Today was a pleasant surprise. Usually on days that I have chemo I come home afterwards, take a nap & mentally prepare for the next 4 days of not feeling like myself and being extremely fatigued. Today was different! My chemo was scheduled for 2:00PM instead of 10:00AM leaving me with some time earlier in the day. My mum, sister & I decided to go see “Magic Mike” which was amazingly hilarious! We had a fantastic time and it even inspired us to go to a real club ;)
After the movie I came back home to enjoy a delicious lunch prepared by my sister Sarah, as always. When it came time for chemo - the usual happened. I got really upset and cried a lot. I can’t help it! Even though things are moving in the right direction and now I’m more than half way done with treatment, the thought of all of this still hits me pretty hard sometimes. Then the “What If” monster comes to attack out of no where. Some of the what if’s are irrational like what if I never bounce back from the chemo and feel that fatigued and unlike myself forever or what if they don’t access my port correctly and the chemo causes tissue damage. Some of the other what if’s aren’t as irrational, but are negative thinking. What if my cancer comes back a month after treatment or 3 months after, or just comes back in general. I have to remind myself that things are going well so I don’t dwell on those scary thoughts. My pet scan after 2 months came back great, no signs of cancer! My oncologist told me that this is often a good prediction of how I’ll do long-term with this. I keep telling myself that this disease is 95% curable and even if I did relapse there are other successful treatment options. Then I also think about the things I’m doing on my part to deal with this. I recently started drinking green smoothies which are proven to have all kinds of health-benefits even when it comes to cancer. Another thing I do is pray. I pray a lot now. I pray almost every night before I go to sleep.
God was never really a big part of my life. I was a non-believer for a long time. Even now, I don’t associate myself with any organized religion, but going through all of this has given me faith that God exists. Sometimes people think that believing and praying to God must mean what you read about in Christianity or Catholicism or Judaism or Hindu, but that’s not the case. God can mean something different to everyone. I have my own relationship with god right now. Just me and God - there’s no other religion that I use to help me achieve that. Praying each night helps me release all of the negative thoughts and fears about the future that I have. It gives me an opportunity to express how thankful I am for all of the positive things I have going on from that great pet scan and being over halfway through with treatment to just having a nice day. Sometimes when I pray it’s not only talking to God and asking for protection and strength and thanking him for what I do have, but it’s talking to myself and reassuring myself that everything is going to be okay. I find that praying is often a nice way to end and start each day for me.
