Good Intentions

October 26 today? Last post so enthusiastic about the lymphedema therapy journey to which I was hellbent on committing?  Dermatologist appointment postponed AGAIN?  Several friends questioning my actual existence due to (my) lack of communication?  Shit, it has been a busy few weeks. 

I find myself frustrated again today. Surprise!!  Not necessarily cancer-related, but I'm sure I will inevitably spin it that way.  Every day I examine my actions, more than I did before (cancer).  (See - did it already!)  I want to accomplish things, I want to nail that to-do list, I want to be everything my kids need me to be, I want to NOT be a downer to my friends, I want to survive my kitchen renovation without the hair loss I was fortunate to avoid during my immunotherapy... but I somehow always feel like I fall short. 

I'm doing the best I can but that "take one day at a time" stuff is actually very difficult to do.  When you break it down into small pieces and truly look at it and realise you're just too tired to do it all, it's a real pain.  I try, but.. what's that they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?

I ran into a friend today that I haven't seen in a while, and we chatted quickly to catch up "in code" in a busy store with our kids in tow.  I was open about the fact that yes I did want to get together for coffee and a visit, and I was also open about the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to commit to the actual coffee date in the next couple of weeks.  She seemed to understand and is equally busy, we hugged and wished each other well and we will try again in a few weeks.  *sigh*  I feel bad!  

More importantly what I got from the conversation is my friend's comparable feelings of guilt for not being able to do the things she "normally" does.  She happens to be temporarily off work for health reasons as well, and one of her first identifications of things we have in common right now is the guilt for being "off."  She said the same things I feel every day; in our quick conversation we bonded over that mutual feeling but we also agreed that we need to look after ourselves and our kids numero uno.   Why can't we just shake the rest of the feeling and just go with the looking after ourselves and kids thing?  Aarrghh

Part of looking after ourselves IS the visiting with friends and the social support we receive in doing so.  And I truly mean it when I say I want to visit!  But I notice that I am less and less able to commit to the coffee date.  With the people who are my FRIENDS!  

I am so absorbed with what my family and I are doing, and I am inconsistently and sometimes unexpectedly exhausted so I just run out of time.  Days run into weeks and my feelings of guilt compound until they feel like a noose around my scarred neck and I retreat, I hibernate, I listen to my therapist saying "stop being so hard on yourself!"  I love my friends from a distance.  And I keep plowing through the to-do list as I see fit.  

Therapist says that's okay, I (we all) should be doing exactly what I (we all) want. At any given moment.  Oohh that's a huge statement, what a can of worms!  I believe that if we all just ran amuck doing what WE want then everything would be a disaster!  But that could be my Catholic upbringing speaking... how do the Sociopaths do it, like really?? 

The core of what is bothering me I think is actually the number of times I have had this happen lately.  I haven't invited my veggie friends for a visit since.... ummm.. as I told them last week when I ran into them downtown - I still have their Christmas gift from last year!  I am the WORST.  We talked about having tea, they emailed me, I still haven't caught up on email.... and I have not had the visit.  And last week also I completely stood up another friend I haven't physically seen since I was first diagnosed - how the hell could I FORGET that we were going to meet?  I can blame chemo brain, but I really hate that.  I postponed my much anticipated lymphedema treatments again. My CCAC nursing visits too, I have cancelled the last three due to scheduling conflicts.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions is a proverb or aphorism. An alternative form is "hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works."
One meaning of the phrase is that individuals may have the intention to undertake good actions but nevertheless fail to take action. This inaction may be due to procrastination, laziness or other subversive vice. (I don't think this is me...)

Nonetheless, the saying is an admonishment that a good intention is meaningless unless followed through.

But how?  I WANT to have the friend visits.  I WANT to deal with the lymphedema.  I DON'T want to see the dermatologist...but anyway...  I think maybe I'm just tired of all of it.  I want my life back.  I cannot fathom that this is my "new normal."  I want to go to work, be healthy, run around doing everything all the time, not have to discuss why I am not at work and why I am so antisocial.  The stigma alone is worse than the diagnosis!  

