October 28th, 2008: A good end to a long life: my boyfriend Lorenzo’s father passed away yesterday afternoon at age 92. It’s been a dance for the past few weeks with Lorenzo, balancing time given to his father’s illness and my own health issues. I would say that we’ve danced very well together. May his father be free from suffering.

More forward motion today toward the start of treatment. Appointments have been booked for a central line to be installed in my upper chest, and, perhaps the same day—election day!—I may check into the hospital for my first five-day round of chemo. It will depend on whether there is a bed available.

Over the past weeks, I’ve slowly realized that I have been living with this tumor for a long time, at least two years by my body memory. An insidious feature of pelvic sarcoma is that you don’t know you have it. It feels like a weird sciatica or a sore butt or a painful hip, etc. depending on where it’s located. Even after my hip replacement—which was needed, very definitely—I have the same ache in my hip and pelvis. It’s been strange to go through the surgery with all my hope to easing the pain, only to confront the real pain. Now that the sarcoma tumor board and the melanoma tumor board have had a chance to review the tests, images, biopsies and scans, I am very anxious to begin treatment. I feel like this cancer has had a very long life, and in recent days I’ve actively talking with it about leaving. I tell it that I can’t continue to be a host to its growth. We all want to live, but my cancer will have to go somewhere else to find longer life.

My end-of-day reward to self: a trip to my healing center and the anticipation of tonight’s healer: Animal? Vegetable? Mineral?