Pain woke me up in the middle of the night just a few weeks ago. Pain in my right thumb to be exact. At the base, where it connects to my hand, specifically in the ligament. And it was bent at the top joint, as if I’d been pressing a stopwatch for my entire life. Frozen in place, I couldn’t UNbend it… without using my other hand. And when I did that, there was a pop.      Whoa.

So I purposely bent my thumb to test it…you know, just to see if I could bend it without any aide from my other hand.   Just to see if I could do it. And, thank heavens, I could.

But then I couldn’t straighten it out again. Whaaaattttt?

I focused harder. I willed myself to straighten my thumb. I took a deep breath and concentrated really hard, like I used to when I was a kid and thought there was legitimacy to the game of Ouiji.

It didn’t matter how hard I concentrated. I could not straighten my thumb.

I looked at the clock. 3:17 a.m. I briefly debated about waking up hubby since I was so oddly fascinated in a baffled sort of way. But I decided to simply use my other hand to straighten the damn thing out. Another pop. I searched for a cold spot on the pillowcase that would mask the throbbing pain, and then I debated about climbing out of bed to take some Advil. Instead I sighed deeply, prayed this was a bizarre dream that I wouldn’t remember by morning, and I eventually fell back to sleep.

Morning came. My thumb was frozen in a bent position once again. And my other fingers felt… well, they felt peculiar. On both hands, my fingers felt stiff and achy, like they could just as easily get into a locked position as well.

I glanced over at hubby. “Look at this!” I muttered with annoyance. He was barely awake and showed no interest. So I muttered a bit louder. “I cannot unbend my damn thumb.” He turned to glance at it. Then he moved closer to inspect it. Then he straightened it for me. It popped.  “Hmmm,” he said in sympathy.

It can be downright depressing when I dwell too long on my ‘new normal’. I try very hard not to, and for the most part, I’ve been successful and keeping those thoughts at bay. Since I last posted a health update here (three months ago), I’ve lost three women from my life. One was a personal and longtime friend to my mom, whose cancer had returned after a very long  hiatus, like fifteen or twenty years. She and I became close after my diagnosis last year. She reached out on multiple occasions to cheer me on in my own journey and to compare notes. Our paths paralleled for a bit throughout our chemo treatments, which were similar in their drug side effects. She didn’t know anyone else going through this battlefield, and I know it brought her some sense of comfort to be able to express her thoughts about it to me, someone who’d been a comrade of sorts.  But she lost her battle just a month or so ago.

The other two were women that I came to know through an online cancer support site (specific to my bizarre diagnosis). Of those two, the first one was a complete shock, as I’d had no idea how advanced her cancer had become in a very short time. She was one of the first to ‘welcome’ me to this online group, to reassure me that she was there to support me in any way she could. The second one was an even bigger shock, as she received her diagnosis just one month before I received mine. She began her treatments three weeks before I began mine…and it turned out that we had the EXACT same treatment plan. Same four drugs to start with, at the same intervals for the same duration in time, followed by the same amount of radiation over the same number of weeks. Her body did not handle the drugs well, and within weeks of completing her radiation, her cancer spread like wildfire to her brain. So they radiated her brain every day for a month. And then she died shortly after that.

Her death rattled me to my core, and put me in a funk for days. Having never met her in person, we’d shared quite a bit of ourselves with each other through social media. She lived in Kentucky. She was a horse owner, I’d been a horse owner. She was raising a teenage daughter, I’d raised a teenage daughter. She was spunky and encouraging. I was encouraging though not so spunky. She believed deeply in Jesus. I believe less deeply in God. She was a young forty-something and I used to be a young forty-something.

She was a lovely woman. She was a fighter.    And she was far too young to die.

Treating cancer (including early stage) with surgery, even mastectomy, and/or radiation and/or chemo does NOT guarantee a cancer-free future. Cancer has no age restrictions, no rhyme or reason to whom it victimizes. Recent studies have claimed it’s not lifestyle or diet related. It’s not even genetically related.  It’s simply science. And bad luck for those of us navigating this stealthy beast.

A woman named Holley Kitchen has posted a very emotionally moving video to Facebook in an effort to EDUCATE the general population of the world about those little pink ribbons, and it’s gone viral. It’s a concise explanation for those who are clueless (and that would be MOST people) about what ‘metastatic breast cancer’ really means. The net of it is: for those whose breast cancer has marched on to a new location from where it originated…they will never, ever, Ever, EVer, EVER, E V E R …be cured. The odds of an initial breast cancer becoming metastatic are 20-30%, according to the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network.  Metastatic Breast Cancer is an umbrella term for an entire RANGE of unique and incredibly complicated  breast cancer diagnoses. Mine happens to be a diagnosis that involves a gene mutation, which happens in only about 20% of patients.

