Two more days ….
I am SO TIRED today. I decided not to go to work and try to catch up on some sleep. So far it is paying off.
I saw the Radiation Oncologist today. Everything is looking really good he said. He could not feel any lumps in my neck or armpits. I should be getting scheduled for a CT & PET Scan soon and then if all is well I will go back to my 3 month checkup schedule.
This may sound funny, but it is a SCARY thing ending treatment. We are going from knowing what is happening everyday to knowing nothing. You get into this routine and suddenly it is pulled out from under you and you have to come up with a new routine. It is definitely better circumstances, but not any easier than the treatment itself. I am sure I will have to visit my counselor a few more times as the fears and doubts start to creep into my over active imagination. I won’t be declared cured until 2010. That just seems SO far away. I will be 42 that year and hopefully a Dad by then. Right now, I just need to keep my head & ass wired together and concentrate on getting back to living our lives.
Last night I made Carrie dinner. It was nothing monumental … we had salad, steak, teryaki noodles, french fries (of course 
), and breadsticks. It felt good to do something nice for her. She had a long day at work and I thought she would appreciate not having to worry about dinner. I still worry that this is an awful burden for her to bear. So when I have the energy I try to do a little more around the house. I think it helps a little, but I am still not doing much though. 
I saw this posted on another forum I visit:
Your friend has cancer. What can you do?
By Susan Kushner Resnick
The Providence Journal
01-MAR-05
When my mother-in-law was dying of ovarian cancer, a couple she considered to be dear friends sent her a note. She’d spent much of her adult life sharing Saturday night dinners and sagas of child-rearing with this supposedly sophisticated pair, so she expected a sweet message. Instead, they wrote this: Watching you change and suffer is too painful for us, so we can’t see you anymore.
Nothing like breaking someone’s heart as they’re dying.
While being the ultimate fair-weather friend is one of the worst things one can do when someone has cancer, there are other faux pas that people with the best of intentions commit all the time.
“People mean well, but when someone’s diagnosed with cancer, nobody knows how to handle it,” says Carolyn Bray, who recently battled neck and breast cancer.
To complicate matters, a gesture that helped one person may backfire with another because every cancer case is different. Treatments, side effects and, especially, personalities vary.
“Some people want to be treated with care, and some don’t want to be treated differently at all,” says Dr. Lowell McRoberts, a psychiatrist who sees patients at Rhode Island Hospital’s Comprehensive Cancer Care Center.
So, what’s a well-meaning friend or relative to do?
Don’t tell horror stories:
Cheryl Hammond, a friend of mine who’s in the middle of breast cancer treatment, says she can’t believe that people think it’s helpful to tell her about someone who had a breast cancer recurrence _ but it has happened several times.
Bray says people often told her cancer horror stories, too, especially about how sick she’d be during chemotherapy. Fortunately, she ended up with only mild side effects.
“I was needlessly frightened,” she says.
In fact, everyone I spoke to said one of the most common _ and worst _ blunders is to tell a story that’s nothing but discouraging.
“The number-one rule is don’t ever tell a cancer story that has a bad or sad ending,” says Catherine McGrath, a breast cancer survivor from North Andover, Mass., who has developed several products to help people undergoing cancer treatment.
People don’t mean to be so insensitive, according to the experts.
“It’s one of the ways loved ones manage their own anxiety,” says Sue Van Ness, a co founder of the Hope Center for Cancer Support in Providence. “Often they distract it by telling a story of someone else.”
Another thing cancer patients don’t appreciate is unsolicited advice, such as suggestions to see a nutritionist or seek a second opinion, according to Ann Webster, director of the Mind Body Cancer Center in Boston.
Don’t disappear:
But worse than hearing the wrong thing is hearing nothing at all, Webster adds: “Patients will say, ‘I really thought Sally was my best friend, but since I got cancer, Sally won’t call me anymore.’ “
My friend Hilary Farrow, who received treatment for leukemia last fall, says the most hurtful part of her recovery was the silence from a few people she’d been friends with since childhood.
“No card, no call,” she says, adding that she’s sure they knew she was sick.
People disappear, Webster says, because they don’t know what to say or can’t deal with the reality of cancer.
Don’t overdo it:
Trying too hard to help can actually hurt. McGrath remembers feeling “inundated” with well-wishers after her diagnosis.
“Everybody who was anybody in your life comes out of the woodwork,” she says. “It’s overwhelming. You can’t carry that many people.”
Some of the well-wishers, she suspected, called out of curiosity or to be part of the drama. She sometimes felt that in exchange for a meal, people expected a complete medical update, which she wasn’t necessarily ready to give.
“What you’re trying to do is keep your life as normal as possible,” she says. “You’re trying to keep the crisis and drama down.”
She offers this guideline: “If they don’t typically talk to you on a weekly basis, they should not call,” she says.
Instead, she says, they could send a simple card wishing the patient well and including a phone number or e-mail address where they can be contacted when the patient is ready.
Gifts:
When McGrath was recovering from breast cancer surgery in Massachusetts several years ago, her 7-year-old daughter came to visit her in the hospital. The little girl looked at her mom, focused on the IVs and bruises, and got a horrified look on her face. McGrath called her sister.
“Get one of my husband’s shirts, tear it down the sleeve and Velcro it up so I don’t look so sick,” she told her.
Her invention later became the Jacki, a top full of pockets for drains, openings for radiation access and sleeves with spaces for IV tubes. Besides beating a bathrobe for hospital-wear, it spares patients from having to change in and out of baggy hospital gowns during day long treatment sessions.
McGrath sells the Jacki through her Web site AnEasierRecovery.com and in some hospital gift shops. Any proceeds she earns from the business go to her nonprofit company, A Little Easier Recovery, which will pay for practical things such as maids and laundry service for cancer patients.
Farrow liked receiving care packages with lots of little things in them, such as journals, CDs, socks and books.
Favors:
If you’re coping with cancer, you don’t have to scrub your bathtub. That’s where friends looking to help can come in.
“We know all the chores that have to be done,” Van Ness says. “Ask the person, ‘Can I do the laundry for you or run the vacuum around? You don’t need to use your energy for those types of chores. You need your energy for your healing.”‘
The key to being helpful without making the patient feel helpless is to offer favors you’d be doing anyway.
“You can say, ‘I bring my dry cleaning in every Wednesday. If you want me to bring yours, just leave it on your doorknob,’ “ McGrath says.
Similarly, driving kids to Sunday school when you go to church or bringing them to basketball practice if they play on the same team as your child might not make the person with cancer feel as if he or she is imposing. Another idea: rent an extra video when you’re at the store.
Food:
Speaking of food, those who have been there say cancer patients usually eat small bits throughout the day instead of three big meals. Delivering something that’s nutritious and easy to digest and heat, like soup, might be a good idea. Plain meals that kids will eat, such as pizza or cold cuts and rolls so they can make their own sandwiches, are much better than gourmet meals, McGrath says.
Even if patients aren’t eating much, food contributions can help them nourish their families.
“I couldn’t take care of my husband like I wanted to, so it was for both of us,” Farrow says of the homemade food she received.
She was also touched and grateful when several friends and relatives brought boxes of pastry that she could offer other visitors.
