A Rare coincidence??

OK, so this week I have been contemplating the events that are to unfold next week. New MRI, and evaluation of all that fun brain radiation and the new medications I am on. Well, I am not bumming out about it, but I am a bit nervous, and nervous in general about being shoved back in the MRI machine. It truly makes you empathize with the struggles that burrito stuffing must suffer. I did get the Dr. To order some medicine so that I wont be feeling so much of the pain and anxiety that I got last time.

So now to the rare coincidence.... I have an uncle in seattle who had a bout with melanoma about 10 years ago. It was removed and he was in full remission. The same week I was diagnosed with brain mets, so was he. He started new treatments, although different treatments due to the type of brain tumor he had. The dr.s were saying that his treatment was going fine. Yesterday he woke up, my aunt heard him make a weird noise and went int other room to see him, and he had died. Just like that. He was not having symptoms that I know of. I know that his case has nothing to do with mine, and we are not even related by blood, however, it just seems to hit a little close to home today.

I guess in all actuality it should be a reminder for me to take each day, minute, prayer as if it may be my last. We have to take the most out of our time, Allah has already written how much time we have left, and there is nothing we can do to change that. I am at complete peace with that.....

The patience of JOB vs. The patience of "the job at hand."

I spent the past few days in reflection, on whether I am a patient person or not. Some have ascribed it to me, but I think that patience is of so many forms. I am one of those people that if i become bored, or there is no enemy, puzzle, dilemma, you name it, I have a very small reservoir of patience. I think that I always have been a problem solver at heart. I always try to even make my children and students focus on solutions and not problems. I think this is where the patience comes from. If you give me a problem, I convert into special mode. I can separate the feelings and the emotions from the actual situation taking place in order to provide a plan of action.

So all this in mind, I would like to say to all of my dear friends that I trully hope are praying for me and thinking of me: every thing that each one of you did for me in this past year meant so much, even if it was something that I did not know of. The meals, the visits(even from over the ocean), the innumerable help through prayer and sisterhood, it all added up to a year that I flew through with minimal discomfort.

I love you all, and you each know what you mean to me. I don't wish to be a martyr, a saint, or a hero, I just want to solve this problem and get back to solving all of yours too! Hehehe!

Feeling less human, but dealing with it, walhamdullilah....

So my last post had me positively trying to fight out of the funk I felt myself falling into. I was fighting my personal belief that I still really was sick, and I thought day to day things would just become more normal.I continued to complain to doctors every week about the growing discomfort and pain I was in, and finally one of my doctors took me seriously. (they were not being negligent, there were reasons to excuse every symptom I was having.) The doctor did like the way I was describing headache pain and dizziness, so she ran some neurological tests, and after thinking there was no problem, ordered an MRI just to rule out anything serious. One week ago, I got the news that they found some small brain tumors. It is all just guessing about how and when it spread , but I had the feeling that this was the news I would get, so I went to the Dr. Appointment alone, not to upset anyone else.

They have treatment for all this and they are treating it quite aggressively. The treatment is not fun or a day at the park, but at least there is a treatment. I am dealing with it, it just still feels like a bump in the road, even though it is happening to me, It feels like it is a movie I am watching. I will just continue to remind myself that I am way too lazy to get upset over this. And I will continue to visualize all the nutty things some people might do to despair in this situation so that I can laugh and not do them myself.

I will up my supplications for you all in this time of hardship, hoping Allah will give you all exactly what you need to be successful. I ask an extra dua or 2 from each of you durring this last part of Ramadan. I ask Allah to not let this hinder me from being a good person to others, a good muslim for myself, and a productive and competent mother and teacher.

Allah is the best of healers, and the best of judges.

Feeling more human....

As-salaam alaykum all. I decided to remove the blog because I was feeling like it was a constant pity party. Well, now that I am beginning to feel more like myself everyday, i figure I will give it another go. I realize I will still have a ton of Doctors appointments over the next 6 months or so, but just to feel a little more like my old self is a reason for celebration in my own opinion. Maybe I can focus on the things I am getting back to, like almost 24 hours without a pain pill, or the fact that I can wear shoes that I love and have been mourning while looking at my massively swollen feet for the past 8 or 9 months (my favorite doc martens and second favorite Mary Jane Birks.)

So for now I will focus on making a list of all the things that I am getting back to. I am sure everyone is with me in my fight back to normalcy.

Pearl of wisdom....

Do you have one of those friends who always says what you need to hear, even when it isn't what you want to hear? I do. I have one of those awesome friends who knows what I need to hear, and can read my mind to know when i need to hear it. MashaAllah, It is such a blessing to have someone in your life who calls, shows up, and does what you need when you need it, without question, complaint or want of reward. To you: you know who you are, Thank you (and your children) for always being here for me. I know I don't say it enough.

