Silent Threat: Breast Cancer Chronicles

3 Months Later

And I'm trying to hold my breath until April 6th.  Only two weeks away and finally I will get something like a break.  One that has nothing to do with doctors or treatments or sickness or fatigue.  One that has nothing to do with Cancer.  It's not even like I can't wait, it's more like can I make it.  Fatigue is so crazy bad tht every day I feel like the Little Engine that Could...I just keep thinking I can, so I do.  It's hard work staying focused, staying awake, getting to work.  My body is telling me more days than not that I need to do things differently, but I don't know how to quite slow down.  I have too much to do at work not to go.  So everything other than work suffers, like everything did before.  I focus on just getting through the day.  My house is still not clean.  I raked the leaves off of my back porches and they are still in the piles I put them in two weekends ago. 

I'm not happy I don't have the energy to cook or eat, but I have to keep telling myself (and hearing others tell me) that I'm not going to be all better all at once.  I've been going to the doctor what seems like round the clock for almost a year.  I still have four months of what I consider active treatment and then some more months after that before the rebuild is complete.  This road is a long one and right now a lonely one.  Life goes on though.  People have to get back to it and I can't ask that they stay around just cause I'm sad.  Hell, I'm not even really sad.  I like my life for the most part and I'm happy with what I've made for myself.  But I don't have the energy to do the things I want to do and so I'm at home alone most days and some days that does make me sad.

I've developed anxiety too.  I don't feel like I'm in the grip of Cancer anymore, so I feel like I should have my life under control again.  I don't. Well I do,  but not in the sense that I accomplish the things I want to accomplish or in the time I want them done.  I feel like between fatigue, medical expenses, car and house stuff, I can never get enough done and I'm just fallin farther down the black whole.  I'm not a patient person, hence my development of anxiety.  I know that you can only take life as it comes, I know that (I forgot that quick what else I know)...oh...I know that things don't always happen like you plan it "demand, over stand it, then you handle it."  (Outkast).  That's all I do.  I don't feel bad that my five year plan is shot, it'll just be a six seven year plan.  I'm not where I was when I graduated..I've moved forward..and so..even tho life through a wrench in my plan..I have measured up to my father's rule of thumb.  "As long as you're not having the same problems five years from now..."  That's my measure of short term success.  Long term success is a little more complicated, but I'm on my way there too.  Still working on re-education of a mis-educated mind.  I'll keep working.

Back to the anxiety.  I have a lot of it.  I don't tell people.  It was a lot worse right before surgery because I didn't know who or what I would be after surgery.  Now it's just life giving me anxiety or rather I'm focusing the energy I didn't let myself use worrying about Cancer and I'm worrying about my house, the repairs I want to make; my car, every noise is a break down waiting to happen in my mind; the reveal, what am I going to look like when the rebuild is done.  I'm happy now, probably because breasts were never a big deal to me.  I didn't really have any and they looked fine, but nothing to brag about.  My beauty lied elsewhere..it still does.  I'm sure I'm probably worrying about nothing..but only time will dispell that particular anxiety and I know it.  Good thing it's not a large portion of why I'm anxious. 

Some days I just don't want to think about it though...Cancer that is.  I was watching movies on TBS (one of my favorite channels) and things were going pretty good until Movie and a Make Over started telling the story of a two time Breast Cancer Survivor and talking about her strength and what not.  She deserves it...which I have no doubt she does.  But in those words I hear people around me and boy am I ever so tired of hearing how strong I am or how I should just do this or that to help me get over my fatigue or my anxiety.  I'm not that strong, just determined to not let Cancer steal my joy; If I knew how to shake my fatigue I would; Some things I want to do and I just can't effin do!! And you can't understand it because you're notion of tired will never be anything close to what I feel on  daily basis unless you happen to be unlucky enough to go through something like this! I hate when I say I'm tired and I'm not really having the best day and someone says "me too."  No, you're really not the same kind of tired I am!  Any hoo, I'm complaining! Let me stop.

My left hand has been a bit stiff and tired feeling.  It kind of feels clogged..if your hand can feel that way.  Tomorrow I'm heading back out on the dating circuit...hitting an auto show.  Should be interesting.  Not really my kind of auto show..we're talking new cars and not classics, which I'm more into, but a pretty car is a pretty car regardless of the year right?  It's something different and I didn't even have to think it up!  Two weeks till a real for real vacation!  And soon enough, I'll be some kind of back to normal and life goes on.  Never to be the same, but bigger, better, stronger right?  To a great life!  Present and future!  To a great life. Past!  What more can you ask for? Right? 

Man...

What a day Thursday was!  Found myself super flushed, dizzy, and on the verge of passing out at work of all places.  What fun!  Everyone knows that I don't like for people to see me sick and I for sure don't like everyone in the world to know when I'm sick.  Add to that the fact that I hate having to go to the hospital (I'm sure everyone does), but I really hate bothering my doctors in between visits.  My co-workers weren't having any of my ish apparently though, since they took it upon themselves to page my doctor and tell her I needed to come in.  So I spent Thursday afternoon getting blood work done and being infused with fluids.  They didn't find anything that would have caused me to get sick, the only thing out of whack was my blood sugar and they say that was only slightly elevated.  None the less, I was still super tired yesterday.  We shall see how today goes.  I go to the doctor again next week and so they are going to redo the blood work and run some more in depth tests to look at my blood sugar or something. 

