Symptoms for past 2 months

Now that I think back, there were 3 obvious symptoms:
1. My numbed left fingers which started about 10 weeks ago, which I've conveyed to the oncologist, It's natural to relate this to side effects of chemo and previous surgical removal of lymph nodes and left breast. Until I started feeling the numbness on my left leg/toes 2 weeks ago, and I told the oncologist on 31 march which he immediately warned me of the possibility of involvement of the brain. I was shaken but didn't quite believe him, as the symptoms were really mild. He referred me to a Neurologist, who examined me, and said it's probably side effects of chemo, so the MRI suggested by my oncologist has not been pursued.
2. There's constipation for the past 1-2 months, which got me worried as my bowel pattern has been so consistent before. Noticing that toxicity must be accumulating in my body, I even started warm water aenema, and did twice over a week's time, as I was still skeptical about the drastic effect of flushing my colon/intestine, etc.
3. My menstruation cycle which was consistent until end of January just stopped in both February and March, and returned a few days ago on 10 April.

The major changes in my treatment were that
1. the oncologist stopped Navelbine(chemo) in January after seeing the result of PET/CT scan, to which I was really pleased about
2. A week of delay in getting Herceptin as I went to Seoul in January

Otherwise, everything else were going great, as I was able to get back life without so many hospital visits/waits just to check the level of blood before/after each chemo.
In fact, I started to associate the numbness of my left hand to holding/using of iphone for the past 2 months. So, maybe I should change phone again.

If indeed my PET/CT end of Dec was indeed clear, and if it could detect up tumor to 0.5 cm, the growth rate of my brain tumor must be really aggressive, doubling every 30 days or so, to grow to the current 2.8 cm within 100 days.

So, what should I do now apart from taking drugs?
- communicate with my body and ask, what went wrong? There must have been cells which have been neglected all these while, when I'm busy making new traveling plans.
- restart a routine which allow me to monitor every little response of my body, and device a checklist to plot the progression/regression
- watch my diet and nutritious intakes,
- regular exercise (qi gong, and not the games like ping pong, basketball, etc)
- reduce phone/internet time

In the past 2 months, there were also 2 episodes which were associated with my tumor"
1. I banged my left chest against the wall while trying to rescue the basketball from falling over the chest level height wall, and as a result, I suffered physical pain for at least 3 weeks, and that was dated end of February.
2. There was an episode of suspected chicken pox, as I discovered rashes on my body. The oncologist smiled and just gave me some medicine and cream. The rashes, believed to be side effect of chemo subside within the next 2-3 days.

So, I believe every little jigsaw pieces is related, but just not sure how...

Started Lapatinib/Tykerb

I've been put on oral chemo called Tykerb which is indicated for those with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer, starting today. Hope this works.

Ordain

Listening to the rain, feeling the breeze from the window, finding the pain.
I would rather die in Spain
than to despair in vain
while life tease me once again.

will start oral chemo again

Looks like I'll be on oral chemo called Lapatinip, indicated for cases where Herceptin fails (Apparently Herceptin doesn't reach the brain cells because it cannot get through the membrane, or something like that) so I'll be on new drug, but the good news and bad news is, this is oral treatment, which means I don't have to go through the drip process but it's three times daily so I need to be discipline to eat... I'm so hopeless in this so far so a good training...

Anyway, after 2 stressful day, today's CT scan showed that the nodes are smaller than in MRI taken 2 days ago - not sure why, probably because of the dexamethasone given since last night. Anyway, will see how. So far so good.

Cerebral metastases

In case this term is unknown to you, cerebral metastases means the cancer has spread to my brain. My treatment has worked but Herceptin, the targeted treatment does not get to the brain, so the MRI yesterday showed a few nodules in the brain. The treatment ordered by doctor is radio therapy and further chemo.
Well, life is such. Just when I was planning my trip to Spain, this has to happen. Maybe it's my mother watching over me, maybe its the Allah, as my oncologist say - we can only do our best and the rest depends on ??? God, jesus, guanyin, buddha, Allah, whoever we call...
To me, its fine, as I've lived, and still learning to live...
Please don't be alarmed, and please don't call me, as I'll be in hibernation again.

Just to know that I'm still well, and still healthy(except for the scan or whatever medical records).

LIVING IS MUSIC! (by Elisabet)

There is a "before" and an "after" in cancer, as in many other serious diseases. However, I feel like I am more the "before" person. Cancer doesn't define who I am. In fact, I don't talk much about it in my everyday life and don't even think about it most of the time. Cancer sometimes is just a small, unfortunate anecdote in my life. My mind is busy with so many other things and my body is ready to go for a walk, to take a deep breath... and both mind and body are ready to enjoy friends and family gatherings, and to do whatever activity is possible to do. I don't push myself too hard, I am not so demanding about myself. I don't indulge in self-pity and I try not to feel sad about the things I cannot do and, instead, feel happiness and gratefulness for all the things I can do. I've even discovered I can do new things that would have never crossed my mind. I also enjoy the still moments, the time to rest, the time when I am all by myself and may choose to read a book, to write, or to take a nap.

I would like to thank all of you who read this blog and hope that at least part of what I write is meaningful to you or may even help some of you, somehow. I would also like to express my most sincere thanks to Yin San, who encouraged me to write when one day I expressed my wish to write a comment on one of her articles. As soon as I started writing a rough copy at my desk, I realised it was not just a comment, but an article on its own. And she encouraged me to publish it. This is my 4th article and today I can say that writing in this blog has turned out to be a very rewarding experience, and Yin San has become one of my best companions in this journey.

I live in Catalonia, the North-Eastern region of Spain, bathed by the Mediterranean sea and with mountains as high as 2.500 to 3.000 metres above sea level. We are bilingual, as we speak Spanish and Catalan. However, Catalan is our mother tongue and the language we use every day, everywhere. Catalan is more widely spoken than Norwegian or Danish (just to give you two examples). It's a Romance language (from Latin origin) like Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, or Rumanian. Catalan literature dates as far back as the Middle Ages. There was a Catalan doctor and poet, Màrius Torres, who lived between 1910 and 1942. He died when he was only 32 of tuberculosis, a common disease at that time. He wrote most of his beautiful poems while fighting against his illness. He loved life as much as I do and he was very fond of music, too. I want to share the last part of one of his poems celebrating life:

"Life might be like an out of tune musical instrument sometimes
and yet living is music!"

P.S. In case you want to know more about Catalan you can check this interesting website :
http://wikitravel.org/en/Catalan_phrasebook

Celebrate each day

Tomorrow is the 15th day of Chinese New Year and the last day of celebration. This is the first time ever that I celebrate new year to the fullest, without having to go to work, nor to worry about hospital.

There were parties, gatherings, reunions, Jade Emporer's birthday, karaoke, friends and relatives. Just enjoying every moment. Today I bought a new 42" plasma TV so that I could use the blue-ray DVD player hijacked from dad's, and my friend said 1 inch for every year. However, in the Kuan Yin temple yesterday, the person told me I am already 43, according to the Chinese age! How time flies!

Few days ago, a friend wrote that her sister, a breast cancer survivor of 10 years passed away. I started counting the many people who died in recent years. Just few weeks ago, a friend lost her mum, someone else lost her grandma. There were streams of news about friends, former teachers, or some known people leaving us. Where have they gone? Would their energy still be lingering around, based on the law of physics that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but only transformed? So, how has the energy of the deads been transformed? How about energy of the livings? Surely these are all part of the larger system, and inter-connected.

While there are many things we haven't figured out, the best we could do is to celebrate each day, and make sure we transform our own energy into something positive.