So the pearl of the day was- " Well, you can't finish something if you don't start it." I was told this as I was foot dragging before this last round of new radiation that was to begin today. Seven more radiation treatments like the one today, and radiation is over, bi'ithnillah. So this pearl of wisdom seems so obvious and simple, but in its simplicity, it hit me in such a deep way. Maybe it was the new sleeping pills, or the pain pills, or a combination of both, but I had a clear moment.

I ask Allah to surround us all with good friends, and as for my good friend, I ask Allah to give her all the best in this life and the hereafter.

Please fill out this list of drugs you are taking...

Well, anyone with an illness that involves long term treatment has heard this before. They have one pre-printed out for me. They have me add to it, or subtract from it every time i see any doctor. It is so flipping insane. Well, the main reason it is insane is no one seems to even look at it.

They never say, "oh I see you added this new med, why? What new symptoms are you having to need this?" I see so many doctors, and they all treat different side effects. WHY do they make me take the time to fill this out if no one is checking it.

So I have this bright idea. I think next time I go to the doctor I will add 2 new meds: the first will be a dime bag of weed per day and the second will be 2 hits of crack rock per week. Then I will know ford sure how many people look at these sheets. Now I must add that I have never and will never have marajuana or crack in my life. Just for all you out there with good suspicions.

With a little over a week left in this blasted radiation, I really am beginning to understand discomfort. I am happy to be at the end of the road with it, so that all my wounds can hopefully begin to heal up once its over. The light at the end of the cancer treatment tunnel is starting to shine a little bit brighter. I feel I might just make it out of here. Alhamdullilah for everything!

A Cancer Patients Best Friend....

So, I have been procrastinating posting for the past month or so, just trudging through this part of my treatment- Radiation. Its not as bad as I thought it would be, Alhamdullilah. It has some side effects, but nothing in comparison to chemo.

I have the key to sanity and well being for cancer patients-LAZINESS and PROCRASTINATION. When I was going through the pain of chemo, that terrible intense bone pain that some drugs cause, I would sit in my chair and what I would do is try to visualize myself rolling around on the floor pulling out my hair and screaming. Well, after a few minutes of this, it seemed quite asinine, and I repeated this every time the pain got too bad to handle. If i ever became sad, I would sit and visualize myself sobbing and seriously loosing it, until it seemed almost comical. Its alot easier for the lazy person to sit and imagine something instead of getting up and actually doing it. So laziness actually saved me alot of grief.

Lately, I feel at the end of my rope, like I am on the edge of the mental breakdown cliff and I am ready to take a dive. The visualization of the mental breakdown doesn't work so well. I tried to visualize myself in the straight jacket in the white padded room, bouncing around and banging into the walls. This didn't make me feel any better, go figure? So, I decided I would have to get a new method of getting through the latest depressed feelings.

What has seemed to work so far is to do the following: When I start to go nuts, I tell myself, not today, I will allow you to break down tomorrow. The next day I say the same thing. Who knew that being queen of procrastination would ever come in handy?

You know, I know there is light at the end of the tunnel, and at times I feel close to seeing that light, but other times I feel that this is lasting and will last forever. If I am not being treated for it in the future, I fear I will have the constant nagging fear that recurance is on the doorstep. But you know, instead of dwelling on this tonight, I think I will sleep and dwell on it tomorrow. Procrastination wins once more.

It's like I always say: Why should I bother to do today what I can easily put off till tomorrow?

Surgery over!

I will write more later, still feeling tired. My surgery was tuesday, and it went without surprise. The surprise came with the pathology report which said that there is no more cancer in my body- well all the tests were negative. The surgeon was in shock, so was i and all my family. I still have to finish radiation and 6 months of herceptin, but as of now the cancer has been killed, thanks to allah. Thank you all for your prayers and kind thoughts. I will be spending the next 2 weeks resting and trying not to do too much so that i can heal. I will go now to rest. I hope you all are happy out there- especially "superman." I miss you all and would be happy to have visitors, but dont expect tea and cookies. You will just get a smile, and maybe a bottle of water, haha.

Surgery tomorrow??

So, the day has finally come. I am still in somewhat of disbelief. It seems like i have been waiting for the day to come forever, and at the same time, i feel like the time flew by too fast. So i will be in the hospital a night or two according to the doctor, but for sure I will beg to stay as long as i can. Resting is much easier at the hospital if you have 2 small children at home. I cannot understand how someone can undergo this surgery and be ready to walk out of the hospital the next day.

