September 7, 2015
Hello Everyone and welcome back. I would have posted earlier, but I fell asleep. So, its still Sunday night, kinda...
Thank you for returning to check in. I will continue to post monthly entries, and respond to your emails and messages.
Since last entry, I have kept busy with work and personal activities. I like having something to do after work hours, whether its going to the gym, meeting a friend for dinner, working a second job, or practicing softball with friends. I stay busy by staying active. I have attended a few baseball games, and some junior football games. I joined some friends in Palm Springs and just returned from a road trip to Humboldt with my parents. September includes more running around.
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The posted photo is an appreciation of those who I surround myself with. I think about Team Sosa every day, and remember how important it is to surround myself with support. Every person should acknowledge and be grateful for any support system in their lives, no matter how small. I am very glad to know, if I need something, I can always ask. There will always be the independent Sosa, who can do it all on her own. One thing, I have changed in my life, is taking opportunities to ask for help. That truly makes the hard times, a little less hard.
Part of that, too, is being open about life and what has happened in the past year and a half. Sometimes, people still have difficulty understanding that I am still Stage 4, and "don't look it." A lot of people have said, if they did not know I had lost my hair, they would never have guessed I did not mean to cut it short. Alternatively, some people still look at me with sympathy, or as if I am dying. They wonder why I did not have surgery or spend months in the hospital. I acknowledge everyone who has the courage to ask me why. I always search to find a better way to explain that I am "living with cancer," because some people only hear "cancer," and not the "living" part.....
I can also understand its very difficult for those people, just from their own experiences. Most people have friends or family who are diagnosed, and they do not live very long. Or, they live longer but are in obvious treatment (no hair, lots of hospital trips, no job). We have lived so long with medicine that does not cure cancer, it is hard to accept there is medicine that treats cancer.
I continue to receive treatment to keep my cancer under control. It allows me good quality of life, or it has for the past year. That is the benefit of more medicine, developed by continued donations and fundraisers, like this upcoming October pink events. I have friends with different forms of cancer who are in lifelong treatment, like me. I also have met plenty of cancer survivors. They have been treated and continue to be tested cancer free. Medicine has come a long way in improving quality of life for those who have completed treatment, and those who continue to endure it.
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Right now, I take one pill a day. This medicine is the second in a variety of medicines I will take to keep my cancer from spreading beyond its current state. Some people have chemo or radiation to slow down their active disease. These treatments are advancing quickly in lowering risks of recurrence and managing dreadful side effects.
I am aware the medicine I take slows things down for a few years, before the disease becomes something else. And, I will get another CT scan this month, and all forms of treatment go back on the table.
Until then, and as usual, I will still be out there, working hard, breaking hearts, laughing harder, crying less, and smiling more.
See you in October............................Love, Sosa
