We are ready for WAR

September 26
Now is the time to prepare for battle.  We meet with the Oncologist on Monday.  And we see the surgeon on Thursday.  I asked why we would see the Oncologist first and I was told that I would be doing chemotherapy before surgery.  This is where I take a deep breath and find my Brave face.
Chemo scares me-
I don't want to throw up all the time.
I don't want to lose my hair.
I don't want to lose my eyelashes- (if you know me well, you know this for sure!)
I am scared of how to work and be a mom and go through chemo.
I am already scatterbrained. . . I don't want to have 'chemobrain'.
But this is when you prepare for battle and determine that you will be Brave!
I asked my students to help me make a playlist of songs that will get me through and I had so many different songs.  They were so awesome to think about what song they love that would help their teacher. 
I talked to my nurse at Huntsman today.  I had questions that were unanswered and it was killing me to wait until Monday.  She told me that I was ER negative and PR negative and HER positive.  This isn't the greatest news since it means I have the most aggressive form of breast cancer.  But it is only in Stage II so we caught it in the early stages.  But hormone therapy isn't the cure, chemo is the recommended course. 
This was hard news to swallow even though I already had prepared myself for this.  I guess it just makes things more real when it is on paper and staring at you on a test report from the doctor's office.  As I was finishing my day today I was watching one of our special education students that is mostly wheelchair bound trying to walk down the hall at school.  I thought to myself. . .  (stealing Angela Gardner's thoughts) "If he can do that surely I can do hard and challenging things." So I put on my Brave face and prepare for battle.  And Sara Bareilles gives me my war chant:

You can be amazing   I can be amazing.  I can do this.

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave   I will show how BRAVE I can be.

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

 I wanna see you be brave

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down  We all do hard things.  We all have courage.
By the enemy                                                                     CANCER is my ENEMY.
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing                I am scared and sometimes want to hide.
Bow down to the mighty                                                    What an awesome line- trust in God.
Don’t run, stop holding your tongue                                  Face the battle-
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live         There is a cure.  My doctors will help!
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in                I will be cancer free again!
 Show me how big your brave is                                         I will show you my BRAVE!

 Innocence, your history of silence                             I have had hard times, but this time I'll fight loud
Won’t do you any good
Did you think it would?                                             Hiding alone won't be good. 
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?                       This blog is my way of telling the truth about cancer

 I wanna see you be brave!                                        Here we go. . . . . I'm ready for WAR!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4