I didn't blog this weekend because I don't have much to say. I am excited/nervous about going to the new Dr on Thursday. I haven't had any anxiety attacks since last week and I'm not taking the medication. It was so blooming hot this weekend that we just stayed inside. I have a book from a dear sweet friend Sandra about a woman who went through breast cancer. I can't decide if I should read it or not. On Friday night I picked up a magazine that someone had brought me (it was actually called The Cancer Magazine) and I happened to flip to the "what WILL happen to you page" which was a bad idea. I've read through the list of side effects with chemo, but honestly I think I was in shock and I don't seem to remember what they were, or at least all of them. Here it was, the horrible list and I mean horrible. I immediately shut it and handed all four magazines to Whit and told him to get rid of them. But unfortunately before I did throw it away, I did see the list, and I've always had a photographic memory. Great for tests, terrible for things you want to "forget". So I spent most of the weekend pushing it out of my head. Then sometime on Saturday I decided that I wasn't going to have most of the side effects, that I was going to live my life as though I was the exception to the "list". It's horrible knowing you have something that is at some point possibly going to hurt you. It's like knowing ahead of time that your going to get stung by a bee or bitten by a snake and you find out weeks before it actually happens. The sting isn't that bad nor the bite, but the anticipation is enough to make you crazy.
So I am mentally battling the "crazy" right now and forcing my head to stay in it's positive place, you know the place that everyone demands I stay in. I can tell the days I don't have enough distractions, I spend the day battling crazy vs positive. Good thing I have a board meeting tonight and booster on Wed, that keeps me busy and I sure do better busy. See, that's why I have decided that no matter what my body thinks, my head says that I am to live life normal and keep up everything as though the cancer (whisper it) isn't around.
I actually mentally had a picture of me racing against cancer. (I used to be a swimmer many moons ago). It was actually a wakem (an awake dream). It was me, and four other people I know who have been associated with cancer, and I got second place, we were racing "cancer". First place was Teresa who has already won, that's when I decided that the side effects would be at best minimal.
Favorite cancer quote of the weekend "if I drink after you will I catch it?"
If you mean me, that may be the first and only athletic event I have ever or will ever win!! So, thanks!
ReplyDeleteAs for the reading--I came to the same conclusion you did. I didn't need to hear all that stuff. I will offer two bits of information which may or may not be of any use to you. I can honestly say that throughout the cancer odyssey I was never in pain. I was uncomfortable, sure, but not in pain. So it is possible (and believe me, I'm a big wimp, so that was on my mind a lot).
Also, my favorite two "cancer reads" were both humorous--so they gave me the information I needed in a way I could deal with. Also, I only read both when I was in a place (emotionally of course) where I could deal with it. Those books were: Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto (I'm pretty sure from her description she had a worse time with chemo than I did though, so keep that in mind; also, she had the less intense chemo and didn't lose her hair--but she discusses that). The other, and I'd probably recommend this one first if you were at all inclined to read, was "Five Lessons I didn't learn from breast cancer (and One Big One I did)" by Shelley Lewis--it's an extremely practical book and I, for one, really appreciated her outlook.
But the important thing is--this is your Odyssey and you've got to do it your way. So feel free to ignore my suggestions! Sounds like you are doing well at doing it your way.
PS You are going to be able to collect those awful quotes for a long long time. People are something else aren't they?
OF course it was you, your the only Teresa I know that has already taken the Odyssey and come out clean! :) Thanks for the book titles, I will see if they are around, I love to read and would rather have the information in a gentler way than the Dr who told me to look it up or the internet, it can be harsh. It's good (you know given the circumstance) that you weren't in pain, I can't deal with that, I have never done that well. I have been really working out, hoping that will help, to be in shape. Still coming to terms with the hair, don't know why, but having a hard time with it. Just waiting and waiting until Thursday and the new Dr., maybe some new dates, I don't wait well either but I"m learning how too! Thanks for writing when you do, it REALLY means a lot to me, and your suggestions I take as "gold", so again thank you!!!
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