Scattered Emotions

Treatment this time around has been extremely rough, leaving me with an intolerable amount of throbbing pain throughout my whole body most days.

I have been pretty high functioning but the sad reality is that it is only because the pain is becoming normal for me. Sometimes I even forget how much I am hurting until someone asks me about it, which is not necessarily a good thing.

I get so used to the pain throughout the day, my body tends to completely shut down at night; which means I have many nights spent in tears because of agonizing pain.

My mentality this time around is so different because pain really gets to my head. My last treatments left me nauseated, which meant I couldn't eat a whole lot. These treatments leave me feeling trapped and helpless. I would take nausea over pain any day.

Something else I have realized this time around is that I, the patient, am just the tip of the iceberg. I have become more aware of the many people my diagnosis has affected in ways big and small. Not only is everyone around me facing the impact of the disease and the disruption of daily life, but also the strain of emotional support.

Cancer really takes its toll, and it's cumulative. It's not just a giant shock on the day of diagnosis, but a daily fight against the side effects of treatment and emotional stability. There are some days that are easier than others, but then there are days when I want nothing more than to just give up.

I don't mean for this to be another blog about how hard this has been, but this is the part of the storm that I am in. Yes, it helps to have honest conversation with people. Yes, it helps to laugh. Yes, it helps to be distracted. But at the end of the day, I still have cancer.

So many people ask if there is anything they can do for me or if there is anything I need and I wish more than anything I had an answer. I am just as clueless as you all as to what will help me.

I got an assignment the other day that had the question, "If you were to die within the next year, what would your obituary say?

This really threw me into an emotional roller coaster because I had already been thinking about the idea of cancer and dying (in a completely non-morbid sense).

What if cancer is what eventually ends up killing me? 

This thought has crossed my mind more than it should, and what a scary thought it is. I would like to assure you that I am choosing not to live my life in fear though.

I would also like to make it clear to everyone that I am not dying, and I don't have that mindset at all. But the reality is that we aren't guaranteed anything in life, so I can only hope and pray that remission is in my near future.

All I can do now is continue to find strength in the roots that I have set deep in Christ, and through the people I allow to love me through this.

We can do hard things.
We can face diagnosis.
We can withstand the anxiety.  
We can manage the treatment.
We may not want to do it
But we can.