I love my life

  I love my life. I accept that I have cancer, that my husband has Parkinson’s Disease, and that life doesn’t always go as planned. I am grateful I can do what I want, when I want, and that I live in a free country. I am thankful to have a beautiful family, supportive and loving parents, a sister who will drop everything in her own crazy life to ensure I’m supported and cared for, a husband who is humble and kind and the most loving human I know, and supportive coworkers who I am fortunate to call my friends, who keep me motivated and looking forward to every day. I’m here for it all.

Just “Whelmed”

 

 Imagine if whelmed was enough? I’m going to try it out and let ya’ll know. 

 I found this app that is free and lets you track your feelings  it also has guided tools if you want to explore the emotions more. I’m sure my therapist will be giddy about this!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

And now for a funny - not sure why we're not smiling, but pretend we are!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Awards that do not exist

 To think I used to want to collect all of these awards. 

 I also used to be proud of having no baggage, but now I have a literal bag of things (medications, glasses, Clorox wipes, antibacterial hand wipes, masks, etc.) that I have to take everywhere. 

Feel the feels

 So I’m currently working on feeling the feelings. I’m a doer and a problem solver so when something comes up, I get to work rather than wallow. The catch is that a cancer diagnosis and all that goes with it requires processing grief and the various feelings that go with that. It has come up in the Cancer Survivorship 101 class I’m taking and in therapy sessions, so it must be legit. 🤷

 This emotions list helped me to define emotions felt at various times. Maybe it can help you. 

 I feel I am processing my feelings, I just don’t do so externally, so that’s what I’m told to work on. Apparently others need to share in this myriad of feelings cancer and treatments have brought upon me. Best of luck to you all. 

 

 It’s ok to feel. 

Semantics Matter

  A little while back, I wrote a post about person first language, which presents the person with the illness or disease rather than the ill or diseased patient. I came across this JAMA article titled, Persons With Cancer Rather Than Cancer Patients – Semantics Matter, that aligns with my point. It’s worth a read. 

Mammograms, Ultrasounds, and ECHOs, Oh My

 Just when you all think I have a day off, that day consists of three new scans and yet another trip to the eye doctor. 

 My dry eyes (and therefore vision issues) aren’t budging so we’re adding Loteprednol, a steroid eye gel, to the mix. I have to wait for my pharmacy to order it. I’m getting all the weird stuff to fix my weirdisms. Thank you 1% chance of side effects. 

 I also had a repeat mammogram, ultrasound, and ECHO. The mammogram and ultrasound were due to continuing to do my self breast exams and feeling another lump in the SAME EXACT SPOT that felt EXACTLY the same and my PCP concurred. Better safe than sorry. It’s that balance between being the girl who cried wolf and one who doesn’t speak up, which I’m not sure I’d ever be capable of. The area of concern is being categorized as a BI-RADs 3. I personally love the terminology “probably benign” and feel like that was written by a very intelligent doctor who had amazing malpractice insurance. Here’s a refresher on BI-RADs categories and a great link to visuals of each:

 My ECHO was my 3 month standard scan. Not expecting any surprises there but you never know. Is it just me or does the mitral valve (one of your heart valves) look like they’re playing patty cake?

 I’m so very tired right now and one more day of work to go. Send me energy friends. 

Wingin’ Life

 

 Coming from a true creature of habit, this part has been the hardest. I think I accepted the frequent change of symptoms when I was on TCHP, but once I returned to work, I expected everything else to get back to “normal”. I was back to my old routine, albeit, in a new role, but the days operations were getting back to normal. My body doesn’t care, and I’m not sure why I feel the pressure to make it so. 

 I’m working on meeting myself where I am, but finding a balance with work is the hard part. Is full time too much? Is part time too little? Depends on the day or hour, honestly. 

I’m just here:

Dry Eyes Continued

 My blurred vision was continuing to get worse, so I went back to the eye doctor. Due to my chemo and other medications having dry eye as a side effect, I now have keratitis which is corneal inflammation. It required escalation of treatment and once chemo is done, can take up to 3 months to fully resolve. 

 My most frustrating symptom is vertical ghosting. It looks like this, sometimes worse, sometimes better:

 My first regimen:

• Alaway once daily in the morning
• Refresh Digital twice daily
• Refresh Relieva PF (Preservative Free) 4-5 times a day
• Hot compresses
• Omega 3

 My escalated regimen:

• Alaway once daily in the morning
• Refresh Digital twice daily
• Systane Complete PF 4-5 times a day
• Refresh PM lubricant gel once at night
• Cequa (prescription) one drop to both eyes twice daily
• Hot compresses
• Omega 3

 I can say it’s no longer getting worse. It’s about the same with some burning now being felt. I’d say my vision issues have scared me the most but I’m keeping ahead of it as best as I can. Knowing it’s not permanent is a true relief. 

Cycle 7 is a go!