<p>saying prayers your scans are good!</p>
<p>Sunriseeast, I am so happy to hear your party was a success! I, too, will be sending positive thoughts your way tomorrow. I agree with Colorado mom, you are an inspiration!!</p>
<p>First time poster in this thread - I will be thinking of you tomorrow and sending good thoughts.</p>
<p>So impressive that you kept it a secret, how did you end up paying the deposit?</p>
<p>Great news about the success, well done, Sunrise!</p>
<p>Good luck today sunrise. Liked your posts above about making happy times not sad. I am so impressed with that spirit. I am so glad the party was great. I also want to know how you managed the deposit.</p>
<p>Your party story is delightful and moving, but we would expect no less after reading all your eloquent posts in this thread. Sending up prayers for you this week. Thanks for all that you have shared here. Your story often makes me stop to put things in an appropriate context in my life and has been a gift.</p>
<p>I’m so happy the party was a huge success! I was smiling the whole time I read about it. Then, I got a lump in my throat when you described your son’s toast. It all sounds just perfect. </p>
<p>Good luck with your scans today. I’ll be thinking of you and sending good, positive thoughts.</p>
<p>Congrats on a successful party. Covering you in prayer today.</p>
<p>sunrise, what a wonderful evening it was! It sounds absolutely perfect, and you must have been so proud of your son as he gave his toast. </p>
<p>I will be thinking of you all day, hoping for a clean scan.</p>
<p>What a wonderful evening and a great memory for all, regardless of how this week unfolds. Here’s to a better report then you think it might be.</p>
<p>Just said a prayer for you…</p>
<p>Sunrise, thinking of you today. And when darkness comes in any of our lives, I want to think of it exactly the way that you described it: as a shadow that sets off the contours of our lives thereby highlighting the part of the sculpture that is beautiful and light. The way you described that was life changing for me. . . proving once again, that it is not what happens to you in life as much as it is how you choose to see it and what you can learn and appreciate about yourself and your loved ones. You helped me today and you are in my prayers. Thank you.</p>
<p>Wishing the best for you and so glad things worked out for DH, both his health and his party. I wanted to add that this whole thread, including reader posts, says something about human caring and offers hope to all of us. So, thanks to every poster here. And, continued best, sunriseeast. You have touched us in the most unexpected ways.</p>
<p>thank you so much everybody. I am not into giving lip services, but you must understand that all the kindness and good will you shared with me throughout this journey makes it so much easier to face today’s scan and whatever comes a few days later when I learn what’s the next step… I don’t know you personally, yet, you have all been so kind. Thank you you so much.</p>
<p>Now, regarding the question of how I managed to move a large amount of money. </p>
<p>First, I had to come up with a very good story why we need to transfer a large amount of money into the liquid cash accounts at our bank. As a rule, we don’t keep a large balance in the “practically no interests these days” accounts (no more than a few thousand dollars at a time). There are three of them: checking, saving, and performance money market. One of the stories I came up with was that since it’s the beginning of the year, and none of our medical expenses have reach the yearly deductible obligation on our part, I will be writing a check worth a few thousand dollars and there may be some other stuff… It’s not that I need a permission from him for anything financial. It’s just that everything is shared, and whatever I do with the accounts, he will know. The idea is NOT to arouse any suspicion.</p>
<p>Second, I now had to go and look at all the liquid cash accounts and see what kind of automatic email alert traps he set up to notify him for fund movement that is over whatever trigger threshold he desired (usually, he sets up these traps, not me). I couldn’t change the thresholds since the email alerts gt to both him and me whenever account setting is changed. So I had to withdraw cash from multiple accounts below the threshold, and put together the sum needed. There were only a couple of hundred dollars room by the time I did all this. </p>
<p>Third, of course, now, he had to be kept away from on-line banking last three days leading up to the party. The fact the both of our kids were around for the spring break, and his beloved sister and her husband were with us made him very busy, and totally distracted him from his routines.</p>
<p>All in all, if I had a team of gigolos on my payroll, it would have been easier! I don’t think H will ever trust me again!</p>
<p>You sneaky devil you… :)</p>
<p>Very clever money laundering. ;)</p>
<p>Sunrise - I’ve been reading your posts since I came here and I want you to know I’ve prayed for you all along the way. You have such a wonderful calming presence and such a great perspective on everything I want you to know how much I admire you. I wish you peace and love through this next piece and pray for good news for you.</p>
<p>Tears in my eyes.</p>
<p>sunriseeast-“The room was full of good will, grace, love and appreciation all around - shared by the guests even among themselves for each other.** If I were to capture a perfect moment in life, last evening was it.”**</p>
<p>Absolutely beautiful!</p>
<p>thank you all so much for your kind words. I don’t know how to make it real to you all that though I don’t know you personally, your kindness and good will really meant A LOT to me all through out this journey.</p>
<p>My last “spa” day at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) (a week ago) was the first day of my treatment (chemo infusions and what not) that I was dispirited and down. I am usually the most upbeat patient in the whole center. That day, I know I was getting a chemo infusion that may not even be working anymore. There was just this weariness. </p>
<p>I remember a painting by Degas - Absinthe. When I first saw it, it touched me deeply. Profound melancholy that does not call out for attention. Rather it bespeaks a quiet resignation. It touched me because this was a such a foreign sentiment to me- and it made me feel like a cripple that there is this whole swatch of emotion that I did not experience in my own life in my own emotional landscape. I, by nature, is an active person. I may wail. I may scream in outrage. I may holler. But I don’t sit there in quiet resignation.</p>
<p>However that day in MSKCC, that’s exactly how I felt. I felt like what that woman in the painting must have felt if she were a real person… </p>
<p>I was a shorted lived self introspection in quiet resignation, because, immediately, I swung into action for the surprise party. The excitement is over. Yesterday, I was back at MSKCC for a scan. I am already dreading the results. No matter how prepared I think I am for bad results, there is still a pang. There is part of me that says, all this is just so tiresome. How many times do I buoy myself only to fall hard. How many times do I pick myself up off the floor to charge forward and hit the wall instead? I go in tomorrow for the scan results and a consult for what now. There is a chance that the scan is clean. Then I will feel like a fool for all these… I should be so lucky.</p>
<p>It’s been a while. I have been at it, what, 16 months now with a short few month break in the summer last year. I know there is no cure for my condition, and survival means being probation forever. My ambition is modest now. I long for just couple of years of break - no more. Just enough so that I can taste what a normal life that is not constantly punctured with weekly treatment and dreaded tests and scans every few weeks feels like. This is not to say I am pessimistic about my future and despondent. On the contrary, I am hopeful, and I still believe that I have a good chance to be a long term survivor. However, I do not delude myself into thinking that I can be cured -at least not till they come up with a miracle breakthrough. What I am hoping is a break that will last a couple years before the next round starts again. A break long enough to replenish a modicum of self delusion that I am in control, and my future is predictable, and plans can be made without a constant reminder that everything can change on a dime.</p>
<p>The other day, a friend of me said she admires me for courage and determination. I felt like she is describing someone else that I do not even recognize, because that’s not how I feel. I feel like that woman in Absinthe. She may be worthy of sympathy. She certainly does not look like a hero to me.</p>
<p>Now, back to the research. I need to get the dossier ready for discussion with my doctor in case the scan results prompt a discussion for next line of treatment…</p>