Today, I shared the following with a new person in my life. It was so much easier with visible physical wounds. Now, with no visual signs of illness or injury, I am left to wonder if it's my body or my spirit that needs more time.
"...Yea, this cancer thing pretty much sucks. I was triple positive - stage 1 - grade - 1, 3 months of weekly chemo, then 9 months of Herceptin (artificially induced flu on a menstrual like schedule :-) - and that ended in November of last year. I am not to the "alive" point, yet, but I have had some crazy amazing opportunities to teach - to speak with people - to walk with people - because I am such a TMI person - well, it's been phenomenal. I had been dating my fiance for 6 months when the diagnosis came... but I'm not going to make myself cry, so I'll stop there :-). If you are on Facebook and add me, that's where I chronicled my journey - which, honestly, I've really let up on, but continually go back and try to pick up again. The time I had healing, being sick, having surgeries - it gave me time to write. I had to write and share to get through it, but now... this time in my life is *so* much more stressful than any of that ever felt like... I don't have the energy. The stability, really, to look that closely at myself at the moment. I have to keep life and family together, which it sounds like you know all too well. My then-boyfriend/now-fiance quit work and school to help me keep my job, life, family, and sanity together, and now, as a one income family with canceled extra classes and a variety of other cute financial surprises... it's pretty darn exhausting. But I'm coming back. I can feel it. It's just so darn slooooow.
...I've been... in the role of the most experienced through most of my cancer trip - there were a small few who had walked this path before, but even at 45, I am much younger (for now, I'm sure you are well aware of) than most diagnosed women, so very few in my life, in my circle knew anything of what might come for me. Some very amazing people came into my life that *had* walked this before, and without them... I would be lost. But this, now, post-treatment and pre-recovery, this is hard. This is so much harder than cancer and surgery and chemo and all of it. And there's no damn "final appointment" date. Really, a "this ends" goalpost would make such a difference. Thank you. It was kind of nice, really, to write this with no worry of freak out or embarrassment or pity."
And the saddest piece to me, in this moment, is I kind of feel just like I did when I started this. If that's the case, then what's the point?
Probably the point is to convince me to quit asking what's the point.
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