Keep on Keeping On
Goofy picture that makes me giggle, but look at all of that hair!
I am not sure when my immune system decided to run off and join the circus, but it did. Since I finished radiation I have had a case of stomach flu/food poisoning (I am still not quite certain what that horrible tummy bug was, but it was the first time I threw up this year. Yes, I never threw up during chemo, just like my doctors promised). I managed to pick up a cold when I was traveling to New York, so I have been sicker the past couple of weeks than I have been all year (different kind of sick, I already got in trouble for saying that, but you know…). Maybe in there somewhere I cut down from washing my hands 200 times a day to about 50.
Obviously based on my previous posts I have been in a bit of an emotional whirlwind. When you are in cancer treatment you tuck your head down and do what it takes to make it through THAT day. You don’t have the luxury to plan how you will feel next week. You learn to avoid making too many plans because you just never know how you are going to feel or what could happen 3 days from now. Once you complete treatment you have a major brain shift. Suddenly you have the luxury to look at your life a year from now, two years from now, or even five years from now.
This is when you go through a shocked moment of “what if I am not here five years from now.” As much as you want to focus on positive thinking, there are moments where you go through the reality of what you have faced. Depression is a common “side effect” of cancer treatment and after cancer treatment. I thought the book about being done with cancer treatment, that they gave me when I finished chemo, would be about hope and looking forward and taking over your life again. Instead it was about learning to deal with the damage that cancer treatment has done to your body. Long term side effects of chemo, living with scars and changes to your body, education about Lymphadema and much more. It was the most depressing book I have picked up in my life.
The cancer box.
I have my pillbox with my Tamoxifen and Metformin/Placebo in my purse so I don’t forget to take it. The odd pains in my legs have gone away (yay!).
I am trying to refocus my energy, be positive, eat well, exercise some day when I don’t have the plague (my cold is named “the plague” today). I boxed up my “You Have Cancer” book, certificates, hospital bills and other items in a box labelled “cancer stuff” and put it away on a shelf while I count down the days until my reconstruction surgery in December. I will just try to spend more time thinking about our upcoming trip to Mexico (I seriously think I bought 10 swimsuits because I was obsessed with finding ones that would look normal on me, but I did get some that look really good).
– THINKING POSITIVE –.
