pictures of the luau are also with my boyfriend since my camera didn’t have enough zoom power to get good shots of the dancers.)
I think that’s about it. Half the reason this post took so long to be put up was that I didn’t have a good place to load photos to. But now I found Google has a free photo album that easily uploads photos. So my Hawaii photo album can be found here: Hawaii 2007. I highly recommend you go through the album via the slideshow option, though if you just browse through the photos, you can see the general location of where each picture was taken.
Sorry again about the delay (which I just realized was about a month long). Enjoy the photos!
~Cheryl
"La Nova Alegria"- Cirque du Soleil's Delirium
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