They basically told me that I had probably just reached my breaking point, which I thought was funny, cause I'm supposed to be bouncing back and gaining more energy, not losing it.  Aw well..I guess it has only been about a month since I finished radiation and I do work like crazy.  But I also go to sleep after work if I'm tired..don't know how going to sleep at work would work.  I suppose if I have to, I will start taking an hour for lunch, eating and taking a nap.  If that will help, I will make it work.  Better than ending up in the hospital or having to take days off.  Can't wait till cruise day.  I can spend my boat days sleeping as much as I want and then lounge around the rest of the time. 

General Update:  My hair is getting thicker by the day, fatigue is killing me, most of the ugly burnt radiation skin has peeled off, my fungus nails still look ehhh, though people say they are looking healthier (I won't buy it till they are more back to normal), breaking out probably because my hormones are out of whack, my radiated skin feels super tight, what fun!  Work is hectic, life is life, termite baiting system shows no activity (wonder if that means they got them all or they just haven't found the bait yet..sigh).  I'm trying not to let anxiety and my type A personality get the best of me, trying to live in the moment and appreciate what is..need to get back into yoga, maybe it'll help me focus.  Overall, life is good! 

Social Experiment Update: Cancer is having no affect at all on dating thus far, still don't like being open enough to share that fact with people though.  Wonder if cancelling a date because I had to go to the hospital means I should just tell it like it is now, since it kind of is relevant.  Or should I wait..dilemma's dilemmas.  I still feel like I don't want Cancer to come before friendship, if you put it out there too early, does it change the course of the relationship? 

Fatigue

It seems like everyday I come home and pass out.  Aren't things supposed to get better?  Shouldn't I have more energy?  Last night I didn't even realize I was sleep until I woke up this morning and I was out before 9.  Didn't eat dinner, didn't take my meds.  didn't do anything but come home, change, and get in bed.  Apparently, that's where I stayed.  It's driving me crazy.  I want to get out and do more stuff, but I end up sleeping my life away.  Half the time, even when I'm sleep I'm not comfortable.  Between hot flashes and random pain, joint pain, shoulder pain, I toss and turn until about 4/5am and then I lay around dreading the start of a long day.  Every day is long when you get pass out tired throughout.  Guess there's not much I can do about it, but push through like always.  But quite honestly, I'm tired of pushing through.  I'm tired of smiling.  I just want to wake up and feel normal.  Is that ever going to happen again?  Otherwise, life is good.

Smokin Hot...

 

I actually do feel smokin hot!  Literally and physically.  I got through the hot flashes caused by the chemo and I got respite for a couple weeks.  Now that I'm poppin the five year pill, the hot flashes are back.  Night sweats too.  I never realize what the night sweats are until I get the hot flashes.  It's cold, I'm cold, and then all of a sudden, I'm burning up hot.  What fun!  My hair is thinking up, but it's still bone straight.  No curls to be seen at all.  That's probably a good thing for now or I'd look like a puff ball or something.  My radiated skin is healing, I only had skin break down for a couple of days and then only a very small spot under my arm.  It is peeling like crazy all over though and getting my clothes quite dirty!  I stopped using the Aloe and started using coco butter, it is more moisturizing in my opinion.  One month and counting till my cruise.  Man oh man I can't wait to vacate.  I have a lot of work to do before I leave and will have a lot of work to do after I return, but for now, I'm just focused on getting a break.  Sail the high seas, bask in the glory that is the sun and lay on a couple beaches here and there. 

I've been worrying my pretty little head off anytime I'm at home and have a chance to think.  The house may have termites, I have 11 months of cleaning to catch up on and I can't seem to catch up.  People at my job are driving me crazy worrying about lay offs.  I probably should be worrying about that too, but I just have entirely too much to do at work to worry about things like that.  I'm just there to do my job, like I was hired to do.  I am thinking on taking belly dancing classes or salsa lessons.  I will sign up for one of the two upon my return from the high seas.  I'll probably end up doing both, since both are things I would like to be able to do. 

Today is a Sunday, I got herceptin on Friday, and I feel like I've been hit by a small truck.  Maybe a U-Haul size instead of the Mac that used to hit me when I was on the chemo too.  It was liked this the last time I got herceptin.  I didn't realize it before because I was hyped up on so many drugs, it was hard to tell which one was doing what to me.  Now I can usually pick the culprit.  I'm still a walking pharmacy.  I'm taking Lyrica for neuropathy, which is getting better, but still bad; Tamoxifen as part of my treatment; Ambien to sleep; Ibuprofin or tylenol for pain; I use the nail stuff for my lovely fungus; vitamins to help keep me balanced since my appetite doesn't allow me to eat everything I probably need to eat; and I still have all the bottles from most of the other pills I've been on for the past almost year.  I'll be glad when I'm just taking the five year pill and my vitamins.  I'm gonna hop in the bath tub today and see how that goes.  I think I'll give it one more week before I go get back in the pool, but after that, I'm all in.  Back to the gym, on to the Abs Plus class, and swimming up a storm.  I may take myself to the black circus next weekend.  I think it'll be entertaining.  I let cirque de sole move on without making it.  Man, I can't believe I missed it.  Oh well, next time.  Or next time I'm in Vegas.