It's been a long break away from this blog. I managed to survive without documenting all the ups and downs of my life in this blog for more than one and a half years! So...why am I back? The truth has a lot to do with the reason I started this blog in the first place, in 2013.
To cope. To cope with what? Well, to be simply put, Life.
As I opened up this very familiar yet now foreign website, I glanced at the date of my last post. October 26th 2014. Nine days before my mom was diagnosed with stage IIb pancreatic cancer. That's what a cancer diagnosis does to your family. You start thinking and processing things in terms of "before-diagnosis" and "after-diagnosis." It's been an overwhelming 18 months for my family. My mom was very lucky - she was diagnosed incidentally. If you look at statistics (don't, Mr. Google is one of the most depressing gentlemen I've met in my adult life), she shouldn't be alive anymore. She was lucky enough to be diagnosed at a time when her tumor was still resectable, and survived a Whipple operation that was plagued with some of the worse complications possible - including an internal bleed that almost killed her. After the rough recovery, she managed to somehow finish 6 months of adjuvant chemo and was declared cancer-free in October 2015. Nothing good ever lasts long though. In February 2016, doctors found tumors in her liver as well. She's now on cycle 3 of another 6 month treatment - this time, more so with a palliative intent than a curative intent. Still lucky though, because the tumors were again found incidentally, and not causing trouble yet. And against all odds, she's done relatively well with the chemo cycles.
I say that a lot - the word lucky. I say it to make me feel better. I say it to make my mom feel better. The reality though? Nothing pancreatic cancer-related is lucky. It's one of the most aggressive human tumors and very little progress has been made in finding a cure, or even a preventive screening that's worth a shot. Pretty much, no matter how happy, cheery, or positive of a person you are, I guarantee you that pancreatic cancer will shake your family in a way that nothing else can. But what's the use of attending a long term pity party? It certainly doesn't make anyone in our family feel better.
In the past 18 months, I couldn't bring myself to return to blogging, despite knowing that it has always served as one of my stress-coping mechanisms. The reason, in hindsight, is a little silly. When my mom was diagnosed, I came across a lot of blogs about the pancreatic cancer journey. Almost every single one of them had sad endings. I was convinced that if I started blogging about what was going on, I would be essentially signing her death certificate and giving up. Even the healthcare professional in me forgot though, that the long term survival rates for PC has always lingered around 5% percent or less...so what exactly was I expecting? I have recently come to realize that giving up blogging during the last 18 months has spared me the pain of reliving some of the most painful months of my life - but it has also robbed me of documenting some of the sweetest and most cherished moments in our 30 years as mother and daughter. I'm grieving that a little bit now. My brain realized this early on, but it took my heart until tonight to regain the courage to return.
There's another reason I'm returning to this blog, related to why I even started writing in the first place. I'm about to have my second child in 3 weeks.
A little over a year ago, many of my moms group friends were starting to make cute announcements about having another bun in the oven. I was truly overjoyed for each and every one of these friends. Especially the one that struggled with a degree of infertility. Part of me was a little bit sad that we wouldn't have kids exactly the same age (how cute would that be?). I deflected the "when's your turn?" question with a lot of poise, I thought. I had a huge laundry list of excuses - I'm an only child, so I'm in no rush, or my husband's siblings were all 4 years apart, or we wanted to wait until AJ was potty-trained. There's more. Secretly, I was too devastated with my mom's illness to be ready to think about opening my heart to love another human being. Over time though, she got better, and the month after she finished chemo, my husband and I felt emotionally ready enough to embark on the journey again. Lucky us (here's that word again), I got pregnant within weeks after my IUD came out.
We were obviously overjoyed with the news, and telling my mom still brought her to tears, even though this was a second grandkid. I was always under the impression that pregnancies would get easier and easier, but man, I was wrong about this one.
From day one, 2.0's pregnancy has been tough. I started bleeding for no reason at 6 weeks. The nausea and vomiting was much more extreme - and prolonged, requiring medication to control it. At 10 weeks, they told me that I'd developed kidney stones (still haven't passed them, I guess). At 19 weeks, I was diagnosed with marginal placenta previa (awaiting ultrasound next week to determine if I'll need a C-section). At 21 weeks, my pubis symphysis dysfunction returned, making movement very difficult. At 26 weeks, I was diagnosed with intrahepatic cholestasis - a condition that puts 2.0 at higher chance of stillbirth after 36 weeks, therefore necessitating twice weekly monitoring as well as early delivery.
It's been difficult yes, but Gosh has it been a nice, needed distraction from the stress of our lives right now. I can't tell you how many smiles the weekly bump inspections have put on my mom's face.
On Mother's day, during our weekly drive home from visiting grandparents, M and I took a good look at our 2016 year so far and decided we were actually doing a pretty good job "hanging in there," so to speak. Between the two of us, we are actively taking care of one sick parent, working with another set of parents in marital strife, parenting a 3 year old, making it work with 2 unstable jobs (both our employers are currently considering layoffs), surviving through one high-risk pregnancy, studying for 1 board certification (mine, done as of 5/9/16), and so so so so so much more. We're not doing too bad for adulting, methinks.
Enough updating for tonight. Talk to you later, blog. Good night.
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