Normally I would have posted something to share my 9 year cancerversary with you, but I missed publishing this past Friday.  I wasn’t avoiding it.  I was just busy living life.  Every year, my husband takes me out for a lovely dinner at The Palm to celebrate another year of survivorship.  I have a giant lobster and he has a giant steak.  We had to adjust our plans this year, so instead of The Palm we celebrated at Morimoto’s in Napa.  We followed dinner with a quick stop in a local bakery which smelled of melted butter, caramelized sugar, and highlighted with the allure of espresso.  After picking our sweets and with a hot cup of coffee in my hand, we walked a bit further to the river.

This was a wonderful way to kick off Father’s Day weekend, which of course included a poolside brunch (complete with a surprise family of ducks joining the swimmers in the pool), some naps, a walk at the preserve (with a swan and her babies nesting by one of the ponds), and rounded out with a home-made dinner of steak and twice-baked potatoes.  Whether you are fighting for your life or cruising through that part of your journey, you have to remember to find your own way to #LoveLife.

Now let me back this up to Thursday afternoon.  Almost to the day when I was first diagnosed with cancer, I was told that I have a recurrence in my liver.  I can’t say that I was surprised by it as my bloodwork indicated that “something” was up.  My husband and my daughter knew what was going on, but I chose not to share this news with the outside world until today because everyone would want to know what the next steps are.  While I suspected that we would pursue Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) instead of open surgery, I wanted to wait for confirmation from Dr. Care Bear first.  Besides, I wanted to enjoy a family weekend rather than being distracted with phone calls, emails, and social media inquiries.  Don’t get me wrong – I truly do appreciate all the kind gestures, love, and prayers.  I just needed to be a bit selfish and have a normal weekend with my family.

So here are the next steps.  I have a planning session in the morning to map out the alignment for SRS.  I will start a steroids regimen to coincide with the radiation over the next 10 days.  Zap zap zap, we hit the tumors, and then we continue to monitor with quarterly scans.  In between, we get to thumb our noses at cancer by living our lives each and every day.  Go celebrate.