I just realized a couple of days ago my hair is really starting to grow back. What I first noticed was my eyebrows. They're not pretty, but there's definitely hair there, so I'm excited. There's still not really enough hair to know for sure exactly what color or texture it's going to be, although it looks dark, so I'm assuming it'll just be brown like it was before. My big fear (other than that it wouldn't come back at all) was that it would come back in gray. I'm sure I'd get over it if it did, but the thought of gray hair kind of bothers me.

Anyway, so far radiation is going well. I got an extra day off because they were closed for the Memorial Day holiday. One week down, four to go. And they made my work schedule earlier so I don't have a huge gap between the time I have radiation and the time I have to be at work. That's really good. Gas prices would be enough to keep me from driving home and then back to work every day, and I can only spend so much time at the mall before I go completely nuts, so I wasn't sure what I was going to do if I had a bunch of free time in the middle of the day.

Well, that's really all that's going on right now.

I've done two days of radiation now. It's not bad. I'm tired, but I think it's an emotional thing as much as physical. They assured me I won't notice any effects for about two weeks, so I have to assume what I'm feeling is not really an actual effect of the radiation, and I think it makes sense to think of it as an emotional response to all of this. I spent so much time worrying about what would happen and getting worked up over it, just the fact that I'd actually done the first one was a relief in a way, even though I'm still worried about it.

I'm just ready for all of this to be over, although I know I'll still worry about a recurrence, and I'll probably be nervous before every test. I don't know how you could not be nervous, especially at first. I just really hope that everything has worked and the cancer isn't growing right now. I know the CA-125 numbers were going down while I was on chemo, which is good, but they're not checking them now, I guess until I'm done with radiation. It sucks that I wouldn't even know if it was growing, so I just have to trust that it's not. I'm not good at trusting what I can't see. I know the doctor said it's likely to come back at some point because it's aggressive, but I hope it waits a while. I don't think I could handle it if it came back immediately after I stopped treatment. I know I don't really get a choice, and that's how it works for some people, but it's definitely not what I'd choose.

I'm getting a little nervous about starting radiation tomorrow. I know there's no reason to be nervous, but I am anyway. Friday I went for final markings and they used a simulator machine, and the tech or whatever he was said that's about what the actual radiation will be like, just a big machine, it won't take but a few minutes. He also said that for the first couple of weeks or so, I shouldn't feel any difference. It will take that long for the radiation to build up enough to start to affect me. But by the end of it, they've already warned me I may be tired, and they've warned me about other side effects I may have, but said they shouldn't be too bad.

Yesterday was Helen's baby shower. It went well. We had about 12 people there. I'm glad because I always worry that no one will show up when I do parties like that. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I got several compliments on how well it went. She got lots of presents, and we got to see the nursery now that it's painted. It looks nice, although if it were me, I'd have put more color in it. She's opted for a very neutral color scheme, which is understandable since they don't know the gender, but I'd have still found something more colorful than shades of brown. But now that they've gotten a bunch of stuff that is colorful, toys and stuffed animals and everything, it will make a big difference. I can't wait until the baby gets here! I'm sure she's more ready than anyone else, though.

Little bit of a scare at work - I checked my email before I left the house, and found a message about a mandatory meeting (obviously, only for people who were in the office, which is good since I didn't even see it until the meeting was over). Once I saw it, all sorts of stuff kept going through my mind - the company's bankrupt, they're going out of business or closing the Dallas office. They're laying off a bunch of people. Everything bad that could possibly have happened, I thought of. It turns out, they let two people go, which is bad for them, but at least it wasn't me. But I was worried there for a while. I can't afford to lose my job. What would I do at this point if I didn't have insurance? And who would hire me while I'm still going through treatment? The feeling that I have no control over my life right now really sucks. It's bad enough that I can't really do anything about the cancer, except show up and let the doctors and nurses do what they do, but I can't even really do anything about stuff in the rest of my life. Whatever happens as far as work, I'm not going anywhere. Fortunately, I like my job, and I don't want to go anywhere else, but if something happened and I felt like it would be better for me to find something else, I still can't.

Anyway, enough with the whining already. Back to work.

