So I went back to my sparkly new oncologist and told her the Femera didn’t fly.  Meaning that I lasted one week and it was so awful I had to stop.  And I said that was it and she said that was fine.  Quality of life and all that. But then she told me she had been thinking of me and she wanted to try something out of the box.

What?

Hmm…

SHe suggest that I try Faslodex.  It is another antihormonal but it is usually only used for people who are Stage IV.  It works in a different way than the others I had tried.

But there was one other thing.  It is not a pill.  It’s a monthly shot.

I don’t mind needles.  I haven’t cared about needles in years.  Needles shmeedles.  Bring ’em.

But I have had such bad luck with the pills that amonthly shot concerns me.  Because if a pill makes you feel horrid, you can stop taking it but with a shot, you are screwed for a month.

And then I did some quick research for info about Faslodex and there was a lot of talking of black and blue tushes.  Hip pain.  Swelling.  Not being able to sit down.

Ummm…

My doctor needed to get approval from my insurance which was honestly dubious since I amnot stage IV.  But we made and appointment for me to come back the next week for the first shot.

Then I went for a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was nice but really noisy.  Traffic is noisy!  And I thought and thought and thought about it.

Yep.  I walked the whole thing both ways, end to end. It was fun.  It’s a stock photo because I could not figure out how to upload my photo.  Blergh.

And I thought about Aromasin.  Aromasin.  I started taking it last June.  It was ok in the beginning but then it started to get rough after about a month.  Joint pain.  Dark thoughts. And then there was the price.  Ugh!

It was all good until our insurance changed and our deductible reset.  The price at the drugstore that starts with a W and ends with JERK was something like $425.  For one month. Yikes.  I stopped taking it in October.  I had some illness that made the aches even worse than what I had been living with and then after I recovered from the illness, I felt so much better that I stopped taking aromasin because I was tired of paying a ton of money to feel awful.

But you know, compared to a shot of Faslodex, Aromasin didn’t seem so bad.

So I decided to retry the Aromasin.  Why not?  And it’s been not so bad so far.  Better than Femara.  Beats a shot in the ass.  So far.

And I found I could get a 3 month supply through mail order pharmacy for $187.  So that’s good.

And the yucky pharmacy people(Rhymes with Mallgreens) I heard they recently got sued for overcharging patients.  Jerks.  They lost my business forever.  I won’t even buy a candybar from that place.

That is where things stand in my treatment.  I am currently being a good girl and taking my medicine.  I do not feel totally horrible.  Not even mildly horrible.  So far.

So far.

A woman in my support group died.  Last time I saw her, we were in the same boat.  Done with treatment, told we had no evidence of disease, trying to get on with our lives. Waiting for our hair to grow.  I  eventually stopped going to group. I heard from a friend she had a recurrence locally in her breast and gone through the torture of treatment again. And then I heard it had metastasized. And then I heard she died.

And it hurt to hear it.  Like a punch in the stomach.  I didn’t know her well.  We were acquaintances.  Two members of a club no one cares to be in.But I am sad for her and her family.  Really, I am sad for all of us.

From what I knew of her, she was nice and funny and gentle and kind.  She had a lot of hope.  She, like the rest of us, stared down a life threatening disease and went a couple of Saturdays a month to talk about it.

People say we are brave.  We who have faced cancer.  But is it bravery?  I don’t think so.  It’s just a need for self-preservation.  We endure treatment for whatever reason, our families, our children, or maybe just to see another sun rise and set.  And we sit in a chair and get pumped full of poisonous medicine in the hopes of having a few more days.  And it wasn’t a battle.  It wasn’t a fair fight.  I got my ass kicked people, and kicked hard. And Yes, I believe the definition of bravey is doing things even though you are scared but this was kind of a forced bravery.  Because none of us who face cancer and want to live really have much of a choice. And even then, there are people who go through treatment more than once  and they die anyway.  This is not about bravery,  it’s about something else.

What would you give for another day?

Whoa, that’s deep.

Now I am trying to separate the compassion I have for this woman who died, with my own ego which can be a monster.  Am I sad for the loss of her?  Yes.  Of course.  But am I also sad because, well, this is the first person I have known in real life since my own breast cancer diagnosis who has done the unthinkable and died?   Yes.  I think that is part of it.  It scares me.  We were in the same boat at the same time and she died.  That is what happened.  While our lives are only barely intertwined, a part of me is taking her death  very personally.  Honestly, there is also this anger at how stupid all of this is.  Why her?  Why not me?  We got the same treatment so why am I here?  And more importantly, how do I stay here?  Dear God, how do I stay here?

And I have no answers.  No more than I had last week, last month, last year.  All I know is that I have today and I try not to waste it.  Better than that, I try to make use of it.

I try to be kind.  I try to make a little something of my own every day.  I try to avoid the pitfalls of my human nature.  I try to be a better person than I was before even if that is a person who is sitting on the couch because she has another bit of upper respiratory ick.  I try not to harm others.  Even when I really, really want to.  Even when they have harmed me.  I try to laugh and sing and be happy.  I try not to be scared.

I am sad for the loss of this woman I knew, who with a group of others, helped me through a devastating moment in time.  I hate this stupid disease that takes and takes.