...Lace Up Your Gloves...

Yes, it seems I have become the one-stick wonder in the chemo suite these past few weeks. Thank god for small favors. It's a good thing, as the chemo nurses don't run in terror when I walk into the room these days. One more treatment behind me, and one more to go before the BREAK.

Twenty weeks. Twenty freakin' weeks of Taxotere.

All I have to say to that is "oy vey iz mir". Either that, or WTF? In capital letters, of course.

But, I'm here. And I'm thriving. Or at least, moving along at the speed of whatever is acceptable at the time. I know it will be a little while before I return to my true self again, but at least I'm on the path. Then again, maybe I've always been on the path and just got a little lost at a couple of bends in the road.

It was a rough week, or a least, a rough few days thrown in there over the past week. The treatments and the side effects have really beat up on me physically and emotionally at times. I probably said that already though. The upside of it all is that if it's doing this to the healthy parts, imagine what it's doing to the cancerous ones.

I guess it's back to Yoshimi...

Those evil-natured robots
they're programmed to destroy us
she's gotta be strong to fight them
so she's taking lots of vitamins

'Cause she knows that it'd be tragic
if those evil robots win
I know she can beat them

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots defeat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
but you won't let those robots eat me

We were walking this morning, and I forgot what I asked, but Greg said to me, "This is ridiculous, this cancer." It really is. It's simply ridiculous. It's absurd that I have to deal with it, it's absurd that he has to deal with it, and perhaps you had to be there to appreciate the comment in context, but it simply is ridiculous. It's hard to deal with, it's hard to watch, it's hard to comprehend at times.

What I need to remember, even in the times that I feel a little beat up, is what I will NOT let this damn disease take from me. I won't let it take love, or life, or hope. It may temporarily take my looks, and my body, but I'll get them back, and I'll be even better than before. I won't let it take my friends, or my family, or my dreams. I won't let it take my strength, at least my mental strength, and once I'm through these treatments, my physical strength will be even better than it was before. I think I'm determined to come back with a vengeance. And I can't ever let it take my courage.

In the words of Jimmy V:

Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.