Some days I feel like yelling at God or whoever it is who did this to me, who gave me cancer or let me get it, whichever way it works. It's not fair. I didn't do anything to deserve this. No one who gets cancer has done anything to deserve it. I just want my life back, my normal life, boring as it was. I don't want to wonder if the chemo really worked, if the radiation is going to help, what the side effects are going to be like. I definitely don't want to wonder if the cancer is going to come back or when or what that's going to be like, or if I'm going to be around to get to know my little niece or nephew as he or she gets older. I'm 31. I should be wondering if that cute guy at work is dating anyone, not wondering if I'll ever find anyone who's willing to date someone with cancer.

Mostly, I'm as positive about this as any person can be. I know that I'm very lucky in so many ways. I've got a great job where they've been so good about letting me take time off when I need to. I've got great insurance that's made it possible for me to not go into huge amounts of debt through all this. I've got family and friends who love me and are doing everything they can to help me through this, and I've got people I've never even met, who are just friends of friends of friends, who are praying for me. I've got a doctor who I trust and who takes the time to answer all my questions, even my really paranoid ones. However, none of this makes up for the fear and the anger. No one deserves to have to deal with this.

I apologize if I sound a bit whiny. I'm still trying to sort out how I feel about all this. It's kind of weird, for several months I didn't really feel much of anything most of the time, and when I did feel something, it was fear. I still feel fear, but I'm branching out some, into anger and occasional bouts of self pity. I think it's an improvement, maybe, although neither emotion is one I'd choose to have if I could find a way to avoid it.

Not a lot going on right now. I don't start radiation until May 21st, so right now I'm enjoying a couple of weeks of no dr's appts, no blood tests, no chemo, nothing until May 18, when I go for the final markings for my radiation. I had expected a quicker process, but apparently it takes a while for them to calculate how much radiation they're giving me and how they're aiming it and stuff.

I am busy getting ready for my sister's baby shower. She's due on July 22, and I'm doing a shower for her on May 19. She's going to have one really spoiled kid. First grandkid for both sets of grandparents, and of course as the kid's only aunt, I'm going to do my part to spoil it rotten. (They're not finding out the baby's sex, hence my use of "the kid" and "it" - it would be nice if we had a way to refer to an unborn baby of unknown gender that was a little more personal than "it.")

Anyway, I'm off to work in a little while, so I should go get ready, I guess.

About me

Just a little bit about myself and why I'm starting this blog. I'm 31 years old, and in November of 2006, right after Thanksgiving, I found out I have endometrial cancer, which is cancer in the lining of the uterus. It's stage III, I can't remember now if it was A or B. It was in both ovaries and outside the uterus, but it hadn't spread to the lymph nodes. I had a hysterectomy and six rounds of chemo (Taxol & Carboplatin) and will be starting radiation in a couple of weeks.

I'm not sure how I feel about sharing all of this, and may decide I'm just not willing to, but I thought I'd give it a try, because I've stumbled across blogs written by other cancer survivors and I know how much they've helped me, just in terms of seeing how other people are dealing with everything and knowing that I'm not the only one out there going through this. If I can help someone else, maybe this will be worth it.

Yesterday, I met a lady who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is going to be starting chemo soon. She had questions about everything, and she reminded me of me just a few months ago. I still have a lot of questions and fears, but I don't feel as anxious now, and I wish there was a way I could tell her and anyone else going through that part of it that you really do start to relax, and as weird as it sounds, a lot of the cancer treatment process becomes routine. One of the nurses at my oncologist's office told me that, back when they first told me I was going to have to do chemo, and I thought she was nuts -- how can having potentially toxic substances put in your blood stream on a regular basis ever be routine? But after the first couple of times, it was, and I'm sure the same will be true with the radiation when I start it. I know that no one probably believes that when they're told it the first time, but it's true. As human beings, we have the ability to cope with and even accept as normal things that we never would have imagined we'd have the strength to deal with. I'm sure every cancer survivor has learned this, and for people who have just been diagnosed and are so afraid of the possible side effects of treatment that they would rather not have any treatment, I would just say, you're stronger and more resilient than you think you are. I'm not saying it's easy to deal with this stuff, only that you can. You may not like it, but you don't have to like it for it to work.