February 19

It's been a long time between posts - my tag line should read 'sometimes several months attack me at once'!  Sunday morning with my coffee, Skype-ing with friends  travelling in Arizona & checking in with others.  Another gloomy February day -- I am surely ready for the gray to be gone and trying hard to recall the hot weather of Palm Desert.

I've been deep undercover these last few weeks finding it near impossible to connect with the outside world.  Contrary to what many people think, I am really quite a reclusive person - not in an anti-social, withdrawn or lonely way or an unapproachable way (at least I hope not).  But I'm a homebody and I find the longer I live with cancer the less I can deal with certain things.  A friend asked me recently if I found living with cancer every day a burden.  It seemed to me that 'burden' is the perfect word for how I cope - it is a burden for me.  I would love to be one of those people who has bucket lists, who can live outside their bodies, who can see the 'gift' of cancer (that one is so beyond me).  I would love to want to hang out and go out and stay out past 6-7 pm.  I would love to be physically and mentally energized to meet each day.  Those are among the many the guilt trips I go on each day - that I should be all those things and more, that I should stop indulging myself in this lifestyle and get out there and do something.  Way too many should's.  And I do a number of things - they're just more solitary in nature.  The truth of the matter is after the past 6 1/2 years of metastatic cancer , and nearly 20 years from my first diagnosis, I'm bone weary.  Add to that mix  living with chronic depression for 40+ years.  There are days when I'm not sure what incapacitates me more.  Why I'm disclosing all this I'm not entirely sure - possibly because I've been saying no to so many people in my life lately and thought an explanation might be in order.  I'm thinking that my current anti-depressants are pooping out on me (my technical term!) and am changing over to one I haven't taken before.  That along with a little sunshine and longer days and I'm hoping against hope this combination will straighten me out and I will find my days less challenging and less overwhelming.

On the cancer front things are in limbo again.  Going off my chemo for a month didn't turn out to be such a good idea - huge jump in my tumour markers.  I'm now off the oral chemo and back on a hormone blocker - Exemestane - for awhile until we can figure out where the activity is.  Also off my monthly treatment for the bone mets.  Had a bone scan which looked stable and now awaiting results on a CT scan.  Depending on those results I may have to start IV chemo which I find pretty devastating.  Except of course if the Exemestane brings the markers down substantially.  For now I'll hurry up and wait until March 21st to see what the next installment of my life will bring.  

Even reading my fellow bloggers updates has been overwhelming for me lately and so today I'm going to try and catch up on one or two.  Then directly to my new favorite thing - my recliner! - to watch some more Upstairs Downstairs.  

So while this isn't the most uplifting post I've ever written it is an honest one.

Rest easy Shawna