I got through the chemotherapy treatments by telling myself over and over "it will be over soon." I tried to convince myself that once the treatments were over , i would begin to feel like myself again. This couldn't be the case when i think of it now. You can't take this tough medicine, which generally poisons you, for 6 months and expect all the side effects to vanish over night. The fatigue seems to be dissipating, but the other side effects seem to be growing, and new ones pop up each day.

I start the next chapter in denial. The title of the chapter is "After the surgery, things will return to normal." As I realize this is most likely not the case, It is what i need to hear right now. I will continue to tell myself this, as long as it works. Well, until i realize that i need a new chapter-" After radiation, things will return to normal." Ha! In all reality my friends, I really do believe that there is no such thing as normal, and we just do our best to cope with the changes to our ever-evolving lives. May Allah help us all (especially me) to cope to the best of our ability without whining or complaining.

15 down, 1 to go , and date set for surgery!

Ok, so only one more fun chemo treatment to go, then three weeks later I will have the surgery. Date is set for April 14th. You know, I really thought all decisions would be made today when i saw the surgeon. I thought for sure I would leave there with the peace of mind at least knowing what would be done and approximately when. Well, let's just say that things didn't exactly go that way.

Still, no final decisions have been made for the long run, everything remains a big maybe. Well things for the 14th of April are final, but more than that, no decisions, it all depends on pathology. One great thing that came out today was that as soon as the surgeon saw me, she said that my swollen arm was lymph edema, and that i need to start physical therapy to get it under control before surgery. I am hopeful now that this problem will be controlled soon.

They said the stay in the hospital for mastectomy patients is one night, or possibly two if you are really doing poorly. I really hope i can whine enough to get to stay two nights. I cant fathom going home after only one night in the hospital. With my two little kids here, I can imagine they will be jumping all over me and making me crazy. I think i would stay a week if they would let me.

Short post tonight, just wanted to keep all you inquisitive minds up to date.

14 down, 2 to go!

Yes, you read it right! 2 more treatments left, wal-hamdullilah. Two more treatments until surgery and then radiation. I will still have to go every 3 weeks for herceptin treatments until January. However, these treatments only take 30 minutes, and have no side effects. For now, I am looking forward to the days of hair, less pain, and more energy. This may be slightly too optimistic, it could be a good while before any of these things are back to normal for me. The way I look at it is this- it doesn't hurt to be optimistic at this point.

I have to make all the big decisions about surgery this week on Thursday, and for this i keep constantly asking Allah's guidance. I just need to realize that whatever I am doing, it will be the best for my chances of recovery and no recurrence, so whatever the bad that comes with it, I will just have to deal. Is it naive to believe that the doctors will tell me what my best options are?I am sure there are those out there who would advise me not to have treatment at all, or at least not to trust the doctors. I know there are even those out there who would advise others against chemotherapy. I do not belittle their concerns, I can say firsthand that chemo is not healthy. On the other hand, with an aggressive form of cancer, time is not abundant to explore options and to try things that are not proven to work.

Is it short sighted to believe in myself and those around me that no matter what is done, I will pull together with those close to me and just grin and bear it? I don't think so, and until someone wants to tell me otherwise, I will just keep grinning through my last treatments, and probably straight into the operating room. I have found, when you are happy and joking with nurses and doctors, you actually get remembered more, better treatment, and alot of extra kindness.

Hope to update you all after thursday's appointment with dates and recovery times of surgery....

In and out of the hospital again!

So.... well, after checking in with the nurse to tell her the antibiotics were not helping my swollen arm, she asked me to stop by their clinic. I did so, and they said it no longer looked like infection, they thought it was a blood clot, and they wanted to hospitalize me to watch me and do more tests. They were sure it was a blood clot just like they were sure it was an infection. After the tests they were sure it was not a blood clot, and then thought there must be a mass in my lungs, so they ordered more tests. Thankfully, there was no such lung mass. So now I have the docs puzzled. They can't figure out what happened, and they have no idea where the swelling is coming from- this also means they can't figure out how to fix it. It is rather painful, and looks similar to a latex glove blown up.

So back tomorrow for more chemo. And they blew so many veins in the hospital, that I have no idea where they will be able to do the chemo. If I were to play the if game, I would rewind and have them give me a port, so that my veins would still be slightly intact. 4 treatments to go, and then on to the next leg of the journey. I am happy to be home, asking all of you for your good thoughts and du'aa.

Long time no blog……..

