It’s the holidays! I got to celebrate Christmas with friends’ family with their adorable kids. There was gift-giving, lots of food, laughter and companionship. At the moment, I am feeling quite weak, but very eager to be doing things. I want to drive to Santa Cruz, maybe get in the water, I want to get out and explore the city in its decked-out holiday glory, but I still have to pace myself. Although taste has been even more problematic with my last chemo, I did a lot of baking to share — even if I myself cannot taste them.

Backtrack a bit. Since I blogged last, I’ve done 2 more chemo rounds. I just completed the 6th (and last) round for my neoadjuvant treatment. Round 5 ended up actually being quite smooth. I think this has to do with timing getting IV fluids on day 3 post-chemo to help me from being dehydrated. Hydrating and nourishing in the week following infusion have been a challenge and I do experience rapid weight loss. Fortunately, over the succeeding 2 weeks before I go for more infusion, I can regain most of that weight and I feel a bit stronger again. Strong enough in fact that the week prior to chemo #5, I went to Hawaii for a few days and I managed to walk several miles a day! I also managed a good amount of sleep every night which I know factors heavily into my feeling healthy-ish coming into chemo #5 and how that round ended up being one of my better rounds.

Now I’m at chemo #6. It is the last, so no matter how bad this one is it is insurmountably tolerable because I know I don’t have to more chemo. (We think.) The surgery I will be undergoing next will determine the next treatment. For now, I know I will be continuing immunotherapy infusions every 3 weeks for the next 9 months — but it’s not chemo. The known side effects, while they can still impact the quality of my life, won’t quite be like the last 4 months have been. That said, the last few days have not been much fun. I didn’t think food could taste worse than they already do, but bitter/metallic/ a little rotten they did. The texture also feels very rough. And of course stuff I’d been baking have not been spared — everything tastes sickeningly sweet. I try to eat, but I’ve also been too nauseous to force it. Thankfully, I have a few prescriptions to help with that. I have again lost a lot of weight rapidly since Wednesday. But practicing some self-kindness, I know I am in an unusual situation and nothing about the way my body is looking or feeling or reacting can be a reflection of how it will be once I have booted this cancer and I am healthy again. I’ve heard as soon as you’re a few weeks from last chemo, your body will bounce back: your taste buds will normalize, your mouth/throat sores will heal, your hair will go back, and all the other unmentionable side effects you have been contending with…they become but a memory. Hopefully a faint memory and not a trigger anyway!

On my birthday (December 7), I randomly checked my genetic testing results online. I’d been waiting for weeks and the wait was making me quite nervous. This is because I know if I tested positive for genetic markers, not only could it impact the risk profile of my family for breast/ovarian cancer, it also means we will opt for a bilateral mastectomy to reduce the risk on recurrence of my cancer. It was such a lovely birthday present to see the large block letters on my online results saying NEGATIVE. So this gives me some treatment (surgical) options driven by the cancer I currently have not what I may have in the future. My consult with my surgical oncologist is on January 11th (my post-chemo MRI scan is on January 4th). From my understanding, the team will want to schedule surgery not much longer after the end of chemo. I’m very nervous about surgery mostly because I am nervous about being infirm again. I hope this is relatively easy/minor/ uncomplicated. I believe that radiation will follow shortly thereafter as well. So while there’s a few more months of my active treatment, I know that the hardest part is over. ..But it isn’t actually over.

While I have been fortunate that I have friends to support me and I have had the means to ensure I have care available to me, I am eager to see the other side of this ordeal. I feel sometimes deprived of my independence, of my ability to direct my life deliberately. It hasn’t even been a year since my diagnosis, but I cannot help but be impatient. I suppose it’s unrealistic to feel benevolent and understanding all the time. Not when my life feels put on hold. But it is ironic this, I have at times in the past bemoaned that there isn’t much happening in my life, I have often longed to understand my bigger purpose. We do that sometimes — when life is simpler, when life provides, when life is for the taking, when there’s scarcely any to worry over, not how to make a living, or to have shelter and comforts, when there are friendships that stand and family that care, when one has all that one needs… why then, even then do we bemoan that there needs to be more? I wonder because I’ve been there. I’d thought that my life is hard. Perhaps it had been in the past — in my lonely, dysfunctional past, there were moments it was. But it isn’t anymore, is it? But then again, now, anyway, this, this, this is hard because…because it is also scary. I don’t talk much about fear. Sometimes even fear is capricious because cancer is harder on some folks, cancer has meant so much worse for others. Mine isn’t so scary, is it? But I am scared.

Because I’d hate to end a post so heavy, I’ll happily do a rundown of some of the good things that have happened recently. The Hawaii vacation and the negative genetic test I’ve already mentioned. Being able to bake which I love and providing that to my friends has been a highlight too. I made cranberry bars, lemon bars, brownies, a yule log, and something called sans rival (dacquoise with french buttercream). I have some ingredients at the ready to make some babka which I hope to be healthy enough to attempt tomorrow.

Another highlight I’ve waited a bit to share openly because it is more my nephew’s accomplishment than it ever could be mine (and he’s also very humble and shy), but I am also proud of the part I’ve played. Some of you know that I have been supporting my extended family for well over a decade and a half now. I have put one nephew through college, helped another nephew and a niece get a car, and I am currently supporting my niece living with me by providing for her and her education. This specific highlight is for another nephew though — whom I put through dentistry school in the Philippines because he just passed his board exams! I have always been happy to play a part in his education not just because he’s family but because he is such a kind soul. I am happy for the livelihood he gets to have and proud of the provider he is certain to be. I have been generous with these kids with finances, with my counsel because I have been lucky to myself be able to get an education, gain a livelihood and a wealth of experiences they can hopefully benefit and learn from. I suppose many of us understand this as being the very way we have lived can live beyond us.