Bye-bye, piss and vinegar

Hello, sugar and daffodils.

In other words, I have a new attitude. My chin is up, my nose is to the grindstone, and I'm going to finish out this chemo with a bang. I've come to realize that complaining about it aint going to do me a stitch of good. I've got a TON to be happy about, and I'm sure a lot of people would kill to be in my size 11 1/2s.

(Before I go further, I want to go back and say, it's hard to know how to change that expression "piss and vingear" into a positive one. if you keep the bodily fluids theme going in exchange for "piss", you are left with things like "bile", "blood", "mucus", "hemoglobin", and other less palatable things. None of which scream "happiness" outright. Then "vinegar"... "corn syrup"? "oil"? "soy sauce"? It just doesn't work.)

So I found out yesterday at chemo that I have JUST ONE CHEMO LEFT! TWO THURSDAYS FROM NOW IS MY LAST ONE! RIP CHEMOTHERAPY. NICE KNOWIN' YA. Then after that, I have bi-weekly injections of Avastan, a tumor-fighting drug, but it's not chemo. It won't drain my energy or make me feel like crap for several days. It won't take up my entire Thursday, either, or ruin my weekends-- the whole process takes a half hour or so.

So even though today I sit here with tubes coming out of me and a large vial of poisonous medicine hanging from my port (our joke is that someday I should go into an airport like this, open my trenchcoat and announce, "I'VE GOT A BOMB!"), I'm feeling rather content. I see the light at the end of the tunnel at long last.

And talk about aggressive therapy... I went into remission in JUNE. It's now September and I'm still on chemo. If any cells of cancer remain in me after this atomic bomb of poison we've thrown on them, well... they are some strain of supercancer and I should give my body to medicine to be studied.

ps- big props to my friend Libby for watching my kids plus hers all day yesterday.