I have no idea what to say when people ask me about my health.  My years of intermittent therapy-couch time have taught me to truly answer WHY I'm frustrated.  Well, this is likely it: I don't know what to say.  Metastatic Melanoma is a shitty goddamned enigma of a fatal disease and I am back to feeling like I have a digital clock blinking above my head counting down my time to live.  

I'm pretty sure that's simply Fear speaking, I don't have any medical-speak news as to why I feel this way. My last CT scans were same, no progression of disease. Unremarkable. Fantastic.  But I am still plagued with confusion about what to say when asked by friends how I am doing.  

I don't know.  I know I'm still here today, and I know I am helping my kids throw their kick-ass annual Halloween party again this weekend, and I know I have three trips to Sunnybrook in the first three weeks of November.  I know I'm still having major insomnia and I know I'd like to strangle the surgeon who made my baby cry a couple of weeks ago when re-opening her ankle surgery scars to remove TEN-FOOT LONG screws with a WOODEN screw driver!!

I can't get any more honest than that.  I hate everything. (to quote George Strait.) (Yes. George Strait.)

Thank you for listening, if you're still here reading my complaints, then awesome, yes, writing is therapeutic for me.  I wish I could learn to write FICTION!!   

Did I mention we are half-way through a kitchen reno right now?  I took a photo of my pooch the other day which just perfectly summed up my feelings.  He was looking all dejected curled up on the most uncomfortable part of the half-remodeled living room floor in the middle of all the renovation rubble and I couldn't help but giggle at that woeful little face:

PS - It's also full moon time.. that accounts for a certain amount of crazy in this household.  ;-)

 

Building a Team (New: Lymphedema Therapy)

Yesterday I met a very insightful lady. She was informative, caring, we have an interesting number of quirky things in common, and she gave me a headache.  Yes, a headache.  She worked me hard, though she did all the work: my first assessment and massage for treatment of my pain-in-the-leg lymphedema.

I have been procrastinating on this method of treatment for over a year, don't ask me why... I think it has something to do with general denial of my situation and having enough appointments to deal with already and being a busy Mom blah blah blah.  

I know that getting help with lymphedema is a whole-life approach, but I also know that if I want to fully rehabilitate my body after the beating it has gone through in the last year and a half, then I have to stop weaseling out of the lymphedema appointments and get my ass in gear. Literally, like hang that mole excision scar out there and let a professional help me with the healing.  

Indeed as I suspected, I will be learning how to properly care for my limb post-surgery, and that includes a holistic methodology for my head-to-toe mess.  Diet and fluid-intake tracking, walking and post-cancer exercises, massage therapy, manual lymph drainage, stretching/yoga/pilates, oh dear this is as big as I was afraid it would be.  

In my experience, fear and procrastination go hand in hand.  BUT, due to the nagging - Ahem encouragement! - of the Warden, the Curser, the Cheerleader, and my girls, I finally dragged myself to the lady who has studied hard to become qualified enough to deal with me.  

And I am glad I did.  I am ready to give myself the time and energy that I have known all along I need to do.  I will have to work hard; though she was very caring yesterday I detect a hint of Drill Sergeant in her therapy and I will be held accountable for my part in this effort.  We will work together.  

Work me she did too... the lingering headache is actually a side-effect of the detoxification she massaged my remaining lymph nodes into doing.  She explained the basics of the technique and informed me that I will learn how to help with lymph drainage as my homework also.  Eeek... for over a year I have pretty much avoided contact with my right leg as much as possible because it is uncomfortable.  There is a unique combination of heaviness, numbness, and tingling that plagues my every day use of the leg, but it turned out to be okay for her to touch it.  Out of my comfort zone I jumped, and gave it a sincere try. 

