What’s The Norm?

The story goes like this...

Girl gets diagnosed with breast cancer. Girl spends day after day, week after week at the hospital. Girls life is consumed by blood work, chemotherapy and pharmaceuticals. Girls life becomes consumed by kicking cancer's ass. Girl is one treatment away from being done with chemotherapy..... Girl is FREAKING out.  

What? You’re freaking out?! But aren’t you excited?! 

Why no, no I’m not. 

Try to follow, because for most this will be hard to grasp. Starting chemo was scary. One of the scariest moments of my life. Ending chemotherapy, way scarier!! 

Starting treatment, you can read article after article about what to expect. You get advice from pretty much everyone about what worked for them, or their family members and friends who went through it. Hell, you even get advice in reference to your friends, friend’s, cousin’s mail man’s clown he had at his daughters third birthday, ten years ago.  Because they also went through a similar, but not the same, experience. You’ll be told that you should call them, text them, be pen-pals because they could help you.  Don't get me wrong, the advice is not only helpful but also a way that people feel like they can help in what seems to be a helpless situation. Soon you have a rolodex full of cancer survivors that you should, but probably never will, reach out to. By week three of treatment you pretty much know what to expect. You know that the treatment is working, because you can feel your body changing. As I have documented in the past, you lose your hair, your new normal is feeling sick all the time, and your good days feel like you have a bad flu. What I haven't expressed before was the comfort of knowing that you are in-taking medication that is killing and shrinking the tumors. It is also comforting that I can physically feel the tumors being attacked by the medication. If I had to describe it, I would say it felt like someone was poking the area where the tumors are with a cow prod. Painful, but reassuring. 

There was anxiety in starting the second part of my chemotherapy regimen as well.  We all knew how terrified I was to start the red devil. Turns out, all of those fears were validated and getting through the last three treatments has taken every single ounce of my strength. So I should be glad when it’s all over right?! Because I’ve been somewhat, if not completely miserable for months now. 

Well here is the thing... and where people are going to get lost... I’m not. I’m not happy Chemotherapy is over. I’m happy I won’t be sick anymore. But happy that Chemotherapy is over, I am not.

When Chemotherapy is over....what is protecting my body from getting sick? 

I was proactive in killing the cancer. I will be proactive in every aspect I can be to prevent the cancer from returning.  When chemo is over I will have a bilateral mastectomy with a delayed reconstruction. I will have 25-30 rounds of radiation to ensure that I have killed all of the cancer in my body. But then what is fighting the risks of reoccurrence? Nothing. 

And you know what those people who were passing out unsolicited (yet appreciated) advice in the beginning, aren’t offering now? Advice on what to do and how to feel when treatment is over. Words of wisdom on the aftermath of having your head buried in the toilet for the last 6 months. I can tell you that a non-cancer survivor will probably say that I should go back to my normal life. And if I were an outsider, before this journey, that too is what I would expect. However, now that I am working my way into the survivors club, I can honestly say that expecting one to go back to “normal” after cancer is a high expectation that will never be met. 

How does one just go back to normal life, after such a journey? I sure as heck don’t know the answer. So if someone wants to reach out to their postal worker’s party clown, and let me know what they say, that would be great.

My world has been engulfed in the “c” word. I have built relationships with my nurses and doctors. I have grown fond of seeing them every week, despite what I am seeing them for.  I see doctors weekly that give me reassurance and confidence that my cancer is shrinking.  I receive medication that is saving my life. And then, just as fast as I was diagnosed, treatment 16 of 16 arrives and the new life I’ve been living is changed yet again. Making my new normal, obsolete. Now I’m stuck in this limbo of having to find a new normal, again. I would like to think I am wiser and stronger but honestly, I’m not. But I am different. I think differently, feel differently. I have different wants and needs for my life now. I can’t say that I grew in this journey but I definitely changed. So where does this new me, fit into my old life? 

Is it starting to make sense now? A little less confusing as to why I am more anxious than I am excited? 

People tell you how to cope and how to get through cancer. No one tells you what to do with your life after. 

You live it to the fullest, obviously. Because there’s always the risk of it being taken away. That goes for everyone. And did I really just suffer through medically induced menopause, nausea, vision impairment, memory loss, gaining tons of weight, losing all of my hair and not to mention my ability to bear children (I can continue with the list, but I’ll spare you) to live a  life scared of reoccurrence? Absolutely not. However; the “c” word is always going to haunt me. It is engraved in me now.  So I have to pick up all of these pieces of my life before cancer, all of the pieces of my life with cancer and try to combine them into some sort of happy medium for my life after cancer.

Whew.  I’m exhausted just thinking about it. 

Its safe to say I don’t have a clue as to what my life will be like when my treatments journey comes to an end. And while I’m being optimistic and jumping to the conclusion that I had a complete response and will be cancer free, my cancer journey isn’t yet over. 

But I do know that whatever life looks like after this Tuesday, when I receive what I hope to be my last infusion of poison, will require patience and strength beyond measure. Strength to go into each day, unafraid. Patience to figure out my new normal. And above everything else, gratitude. Because I wasn’t promised tomorrow, and yet I’m still waking up to that beautiful Kentucky sunrise.