It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

For the last couple of days, I have been having problems with my vision.  Everything I see looks "pixelated" and seems to vibrate.  It's as if I can see the atomic makeup of a wall, a table, or the sky.  Sometimes I see little sparks jump around.  I have had these symptoms before with my vision.  It usually occurs a day or two after a chemo treatment and then disappears.  This time after treatment it got worse and still isn't gone.

I was terrified when I woke up this morning and the strange vision still hadn't gone away.  I started hyperventillating and bawling.  Usually, sparkling lights remind me of the holidays:  Christmas, New Years, and July 4th.  Not this time...I was too traumatized to go to work for the morning. 

After resting at home for the morning,  I made it in to work for the afternoon.  I spoke to my opthamolgist on the phone and described my symptoms which were: 1.  Pixelated and vibrating vision with occasional sparks  2. The bizarre vision is in both eyes  3.  When I look at something bright and then look away I have an afterglow of the image I just looked at.  The overall sensation I have is of  t.v. snow as an overlay to everything I look at, except the overlay is transparent.  The opthamologist said that the good news is that the bizarre vision is occuring in both eyes.  He thought that the problems I am experiencing is not visual as much as it is neurological.  He told me that he wants me to make an appointment with my neurologist.  Oh joy, another doctor's appointment...

The questions that went through my mind today were, 1.  Am I going to go blind or are these visual changes permanent and 2.  Am I going to make it through this chemotherapy and live a long time without recurrance?  I started feeling incredibly alone again.  I felt isolated from my family, my friends, and again from the big G, God.

If you know me at all, you know that I have this current obsession and fascination with the "Battlestar Gallactica" series...Not the old one from the '70's, but the one from the 21st century.  I started watching it around the time I was diagnosed with cancer.  It turned out, one of the main characters in the series is a woman president of the human colonies who was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.  At first, I was hesitant to continue watching the series because it hit a little too close to home.  It turns out, her character is just what I needed to watch.  She's courageous, beautiful, and wise.  She is a great leader and a fighter..Even though she's fictitious, she's a great person for me to watch right now.

Tonght, as I was watching the series (and it's really getting good!!), there was a scene that absolutely blew me away.  During one of the scenes, while the president is getting chemo (the red kind like I received), she visits with another cancer patient whose name is Emily...That caught my attention to say the least...Emily starts telling the president not to fear the end because Emily had a vision.  She tells the president that in a dream she took a boat to meet her family on the other side and that she wasn't alone in death.  The president then tells Emily that she doesn't believe in an afterlife.  The president said that she watched her mother die of breast cancer...who was a teacher who had students that loved her, who would walk across fire for her...(that also got my attention..)  The president continued to say that when her mother the teacher died there was nothing.. just a shroud of sadness.  Emily then told her, that didn't necessarily happen to her mother...That was just a child's view of what happened.  In the next scene, the president was dreaming.  She was on that boat riding across the water and she sees her deceased mother.  The president says, "I'm glad you're ok, Mother..but I'm not ready to go yet."

I still struggle with God and his/her existence on a daily basis.  Today was one of those days.  But when I saw this episode tonight with my name in it, about a teacher, and about cancer...I felt like it was a sign...Especially when the ending had such a message of hope..."I'm not ready to go yet."  I AM NOT READY TO GO YET!!!!  "I AM NOT READY TO GO YET...."  I have to keep believing that and saying that to myself over and over.  It just isn't time.

Chemosabe