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Wow, I'm amazed I've been able to get to 30 posts. :-) Thank you to everyone for reading!
I am sorry, all, for the lack of updates. I have had a very rough couple of weeks. It has gotten very busy with student teaching, and a lot has happened lately.
Last Friday, my aunt had her surgery. She looks great! I got to see her yesterday when she stopped by to see us. Her scar looks so good! Our surgeon never ceases to amaze me. He is a magician. Since her biopsies never gave us a definitive diagnosis, her thyroid had to be sent to pathology. She doesn't get the results until her appointment on Wednesday, which I find to be ridiculous. If you get the results, why not call up your patient? In my opinion, the wait stinks. Why make people suffer more? I think the wait is worse than the results, honestly. So, we won't be finding out those results until the 17th. Ugh.
Janina's doing great. Her treatment went well, and she had her nuclear scan on Friday. Let's just hope treatment kills all of it. We won't know until 6 months from now, I think.
Mom's still suffering from the low-iodine diet. I'll be getting her some Dunkin Donuts when she's done with all this. :-) Her treatment is near the end of this week. Let's hope this one works, too!
Janina's doing great. Her treatment went well, and she had her nuclear scan on Friday. Let's just hope treatment kills all of it. We won't know until 6 months from now, I think.
Mom's still suffering from the low-iodine diet. I'll be getting her some Dunkin Donuts when she's done with all this. :-) Her treatment is near the end of this week. Let's hope this one works, too!
On Sunday the 7th, I received some bad news. I met a man named Xander on Planet Cancer around when I joined, near New Year's. He was 18 years old and was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma. We talked a lot and became friends. He was very strong yet sensitive. He did not like to talk about his cancer battle, but when he did, he was so emotional and had a difficult time discussing it. Xander loved his family, and told me he hated hurting them. He was so selfless. Xander fought so hard to live and be a normal young man. We would play games online and have fun talking to each other about anything and everything. I had no idea how little time I had with him. The last I knew, he was going home and receiving chemo by mouth with a nurse. From what I understood, this was it for him. Xander never revealed how he was feeling to me, except closer to the end. He died the morning of February 6, 2010. His brother, Mike, gave me the news the next day, when he was signed in to Xander's MSN account.
I haven't cried until just now. I was close to tears a lot of this week, but it hadn't hit me yet. Reliving the times we spent talking, the late nights we would chat about anything that came to mind, it's painful. I never met him. He lived in Australia. I was planning on visiting him one day. I can only imagine that trip now. He was so young.
Xander,
I miss you so much. It pains me that I never got to meet you and spend time with you. You were so precious to me, and I never dreamed that our time was so brief. I'll never forget every single conversation, every single time we laughed together about silly, trivial things. I wish I had known...I wish I had been there. I would have held your hand, helped you forget. It's so hard to go each day and not see you sign online, so that I can talk to you. The last time I talked to you was on February 3. It was a weekday, so I was running out the door to go teach. If I had known that was the last day we would ever speak again, I would have woken up earlier to talk to you longer. I remember when you tried to stop us from being friends. You knew your time was short, and I didn't want to think about it. I didn't care. I wanted to be your friend for as long as you would be alive. Thank God you decided to keep talking. Xander, I promised you I would be there for you no matter what happened. I still am, and I always will be.
"I'll meet you on the other side,
I'll meet you in the light."
I love and miss you, Xander. I'll be seeing you.
Always,
Dorilicious
Cancer sucks, people. Don't forget that. Let's keep fighting, shall we?
“I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began
I loved my friend.”
~Langston Hughes~
Dori, so so sorry for your loss. :( I lost a best friend to metastatic liver cancer when I was 23 years old (in 2003). I remember I still had to work and did not cry until I went to her funeral almost a week later. It was very cathartic to sob, to mourn. I also wished that I had called my friend and talked to her more, before she was too sick. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
Love and hugs,
Kim