Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mums out there, especially my blogging friends.  I truly appreciate your friendship and support.


I know this year there is more than likely never to be a Mother's Day for me.  Last year I was about to start the biggest fight of my life against stage III breast cancer.  This year  I can't stop thinking about what should have been.  I should have been celebrating my first Mother's Day with "N".  She should have come home in November 2013 or January 2014.  Thankfully for her, she has a family somewhere in this country of mine.  I will never hear a little one say, "I love you."  I will never receive a precious Mother's Day card handmade with lots of care and attention.  There are too many nevers too list!  My cancer was not bad luck.  It was not God's will.  It was not given to me because I could handle it. And I HATE people saying it's better to have the cancer before "N" came home than after.  Don't you think I know that, but it doesn't help me deal with my loss.   I have been told I had likely had the cancer for 3-5 years.  This means it had been REPEATEDLY missed on mammograms.  My first two mammograms I have learned were on film. The first digital mammogram was  in 2012.  My petition, a way I was hoping would help me deal with my loss, has fallen flat on its face.  More people sign petitions about pipelines and off leash dog parks!   Those dogs may not have owners to walk them if they die of undiagnosed cancer and the people signing pipelines well you are less likely to die of a pipeline leak than you are cancer.


Today I celebrate my mother and my grandmother and am thankful for their love and support especially during the last year.  I also wish all of you new mums or soon to be mums, "G", "S" and "K" the happiest of days with your new little ones.  Also to those of you with new additions to your family, "L", congratulations.  To those of you still waiting, "F" and "M", I hope completion of your adoption happens very soon.

Cancerversary

Well, it is one year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer and what a year it has been!   So much has changed and continues to change.  I am having a very difficult day today and there isn't a lot to say except that I have been told to wait a while before I go back to the adoption process because of the risk of recurrence.  I am unable to deal with my emotions around this issue yet as for two years I waited and waited and then was matched with the most darling, adorable three year old imagineable.  I guess every parent says that about their child, but this little girl had such a sparkle in her eyes and lovely smile.  I continue to have great difficulty tolerating the hormonal treatments that are designed to keep the cancer at bay.  With breast cancer, unlike other forms of cancer, the doctors don't seem to want to say there is "NED" or no evidence of disease. 


Thank you to those of you following this blog who have signed my ipetition and visited my other blog.  I am so grateful for the support of my blogging frieneds.  If you haven't already done so please hop on over and take a look at my blog  Hoping to Make a Difference.   Fourteen states in the USA already have a requirement that women be informed if they have dense breasts (check out Are You Dense?) and all I want for everything I have been through is for BC to have the requirement.


I am pretty low today so please forgive the tone in this email.  I was told on Tuesday that I really should stay on both the shots and the Tamoxifen and the combination is making life absolutely miserable!  Before, the shots were a 3-5% boost, now they seem to be deemed essential.

Please sign my petition

Hello to anybody still following this blog.  I finished my radiation treatments at the end of October, had my modified radical mastectomy at the end of November and got CLEAR pathology results in January after my oncologist had the report reread.  I have had two things picked up on a CT scan in January that were of concern but they have turned out to be nothing.  On March 5th I learned that the enlarged lymph node on the left side is BENIGN!!!!!  Oh man, I'd rather be a false positive like this than the false negative I was last April.  The little spots on my right lung are in the exact position to be scaring from the radiation, so we are breathing a sigh of relief.  It has been a long two months and now I hope to start reclaiming my life and finding a new normal.  I need to wait a while longer before returning to the adoption process but so hope I can do so.  If I let myself get down and think about what I may have lost, I wind up very upset.  I worked so long and hard on accomplishing my dream of becoming a mum that I can't let it go yet. I can't begin to tell you how heartbreaking this will be.  I WANT nothing more in the world than to become a mum.   Please keep me in your prayers that things stay positive (no recurrence despite higher odds with stage III cancer) and that I can return to the adoption.  On the Breast Cancer forum the other day I was reading about women newly diagnosed.  One lady had just been diagnosed and had a four year old that she had adopted a year ago!   She said how much her son was helping her to fight her cancer. 


