Well it has been a busy time for me ... family visiting and staying with me. I felt this was a great distraction from the reality of what I was going through. It kept me busy enough that I didn't have to think of what I was happening to me ... the medical news of my cancer returning and in such a bad way, the anxiety of chemo, the reality that my life was again, was out of my control.
The first cycle included a pretty rough first week -- which was due to the very hot weather we were experiencing and a lack of attention to myself. I wasn't on top of things as I should have been. The second week left me quite fatigued and the third week left me feeling pretty 'normal'.
Once the visiting family members left, I was faced with the cancer once again. While I was busy, I could avoid the reality of it, but once alone and with time on my hands, things changed. What am I to do now? How am I to live my life? What do I do tomorrow, next week, next month and so on? How do I cope with this? I think I spent a day and a half feeling sorry for myself and lost sleep trying to figure out how to deal with this. I needed to feel as 'normal' as possible otherwise I was afraid I would spin out of control into a depressive state.
With each cycle comes a visit with the oncologist. I don't ask many questions because quite frankly, "I'm afraid to." Not knowing all the details works for me. However, the oncologist does share news in bits and pieces ... some good, some not so good and I try to figure out what it all means. I will be on chemo for quite a while but there is opportunity to be off of it also. I don't think I will not focus on the long term because it is a moving target. I'm just going to live for each day and see how that works for me. In the next few weeks I'm going to try and 'normalize' my life as much as I can. I'm not exactly sure what that means but it sounds like something I need to be doing in order to survive this journey.
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