Gone Crazy.....back later.

After thrashing around in bed trying to go to sleep for two hours...watching the minutes tick off repeatedly on my alarm clock, I staggered out of bed, bleary eyed and in a semi-frustrated rage over my brain's refusal to unwind once it is time to crash for the day.

Instead of the thoughts tapering off, allowing me to relax and get drowzy, they come at a rate of a thousand per minute revving me up into a state of total agitation. My mind runs in circles...

This melanoma shit is doing a number on my sanity, and I realize that if I don't come to grips with it soon, or at least get a good night's sleep, I may very possibly have a psychotic episode.

Well....Maybe that is going a little bit too far....

But my moods have been fluctuating wildly; swinging in an arc from the denial state of burying my head in the sand like an ostrich to the completely neurotic...like Chicken Little.

These are the kind of head games that melanoma can play....making you feel like a rapid cycling bipolar patient in need of some good head meds at times.

Feeling a little dizzy, or having tendencies too loose my sense of balance? While remote, it isn't too far a stretch to entertain the idea that melanoma may have seeded itself somewhere in my brain...Doesn't matter that I have been a klutz of epidemic proportions since I popped out of the womb. New lumps, bumps or even something as bland as a large zit...I FrEaK out until they disappear. Any new ache or pain....Yep. You get the idea.

Especially the new lumps and bumps. I ride that storm of raw white hot panic until the day those buggers fade into oblivion.

Equally strange is how your doctor could deliver the news that the culprit of the problem could be something considered moderately undesirable to most, yet we breathe a sigh of relief:
"It appears as though you have a bleeding ulcer. You need to cut out the stress and stop worrying so much."
You: "Oh Thank GOD it isn't melanoma!"

*note: I do not have a bleeding ulcer; just giving an example here.

In any case, last night at two o'clock in the morning I was fixated on these relatively harmless looking little bumps on my abdomen that are most likely blocked pores or some equally harmless thing and NOT subcutaneous melanoma metastasis....

Does my rational mind ever take over when I am trying in vain to calm down and get sleepy...NOOOoooo. Not at 2:00. Not at 3:00 either. Hrumph. It sets off a ripple effect and the next thing I know, I am worrying another pont to death....The fact that the odds are stacked almost three-quarters against me that I won't live to see my daughter get her driver's license at 16, or my son leave elementary school at 11.

I try like hell to shove the thought aside by telling myself that there was a LESS than 2% chance that I would get this shit in the first place, so you would think it wouldn't be that far of a stretch to land in that 26% of stage IIICs who live for five years...

But Noooooo.

My mind keeps working these negative thoughts over and over, worrying them to death until they are festering in my brain like a splinter that has embedded itself too deep and can't be dug out.

Then, whacked as it seems, I guilt trip myself because there are people who are facing much steeper odds and have a LOT more to worry about, and they don't come unglued half as often as I have been since this latest recurrence....Chasing shadows and wind; worrying about things that have not come to pass, and may not ever (hopefully!).

My mind runs that gamut from fear and panic over my own situation, to frustration and anger over how little awareness there is about melanoma.

Facts floored me when I was first diagnosed and still do now...

Melanoma is the #1 cancer killer of women age 25-29; #2 after breast cancer for women age 30-35.

There have been no advances in research or effective treatments (at least proven ones) in at least 30 years.

In the more advanced stages, there is NO CURE.

If you need proof, ask any melanoma patient beyond stage I if they can EVER get life insurance or any melanoma patient if they can ever donate blood or be an organ donor.

This shit can come out of nowhere on some nondescript bright blue Saturday morning 8 months, 3 years, or even 10 years down the road and blindside you.

What freaks me out and rips me out of sleep at night soaked in sweat and trying to catch my breath from some hellatious nightmare is that if I recur this time, it could very realistically and probably be at stage IV.

Damn. I have got to stop this tirade before it gets any more out of control. Man...I have a way of sending myself into a neurotic tailspin.

I will think of a couple more of my heroes from MPIP who are both stage IIIC and holding for a few years now: Bridget and DebbieH (may they both stay there, NED, forever:)

I very possibly could too....

While I am psyched about this vaccine, I am also realistic. Not a single element of this is in my control. It is all no more and no less than a crap shoot. I have to relinquish this need to be in control in order to gain any semblance of peace of mind. This...is so out of mine or anyone's control.

Positive thinking, herbs, supplements, guided imagery, conventional chemotherapy, eating all the right foods....Not a one is strictly proven or guarranteed.

We are all just scrambling to up our odds bit by bit. Doing everything that is within our power to hang on and fight.

I know I will do anything I can...

I have doctors willing to go the extra mile for me and a life worth fighting tooth and nail for. I married the best friend I have ever made and gave birth to two beautiful kids. I intend on putting up one hell of a fight in whatever way I can.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't a part of me that isn't petrified.

I do know this: I won't give up and I don't PLAN on checkin' out anytime soon.

And as for eating right? I say bring on the pizza, hoagies, bacon double cheeseburgers and a fat 'ol slice of cheesecake.

Hey. You only live once.