Everything hurts, and I'm dying...literally!

Certainly not a treat, so is this a trick? I wish it were so simple! Despite my bone scan indicating the cancer was stable, my MRI shows a new loonie sized tumor at L2 (the lumbar spine, roughly where your ribs end). Now, for the 5th time in my life, I am preparing for a week of radiation treatments. This time I have to travel to Sudbury, 3 hours from my home, and stay Sunday through Friday. Six days I will be away from my family, and while it will be nice to sleep through the night (fingers crossed my insomnia allows me that luxury), and care for just me, I am going to miss them terribly. This new tumor in my spine comes just a couple months after treating the tumor that grew in my eye. Developing new tumors while on treatment is never a good sign and the nurse in me can't help but feel like this is the beginning of the end. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess, it is after all a year and a half into a 3 year diagnosis. But when I think about how quickly this past year and a ha...

I realized today just how much of my life now revolves around sitting and waiting, for a test, for chemo, for a consult, for surgery, for follow-up. So much of the past year and a half since I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer has involved sitting and waiting, and wishing. Wishing this wasn't happening to my sweet little family, wishing our "vacation" was under better circumstances, wishing that 2 minute appointment had been done over the phone.  All this wasted time is ironic considering I've been given 3-5 years to live, my time is precious! And yet I sit and wait, and wish, on a monthly basis (every 3 weeks at least). Perhaps even more so since I live in rural northern Ontario. Today, for example, I had an MRI for which I had to travel an hour and a half away from my home. They tell you to show up 20 minutes early, but as usual they ran almost an hour late. The test took an hour and then I had the hour and a half drive back home. I cut it close too ,...

...and realize; I'm not as gracious as I wish I were. I'd like to be one of those people who sees the silver lining in everything, who is given a terminal cancer diagnosis and just chooses to live everyday to the fullest, carpé diem. When I was first diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in my bones, and given only 3-5 years to live, I suffered A LOT of insomnia (and not just because I had a new born) and I remember searching to find someone in a similar situation. One night I stumbled upon a story about a women with children who talked about how her impending death made her a more present mom and how a year on she lives for her kids and makes the most of it. That's great, and around my kids I keep it together (usually) but can I just be honest for a second here, with you? Knowing I'm going to die and leave behind two very young kids f#@*!%* sucks! And bone cancer hurts, everywhere, all the time. And sometimes I really just want to sit and cry about the sh*t luck I ...