One step forward and two steps back

It has been a crazy busy month and I can't believe that I will end treatment in 3 days.  The first 3 to 4 weeks went well.  I kept busy with exercising and doing chores around the house and I'm getting Lauren ready for her baptism.  Last week I started to have trouble sleeping again and I was so exhausted I went to talk to Dr. White about it.  She said that science has no idea why but by the end of radiation cancer patients have no energy reserves left.  She gave me some pills to help me sleep.  They have been a lifesaver  but I started to have these awful headaches that would not go away.  Dr. White decided to order an MRI.  I was feeling pretty confident that things would turn out OK.  Call me the forever optimist!  I guess that is a good quality for a cancer patient.

We had plans for my last day of radiation.  I was going to go with some friends to lunch.  I bought some "Imagine a world without breast cancer" wrist bands off of Amazon.  And I was really hoping that when I walked out of the Radiation Oncology doors, I would never walk back into them.   

So tomorrow is supposed to be a happy day and it just isn't going to turn out that way.  I saw Dr. White  after my treatment and she pulled up her computer and said "I have some findings to show you."  I've been a cancer patient too long to know that you do not want to hear those words from your doctor.  To make a long story short the cancer has metastasised to my brain and I have a mass the size of my eyeball on the right front of

my brain. Dr white set up a meeting with a neuro surgeon ASAP so we left the breast center and went straight to the James. It was scary to walk into that building and up to the neurosurgery floor Doctor McGregor said that I have a very common brain tumor and a very simple surgery is required to remove it. However it is very uncommon for cancer to matisise to the brain and they are about 90 percent sure this will be the same kind of cancer pathology of my breast cancer. To summarise my feelings, Joe and I are in complete shock. I was certain I was putting cancer behind me on Wednesday and this is just another chapter to my story. I feel very nervous about how we are going to make it through this next month or. I realize that we have many superhero friends and family around to take care of my kids and feed us when ever we need them. When I came home from my doctor appointments yesterday our lawn was freshly mowed and we has many new flowers planted in our yard. It felt so good to know others were thinking of us. I picked a surgery date. It will be October 15. People keep asking me how I am feeling. I am in complete shock I swear that the first diagnosis was easier I still had faith that everything is going to be OK now I'm just not sure.

I'm exhausted and each morning when I wake up I tell myself that this is all a bad dream and I realize that it is not a dream at all. I was dealt a bad hand of cards and someday my luck may change or maybe it won't and I will just have to deal with that as it comes. My head hurt so bad last night and I could hear Jacob crying for me because he wanted me to tuck him in. It took all of my strength to get out of my bed and walk into his bed to say goodnight.

Tomorrow I will have a full body scan to see if the cancer is found anywhere else in my body. Dr white says it is highly unlikely but that is what she said about the brain rumor. This is not my year for good luck. I thought it was for awhile but now I see how fragile life is and I'm so glad I put Jacob to bed last night just so the two of us can have that memory and nothing can take that away.