Patiently she listened to my story and what my concerns are now with my body, and she gently reminded me that I am not alone in this journey and to just take it step by step.  She said something I identify with: I am "building my team."  She is correct, I have a huge team and I am apparently still building it.  In addition to my loving family(ies) and friends, my medical team is growing in the diverse way I have always wanted it to. 

It did help that we had calming quiet conversation about our commonalities, namely Motherhood, Melanoma, and even Maserati! I like this lady - she was in Europe earlier this year so we talked caprese salad and Italian coffee.  My goals mesh with her experience, and I am grateful to have met her and to be working with her. 

I will be going back weekly for the near future, with my notebook detailing diet and activity and any patterns I may notice in the progress of my lymphedema limb.  I can tell already, I will learn a lot about how my body works with regard to lymph and glandular function.  Stuff I thought I already knew enough about!?  HA. Learn something new every day.  

Couple of neat points I learned yesterday about lymphedema:

• lymph fluid (I know that sounds gross!) is a protein-rich fluid which travels along the lymph nodes throughout the body, helping the body to expel toxins and waste stuff through the pores, perspiration and saliva.  

•  anyone with lymphedema has to watch for infection in that limb - especially cuts or insect bites - as it can become a problem very quickly.  Patients with advanced lymphedema (which mine is NOT) can be so vulnerable even as to have a standing order for antibiotics that can be filled immediately upon a danger sign, that is how quickly infection can become a problem. 

• my affected areas are two-fold: my right leg from the node dissection surgery for metastatic melanoma in May 2014, and my left shoulder and neck area from thyroidectomy and removal of 37 lymph nodes for thyroid cancer in December 2014.  I am permitted to consider getting a new tattoo after my clinical trial is completed, but I am not permitted to get it on my left shoulder as I was thinking I would.  Interesting for sure (and not a devastating piece of information, I just thought it was intriguing)

The "R-Words" in Cancer

Long before I was ever diagnosed with the big C, I rode along the congratulatory wave whenever in the presence of someone declared "In Remission."  

I didn't really know what it meant, except that it was good, and that commonly, after a number of years "In Remission" a cancer patient could call themselves cancer-free.  They could also resume normal living, recover from treatments, and reside in the general hope that they would remain in remission and their cancer battle was one they could proudly refer to as having been in their courageous past.  

I have yet to hear any of my oncological team say that word, in reference to myself or to anyone we have spoken about.  I don't know if it's an 80's term?  Or one for cancers other than melanoma?  Or a fictional definition?  

It can't be fictional or old-fashioned, because I have several cancer friends and family members who have been officially titled In Remission.  For years in fact, and recently!  

My vision-of-beauty breast-cancer Survivor Auntie for example, and my world-traveling Gramma who is surviving not one but two diagnoses! My Uncle too. And my local friend who battled a brutally complicated tumor and has worked incredibly hard to recover and create her new normal.  I even met a friend in a support group in the winter who is battling her FOURTH primary.  That means four different cancers throughout her life, and she is still fighting.

All very inspiring people who have every right to be proud of their accomplishments and bravely continue their fight every day.  I look up to them, and I admire them, as I do all of the cancer friends I have met along this journey, whatever stage or phase they may be at.  

I envy them as well.  I want to be In Remission.

In my experience, I am consistently informed of another R-word in cancer: Recurrence.  I have written this word in passing several times, but until now have not really explained it.  

I remember thinking a few years ago when a friend was explaining details of his wife's cancer that I couldn't possibly ever understand the kind of stuff he was talking about, the words and phrases and percentages and what it all meant!?  But now I throw these words around without taking into consideration that those listening to me may wonder what the heck I'm talking about.  

Dictionary.com gave me these definitions:

 Remission (Medicine/Medical):

• a temporary or permanent decrease or subsidence of manifestations of a disease.
• a period during which such a decrease or subsidence occurs:  The patient's leukemia was in remission.
• A period during which symptoms of disease are reduced (partial remission) or disappear (complete remission). With regard to cancer, remission means there is no sign of it on scans or when the doctor examines you.

