What a Weekend

Friday I was given the information that my CT scan showed no abdominal cancer, as I reported earlier, but it had to be verified my my regular oncologist.  Well, she did not make  me wait long and Saturday she emailed me that she concurred – All Clear!  I feel that the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.  Now I am no longer afraid to believe that the May 2011 PET scan was correct and that I am truly in remission.

What better way to celebrate than to  attend the Team in Training inspirational dinner, as a guest of my daughter Sarah, the night before the Alcatraz to SF Triathlon.  I met so many people of all ages and backgrounds, that have made a commitment to aid in finding a cure for Leukemia and Lymphoma by raising money from friends and family, including many of you, and asking their bodies to perform beyond what I can imagine.  It was reported that evening, the the Northern California organization raised and gave over $4,000,000 to the Stanford research program.  The researchers used this money to help discover a way to take cells from patients with these cancers and develop personal vaccines that could cure them – it brought tears to my eyes.  This discovery will help all cancer research and soon all cancer patients will be survivors.

5:00 am Sunday morning, my cousin Lois and I hopped out of bed and were soon on the road into San Francisco to find a place to park near the St Francis Yacht Club.  Sarah texted me about a great place in the Presidio and we had only a short walk to our destination – the Get Out area for the swim from Alcatraz, just west of the Yacht Club.  Sarah thought that it would take her 40 minutes at most to make this swim, so at the 45 minute mark I really began to worry. It turned out to be a difficult swim for even the Pros that were competing, so it took a little over an hour before we saw her finish- what a huge relief. We spent the rest of the morning cheering her on through the bike ride  and the run.  She was amazing and I am so very proud of her.

Back to Belvedere where the family spent the afternoon celebrating Sarah’s belated birthday.  Matthew and Karin arrived safely home from the Amazon on Saturday and were recovering and re-acquainting themselves with my nine month old grandkids, Thomas and Grace, so Matthew and I had a great and grateful conversation in loo of their presence.  Thank goodness Brian and  Melissa had a dinner party the night before and brought all of the great left overs, which made up our tasty  lunch.  This gave me the time to make Sarah’s birthday cake – lemon with lemon creamed cheese icing, but only after my cousin Lois went to the grocery store several times, after 9 pm Saturday night, to buy the ingredients that I forgot.  Because of this, I had to make the icing and frost the cake Sunday morning before we took off for the races.  The cake was not beautiful, but it tasted great.

Back up a bit.  Sarah called me on Friday evening and simply said “We can go to Mexico.”  We admitted to each other that neither of us had been able to discuss the possibility that I couldn’t.  She was going to Rancho La Puerta as a guest speaker for a week and invited me to go along many months ago.  It is the most beautiful serene place, so even if I don’t participate in a lot of the exercise classes, I can eat the organic vegetarian meals and feed my soul by just being there again.

After talking with  Sarah, I realized that I had not really thought a lot about the future for a long time.  It just would be too painful to have to come back to the very real possibility that there was not much of one for me.  But now I am going to start ………………………………….There seems to be enough of a future to do just that.

The Gift of Time continues

I had my CT scan yesterday and I received my results today. I have been more worried than I thought these last few weeks.  What if the PET scan was wrong  and the last CT scan was right?  What if this new hope and future is over?  What if the dream is interrupted by more chemo.  Do I have the strength and heart to go through another 6 rounds?

Well, my abdomen is still clear and requires no treatment at this time.  Glory Hallelujah. There are 3 small spots on my lungs  that need to be watched, but I have had at least 3 bouts of pneumonia this last year and the spots are probably scars.

Dr Muirhead, my oncologist, was sick today and another oncologist read me the report from the radiologist, so that I would not have to wait until next week to know the results.  He could not really comment, because he did not know me or my case.  She will have to read the scan when she comes back and make her own determination of my medical future, but I am not worried.

Thank you all for your support and love.  Just look what they have done.  Who said there aren’t miracles……………

A Lot Going On

I feel so much better in the last few weeks.  My energy level is pretty normal and more importantly I have some stamina.

Sarah has just started a new job that she loves and is moving into a new place this weekend.  She is training hard for the SF Triathlon, which includes a swim from Alcatraz Island to Marina Green, SF.  We are both scared and I will be very happy to welcome her back to dry land.  She entered as a Team in Training member, an organization that she has supported for years.  They do research into blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma.  Even though I do not have a blood cancer, she has chosen me as her honoree.  There are some perks to having cancer.

Matthew and Karin are leaving for Brazil in 2 weeks, a Google thing for her, and the twins have been parceled out to family members.  Our babysitting schedule is more complicated than their itinerary.  There are two of us scheduled to care for them at all times.  All 10 of us are looking forward to the challenge.  Tomorrow, Matthew and Karin celebrate their 5th wedding anniversary.  Can’t believe it has been that long.