Well, excuses, excuses, but we all know I am not the most consistent person on the planet. Couple that with nothing really positive to say, and you get my reason for not posting. I feel like a wet blanket to just complain, complain, complain. So, I decided to just write whatever comes out today, just to get back on it. So now I have finished 11/16 chemo treatments, only 5 to go. I did not start the countdown until now. You better believe that these last 5 treatments I will be counting down like it’s a shuttle launch! I ask Allah that I never have to have more chemotherapy for the rest of my life. I can understand how some people choose not to have it. In my case there is not one thing about it that is so pervasive, but the whole experience just wears you down until you feel like a shell of a person. This new chemo was supposed to be like chemo light, and in many ways it is. But the pain I experience a few days later is almost unfathomable. It is not constant, but it sure can rearrange my social calendar.

It feels easy at this point to notice all the things that this experience has robbed me of, and it is difficult to appreciate the things that this experience gives me. (Just to list a few: getting a message from one of my very first best friends, Laura, and getting to see pictures of her lovely daughter, knowing that people care enough to check on you, the weight and importance you learn to give to each second of the day.)

I will go in a few weeks to discuss surgery options and dates with the whole team of doctors. I feel very uptight about this, as this is will be major decisions and I will have to make them relatively quickly. I want to be ready to tell them what I want, but I don’t even know what I want. I keep asking for clarity of mind.1 thing that makes me more comfortable is that my doctors are so good, and they seem to want the best for me, and I trust them. Their opinions are important to me. I am afraid this could turn out to be a mistake. I don’t want to be one of those dolts that just does whatever the doctor says without understanding the whole process.

Well, hopefully I will have another entry soon, and I hope to hear from you all your regular words of encouragement. I ask you all to continue to pray for a cure for me and for the right decisions to be made regarding my treatment. Thank you all for your continued support.

Was-salaam alaykum

And the tooth is gone.....

Whoever knew that having a tooth pulled could be such an ordeal?? Well, after a month of tooth pain and several visits to the dentist, the tooth is finally gone, alhamdullilah. I remember loosing teeth as a child, and it was such a fun thing to pull out my own tooth. Well, today I was put to sleep just to yank a tooth. Seems to be a whole lot of overkill, if you ask me.

So now I feel almost ready to get back to school in a few days, after a couple of intense days of writing lesson plans and grading papers that is. I really can feel that so many people are making dua for me. So many things about this whole ordeal have been made so easy, and It helps to know so many people are in my corner.

The latest news from my tests that I had last week are as follows:
I had a new mammogram and ultrasound, and all the doctors and nurses said they have never seen progress like this after only a couple of months of chemotherapy. Two months ago, the cancer was in all my breast tissue, the skin and at least two lymph nodes under the arm. The breast tissue that showed cancer was 11cm across, and from the side view, the size of a baseball. (IBC is not like typical breast cancer in that it doesn't show a lump, all the breast tissue becomes infected.) So last week, I was shown a side by side mammogram (before and after) and now the size of the breast tissue that is involved is the size of a little green pea. There is also no longer any sign that the lymph nodes are involved.

This is great news, Alhamdullilah. I was really worried that they would come back and say there was no longer any sign of cancer. At first, it would seem that one would want to have no sign of cancer. However, knowing that no matter what they said, I would still have to continue with the same treatment, I would have been so deflated to know there was nothing to attack. Going through chemotherapy, it is much easier for me to pump myself up and know that the treatment is doing something.

So, on Wednesday, I start my weekly chemo and herceptin. 12 weeks. I realize that I still have a long road ahead, but now I am putting my focus on just getting through the next 12 weeks. I ask you all to continue to keep me strong with your dua...

My new resolution-

I realize that it has been quite a while since I have posted anything, so I have decided to force myself to sit down and throw out a few things that have been on my mind. While being on this break from school, I am realizing what a blessing it is to be working. Even though working takes every ounce of energy that I can muster, it leaves my mind with only a small amount of time to be idle and I and up getting much more done. So now with all this time, it is becoming quite hard to remain so upbeat.

The break is about over now, and I am preparing for both returning to school, as well as the weekly chemo schedule I will start next week. In getting ready for school starting back and after spending all of this time in self-reflection, I am making the commitment to myself to take more advantages of the blessings that Allah puts in front of me.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Make the most of five things before five others: life before death, health before sickness, free time before becoming busy, youth before old age, and wealth before poverty.”

I think if we all posted this hadith somewhere to prioritize the things we do daily, we would get so much more accomplished. In general, I think that we focus too much on what is wrong, and not enough on the potential and abilities we have. So then, by saying we are getting older, we feel sick, we have no time, or we do not have enough money, what we do is really enable ourselves not to be doers. In all truth, the people I know who do the most have excuses, but don't make them.

So I am making the intention to strive to be like these people who do not make excuses, and I will do what is in my power to take advantage of my life and the blessings in it.