We would like to thank Melissa for allowing all of us to learn from her experiences with lung cancer.  Throughout the duration of her disease, Melissa was open with her experiences, thoughts and emotions to help others facing lung cancer understand what to expect.  If your life has been touched in any way by Melissa’s story or by lung cancer in general, please feel free to comment on this entry and leave messages of support. Thank you.

Everyone is welcome to share their thoughts with the family at the Caring Bridge site that has been set up at: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/melissapeterson

Our thoughts and prayers are with Melissa, her husband, daughter, and all her friends and family.  Her friend Denise has asked us all to raise a glass of wine in her honor, preferably red!

The other strangeness has to do with what I can swallow easily without horrible choking and gagging. Things like popcorn, steak, calamari–things you would think would finish me off — go down pretty well as long as I am careful. And then things like chocolate (specifically Cadbury Fruit and Nut) and soft serve icecream make me hack and gag horribly.

I think I am going to ask Jack if it would do any good to see an ENT..

Leaving today to head up to Whidbey Island for our huge family 4th on the beach. Always a great party with amazing fireworks. And the day after, we’re taking off on the boat for our first real trip! We’re heading up to the  San Juans, then the Canadian Gulf Islands for a couple weeks. I’m really hoping my cancer behaves itself — we’ve been dreaming about buying a boat and doing this for years — pretty exciting that it’s finally coming true.

Wow, the food was not as good as I remember when I had Lucie 7 years ago…the day vs night shift service was also a little problematic – at 4:30 AM the first night, they flipped on our light, and told me I needed to get out of bed (with my iv) come over to the door, and get on the scale. So I  had to get up, untangle myself, reassure Matt that nothing was wrong, unplug my iv date to reach the scale, hop on, hop off, and replug it all in and try to get back to sleep….right. Evidently we were lucky that I threw up into the waste basket the next day, otherwise they would have emptied the waste the following 4:30AM. (I am 100 convinced that my throwing has to do with two things — one not remembering my zofran on a tarcevva day. and two — the really horrible protein milkshake they make for me…it just tasted strange.

After all this — my MRI are still good and stable, thank goodness. So who knows what that that big ol episode was about. Hopefully I won’t have any more for a really long time. Jack is going to add some prednisone to my mix — try to add some energy and appetite to the mix. Will let you know!

Last week, on the way to Camp Sealth with Lucie for her classroom’s overnight, my hand went numb for about three minutes. Luckily, I recognized it for what it was, and calmly pulled over and called Jack and explained the situation.  He didn’t feel comfortable with me “going off into the wilderness” so I called Matt, my super trooper of a husband, who hustled down (with no pj’s or anything, just some grubby softball sweats — and I gave him my toothbrush and sleeping bag) to the ferry, and took Lucie over to camp (where, incidentally, they had a marvelous time).

I went home and cried.

In reality, a small little incident probably doesn’t mean much, or that things are getting worse…but that’s what it feels like. A few blogs ago I talked about how I get worried if I get too comfortable — if I take my eye off this disease for even a minute, it will sneak past me and strike.

So Denise came over and spent the night- Jack called and got a scan scheduled for the next day (Friday of Memorial Day weekend!)- and everything looks the same. Which is great, but now we know to expect an occasional strange quirk. What wasn’t so great is that my labs were a bit off (kidneys) so the past week has been a week of three hour iv fluid sessions every other day.  The last one is today, and I also get labs, so we’ll find out if this helped.

I’ve lost some weight. And I am not a super heavy person to begin with. I have moved from a very comfortable 134 to 120 (that would be on my scale – on Jack’s scale, as on every doctor’s office scale — it would be from 138 to 124 since their scales are always 4lbs heavier). I don’t exactly hate the new svelte me, but want to get a grip on this before it gets out of hand. I DO know that I have radically cut back on my red wine consumption, which is actually probably one of the biggest calorie losses, but probably one of the best ones for keeping my organs strong and healthy. (It’s actually good for our savings account too!)

The one thing that I can count on to always want is ice cream. And berry smoothies. So today I bought literally one of the largest containers of powdered whey protein that I could find, some flax seeds, and spinach. Smoothie land, here I come. I’m hoping it will be just like when I was pregnant with Lucie — a smoothie (pint sized) a day — added a whopping 47 lbs in just nine short months. Okay, so a little was Lucie, 7lbs 11oz to be precise.

I remember when I started on this cancer journey. I read a little pamphlet about food and nutrition for cancer patients undergoing treatment — it referenced ways to combat the lack of appetite — one of the things I found hilarious, and told all my friends about — was making sure that your friends and family didn’t pressure you about food, as that could cause anxiety, and diminish the appetite further. What in the world?! That could never happen to me, right? Uh, wrong. Right now, if someone mentions that I REALLY need to eat more, that I haven’t TOUCHED my lunch, I pretty much shut down. Or if the portion is too big, or if someone else’s plate has too much food on it…I am starting to have some newfound empathy for people with eating disorders. I am sensitive to it all right now — smell, texture, quantity, temperature, time of day…even the fact that I am having these issues gives me less appetite.

But only certain days are like this. Other days, like a couple of days ago, my friend Laya in Orange County (of the Persian magic fame and whose mother, coincidentally, is also taking Tarceva for lc) sent me a recipe for roasted peaches with cinnamon and vanilla yogurt. Okay, gimme some shortcake and those, and I am pretty sure I will pack on a couple of pounds in a hurry!

So the GRACE karaoke fundraiser is this Saturday — I really hope there are some people that live around here and read this blog that can make it. GRACE is such an important resource for survivors, newly diagnosed, and caregivers to take control of this awful disease.

Check out the Wall Street Journal in May (May 11th, I believe). There’s going to be a great pullout on lung cancer –with some interesting things about molecular therapy advances, and some interesting comments from Dr. Joan Schiller (NLCP)! And, okay, they interviewed me, too…:-)

Obviously, in the case of the cancer community, and the lung cancer community in particular, our community began as one of circumstance — it seems like a pretty random group as cancer doesn’t discriminate. We are comprised of the young, the old, the “in-between” (I don’t want to say middle aged as I think I am smack in the middle of that!).  I’ve written before about how much cancer should or should not define someone’s self perception and meaning to others who don’t have cancer, but I am more and more intrigued and inspired by the bonds that shape our cancer community. I like to start with the statement, “If I did not have cancer…” and list all of the learnings, connections, events, and people that would not be in my life otherwise.

If I did not have cancer, I would not know Grandma Carol as well if we didn’t compare notes on treatments and wigs and room temperatures that cause us to share blankets at family functions. Dave, my boss, and I share being diagnosed with cancer on the same day (and we’re now on the same scan schedule). Rebecca Armstrong and I would not have rekindled our relationship as easily and as meaningfully without our commom cancer bond, and my jealousy at how quickly HER hair grew back…:-) I would not know Jack (Dr. West) my rockstar oncologist (he really is a rockstar — swing by GRACE’s Karaoke event April 24 and see for yourself!). I would not know Dawn Case (we’ve decided her son Sam and Lucie are destined to be married someday) and the other lovely nurses at Swedish.

Facing cancer together makes us a community that otherwise never would have been, and I truly feel my life would be less deep and fulfilled for that.