Melissa and Brian are having a family BBQ this Saturday and Brian’s sister and family will be here from Tucson.  It will be fun to see everybody.  I hope that Kathy, Brad and boys will be there.  I am sure they are happy to be getting their guest cottage back.

What a pleasure to write about the normal goings on of my family!  Life almost seems tranquil and forever……….

Oh, I forgot.  I am having lunch with my anesthesia buddies this Saturday too.  What a great group – I love them all

The Doldrums

Most of the excitement and energy generated by my new found disease is gone and the long hard journey of accepting and living with cancer is here.  Only I can figure this one out.  I am not freaked by every little pain, wondering if it is the cancer coming back – I am glad about that.  I am trying to balance the 1 to 2 year life expectancy that my oncologist gave me with the firm belief that I will live many more years than that.  I feel that I have to keep some kind of shield around me in case the first is true, but that eats into the hope of the second.   Manifesting my destiny is not as easy as it sounds, so I am ignoring both possibilities, afraid to believe either.

My sister Claudia is here for a two week visit and that is food for my soul.  We have very little planned, doing what we feel like minute by minute.  Long talks, short walks, lots of good food and way to many bad movies.  Perfect…………

One more month until my next CAT scan.  My life will be measured by these 3 month periods  from now on.  I will not have to wonder how I am doing longer than that.  How lucky I am that the scans are available to me.

Have to go – need to start the BBQ for our rib eye steaks and the water for the artichokes.  Life is good……………………

Patience is not my strong point………..

Most of my more severe complications of chemo came on rather suddenly and I expected them to go suddenly.  Well, that is not the way it works.  My tear ducts  (4) were constricting and I had to have stents placed under general anesthesia.  Everything went well and now I hardly notice them, which is good because they have to be in place for 3 to 6 months.  The paresthesias in my feet are still annoying, but are receding.  My taste buds are back to normal – yeah – so I am once again enjoying my food.  My biggest problem now is the weakness and tightness of virtually every muscle in my body.  This is not resolving and it is using up a large portion of my energy to accommodate.  I want to start exercising, but can only walk a block or two before becoming exhausted.

Enough of that – So what AM I doing? I will be celebrating Father’s day with a large part of my family and looking forward to seeing them, but  especially the newest father, Matthew my son and Grace and Thomas, now 8 months old.  He is a great father – with a lot of help from mommy Karin – and I am very proud of both of them.  I am so thankful that I made it through last December, so that I can see the babies smile at me.

I am back in my studio designing and making pieces for the Kate Collection, my new more affordable jewelry collection.  It is really fun making pieces bigger, using all sorts of materials and not having to worry about the Karat count.  Paparazzi, a high end boutique in Tiburon, is carrying pieces from this Collection and they are selling very well.  I have to photograph these pieces and get them up on the web, either on their own site or on KatharineWhittaker.com.  I have sadly neglected my fine jewelry site and want to bring it up to date also. It is wonderful to feel creative again!

One month down and two to go until the next CT scan…………..Tummy, what’s happening in there?

I didn’t expect this……..

I have been on an emotional roller coaster these last couple of weeks.  First, waiting for the results of the CAT scan.  When they came they sounded very good, but my doctors wanted another PET scan just to check.  A week later,  before the PET scan, I was told that  I most probably still had active disease in my bladder and lower colon and two more rounds of chemo had already been scheduled for me.  Well, the last two chemo treatments knocked me flat and after seeing me, my doctor cancelled them.  She didn’t think my body could take it.

I didn’t want to write a post until I received the results of the PET scan.   A PET scan is a radio isotope scan that shows any areas of cancer in your body.  My first one was done before chemotherapy was started.  It showed my abdomen full of cancer.  On May 19th the PET scan was done.  We expected to hear the results on the following Monday, but Dr Muirhead, my oncologist, called me on Friday afternoon with the results.  I was really afraid of what she was going to say, so when she said there is no evidence of any cancer in my body,  I couldn’t process  what she was saying – I was dumbfounded. She said that I was in remission and she would see me in 3 months after a follow-up CT scan was done.

As I told you before, my family and I are treating the time after my near death in December as a gift.  Time is the most precious thing to all of us and this incredible  news possibly gives us more time together.  My doctor cautioned me that this was not a cure; that the nature of this cancer is to respond well to chemo, but it always comes back – the question is when and what treatment options are still available at that time.  There are patients whose disease is back in six months and others that are still cancer free after five years.  We all believe that I will be around for quite a while.  The general consensus is that I am too stubborn to die, but the truth is, we all believe that this is a miracle.  That there is a higher power, whom I call God, that is watching over us and has granted us this wonderful gift of time.

Tess her place in the studio

Beautiful Belvedere

Beautiful Belvedere