I have started a blog with a petition where I am trying to make a difference.  That is that women be told when it is identified by screening mammography that they have dense breasts.  This way further testing (ultrasound or MRI) can be done.  Please hop on over with the link below and take a look.


http://doyouhavedensebreasts.blogspot.ca/


To those of you in the USA there are only 14 states where it is law that women be told.  Check out the link to the website "Are You Dense?"

I don't know what to think anymore!

I have been plodding along since my last post and made it through 8 rounds of dose-dense AC chemo (May-August) and am know 17/28 radiation treatments down.  I have been focused on the surgery I am having Nov. 25 and on beating this battle with breast cancer.  I just found out some not so good news yesterday and don't know what to think about life anymore.  I mean how many times can you knock a person when they are already down?  My family has been through so much recently that it has to about time our luck changes or at least starts taking a positive turn!   I think of the song "Life's a dance you learn as you go" and goodness gracious me, my life is one heck of a dance, if you can even call it that, right now!

I need to do some work on this blog as two of the waiting families are home with their daughters.  One little girl from the Congo and another little girl from Vietnam.  It is nice to know, read and hear of success stories.  I also have a few blogs to add as at one point I had considered India and am now following a couple of blogs about adoptions from India.  I think about the families still waiting for Honduras and wonder what is happening there.  There doesn't seem to be much news there except for the family that changed paths and adopted from Taiwan.

I will explain why all the countries in another post but somebody asked me why I have these countries.  In short, they are all countries I researched and looked into at some point in my journey. 

I'm done making lemonade! Life is just plain old unfair and a you know what

To come clean for anybody reading my blog and wondering what is going on I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in April right as I was about to leave and go to my country to meet my little girl "N".    After two years in the process and being proposed a 3 1/2 year old, I was over the moon only to have the rug abruptly, suddenly and cruelly yanked out from underneath me.  My heart aches, well feels like it has been ripped out from me, and the only little bit of peace I have is that she is being adopted by a family in Ontario.  When I first found out, I could only rationalize the loss by better to find out before she came home than this time next year when I would be a single mummy with stage three breast cancer!  The agency in Ontario that I have been working with is very supportive and has let me put my case on hold.  My country apparently doesn't hold cancer against waiting parents.  I was optimistic I might still adopt but now in the early stages of very dose dense aggressive chemo (2/8 rounds), I don't think there is anyway I will ever have the strength.   The loss of my dream is too hard and painful at the moment!  To be honsest, I can't even see ever returning to work full time.  I am a primary teacher!

I wish I had greater faith as many of you out there believe in things which are beyond me.  I like to think I am a pretty good person, kind, honest, caring, hard working, a good friend, so why me God?  Why me and why when I was so close?  Are you there God, it's me Elizabeth and I want to know why? (Remember that Judy Blume book?)

To the interloper I think is lurking in the back wings, perhaps you are now satisfied!   Will you call things off now?  Enough is enough, surely! 

To all the people supporting me in this journey I can't thank you enough for your support and prayers.  To those of you whose blogs I follow, please keep blogging.  I so enjoy reading about your families and wish those of you still waiting the best news as soon as possible.

FYI
I have read that in women between the ages of 40-49,  25% cancers are missed by mammograms.  YES!  You read that right and I am royally you know what!  I have had regular annual mammograms since 2010 and nothing until my breast basically exploded in tumor this March!  Apparently the tumor is 3-5 years old!   What are the odds of being missed so many times?  This percentage of missed cancers needs to be made really public and there needs to be better screening!  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everybody "Running for the Cure" and all the money that is raised for cancer research  but maybe we should be looking at catching or detecting cancer earlier by having better diagnostic and imaging devices, rather than putting the money towards a cure which seems for ever elusive!  Governments also need to step up to the plate and provide the necessary funding so that the equipment in their jurisdiction is state of the art.