Below is the unaltered incomplete draft from Brandi, last edited April 3, 2018 – exactly one month before she passed. Brandi’s mom, Genele, took the following photo of her that day. They were on their trip together to Slot Canyons in Arizona. Genele remembers her working on her laptop later that day – on what must have been this draft.

Earlier this month I shared that my Stage IV Breast Cancer treatment schedule included weekly chemotherapy (chemo) treatments for the indefinite future.

One of the hardest things to do successfully while juggling ongoing chemo treatments, excelling in a high-performance work culture, making community appearances as Ms. Vacaville, and contributing to Breast Cancer advocacy work is managing my schedule. Managing a schedule is difficult for any ambitious young professional, but I have some extra unusual constraints from my treatments. Each chemo treatment takes me out completely for one to several days afterwards depending on the specific chemotherapy drug and dosage. The best (but not entirely equivalent) comparison I can provide for most of you who have not had chemo is being home sick with the flu. I receive my treatments at an outpatient clinic at the hospital and then I go home to rest and recover. I have to estimate and block-off time in my schedule where I know I will feel bad enough that I will not be able to get much, if anything, done. This is consistently frustrating and disappointing for me as a high-achieving, Type-A personality because I will be unproductive and feel crappy while (not?) doing it. It also presents a couple schedule management challenges:

1. Recovery from every chemo treatment is a little bit different. Even recovery from the exact same drug and dosage can be a different experience in terms of duration and severity of side effects. Side effects are cumulative (meaning they get worse over time) and things like diet, exercise, and even time of day of the treatment can play a role. I’ve been doing this a while so I can usually “guesstimate” how long it will take me to recover – so far my accuracy has not left me in any schedule binds. That’s not to say I haven’t had to reschedule or transition any responsibilities, but I’ve been able to do this successfully and without disruption.
2. I do not have much advance warning as to exactly where these treatments will fall. Usually the day before a scheduled treatment, I have my blood drawn and a bunch of tests are run to monitor progression of my disease and the side effects of treatment.

I have to effectively manage my mental health so that I continue to be productive with the time I feel physically well. I am limited in overall capacity by the amount of time I feel physically well.

I was hoping to be able to get in sort of a routine – I’d get my treatment on Thursday afternoon, and mostly rest

And then I have to challenge myself to get as much done as possible. I have to challenge myself to keep standing up no matter how many time chemo knocks me down. I have to allow myself the tears and then find the resolve to keep going anyways. I have to understand that it’s not going to get better and keep trying to move forward anyways. I have to find that in myself to keep going. That’s not something anyone can do for me.

Each day takes a pep talk and there’s a fair number of tears. Sign in my bathroom to encourage me to.

Over the course of the last four years, Cancer has upheaved my schedule time and time again so I should have known better than to expect it to behave in such a predictable manner! Nonetheless, I was disappointed when this schedule was almost immediately unsustainable.

While not an ideal schedule (I don’t think any “ideal” schedule includes chemo), it was a schedule nonetheless and something I was hoping I could manage for some extended period of time. One of the most difficult aspects of living with Cancer is coping with and managing the uncertainty.