Both+And.

We decorated for Christmas today. My body hurts and I’m so frustrated that I just don’t have the energy I used to. I can hardly move and I feel the tears stinging the inside of my nose and pressing behind my eyes. I hate cancer. I hate what it took from me.

And.

I LOVE that I got to spend my day decorating for Christmas. It’s one of my top five favorite things. I enjoyed my day laughing with my Annie who helped me with the biggest part of the job. We made a classics Christmas playlist, blasted it while we decorated and she was pure joy today!! And then as soon as the bigs got home, we put up the tree, got ornaments hung and with each one, reminisced.

I am both livid with cancer because of how it hurts and full of JOY for having been given this gift of another November 1.

*Post 942

Round Two…Different *Eye Roll :: 11/1/17 :: Post 65

Oh the nausea…

So far, Round 2 has been different. I’m not excited about that in the least.

They told me that I would likely experience the predictability of side-effects and that I would know what’s coming and know what to expect each time. They told me this because that is how it usually works. They also told me that sometimes….rarely…..side-effects don’t take on predictable patterns and to not be surprised if things go differently each time. Well….lucky me. Different. Unpredictable. Not the same. As usual I am stuck in yet more unknowns because my body simply cannot do anything straightforward.

I didn’t have awful nausea last time where I felt like I was on the verge of puking allllll the tiiiiiime. Today…that’s what it’s been all day. The chemo fog that I sit in…it hit earlier and while I worked through it at work for a few hours, it was rough. It might mean that I shouldn’t work next time for the half day on day 3 and it might mean that I can’t go to a meeting tomorrow that I really want to try and make it to. Stupid cancer. The bone pain is starting up. Yay. That stuff is brutal. I can feel it in my pelvis (one of the highest density places for bone marrow in the body). I don’t know if this is earlier or around the same time as last time, but I just know it’s here and I’m dreading it. And oh man the heartburn. Killer. I can’t eat or drink anything that doesn’t cause major heartburn… It’s just always there…bubbling up in my gut and burning my esophagus. And the meds they gave me for helping with that …… yeah, no. Those come with some seriously awful and even-worse side effects that I will NOT choose to add to my plate.

I so badly want to curl up in a little ball in my big bed and sleep away all of the crap that this is. But I can’t. Because that would invite even more awful heartburn that would, in turn, flare up the horrible nausea that would then make me have to get up and puke.

Ugh. #cancersucks

I shed a few tears here and there but mostly they are out of frustration and anger. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be fighting cancer for my life. I don’t want to have this as a part of my story. I don’t want this to be a part of me. What a strange place to be – sitting here in full acceptance because I feel every.little.side.effect (which makes cancer impossible to ignore) – yet so desperate for this to be all a bad dream where I wake up and nothing is really wrong.

Acceptance and denial all in the same moments…. Huh. Interesting…

Body :: 11/1/18 :: Post 414

The tears have been right under the surface today….the emotions so strong. I’m holding the difficult tension of being resentful of my body while being grateful that it’s fought hard. Hating it but glad it didn’t die. Nothing feels or looks the same and yet I have some pretty kick-ass battle scars.

I’m forced to accept this most difficult reality. Today my heart hurts because I’m struggling to accept my own body, and, well, that just plain sucks.

Gratitude Month Day 1 :: 11/1/19 :: Post 777

November 1 of 2017 was day 3 of 21 for chemo round #2 and I was feeling like death. They had told me that my chemo side effects would likely be predictable for every round…they also said that in rare cases, some people don’t experience predictability. Lucky me (my tone every bit sarcastic), I didn’t get predictability…every round was different and round two was awful. Each round got worse and worse, but I wasn’t expecting #2 to set the stage for just how ‘worse’ it was going to be (because they also told me that it typically wasn’t until round 5 that things got really bad). I was also feeling the intense bone pain that came with Neulasta, a drug that is designed to activate the bone marrow. That stuff was brutal.

November 1 of 2018 was a day where I spent a lot of the day crying, struggling with the tension of being angry with my body for failing me but also being grateful for its resilience. Bitter that it had let me down but glad for its strength in battle.

Today, November 1 of 2019, I am in such pain. Every moment of every day. My joints are stiff and it hurts to move them. My feet, my ankles, my knees, my hips, my back, my shoulders, my neck, my hands… I am exhausted. I am battle-worn. But I remain resilient.

Gratitude Month, Day 1 – I am grateful for resilience in the midst of extreme anguish.