Six Months Later...

Strange as it may be, finishing radiation and chemo has been extremely difficult for me. Over time, cancer can kill your will. I have been in a defeatist downward spiral and a hypochondriac hell, with sporadic moments of happiness. There have been times that all I could imagine of my future was death. That scar tissue? Surely that's the cancer growing back. Those headaches? Surely that's the cancer spreading. I've also been bitter towards life in general. It's not fair. Everyone else is living their life, and I'm stuck wading in this pool of shit. Waaaah, waaah, whine, whine. So, this had been the majority of my mindset in the past few months. It's ridiculously depressing, but I lost control. Cancer can do that. To borrow a thought from an article I recently read - some people say that cancer is a gift and can make you appreciate life even more. Can I fucking return it, please? I appreciated life well enough, thank you very much. Upside down, right side up, backward, or forward, there is nothing positive about this experience. I'm a naysayer. All it has done is make me bitter.

In spite of all that, the past month has been good for me. We took a road trip to NY. I remember as we were rounding our final lap on the BQE bypassing the nighttime Manhattan skyline, I got a breath of life again. I became happy. We spent time with family for two weeks, and it was uplifting. I love New York. And life has been on an upswing since. I've been coasting at my top weight for the past six months, and have finally had the energy to become proactive. I've dropped 10 pounds so far (still have 20 to go) by going to the gym almost every day and eating healthier. I am finally making progress. I have a long way to go, but I'm moving forward again.

And then yesterday happened. It was a milestone. Let's backpedal for a minute. My oncologist's philosophy, and the general consensus in the medical community regarding my type of breast cancer, is that they don't do routine scans after treatment. I had a double mastectomy, and there is no breast tissue. For monitoring, they simply do blood tests (and I assume they check tumor markers), and physical exams. It makes one quite weary, but that's the way they do it. If the cancer is coming back, there will be symptoms, and I guess the studies that have been done show no better prognosis one way or the other. I've had a hard time prescribing to this methodology. However, I went to see my radiation oncologist (a different doctor) to get a checkup three months post-radiation and her mentality is that it's better to catch it early if something is going on. It's also relieving for the patient. So, she ordered my CT scan, and I went in on Tuesday for a scan from the neck down to my lower abdomen. This is the first scan I've had in almost a year and I was beyond nervous. Well, I went to the doctor for a routine monthly shot yesterday, and asked for the results certain that they wouldn't be ready yet. But, they were. To make matters worse, the nurse told me that the doctor needed to read it first before I could get the results, so I had to wait 15 minutes thinking that something might be wrong. Why would she need to see them first? I don't know. Anyway, I started crying as soon as she told me. Everything is normal. Granted there are two other scans I still need to confirm (a bone scan and a brain MRI), this is pretty good news!! I'm so so happy.

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