Recurrence (Medicine/Medical): 

• A return of symptoms as part of the natural progress of a disease, as in relapsing fever. 
• Cancer recurrence is defined as the return of cancer after treatment and after a period of time during which the cancer cannot be detected. (The length of time is not clearly defined.) The same cancer may come back where it first started or somewhere else in the body. 

My future is based on my likelihood of recurrence.  I have diagrams drawn by my oncologists depicting what the percentages and statistics say about my two primaries (Papillary Thyroid Cancer and Nodular Melanoma), and I struggle every day to overcome the numbers that seem to be very clear to my medical professionals.  

I am at "Intermediate" risk for recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer, based on the results of my post-radioactive iodine treatment full body nuclear medicine scan in March.  Here is a very informative website re-capping much of what I have described or am experiencing: American Thyroid Association

As for the melanoma?  Not so easy to define, and certainly more depressing.  The reason for the 68-week clinical trial was to try to extend the time before inevitable recurrence of melanoma.  Typically someone in my situation after the node dissection surgery I had in May 2014 is given approximately nine months until the melanoma "returns" or is detected elsewhere in the body.  The pacmen are the best defense at the moment to delay that, by another nine months to a year.  

Thankfully I can report some melanoma patients have a much better story to report than that.  Save Your Skin Foundation founder Kathy was first diagnosed with stage IV malignant melanoma in 2003 and she is still here fighting - and very vocally fighting, I might add.  She had four treatments of the same stuff I had eight doses of, so here's hoping I got the same lot as she did!  I have not heard Kathy use the word Remission, but I have heard her use the word Survivor.  And for much longer than nine months.  

Every three months I await my CT scan reports... remission? or recurrence?

My heart goes out to cancer friends who experience recurrence; I have been thinking of two ladies in particular who very recently have been prescribed places back in the hot seats: CT, MRI, bone scan, Chemo, Radiation, all of those words are back in their daily vocabulary.  It is terrible, and catches one by scary surprise.  

It is this ominous mystery in a cancer patients life that gives them equally the right to celebrate survivorship as it evolves, and to dread the possibility of recurrence.  It is that which defines how the cancer journey molds a previously "normal" person into a completely new being.  

 (photo cred: http://r-p-e.blogspot.ca/2014/02/beyond-good-and-evil-chapter-three-and.html)

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What is metastatic melanoma?

Melanoma a type of skin cancer that forms in the pigment-producing cells of skin, mucosa, eye and rarely other sites. Metastatic melanoma is melanoma that has spread to other sites of the body. The spread occurs through the lymphatic system and/or the blood vessels. Melanoma can spread to the subcutaneous tissue which lies underneath the skin, the lymph nodes, and to other organs such as the lungs, liver, to bone or to the brain.

Metastatic melanoma can be classified into local recurrence, in transit metastasis, nodal metastasis and haematogenous spread.   I am at high-risk for the first three.

Local recurrence of melanoma

Local recurrence is defined as a recurrence of melanoma within 2cm of the surgical scar of a primary melanoma. It can result either from extension of the primary melanoma, or from spread via the lymphatic vessels.

In transit melanoma metastases

In transit metastases are melanoma deposits within the lymphatic vessels more than 2cm from the site of the primary melanoma.

Nodal melanoma metastasis

Nodal metastasis is metastatic melanoma involving the lymph nodes. Every site on the body drains initially to one or two nearby lymph node basins. The lymph nodes first involved are the regional lymph nodes. Usually the involved lymph nodes become enlarged and may be able to be felt.

Haematogenous spread of melanoma

Haematogenous spread is spread of melanoma cells in the blood stream, which can happen either by a tumour invading blood vessels or secondary to lymph node involvement. Once in the blood stream, melanoma cells can travel to distant sites in the body and deposit. It can proliferate in any tissue but most often grows in the lungs, in or under the skin, the liver and brain. Many patients also develop metastases in bone, gastrointestinal tract, heart, pancreas, adrenal glands, kidneys, spleen and thyroid.  

