Blogger's block

It's been a while since I've written here. Not that I haven't thought about it, but I have not had anything I felt I really wanted to say. I've been in a weird state of mind since my test results. Not depressed exactly, but certainly not happy either. You'd think I'd be happy, I got another 3 month reprieve. But I'm weary I think. Weary of these quarterly scans and the anxiety they provoke for me and A. Weary of the damn back pain which ebbs and flows but has been bothering me more lately. Weary of all the other health issues which I am reminded of every day as I take various readings. Weary of some issues that Z. is having (that I have chosen not to write about here for her privacy's sake- she's doing very well in most ways right now though).

Life goes on though. We are busy with school activities and volunteering, projects around the house, planning our upcoming trip to DC, etc. But in between I find myself feeling kind of flat. I'm not thinking bad thoughts or anything like that, but I'm not thinking good ones either. It kind of feels like I'm on pause. I've been trying to wrap my head around this living with cancer thing, and not doing very well with it. It's like I think there is actually an answer, a way to live this way, but I'm stymied as to how, except to just do it of course. One foot in front of the other has always been my way, but for some reason that doesn't seem good enough right now.

I think I need to get a different perspective on this. You know when you are first diagnosed with cancer it's terrifying and all that, but you also go into fight mode. You energize yourself to get through the treatments because you are being fueled by the hope that you will beat it, that the cancer will go away and that you might get your life back. When you have a recurrence the rug is pulled out from under that hope. Basically the medical world says to you, okay, now that you have had a recurrence there is no hope of a "cure" (a very loaded word of which I have some issues with but will use for the sake of this discussion). Your best hope now is to live with the disease. The drs. are happy with my stable reports because that means I am not getting worse right now. But dammit I want it gone! My intellect can understand the realities all it wants, but my spirit wants to be free of this disease and all that it brings to our family.

The likelihood is that it won't be gone, or even if it does go for a while, it will come back and eventually get worse. I guess what I feel that this recurrence has taken from me is some hope. Not all hope, but that big hope that I can beat this, like I did with my first cancer (and don't write and tell me that because I've done it once I can do it again, it's a whole different thing beating a primary cancer than beating a recurrence that is not in the same place as the original cancer). Both A. and I are having a hard time with this. It's our reality, we have to come to terms with it, but it's hitting us in a different way (this whole hoping for stable thing, and what it means if it's not) than it did when the recurrence was first diagnosed.

In the meantime I am frustrated with how I have been feeling because I am wasting time! I am not doing chemo and besides the back pain I am basically functional (the back pain does take away some of my functionality but I can still do a lot). So sitting around feeling blue about not having a remission is a waste of precious time. What has gotten me through all these years (it's been 10 years now since my first cancer diagnosis) has been the ability to see the good things in my life, really see them (I know them of course, but it's different than a daily awareness of them). Feeling that slip, even a little, has me upset.

The reality is though that I have felt this way before, after my initial treatment for this cancer was finished I went through a fairly long funk, feeling betrayed by my body and gaining a lot of weight because I figured what was the point. A lot of people like to hold me up as being so strong and positive, but I'm not really. I struggle with this stuff every day, it's just some days I'm better at projecting those qualities. I guess this isn't one of them.

I think partly I've just been holding all this stuff inside. Who do I talk to about it? I did bring it up a little in my support group yesterday, but with a group of people it's hard to get more than a minute or two to talk if you're lucky so it's more like a statement than a discussion. And how can anyone else I know understand? Thankfully they are not in this position and hopefully never will understand how I feel. They all have their own busy lives. I don't think they understand the urgency I feel when months go by without seeing them. People think they have all the time in the world ahead of them. I know that I don't.

Well, I guess I'm unblocked! Maybe writing all this down will help me get past it faster. It usually helps, which is why I have this blog. Cyber therapy!