Summer time is one of my favorite times.
I love the beach, sunshine, ice cream and not worrying about if my kids did their homework.
We all are just more chill in general.
I've been feeling crappy the past few weeks (nothing major) but enough to put a wrench into the time I'm supposed to be enjoying.
And I was thinking back to 2 summers ago when I was also having summer ripped from me (but obviously in a way more serious way)
And then I started to reflect.
Which I do.
OFTEN.
I was talking to a friend the other day and we were both saying how life after cancer is way harder than life during cancer.
And I've written about this before but I just do not think people can understand how that can be.
So I'm here to try to explain.
During cancer we are on this adrenaline called scared shitless.
And we just go.
Because there is no other choice than to go.
We go to our oncologist appointments, for blood work and scans, for radiation, chemo, and surgeries.
We are always going.
It destroys your life in more ways than one.
And even writing about this I have survivors guilt.
Which is a real thing.
Recently our town lost a really good guy from this crappy disease.
And so I question, do I even have the right to discuss life after cancer; because here I am, living life after cancer.
And "survivors" go through this all the time.
We feel we do not have the right to complain because we are living.
And yes.
We are living.
And we know we should be thanking god for this.
And we do.
But the living have this hard time living.
Because now we have time to breathe.
And we have time to contemplate and look back and think how the eff did we make it through the last 6 months, year, or years.
And we now hate our scars more than ever because we know they are really there for life.
And we hate the medication that we are on for 5 years, 10 years whatever, because it's causing us all kinds of shitty side effects.
But do we have a right to complain? Because you know.
Here we are.
Living.
Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.
We hate the way our hair grew back and that we are numb in so many areas because they took out 14 lymph nodes and had surgery and reconstruction surgery and reconstruction surgery again and we have no feelings in our armpits, breasts, stomach, (insert cancer area of choice)
We have joint aches and pains on top of the aches from the godforsaken meds. (1130 more days)
We are in menopause; often not by choice, so we are fatter even though we are (kind of ) trying to eat healthier and exercise (kind of) and be kinder to our bodies.
We are often sad.
Because we hated that we had to go through this.
But here we are.
Living.
And our friends say but look - here you are; living.
It's like saying to someone who is depressed "Cheer up. You have so much good in your life"
We get this.
We get we are here.
We get that our hair is growing back and our scars are warrior scars and our aches are temporary and who cares if your boob is fake.
We get this.
We know we are strong.
But our life has changed.
And sometimes we hated being strong.
We hated HAVING to be strong.
And we know this is just a chapter not the whole novel but we still are sometimes sad.
I have been NED (No evidence of disease) for 18 month and for the most part I'm in a good space.
But just know we are never "done".
We are never "over"
There's a part of this cancer that stays with us.
The fear.
The unknown.
The sadness.
The anger.
Damn the anger.
I'm so fortunate I can enjoy this gorgeous summer day.
And am sometimes guilt ridden that I am able to enjoy this gorgeous summer day.
I know it's hard to understand.
My cancer village will understand.
Thanks for trying to understand.
I love the beach, sunshine, ice cream and not worrying about if my kids did their homework.
We all are just more chill in general.
I've been feeling crappy the past few weeks (nothing major) but enough to put a wrench into the time I'm supposed to be enjoying.
And I was thinking back to 2 summers ago when I was also having summer ripped from me (but obviously in a way more serious way)
And then I started to reflect.
Which I do.
OFTEN.
I was talking to a friend the other day and we were both saying how life after cancer is way harder than life during cancer.
And I've written about this before but I just do not think people can understand how that can be.
So I'm here to try to explain.
During cancer we are on this adrenaline called scared shitless.
And we just go.
Because there is no other choice than to go.
We go to our oncologist appointments, for blood work and scans, for radiation, chemo, and surgeries.
We are always going.
It destroys your life in more ways than one.
And even writing about this I have survivors guilt.
Which is a real thing.
Recently our town lost a really good guy from this crappy disease.
And so I question, do I even have the right to discuss life after cancer; because here I am, living life after cancer.
And "survivors" go through this all the time.
We feel we do not have the right to complain because we are living.
And yes.
We are living.
And we know we should be thanking god for this.
And we do.
But the living have this hard time living.
Because now we have time to breathe.
And we have time to contemplate and look back and think how the eff did we make it through the last 6 months, year, or years.
And we now hate our scars more than ever because we know they are really there for life.
And we hate the medication that we are on for 5 years, 10 years whatever, because it's causing us all kinds of shitty side effects.
But do we have a right to complain? Because you know.
Here we are.
Living.
Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.
We hate the way our hair grew back and that we are numb in so many areas because they took out 14 lymph nodes and had surgery and reconstruction surgery and reconstruction surgery again and we have no feelings in our armpits, breasts, stomach, (insert cancer area of choice)
We have joint aches and pains on top of the aches from the godforsaken meds. (1130 more days)
We are in menopause; often not by choice, so we are fatter even though we are (kind of ) trying to eat healthier and exercise (kind of) and be kinder to our bodies.
We are often sad.
Because we hated that we had to go through this.
But here we are.
Living.
And our friends say but look - here you are; living.
It's like saying to someone who is depressed "Cheer up. You have so much good in your life"
We get this.
We get we are here.
We get that our hair is growing back and our scars are warrior scars and our aches are temporary and who cares if your boob is fake.
We get this.
We know we are strong.
But our life has changed.
And sometimes we hated being strong.
We hated HAVING to be strong.
And we know this is just a chapter not the whole novel but we still are sometimes sad.
I have been NED (No evidence of disease) for 18 month and for the most part I'm in a good space.
But just know we are never "done".
We are never "over"
There's a part of this cancer that stays with us.
The fear.
The unknown.
The sadness.
The anger.
Damn the anger.
I'm so fortunate I can enjoy this gorgeous summer day.
And am sometimes guilt ridden that I am able to enjoy this gorgeous summer day.
I know it's hard to understand.
My cancer village will understand.
Thanks for trying to understand.
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