It has been quite the week. If you’ve been following the Kickstarter for Adventures of Claire Never-Ending, than you know we might our goal for producing the novel. !!!!!!!! WOOHOO!

If I wasn’t so knackered at this very moment, I’d kiss you all.

It was such an incredible experience, and I want to thank everyone who pushed in and gave, and ordered, and shared, and supported. The campaign is still going, so I really hope to sell more copies over the next month. Are you part of a book club? Maybe you and your friends would be interested in the Claires 🙂

Betwen the tweeting and sharing and thanking, and getting blown-over by YOUR awesome support, I’ve been going to a place called the OICC in Ottawa. This is the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre. Twice a week I am receiving intravenous vitamin C treatments. This is meant to help control the cancer. It also works well when coupled with chemotherapy, but let’s not go there in this chat today. Basically the IVC is meant to encourage the cancer cells to breakdown. That’s putting it very simply. It’s not a cure, it’s a treatment. Heck, there is no cure for metastatic breast cancer, they are all treatments. But I want that shining golden prize of No Evidence of Disease (NED) to become mine. If you’ve read some of the comments in this blog, you’ll see it is possible. And even without NED – to keep things under control means good quality of life and no pain. Those are two beautiful concepts.

NOW. Two adventures I have to share with you in this post. First is the interview on CBC radio for All in a Day. (WOOOHOOO!) Second is my visit just this morning with Dr. Canada.

Just yesterday I was at the CBC building in downtown Ottawa. CBC is a national broadcaster and the standard of quality in Canadian media. So it’s huge to be there and was an honour. Hopping off the bus, I rock up to the big CBC location on Queen street. There’s a security guard and I check in. Then,  after a little while, a lady comes out to meet me. She has on a great red shirt, awesome sparkly shoes and such a cute hair cut. Unfortunately I cannot remember her name, but I do remember her excellent style.

Anyhow – we go into the ‘news area’. Surreal!! Think of any news show you’ve watched on television – that is what  this place is like, except for unexpected sensations like the softness of the carpet beneath my feet, the glow of florescent lights and that quiet hum of chatter. On one long wall there is a photo of the earth from space. In the centre of the room – hanging above all the low cubicles – is this massive, circular structure. It’s both a light fixture, art installation, and screen for all the stations. It’s a huge circle, and all around the outside are screens with different channels being played without any volume. Oh, and people look good. Everyone is dressed for success.

The show went really well. I’ll link in an audio clip to the picture below if you want to listen in. You should listen, it was a great experience. My parents and Zsolt both say it was great 🙂 Thumbs up for a encouraging family

Yay!

And then today was the oncology appointment. Dr. Canada was in a much better mood today. That was great. He also said this should be a time for joy. I’d rather focus on joy than dread – so yes, that was good. He also talked about sex, and he spoke quite frankly. Zoladex can lower the libido and dry up the lady parts. I’ve had problems with this before. So he was so great – even though Zsolt was squirming next to me with discomfort – basically saying something like, “this should be a time to focus on what you can do, not on what has been lost. So if you have trouble having an organism, try and focus on how much pleasure there comes from extra foreplay.” And he’s right. And I’m glad he opened the door for conversation. (Of course, he was referring in the bigger sense as well . . . such as having children, a certainty of a long life, etc. I think sharing this concept via intimacy was smart and frankly less emotional, cause you can laugh over sex, no? We did.) Also, one last thing: he wants me to go on a clinical trial that will start early 2014. In his words, he thinks the drug will be a “homerun!” So I’m all in favour of homeruns, even if I’m a terrible baseball player – I’m quite glad to hit a grandslam out of the park in the name of crushing cancer. I’ll just keep swinging till the job gets done, in my game there is no such thing as striking out!

So the language was much better today.

There is so much to say and write, but I won’t go into it all today. Sooner than later, I’ll write you a post about vitamin C. One very definite side effect: I get HYER right after treatment. It wears off. Too bad all treatments can’t work the same way – putting us in good moods.

OKAY That’s it.

Kickstarter is KICKING BUTT. With every single book sold, and more people who are going to read the Claires, it just gets fuzzier and fuzzier with warmth inside my heart. Thank you for your support. In return, I hope you like the novel.

Be well and have a lovely weekend 🙂

Catherine