Aftermath of my first treament after my parents moved

It has been almost 2 weeks since my parents moved.  They had lived less than 2 miles down the road the whole time I have been going through this cancer, but now are something like 1,500 miles away. 

It has been an adjustment.  Most of our day-to-day has not changed. But, when going to an evening youth meeting at church with my older child I had to bring all the children instead of having them with Mom or Dad.  They didn't like it.  When going to the parent athletic meeting I took all of them, they didn't like it.  The other day I drove past their old house on the way to work - the wrong cars were parked out front; a sad reminder that they are gone. 
I am forcing myself to not get upset or depressed without them. I still feel the same way I did when we talked about it months ago, they need to go and do what is right for them.  And for years they have wanted to get back to the Rocky Mountain region to be near the dozens of other Grandchildren.

One of the changes I anticipated would be part of their move was a loss of peace of mind.  Knowing they were so close just made things easy.  I never needed to, well maybe once, but I could call if I needed to take a kiddo to the hospital in the middle of the night.  I could call if one of us was sick and I couldn't get to the store for medicine or soda and crackers.  I know any of our friends would be happy to do these things, but it is easier to ask Mom and Dad to do this.  You don't think twice about interrupting family or having them pay for little necessities at the store.  Interrupting friends who have children in activities and responsibilities makes me feel guilty because I know they would say yes to my request even if it keeps them from other, more important, responsibilities.  Anyway, that easy peace of mind along with the steriods and drugs has left me sleepless this morning.  It is 4:49 am.  I have have been awake since 3:00 am and have to get up for school prep and work in two hours.  If I fall asleep again now I will feel so tired when I wake up.

I have been reading the account of my Aunt when my Uncle faced his final battle with skin cancer.  How very blessed I am that my stage IV cancer has not spread.  I have enjoyed years with this diagnosis and not had the soft tissue compromised.

My metastatic (mets, the development of the original cancer type in distant locations/organs) tumors have been isolated to my bones, other than small spots on my lungs that have been shrunk.  When the tumors are in the bones the challenge is finding drugs that will pass through membranes to the bone cells for treatment.  My hormone positive cancer has given me years of hormone blocking therapy which is often more effective in bones than chemo.  This success has kept cells from dividing and spreading through one of many systems in the body to my kidney, liver or brain and for the most part, my lungs.

Sadly for Nate, they found it in the brain and central nervous system within weeks of his Stage IV diagnosis.  He did not have breast cancer - so it was a different disease in all ways - except the ending "cancer". I have learned "cancer" is like the ending to words.  Like "ing", "ed", "ment".  It indicates a similarity in the state of an ailment, but everything else is different for each cancer.  Even breast cancer has many families of tumor types that are part of the cancers of the breast.

I am feeling like I should have done more for Nate and his family when he was fighting cancer. I should have offered encouragement and taken an active role in their journey.  I guess really, when it was happening, my life was in a precarious state.  I was finishing my last year of college, raising 2 young kiddies, I was 9 months pregnant and feeling terrible. 
The nurses on the delivery floor of the hospital thought I was a horrible woman who wanted to have my baby delivered at any cost to the child.  I was there because I knew something was wrong and needed to get out.  I didn't think it had to be the baby.  I just needed something made right.  What we didn't know was that my body was growing a large tumor almost as fast as it was growing a baby. 

I was also in a marriage that had many bad years in its history and was pretty rocky.  My now x-husband had decided to moved out before learning that I was pregnant and had moved back in when we found out the baby was coming.  It wasn't solid for sure.

Thinking back I wonder how I got through this time. But, maybe if I had done something more to understand and support Nate and his family... I don't know what.  I just know I loved him very much.  I felt a strong connection to him from a young age even though I didn't ever live near him. 

Nate had one of those personalities.  So happy, easy with a joke, and warm.  When he was first engaged and visiting our family he had called his sweetheart on the phone.  He asked if I wanted to talk to her, and of course I thought that sounded very grown-up.  I was probably younger than 10 years old.  We were talking and she needed to handle something because she was at work. She said, "can you hold on a minute?"  I heard "can you hang up a minute".  When we figured out what was going on I felt stupid, not grown-up. But Nate laughed and said something that made it seem funny, not dumb. 
Anytime he called Mom and I answered the phone I could easily recognize his voice.  My mom had 5 brother - so the significance of knowing one voice so well has more meaning.  He would chat with me - how did he make a little girl feel like she was the bonus conversation in this phone call?

Well, reading his story tonight I wish that he was here now.  I wish we could talk.  Have you ever missed someone who has died, even when you didn't know them very well in life? 

I want to talk about his experience.  I want to thank him for the chemo cocktail he took.  It included a drug that was later found to be significant in treating the tumors I had the first time I had cancer.  Because he allowed that chemo to ravage his system, and then others, like a friends I met through my brother, used it as an experimental drug on breast cancer, my cancer story changed. Without that drug I would have died already.  I feel like their use of the drug provided the learning doctors needed to save my life.  They tested that drug and then it became common protocol in cases like mine.  For me, it terminated a specific protein receptor in my tumor make-up.  It gave me almost 5 years cancer free, and a tumor type that we have had great success with since the cancer has returned.

To ease the minds of friends reading: We are still having great success.  I am still on the same protocol, with a dose-reduction because of neuropathy. (see a video about the treatment here.  It is super technical, and minutes 2-4 are the best.  Don't anticipate understanding the language, but the video is amazing!)  I have also added a treatment, neupogin between chemo rounds to keep my white blood cells up.  A few weeks ago we had a dip and some illness that followed, so now we are safeguarding.  The blood tests from today's treatment showed that treatment is a success.  I will be taking this treatment through injecting myself at home two days following treatment.  I took the first two shots at the doctors office, but it takes an hour away from work to drive over, wait, get the shot, and then pay for parking and get back to the office.  They are amazing at work about my treatment - never a concern or complaint - but I can't justify the time away when there is a reasonable solution.  My health is excellent considering the circumstances - meaning I can easily handle these shots and taking them at home is no big deal to me.  I have no phobia of needles.  I watched my x-husband take insulin for years, so it doesn't bother me at all to see or be part of self-administered injections.

I am so blessed.  I am so grateful to have this nearly normal life and to raise the most amazing children I could ever imagine.  The one thing in life that matters to me is being here for my kids.  I want them to have that comfort.  I think I am the best person to raise them and kids need their mom. I am more tired than other moms, we are not adventurous any more because I would rather be home than anywhere, but we have love.  Love is all we need, when it is the right love with the right people - and these babies are my peeps.