Last night I dreamt I could walk.

Last night I dreamt I could walk.

I used to have wonderful, fantastic dreams of flying. I would dream of soaring through the sky, swooping and gliding, powerful and strong.

Now, I dream of walking. I’m walking quickly, zipping through stores and down sidewalks with my long, graceful strides.

This has been a long, hard fight with cancer. It’s been over two years since my first surgery. I have dealt with so much; losing my hair and my energy, gaining scars and battle wounds, learning to live with constant pain. With each blow, I struggled and persevered. But losing the ability to walk has been devastating. Now even a trip to the bathroom has to be planned in advance. Stairs have become impossible mountains. When I left the house the other day and got to the car and realized I had forgotten my keys, I burst into tears. Just the thought of all of that wasted effort was overwhelming.

I am still doing almost everything I did before. I still go to work, do the shopping, cooking and cleaning. But now I have to ask for help with all of it. My co-workers see me pull up in the mornings and they come out to help me with the door and carry my coffee in for me. My sister cooks for us sometimes. My kids do a thousand little things that my persnickety self wants “just so”. Tom has taken over more than half of the shopping and cooking and all of the laundry. Nick has learned how to make my evening cup of tea.

Everyone has stepped up to help out. I appreciate that so much. But I am an independent person; I want to be able to do it for myself! It is hard to let go of the control. I am trying so hard to deal with this. Everything else is so good; the cancer has not come back, my family is healthy and happy and closer than ever, we have everything we need and most of what we want. And yet, I still dream of walking. Every morning I wake up with a glad heart and think, maybe today will be the day I will walk again! Then, I stand up and the pain tells me no, not today and my heart sinks again.

So I dream of walking. The freedom, the joy.

And I keep holding on…

MRSA MRSA Me. . .

The fun never seems to stop. As I've mentioned before, my surgery site wound has been open now since April, 2008. Having an open wound for 19 months is not only a chore, but a constant reminder of my condition and the ravages that cancer and treatment can cause. In late October I went under the knife once again so that my orthopedic oncologist could stimulate healing of the wound through debridement - scraping the wound site and removing a small piece of dead bone to send to the lab.

Yes, the lab agreed that the bone is dead - killed by radiation, and the doctor concluded that this is why no skin and tissue is growing over it. The lab results also came back positive for MRSA - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial infection that is highly resistant to most antibiotics. Terrific. Not only do I have dead bone, not only have I resorted to using a walker due to pain and weakness, but now I have a potentially life-threatening staph infection! I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but instead I'm finding myself under an avalanche of shoes without the agility or ability to duck or find cover! Okay, as if that extended metaphor wasn't enough - how's this "When is all this going to stop?!?" Frustration is the word of the day around here, but there is good news: Today marks my LAST I.V. antibiotic treatment after six weeks of daily - yes, daily I.V. antibiotics. Thank God I've got my Mediport to accept all this medication!

My quarterly MRIs are coming up this month as well, so stay tuned. Sorry for sounding so down-hearted, but notice how I haven't complained too much lately? Believe me, it's been building! My loving and supportive family has been here by my side and such a wonderful comfort during these times. My husband, who I don't think has ever truly learned to do laundry, has taken over so many household tasks and guess what? - The house is still standing! Love ya honey, but you still have to learn how to separate the colors from the - oh what the heck, it's getting done! :)

More soon - I'll be sure to let you know how the scan results come out.

Keep hanging on!

Ema