Metastatic breast cancer is terminal (I keep my focus on the fact that LIFE is terminal). These people (and that would include me) will live for the rest of their lives, whatever time is left for them individually, always fighting the fight, and in need of lifelong medical care. Cancer might go into remission, but the emotional weight of unfathomable worry will never vacate.

Holley Kitchen has coined the term LIFER.  It’s a club for members only, and I wish like hell I weren’t a part of it.  I pray that none of you become a part of it, and if you are, my hope is that you are living life without looking back, and focusing on the joys and comforts that already surround you.

I typed into Google: I can’t straighten out my finger.   It was all over the internet. Trigger Finger. It’s an actual condition CALLED Trigger Finger. Jeez, if I’d known I’d be getting this, I’d have spent more time in recent years at the shooting range. I’m a good shot. Or I used to be when I was at the range. Dad taught me how to shoot when I was a kid. Once he’d figured out I was left eye dominant, he adjusted his instruction accordingly.   It actually saddens me to admit that this trigger finger is from my damn cancer drugs. Nothing to do with my firearm skill set.

So these cardio toxic drugs I get every three weeks, which I refer to as my sniper drugs, have affected my heart. I wrote about that three months ago, in my last post here, titled ‘Don’t Be Scared, Okay?’ I had to skip a round of treatment in hopes my heart muscle would rebound.

It didn’t. But the next follow-up echocardiogram showed that that my heart muscle didn’t get any worse either, so my oncologist resumed my treatments with the approval of my cardiologist. Like clockwork, I go in every 21 days and they hook up Portia with the IV. The nurses there have asked me on three different occasions to speak with other patients who were in need of chest ports. All three were scared and concerned about the surgical procedure, and curious about the placement and comfort. One was a young man in his twenties, another a woman in her seventies, and the last one was a woman in her fifties. I’m always happy to reassure others, but find it difficult when they ask how much longer before I get to have my Portia removed. It’s a question I’ve not yet found a comfortable answer for.

“I’m in it for the long haul,” I say. Their eyes widen, but I don’t offer much explanation aside from the fact that every cancer diagnosis and treatment plan is unique, and not to base the need for a chest port on the prognosis of their diagnosis. It’s solely for ease of access to their arteries while getting drug infusions.

Next week, I’ll get yet another echocardiogram, which will determine if my heart is continuing to hold steady or if the heart muscle has deteriorated further. IF it’s deteriorated further, again treatment will be suspended. Possibly a new treatment plan will be discussed, but I’m hoping not, because the treatment plan I’m on is THE best of the best for my specific and rather unusual diagnosis.

I’m experiencing excessive worry on occasion, but not for myself.   I’ve been so ridiculously busy with house guests, work and other activities that have kept me fairly well distracted, but every now and then, well, okay, DAILY, I am obsessed with tracking (via the use of an online GPS system) the exact location of a 72’ sailboat. It’s called the Sea Dragon, and at this very moment it is literally in the middle of (nowhere) the North Atlantic Ocean…as it sails from Bermuda to the Azore Islands, quite a ways off the coast of Portugal. Picture a single grain of sand floating in the midst of the wide wide wide open sea.

Why am I obsessing over that? Because my daughter is on board, crewing for an organization called Pangaea Explorations. They use the Sea Dragon to take teams of scientists all over the world to study issues that are ocean related.

This current group is studying the issues of plastics in the North Atlantic Trash Gyre (North Atlantic Garbage Patch), using a unique trawl built specifically for this expedition in an effort to determine the depth below the surface of the water where the trash has gotten caught within the ocean gyres. It’s a leading edge technology that’s literally unfolding right at this very moment, and I can only imagine my daughter’s excitement to be so intimately involved in this part of the research process.

But this mother has never experienced anxiety (okay, WORRY) quite like this before. While she’s out there trawling in the middle of… nowhere, I look at the sky and I pick out a star. I wonder if she’s able to see what I see. And I want to be able to text her to say : You see that star up there? Make a wish for me, okay? And then get on home so I can get my arms around you!

Trawling. The sniper drugs, before going in for the kill, trawl for a specific gene mutation which causes my cancer to proliferate. They’re called targeted drugs because they leave the good cells alone but trawl for the deadly mutant ninjas.  Boy, I hope my compromised heart can take it…I don’t want to lose my sniper drugs. I’ll happily deal with trigger finger so long as my sniper drugs can stay on the job.