Source: http://www.dermnetnz.org/lesions/metastatic-melanoma.html 

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 Article © Natalie Richardson, 2015

Week 60 - pacman treatment #8 of 8

Well. That's done! Another item off my bucket list, check!  I am safely tucked into my hotel room all quiet and dark with my blankie and cuppa tea, my bloodstream coursing with a fresh $30 000 worth of immunotherapy drug.  I made it.  My last treatment of ipilimumab in this 68-week clinical trial.  Four treatments three weeks apart, and then four treatments three months apart; week 1 was in August 2014. 

I hesitate to congratulate myself, or even to be graceful about accepting the congrats of others, especially today.  

It is with mixed emotion that I put one foot in front of the other and made it through the day.  Over the course of the last 60 weeks I "almost bailed" on this treatment several times (4 372 times to be exact), even up until yesterday when I had to wrench myself into the drivers seat of my car and force myself to go through with this.

It may be difficult for some to understand why I would say this, and if you are new to my blog I can point you to some past articles which may help explain my point of view on the matter.  (The Pacman Effect, Chemo Brain, Back into the waiting pool, Alternative Treatments, Re-Calculating...)

For some unknown reason, somewhere deep inside, even after all of this, the surgeries, the treatments, the scars, the pain, anger, fear, the grief and the loss... I still think they got the wrong guy.  

They made a mistake.  

It can't be me.  

I have always had trouble with commitment, and I may be known to rebel against authority on the odd occasion, I'm a free spirit tree-hugger, and a stubborn one I'm told.  So wrap that all up in one package and label it with a life-sentence of MELANOMA and I'm a permanently cranky fusspot ready to throw a hissyfit at any moment.  And I sure as hell don't want to be pumped full of drugs to add to my general confusion and malaise.

I just want to cocoon, to be alone, to take off for some new place where I don't have to talk or think about it.  I can just float along a merry little river, leaving all of this behind me.  Hang out in the sun, paint coconuts on a beach somewhere, or serve cappuccino to tourists in my Tuscan Trattoria.

But then I wake up.  Hhhmm.. it IS me they're talking about.  And I have to step up to the plate and take what is offered to me.  If I ever want to make it to my Tuscan Trattoria then I'd better get my sorry ass in the chemo chair and do as I'm told.  

Part of the complication of having the choice of which method to use to fight cancer in my particular situation, is the option to not do it.  I hear my Oncologist in one ear, saying I don't necessarily HAVE to have all eight treatments, that four is the standard of care for stage IV patients, so may be fine for my stage IIIB.

And then I hear my family and friends and family physician encouraging me to stick with it, how can there be harm in having more of the treatment?  They must have planned this clinical trial with eight treatments for a reason?? Best case scenario is it holds off recurrence that much longer (as opposed to having stopped at the fourth treatment, last Thanksgiving, thereby having the possibility of being back on the hot list by now).  

The statistics from this trial are still rolling in, and I consider myself fortunate to have received this drug and now that I have completed the trial I am part of the research they are doing in order to help melanoma patients.  

I guess I will concede and congratulate myself on that part of this accomplishment.   

Otherwise... I had good discussions today with my oncologist and the research associate in charge of my schedule.  They gave me some details I have been worrying about, and gave me an idea of what my care plan looks like in the near future.  

They said the numbers are similar for non-recurrence and recurrence with ipilimumab and interferon.  Good stories and bad, still weighing out the results to better predict what I commonly refer to as CHANCE.

I was also able to confirm that it is indeed the drug company that has paid for my expensive treatments in this trial.  This little detail has caused me much anxiety: I hate the thought of four possibly unnecessary drug treatments being paid for by Health Canada. Some of my friends have called me weird for this admission, but whatever LOL  That's me, and that's what was bugging me.  

Going forward I have eight weeks left in the trial, at least three months of fresh side-effects, with the possibility of more after that, the new year will bring the first quarter since last August where I won't have had ipilimumab.  

