Bad days and moment of mad jealousy

It seems that the cloud that had been following me around during my last entry refuses to budge! I am just really feeling worn out and dreading Friday which just seems to come around faster and faster each week. I really wish I didn’t have to go but of course there is nothing optional about this journey and I must simply suck it up and keep going. I do feel my body speaking out more and more - voicing its pain, its tiredness…its fight. I have been having pain in my arm and chest where they operated lately too, made worse by an unfortunate fall down the stairs while holding my daughter a few weeks ago. I just want a pain free day to be honest. And I want to get out of this pity party for one!!! I mean seriously there is only so much complaining one can do before it gets old. But I find myself droning on about this and that. How chemo sucks. How cancer sucks? How exhausted I am? How hard it is to do this while bringing up an active toddler? These “why me” moments are brief of course and I hate them but they go with the territory unfortunately.

I have not forgotten all the good things in life but I think I have just accepted that this is going to be an off week for OBB. And if anyone’s asking – I took my superhero threads to get dry-cleaned!

Some other things I have been mulling about might only make sense if you are a member of the exclusive C-club. As a result of my membership in this club, I have gotten to know many people with the same cancer, different cancer, cancer no longer, cancer that has returned – all types. Sometimes I pinch myself when I introduce myself as … Hi, I have breast cancer and start rattling off my full diagnosis to people who genuinely are interested and understand what cell grading means or a Ki percentage. We become known by these alter-egos in the cancer world. Hello my name is testicular cancer – Oh nice to meet you, I am lymphoma, enchante. It is weird to imagine how different my world has become in less than a year. I am of course very grateful for these people as they normalize the whole experience and everyone has great advice about this and that. And at the end of the day these people understand the fear of the first c-spa experience, the loss you feel when you go bald, and all the other million things and emotions in between. I remember one of my new cancer friends telling me early on that we would probably tell each other things we wouldn’t tell our closest friends because we are bonded by the Big C. It is true. We discuss the good, the bad and the very very ugly!

So when you are in the cancer circle – you learn about many different cancers. And like people and experiences – they are good ones and bad ones. That is when I sometimes experience cancer jealousy. Yes you heard me correct – I am jealous of people with nicer cancers then me. How I would long to have a cell grade of 1 or an in situ tumour… Yes I am heading into weirdo territory I know but they do warn you about chemo brain. :) Now of course I don’t have a medical degree so I could be talking crazy here and am sure my sister would contest this (she is literally my medical encyclopedia Britannica) but there seems to be some cancers that are much more treatable, tend to reoccur less and even when they are advanced – have good survival rates. It seems like breast cancer, though highly treatable in most cases, tends to be an annoying bitch sometimes. I just hope I don’t meet that bitch again because I will seriously go Oklahoma on her butt. I know I cant change what has happened and the fact that my cancer is not what we could consider “the shy and docile type.” What I must remember every day is that I am the master of my destiny, captain of this ship, and it is how I see things that can affect outcomes. So I may not have the nicest cancer (who am I kidding – cancer and nice just don’t seem appropriate to use in the same sentence), but luckily it was caught early and I am fighting the fight every day to get closer to a clean bill of health. Thank god I have the chance to fight. Some don’t. So I will make myself and those around me proud of the pink soldier I have become. And how amazing will it feel to introduce myself as – Cancer Free.

“Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.” Bernard Law Montgomery


OBB