Tried But(t) Failed!

Last Friday I went to the doctor, because I felt it had been far too long since someone inspect my bottom while trying to make casual conversation with me. Actually, I was having bouts of pain returning. I was informed that a fistula and abscess can return once you've had them while you are going through chemo. Imagine my delight. No, really. Imagine. Gah! The Lord blessed me greatly! No sign of a new abscess! The pain I've been feeling is the original wound - it's not healed completely. In fact, the stitches aren't even dissolved. But no sign of infection!

The sporadic rear pain became, once again, a pain in my butt (so to speak.) Because my wound wasn't healed yet, they could not give me my drug trial med AGAIN. Part of the condition when you join the drug trial is that you will not go longer than a certain amount of time without taking the medicine. Because of my butt surgery, I had already missed two doses of the med (my drug trial med has a side effect of not letting wounds heal - therefore I couldn't take it at all until my bottom was all nice and healthy again.) Friday was my last chance to take the med or be kicked out of the program. I just wasn't healed enough, so Dr Young booted me out of the trial with her snake skinned, slingback, pointed toed, stilettos.

This trial was very important to me, as you will remember. For every other kind of breast cancer there is a drug that can be taken to block the hormone that feeds the cancer. Doctors still have no idea why I got breast cancer, because none of the three hormones feed it. There was hope that my trial med would be the drug that would prevent a return. The percentages for my cancer to return elsewhere in my body are far too high for me to think about most days. Now I'm out of the trial. Now I try not to live in fear. Now I turn this over to God completely or go insane. Insane-er? More insane-er?

This Friday is my next chemo treatment. The dread in my body is overwhelming, to say the least. Three treatments done, three to go. I close my eyes, hold my breath, say a prayer and trudge forward. No more lying down and digging my fingernails into the road while I'm being dragged along. I hate chemo, but I love my life.