CT scans tomorrow, then every three months still for another year.  I will continue to be monitored at Sunnybrook (Odette Cancer Centre) and I will be sure to report the information I receive from this trial study when it is done.  I am one of the last MEC3 participants to trickle in, as I slid in under the timeline wire last year when I qualified and rushed my paperwork through to get into this trial in the first place.  

Just because I had my last treatment today does not mean this is over.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.  It is the end of this particular drug treatment, but what lies ahead is still very much uncertain.  I do know what to expect symptom-wise for the next few months, and I may even throw a pacman party when I'm feeling better, but who knows?  I can't commit.  I will just continue with this one day at a time stuff until it gets easier, whenever that may be.  

Happy week 60 of 68.  And thank you yet again to my family and friends for your love and support.  The flood of messages you sent yesterday got me to Toronto, literally.  And the texts, emails, messages, and facebook love today got me through my 90-minute IV infusion.  Thank you ever so much.  xoxo

Week 57

The insomnia is bad with this round.  Over two months since my last treatment, number seven was at the end of June, and I am still dealing with three a.m. eyelids open.  Even my pets seem confused, dog is quite perturbed that we have left warm comfy bed to sit on the couch, and cat is like Wheeee! Buddies!! 

I knew to expect a variety of possible reactions from the list provided by my oncologist when considering this clinical trial for treatment of melanoma, but I did not anticipate such a long roller coaster of physical and mental exertion in such unpredictable ways.  

For me, every ipi treatment has caused one or more side-effect to become exaggerated: for a while it was debilitating tummy trouble, another was rashy skin, this round is clearly leaning toward the depressy never let me sleep mental side of it.  I wonder what the next treatment will deliver? 

Cancer treatment brings a wide variety of medical onslaught to a patient, some are terribly painful, some involve inexplicable physical changes, all are different and uncomfortable - and the details vary from one person to the next.  The one thing each treatment has in common is that we have to brace ourselves to face it. 

Every recipient of a possible cure (or delay) for this disease is aware they are facing it, and they have to mentally and physically choose to go through the process.  Whether treatments are daily, or months apart, there is that waiting period, that knowledge that there will be more.  More needles, more chair, more nurses, more help, more fight.  

Yesterday I had another visit with my lovely and ever-vigilant family physician, to check in on the changes in medications we decided upon in July.  There isn't a whole lot we can do prescription-wise at this point, as I am still bound to the stipulations of the clinical trial, but we try.  We discussed the list of ideas I was tasked with trying since we last spoke, and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of things I have actually accomplished in the last couple of months.  

Without being at work, and with the rest of my carpet being generally ripped out from under me in the last year and a half, I struggle to find a sense of purpose.  

Loss of sense of purpose goes with loss of career, true story.  Of course family is purpose number one, and the fight against melanoma takes up the rest of my time, but as I work to try to figure out my "new normal" I am still surprised by how simple some of the "meantime accomplishments" are.  It's not working through a lineup of cranky customers upset about their bank fees, or passing a surprise inspection by the OLG bosses, but it is the fulfillment of tasks at my hand at the moment.  One thing per day. It does add up.  

I am almost finished reading the interesting book my doc recommended, I have actively planted myself back on the therapist's couch (and I am doing the emotional work she is recommending), I helped our girls paint and re-decorate all three of their bedrooms as part of back to school prep, and I joined that new-to-me cancer support group. Not bad for a months' work.  Somehow still falls short of my usual expectations, but whatever, that's the part I am working through.

We also discussed my repeated suggestion to ditch this clinical trial and move on with my life.  Treatment number eight (the last one) is in three weeks.  Yikes, where did that year go?  It is optional for me to NOT take each treatment, but as my physician gently reminded me, what other option do I have at this time?  Nothing.  Watch and wait (Oncological term for "do nothing until it gets worse").  Why start that now when I have the opportunity to delay that by at least another three months.  

