I'm Lucky

I'm back from the follow-up with my plastic surgeon.  He thinks things are going well.  I'm learning to stand up straight again.  It's quite a challenge.  There's that painful tug all the time that reminds me skin and tissue have been stretched very tightly.

Hubby seems to still be sniffly and I've had a bout of hay fever myself.  It was worst last week and by the time I left Houston on Tuesday, things had improved dramatically.  I'd just like to note that I went to work every day, anyway.  Now my mom has it.  Everywhere I go, people are coughing and sneezing.  It's cedar fever time and the winds are blowing.  Cedar fever might as well be a cold because it feels the same.   

I'm still emotionally edgy.  My mom thinks it's hormonally based.  That's possible.  I think it's primarily a coming to terms with where I've been and where I am now.  I still can't wear regular clothes and there's still a lot of pain to come.  I had a follow-up with my radiation oncologist today who wants to see me again in six months.  

I don't know why I keep thinking that someday I'm going to wake up and not have to think about breast cancer again.  That is never going to happen.  I thought I'd be through with the radiation oncologist today, but I was wrong.  

More and more I feel so alone.  Attempting to reframe your life after a catastrophic illness is a hard and lonely process.  That's why they have support groups, I suppose.  I guess I'm not feeling quite that lonely yet.  

Last night I was thinking about what, if anything, I've learned in the past year and a half.  I've learned that sometimes I'm just going to have to feel whatever I'm feeling.  There isn't necessarily any distraction sufficient to get me through those emotions I hate so much.  I'll do virtually anything to get away from feeling sad.  It's a paradox, because I spent so much of my life feeling sad.  I'd already developed some great coping skills that allowed me to continue to function, no matter how down I got.

I've learned how to cope with much more pain than I'd ever before experienced and for a much longer time.  I've learned that there are many people who live every day in far greater physical agony than I've ever experienced.  Somehow they manage to do so with incredible grace, courage and humor.  Some of those people are children.

I've learned that I'm a lucky person in many, many ways.  I'm still here and I've been healing physically very quickly.  There are many people who have offered support and made me feel very cared for.  Some people don't have that luxury.  I'm lucky every day I get up and see the sky, every day I have enough food, every day I have a place to live.  I'm lucky every day that I don't have to get up and face treatment again.

The George W. Bush is a moron section will return soon.