Hi Team,
I don't think I realized coming out of chemo and surgery how hard it would be to transition into a "normal" life again. To get up, go to work, care about things other than my health, and start to get used to my new body and world-view. It's not physically hard - I have started going back to the gym, even hired a trainer to help get me back in shape - and am finally getting my energy levels back. I went to a spin class this week and for the first time since last year, got a good hard hour of intense cardio where I was dripping sweat and it felt fantastic. Being back in life is really emotionally exhausting and hard.
I always look at my life in calendar years since my birthday is on New Years Eve - the calendar year of 2010 is the year I was 28. During New Year's last year, my ex-boyfriend's family had a big new years and birthday-party in Mexico with us and if you had asked me then what I'd be doing this year I would have told you two things: Going on my trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, then maybe moving down to Southern California to be with Anthony and start our life together. That was my plan, although I know it probably would have taken a while. I feel like everything I knew and thought, any sense of control over my life, got pulled out from under me. I went on my (amazing!) trip to SE Asia, but when I got back, I was thrown into a whirlwind of the shock of diagnosis and survival mode. Apparently I am great at performing under pressure - I survived and managed to make pretty good decisions through my treatment, with a lot of good help and support. But now things in my life are quiet again, and I feel like I'm standing on a battlefield with the ruins of my plans and life strewn around me, I'm still alive, but my relationship, my body, my plan for what to do next, was blown to shreds by my fight with cancer. I don't have to fight anymore, but it feels just as chatoic and totally out of my control.
I am not in the before cancer stage of my life, but I'm not in my after cancer stage either. I don't really know what my exact role at work is going to end up being (but thank God for having a job and health insurance), my wonderful stable relationship was apparently not as stable as I thought and is now gone, I am trying to get used to my new body but even that is still a work in progress (reconstruction still in progress) and I still haven't gotten my period back, so who knows if I'll ever be able to have kids or not - just so much still unknown.
I feel like I'm standing here on the battlefield, quiet and peaceful now looking at all the ruins and totally lost as to what to do next. And I have this looming feeling thinking about what I want to accomplish when I turn 29 - calender year of 2011 - I have a hard time even thinking about it. First, it seems like way too much work to pick up all the peices and start fresh. I don't have that much emotional energy. I'm tired. And, when I try to get up some energy to plan something or think about what I want to do, I have this ever-looming sensation of "YOU NEVER KNOW." Hard to think about what to do next when you have a sense of total lack of control over your life.
So anyway, I've been spending a lot of time at the gym lately, mostly because I know what to do there, I have a little bit of control over my life and body when I'm exercising, and it helps me feel positive. I'm also looking forward to a wonderful 2 and a half weeks home in Kona for Christmas. This will be the first time in a long time to be home and see my parents and one of us is not sick. In the last two years we've had my dad's trip to the emergency room to get a stint put in the artery leading to his heart (SF 2008), then his lung cancer diagnosis (laster in Kona 2008), his surgery and chemo (Nov '08-Mar '09), then my diagnosis in April of '10... visits with the family over the last years have been hard and traumatic. I'm really looking forward to a trip home that is easier and happy/more peaceful (but you never know).
I hope everyone's holiday season is happy and peaceful. More updates soon.
Love,
Amy