There are other treatments for metastatic melanoma, and new ones in the works, but they are not available to me until it spreads to another area or comes back in the leg/lymph nodes.  It is not a matter of IF it returns, it is a matter of WHEN it returns.  The pacmen are at this time holding it off, as evidenced by my good CT scan reports, but after that who knows?

My doctor said "they" set up this clinical trial in this way for a reason, and it will prove to be a pivotal trial in the fight against melanoma, so she encouraged me to stick with it, reminded me that we will tackle the rest as it happens.  The more tools I have in hand to fight this beast, the better.  Unfortunate that the side-effects of the treatment don't allow the normal life we are fighting to keep, but some is better than none I suppose.  

It is difficult to look forward to something when you know it's going to make you feel like shit.  It is a fact that I will still feel like this - or possibly have some other or new physical anomaly - three months from now, because I will have had a fresh ipilimumab treatment.   

Week 68 in November will mark the end of my participation in this clinical trial, and it may give way to the beginning of feeling less at the mercy of immunotherapy.  Super!  But then what?  Recovery... recuperation... wait. "Watch and wait."

Family doc suggested that I have a party after this treatment, but I don't feel like I have anything to celebrate.  This treatment will be over, but then..?  She said that it is a celebration in itself that I will have made it through a complete round of chemical therapy.  Early on I had thought of throwing a pacman-themed party at the end of this, but as I approach that I consider more of taking myself on a quiet vacation - oohh yeah throwing myself a sleep party!  A sleep retreat, now we're talking.  

I know you can't tell by the goofy hours that show on this blog format, but it is now four. a.m.  I have had an hour to digest my thyroid meds, so now I can go have my coffee... thank you.  Have a great day.. my job for today is to book physio for Cassie for her ankle.  And likely have a nap.

  

First Day of School

Here we are, finally on the day for which I have been loudly cheering for at least two weeks: the first day of school.  I have driven the girls crazy singing "It's the MOST Wonderful Time of the Year!" all around the house, especially post-SHOPPING (again!) or when they've asked "What's to Eat" for the 300th time of the day. 

Now here I sit, teary-eyed and reminiscing, bittersweet, dreading the year to come in some ways and happy for the girls in many other ways.  They are in grade eight this year. Grade 8! The fun one, when life really begins: they are at the top of the school, the responsible ones, the oldest ones... and for Claire and Cassie anyway, they are entering this year with less challenges than they were this day last year.  

Last year I was in a three-week rotation of treatments at Sunnybrook, and I was scheduled to have my melanoma treatment on the Tuesday after Labour Day, but I was able to sweet-talk myself a two-day delay so that I could take my girls to school for their first day.  

Grade seven, a new school, new teachers, much larger environment, older kids all over the place, staff all new to us, and me in cancer treatment.  I told them this this year should be a breeze! ;-)  To which they replied in this way as I took their photos before school:

(PS - Cass got out of her cast a bit more than a week ago, so here she is with a gimpy left leg but at least can go to school without crutches. Physio ongoing and day surgery in October to remove the heads of the screws in her ankle)

Which reminds me... I have an entire collection of first day of school photos... and today I feel like posting them here.  Claire and Cass don't read my blog anymore anyway (they say I'm too long-winded - imagine!?!) so they won't find out...right?  haha  Anyway, here they are:

Kindergarten (JK), SVE School:

 (Claire left, Cass purple)

Grade 1:

 Cassie

 Claire

Grade 2:

 (Cass left, Claire right)

Grade 3:

 (Cass purple, Claire right)

Grade 4:

 (Cass pink, Claire right)

(Grade 5 seems to be missing at the moment? 

Stupid cell phone drop in the dishwater!)

Grade 6:

 (Claire left, Cass right)

Grade 7, move on up to MCS, 

(Mom no longer allowed to take a pic in front of the school - 

WAY too uncool!) 

 (Claire left, Cass right)

AND TODAY.... GRADE 8.... waaahhhhhhhh

Article & Photos © Natalie Richardson 2015