The Juggling Act to Attend One Birthday Party..

I wake up to clean up the mess from the 4th of July... Grant my oldest son has Birthday Party to attend today at 11am. It is important that he go. He does not get invited to many since he does not many friends. He has Autism and he only has eight students in his class leaving the opportunity for invites few and far between. In order for this to happen, I must attend this party with him. I arrange for Helena to go to her Grandmother's for the day and I "farm out" Everett to my sister for the day. The preparation of packing activity bags for Helena, a DVR, lunch box, printing off directions and all of chaos that preceded leaving our home that morning made me feel like I was going into a battle field instead of child's birthday party.

We arrived at the party and Grant was having a great time and was so happy to be among his classmates. He had not seen many of them in nearly a month and it was evident that he had been missed. About a good thirty minutes into the party two of Grant's friends approached me while eating cake and asked me... "why didn't Grant come to Josh's birthday party?"... I could only respond... "Oh, he was with his dad that weekend... his dad lives very far away... " I could see the look of frustration in these two boys faces.. I quickly stated.. "but .. if it were up to Grant.... he would have come"..... the two boys looked at each other and seemed resolved. The second of the two boys.. stated.. "My, party was on a Sunday.. I was hoping Grant would have been able to come to my party because it was on a Sunday..." I stated that we did in fact get her son's birthday invitation too.. but that her son's party was on the 4th Sunday of the month. I sat there realizing that I am getting ambushed by Grant's classmates for not getting Grant to the Birthday Parties and I am explaining MY custodial visitation arrangements with two ten year olds! Of course none of this was done in front of Grant and what was more disrupting was that they might actually attribute Grant's non-attendance to their birthday parties as dislike towards them. These are the unfair realities of divorce that are so difficult for me to deal with and watch my kids have to burden.

Driving on the Freeway of Life...

I was driving down the 101 Freeway today thinking ... "I wonder what I will do when the kids get older and are no longer minors and I won't be able to collect the $___ I collect per child I get from disability per month."..... Then... It dawns on me!!!!! I might not be HERE... It is these types of diaglouges I have in my head that scare me and make me face my fears about mortality.

I would love to think that I will be around till all of my kids reach the age of eighteen but that might not be a reality. Sometimes my ignorance shocks even me... :) I see this as a good thing. I remain hopeful, full of life and with an outlook that I will continue to be around long into the future; although the reality of the situation nearly made me run my mini van off the freeway.

More Acceptance...

Forgive me as I stumble my way through some of these posts... I never thought I would be writing about such things or being so public about the position that I economic status that my children and I have no found ourselves to be placed in due to our current circumstances. I was an antorney's wife.. with a lifestyle supported by an income which allowed us to dine out when we wanted, vacation at the Four Seasons, shop at Nordstrom, and live very comfortably. Now I am in the position, where I have to choose which bill gets paid based on which one might get turned off. The children where clothes that are given to them from others which were lovingly worn by others. I find myself buying new shoe laces for my daughter's shoes and bleaching her scuffed up tennis shoes in the hope of getting another month use out of them because I can't afford to buy her another pair. Applying for food stamps, medical, low income utility programs have become my new part-time administrative job (due to the amount of paperwork involved).

The reason I bring this up is that I never thought I would be in this position and I always thought I would be in position to help myself. I guess I am in a position to help myself.. I just thought I would be in a position where my health had not failed me and I would able to work a full-time job but that is not my reality nor will it be so I have to accept it and all that comes with it.

Yesterday I had yet another chemo treatment... another attempt at Herceptin

In order to prepare my body for this drug I have to take lots of steroids... 20 mgs at 10:00pm and another 20mgs at 4:00a.m the morning of my treatment... that is the problem... I am up at 4:00a.m.... I have to eat something to take the steroids. So now I am up eating chocolate chip cookies and milk at 4am as my mind races, and I start to have anxiety over the fact that I have to do this every three weeks for the rest of my life! These Herceptin treatments are supposed to try to prolong my life. The whole this is sort of daunting.... So I shuffled my kids off to several different willing friends and family members who were willing to help out till I came home from my four hour IV treatment. I usually need a good two hour nap after my treatment so my day is sort of lost from the treatment and my kids have told their caregivers that "mommy, had to get her "yucky" medicine today"... but once I wake up from nap the steroids are still in my system and I'm awake until 3am that night... and I'm awake again until all of the steroids that are used to prepare my body for the chemo drugs leave my system. It is all in a days work as a cancer patient. The toughest work I had that day of chemo was the conversation I had with my oncologist. It has taken me several months to gain the courage to ask him this question..... I frankly asked him... "so...how long do I really have .. ? I know it is in my lungs,.. I know it is in my spine.. I know you can't cure me... I get that.. " ... "so my question is WHEN?" Without missing a beat... he responded by saying... "you have four years.. three months.. fifty-five days.. four hours.. and twenty-five seconds...."... to which I replied..."I get it.. You don't know".... His answer "NO... "... I then asked... Will I live to be 80?"... His answer with no hesitation .... "NO"... that stung!... and I was happy my mother was not in the exam room when he said it but I was glad I was brave enough to accept it although the reality of it nearly brought me to tears.

Today I went to chruch to be uplifted and the topic was the after life... and finding your eternal partner... What is with that?

I am trying to grabble with the thought that I may not find a mate for time and all eternity because I might not have enough time on this earth to find one!!! Besides it isn't exactly the highest of my priorities at the moment! Chemo, eating right, loving my kids, getting the divorce papers finalized from signed and in proper order from idiot are my priories!

My best friend and I giggled during the lesson as we considered all of the irony of this and realized the fact that if I actually do find a new "husband" for lack of a better word, it will be an "up-grade" at this point from what I am currently having to deal with in terms of support. All in all in was no the emotional spiritual experience I was hoping for by going to church but still gave me hope and food for thought and if anything direction. I must still persevere for the sake of my kids who by the way i must pick up in an hour!

Tomorrow I have yet another chemo treatment. I am in a mad scramble to make arrangements for people to take responsibility for my kids while I am hooked up to an IV for nearly five hours. The coordination of the children sometimes is more stressful than the treatment itself.

"He Now Knows...." I am now free to write...

"He".. Meaning "idiot".. I refer to idiot as my "ex" or my soon-to-be-ex.

What does he know?... That my breast cancer has come back in my spine and my lungs. I now have Stage 4 cancer. I am a single mother to three children, ages, 9 1/2 , 5 1/2, and 3 yrs. I am struggling with the fact daily with the fact that I now have an illness that is not curable. It is my hope that I live to see my kids grow up. Today Farrah lost her fight with cancer, it frightens me that the same might happen to me someday. Until then.. I will continue to fight and live.

I have lived in fear for the past six weeks, concerned that if idiot found out he would try to sue for full custody of the kids in an attempt to lower his child support(relocating to where he now lives an hour away) and secondly... he would a take it upon himself to tell the kids. Well, so far he did tell so far he acted out one of my fears..so I guess after 13 years of marriage I know him fairly well. He told the kids.

I reassured them that all this means for now is that I need lots of x-rays. I did tell them there would be days when the medicine would make me tired but for now, my hair would not be falling out... and if it should I would tell them before it does. They were okay with this since they have seen me loose all of my hair before. The day after I explained this, I took them to California Adventure.. so I doubt they considered me very sick.

So from this point forward, I write.. my fears, my joys, my laughs, my tears, my pain, my loss, etc , etc, etc... Join me on my journey living life having cancer with a side of kids!