Stage IV

Well it finally happened.  Stage IV....cancer in the lung now.  Wasn't really surprised.  Haven't even cried.  Tom is so upset.  I am still numb.

Typos

CT typo?!  WTH?  How can I know what is or is not right on a CT scan report if they make typos?  I am so angry about this.  I know people make mistakes but this is the second time I've been told that something on a CT scan report I have is a typo.  Two different places!  How can we trust what these people say if typos are a "normal" part of their work?

Sorry, just needed to vent.  I have a call into the radiologists that read by scan and am waiting on their reasoning for a typo on something so important to me.

Anyone else had a typo that they found later wasn't an actual typo?  Sigh.

Waiting

Another CT scan....another wait.  This was the first time everyone I saw on the way to the scan asked why I was there.  Weird.
Waiting, waiting, waiting......

Loss

My 1st cousin killed himself a little over a week ago.  No note, no hints, no nothing.  He's just gone.  What causes someone to do this?  I am actually more sad that he didn't have another alternative than I am that he is dead.  Not that I am not saddened by his death, because I am.  But everyone dies.  Sooner or later....everyone dies.  No one gets out of this life alive.
But how awful to have no other alternative than to take your own life.  Did he consider how it would make his mother feel?  His father, his brother, his sisters?  Did they cross his mind?
I read one time that if you truly believe that tomorrow will be different than today....different good or different bad...but different then taking your own life is really not an option.  I believe this.
So the grey cloud continues to follow me.  As in the last post I can't seem to get out from under it.  Then something like this happens.
I also lost a friend recently.  Lost as in we are no longer friends.  Saddens me also but this too shall pass.  Life is about losses and how they are handled.  I never handle loss well.

Feeling so sad

I am feeling so sad lately and can't seem to climb out of this funk.  This is mostly about my husband's mother and her failing health and our friend's father who is dying too.  It's just so damn stressful watching my husband and a friend watch their parents die slowly.  I had to do the same with my father and it was so hard.  My husband broke down yesterday because his mother barely knows him and she even said yesterday, "I've had just about all of this I can take."  I told her it is OK if she wants to go.  I think my husband and his siblings should do the same.  Sometimes they just want to know that it is OK to pass on.
Anyway, sadness continues....no end in sight.  At least for the time being.

Politics and friends

I have a Facebook account.  I have enjoyed having it as I have reconnected with several people with whom I had lost touch.  It is interesting to see what people have become and to learn about their children and even grand-children.
Previous to the last Presidential election I never posted anything political OR even talked to folks about Politics because I do not like to argue and political discussions almost always end in arguments. But I started paying attention to what this current administration is doing to this country and I decided that I HAD to speak up.  So I started posting my ideas and the ideas of others with whom I agree and the friends started dropping like flies.  Not really friends then, right?  What about a sister?  Yep, lost a sister, too.  We weren't that close anymore though.
Well, now it appears that I have lost a true friend.  This makes me very sad.  Especially since I thought that we could have differing opinions and still be friends.
I am strong in my convictions now.  I will stand up for my country and my family and against ANYONE who tries to take away my rights afforded to me from the US Constitution.  And that would include anyone that I consider a friend.
I am not against anyone who feels the same strength in their convictions.  And if that keeps us from being friends then that is the way it must be.

Chemo kills.

Let me start out by saying that so many women are still alive today because they have done chemo for their breast cancer.  But let me also say that lost of people are dead today because of their chemo.  Chemo is bad fruit, man.  It kills bad cells but it also kills good ones.  My surgeon said its like trying to kill an ant with a hammer.  You may kill the ant but the wall will have lots of holes.  It took me at least a year to feel normal after chemo.
I hated chemo.  I can remember saying that if I ever got cancer I would NEVER do chemo.  Never say never.
Last night as hubby and I were lying in bed he said, "I'm worried about you."  I said, "I'm OK.  I have good days and bad days just like everyone else."  But he knows me and knows that even though I do not KNOW for sure that I have anything to worry about that I am still worried about the spot in my lung.  I have to say that I am mostly concerned about it because it wasn't there 3 months before.  And people say that it could be leftover from an illness but I haven't been sick.
Anyway, I digress.  He told me that I could talk to him and I told him that I know that.  But what I didn't tell him, at least not yet, is that IF the spot turns out being cancer my biggest worry is not that he will be sad about that but that he won't understand if I choose not to do chemo again.  Will he understand that?