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Jodie
I have now won the war of Chemo and, by good response, have
earned the opportunity to have mayhem surgically performed on my body.
I have always been known as a strong person and admired for it, but the truth is that I have not been able to go through this without looking for strength in places I didn't know existed.
This disease confines, confounds, degrades, steals, beats down, but mostly, it makes you define yourself. And fast.
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Update August 16, 2004
Well, God has done it. I was granted my miracle and have joined the 26% club. I had a complete response to chemo and am within two treatments of completing my year of Herceptin. I am currently NED and hope to remain so for a very long time.
My original message seemed pessimistic to me at one time, but in re-reading it, I see instead my resolve to keep on fighting through the anger. I just could not define it at that time.
Halfway through my chemo, I actually took a one week break to consider whether or not I wanted to continue treatment in light of my terrible original prognosis.
What I came up with was how much I owed it to my 12-year-old daughter to keep on fighting. I also owed it to myself when I considered how much I had already suffered. I knew right then that this was a 100% disease. You have to make a conscious choice to fight and you can't do it halfway...you have to be willing to use every available tool there is and face the battles squarely.
I know now that I could not accept my fate peacefully if I couldn't feel in my heart that I gave it my all. I have faced my own mortality, and, most importantly, I have faced my own life.
I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. No one knows how much time we are each allotted on this earth. Every human is only given one day at a time, and that it is best lived as if it were his or her last day on Earth.
I will never say cancer has been a gift, but I can say that I have been blessed with many gifts and insights throughout my journey. I eagerly look forward to each new day and know that I am a happy, contented woman, living to the max and being the best I can be.
I thank God that the bus didn't run over me before I could learn to value my life as much as I do now.
If I only have a few more years left, I can tell you already that they are worth more than the first 51.
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Update May 22, 2005
In four days I will be 52 years old and nearly 2 1/2 years from diagnosis. What a wild ride this has been. But, like everything under heaven, it sooner or later has to wind down.
I thank God for my wicked sense of humor. How else could I take this latest news? I don't have a lot of time to waste on tears or self-pity, but I admit, that I did spend a little time there.
I keep thinking that it must be a joke.
How can God let me be healed from the cancer (yep...still NED!).....but now let it all down with a diagnosis of Radiation Fibrosis in my lungs....and I have it BAD.
But I did fight the good fight, and I did get time I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Please God....let me do some good for someone before I go.
I so wanted to see my little girl through high school...so in your mercy? perhaps?
Otherwise...I guess I'm ready.
I'll be hanging out here in the meantime....
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