[marymary]

Yes, Kat, you should definitly celebrate your life by travelling to Paris when you are out of treatment. That's my vote, anyway. Go with a girlfriend. I love travelling with women. There's always someone to talk to! You have a partner in crime for those hours of window shopping. Women tolerate museums better than men, well better at least than my husband would. Sounds like you speak French, at least a little. The French are pretty accomodating if you at least try to remember your HS/college French!

What about your husband, though? Has he changed, or have you? Was he acting distant before your diagnosis or is this a bona fide change in behavior that is probably related to your illness? Sometimes men are downright unfathonable, excepting our darling Tom and Al, of course. For one thing, men, especially the older models, have a difficult to impossible time expressing what they're feeling (if they even know). I guess this is not exactly a news flash. Somehow I always think things will change in that department. I imagine, no fantasize, that after living with me all these years some of me will have magically rubbed off on my husband. Suddendly he will feel compelled to turn off the television and enjoy hours of heart to heart conversation. Perhaps while massaging my feet? HA, Ha, ha, ha.

All I know for sure is that me getting breast cancer, especially metastatic- HER 2neu-always in your face-turning up in my brain kind of cancer, really turned my family upside down. It is an issue every single day and I'd be lying to say otherwise. Every single day I think about dying. Every single day my husband is sick of hearing about the subject. He only recently admitted that he thinks about losing me every single day. Yeah and I know better than anybody the "we're all dying" reasoning but baby I'm on the fast track. And nobody, not even my husband, knows exactly what that feels like.

This may be a good time to see a councillor (sp?). It can be very beneficial to be locked in a room with your significant other without a television set, a ringing phone, a dog or 4, and with a trained, impartial advisor.

I don't know enough about your situation to say. It does seem certain, however, that the days of putting everybody else's needs before your own are over. That's a lesson that I have to relearn every day, including this one. Maybe we women are all alike as well.

You are a pistol, Kat, and I am sure enjoying hearing your story unfold.

Love,

Mary
in Marin