One day at a time.

I’ve been struggling to put my thoughts down onto the blog. I can assure you that it is not because there has been a lack of thoughts or emotions. Quite the opposite actually. From my initial fascination of different countries’ approach to tackling the coronavirus to the realization that if I get it, I’ll likely not survive, and feeling sickened that news outlets focus their report on death tolls and the idiot who leads the country south of the border. So many thoughts, so many emotions, I simply didn’t know how to process and chose to push it all aside.

This could have been the case all along. From the initial diagnosis to receiving my 3rd chemotherapy treatment last week, whenever emotions begin to bubble up, I rationalize it away. What is the point of crying, if crying won’t help cure my cancer? This is the way I’ve always been. Rational, logical, let’s get shit done so we can do the next cool thing. (At least I think I am, maybe don’t tell me, if I am not lol) This is especially difficult to do, when each chemo treatment makes you feel like you are starting over, from the very bottom. All the progress you’ve made putting yourself back together, gets wiped out. Each round racing against time to get back as close to 100% as possible before the next dose of poison in your body. The truth is, each round, you receive 1 day of treatment and 20 days to recover. In the 20 days of rest, you never get back to the 100%. At maximum maybe 80%, and the next time is 80% of the previous 80%, and so on. And that, folks, (in my non-medical and unscientifically view) is why the side effects of chemotherapy treatments are cumulative on the body (nice way of saying it will get worse before its over).

It was finally a nice day yesterday and I decided to do some stretching and exercises out in the backyard. Never would I have thought that walking lunges would make me emotional… but they did. They did because my legs felt so foreign. It wasn’t an “I’m out of shape” weakness in my muscle kind of feeling, it felt like I couldn’t trust my legs to support me, even though they have for my entire life. I am heartbroken that my body does not feel the same as it used to, it is really hard to accept and I must learn to adapt and support its healing. (I know that once I am better, my body will be stronger as well.) I am also astonished by the healing power of the body. With each treatment, 4 bags of chemicals are dripped into my blood, to kick cancer’s ass, but that also means my organs have to work extra hard to filter and process it all out of my system.

My 3rd round of treatment felt the toughest so far. I am not sure if it’s because of the addition of a new drug into the mix, or the second round felt easy, or that the first round was kind of a blur, but this one kicked my ass physically, mentally and emotionally. And when I think about the 3 more that I need to do, it scares me. I don’t know how much more fatigued I will feel, I don’t know if the hot flashes will get worse.. The only thing I can do is to focus on that I am half way done the chemo treatments (the worst part of getting better) and take it one day at a time.