On Friday, I will have my 5th chemo treatment. From the Friday before Labor Day to about two and a half weeks post, I was terrified. TERRIFIED. I was convinced that, not only did I have breast cancer, but that it was advanced stage and that I was going to be told I had mere months to live.
This, as we all currently know, was not the case. I do, indeed, have breast cancer. But. It is not advanced stage and it, is highly curable.
But those first three and a half weeks… I had a million thoughts. A million wonders. A million questions running through my mind. And fears. A million of those, too.
From then until my first chemo, I was at a loss. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Was convinced I wouldn’t be around for my boys in two years.
And then, number 1… was rough. Neutropenia. Blood pressure issues. Two hospitalizations. One sceroma. One drain. C Diff. And a partridge in a pear tree. It spanned five weeks. And it was defeating.
And then… then the light started to come back. Honestly, luckily for me, it never left when I look back on it. When I really think of it all, the first three weeks, those were hard. Harder than any of the things in the first round of chemo. Those all seemed like jumpable hurdles. And jump them, we did.
Now, I am just three days away from number 5. Number 5 out of 6. Then, four to six weeks following, I will have a bilateral mastectomy. And four to six weeks following that, I will have 6 weeks of radiation — one treatment a day. And then, four to 6 months after that, reconstruction.
I am in it. I am living it. But it is not my only life right now.
Yesterday was normal. Almost as normal as normal gets. Like, I-don’t-think-I-even-had-cancer normal. I did laundry. Made a crockpot dinner. Ran errands. Dropped the kids off at school. Talked to my mom on the phone. Had time with a dear friend for a playdate. I laughed with my husband. I danced in the kitchen. I stared at my children. It was normally extraordinary. Because normal feels amazing these days. Because in that first three and a half weeks — the weeks where I was wandering and wondering — I questioned if I would ever feel normal again.
And so, yesterday, on the day of normal, I wrote, with the Littlest at my side. I just wrote and wrote. And then, I read it to Adam and asked if he thought it was Her View From Home good enough. And then, I asked Leslie {my friend and the owner}. It’s a little bit odd — a little slam poetry-esque. But it’s all from my heart.
So, check out today’s post from me over at Her View From Home. Per the uzh, it is long. Per the uzh, it is a little bit of diarrhea of the mouth. Per the uzh, I would love you to click, share, comment — it’s my one {smally} paid gig. And it buys my coffee {shameless plug. But I love my coffee these days}.
Thanks for letting me share this process. Thank you for letting me dump my brain and empty my heart on you. And thank you for sticking with me during the first dark days until I started to see the sun again.
Some people say that until you hear the words, “clean scan” you are a pre-vivor… but I think that we are all survivors. Because if we’re breathing and our hearts are beating, we’re all surviving something. And that’s pretty amazing in and of itself. And today’s Her View post is all about that.
To read my other words from today… a sort of weirdly structured poetry post {believe me, I am not thinking of becoming a slam poet anytime soon} over at Her View… click here. Much love…
