Autumn

Summer is coming to a close. The nights are cool and the days are bright and joyous. It brings back memories of my youth. Summer really does "end" with Labor Day weekend. School starts and the pools close and the sweaters come out and we transition. Transition to the cold and snowy Buffalo winter.

I've been living life so fully this summer. Playing, working, travelling and enjoying the freedom of health. I continue to see my cadre of doctors...and they continue to have an attitude of waiting for the shoe to drop...looking ever so closely for the illusive CANCER! I am a reluctant patient. I do everything that I need to...but in my time. I toyed with the idea of stopping my carcinogenic cancer medicine--tamoxifen. And would have stopped (in fact I did stop taking it) but my carefully scheduled appointment with my sweet oncologist...the fabulous Dr. Soniwala...came like clockwork and I was able to be talked down from the cliff. We've decided to take Tamoxifen for 2-3 years, not the 5 years that is often recommended. I'm ok with 2-3 years. It sits better with me. After switching care providers twice, I seem to be all covered. I have my radiology appts in place, my oncologist, my gynocologist (I see her often because tamoxifen increases risk of uterine cancer--ultrasounds every 6mo), my primary care doc, and last but certainly not least my therapist. I'm not seeing her as frequently. She is a cancer therapist and I want to be done with cancer but I know her and CAN if I need to call her up and see her at any moment. Enough with that. I try not to be a card carrying cancer survivor. I've taken my Roswell Cancer Center green card out of my wallet (this is the card that I swiped everytime I went for chemo, radiation or any appointment). I've taken my pink ribbon survivor magnet off the back of my car and I can go for days without mentioning cancer, even meeting people, there are people I'm meeting now who have no idea that I had cancer. Anyway, enough about that. It's over and now I'm trying to heal...really heal.