Heart Attack!

Have you ever had a heart attack?  I have given many in my lifetime, but for the first time ever, I recieved one tonight.  This is what it looked like:

Now how could this not make me smile?  It was after dinner, I had just woken up from a little nap (herceptin made me sleepy), and there was a ring of the doorbell.  When I opened the door, there was no person in sight, but this is what I saw!  Each heart had a little message on it such as "bald is beautiful", or "we love you"!  One of the hearts said this was love from the Miamaids from the Arlington 1st ward.(Translation for non-mormons: love from the 14-15 year old girls from a congregation of Mormons that meets in Arlington.)  So cute!

So today I went in for my weekly Herceptin drip. They assigned me to a semi-private room, which felt a little weird because there was already an older man and his wife in the tiny room when my friend Kim and I walked in.  I said to him as I sat down, "So what are you in for?" just trying to make light of our obvious chemo-type situations.  His answer was "Life."  It turns out he found out in July that he has metastatic lung cancer.  He just woke up one day and felt a little different, so he went to the doctor.  He's got huge tumors in several of his organs and on his spine.  No cure.  Just treatment.  So sad.  I tried so hard to not cry talking to him but of course the tears welled up.  His wife said that at least he didn't have a lot of regrets and things he wishes he had done.  He lived a full life and had come to grips with what was happening to him.  "It is what it is" she said. 

My own news isn't so grim, though. My chemo is working!!!!!  I can barely even tell I have a tumor in my breast at all anymore.  Dr. Wang, my oncologist, today told me that she could barely feel it either.  It has only been 2 weeks since I started chemo and already HUGE results!  I couldn't be more thrilled.  She told me it's entirely possible there would be no trace of the cancer by the time I have my surgery.  But, yes, the surgery will still take place, in case you were going to ask.  Also, my little tiny hairs on my scalp are starting to fall out.  I guess that's another indication that the chemo is working, right?  I was tweezing my eyebrows this morning, and you know how usually it kind of hurts?   My hairs were just coming right out, no pain.  No resistance.  HIYAH Cancer!

So now it's 2am, and I'm still not tired.  Darn after dinner nap.