6 months

Yesterday marks 6 months since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Some days it feels like I've been battling this for years and other times it feels like days. The rawness of the diagnosis has worn off and I barely think about it anymore. I think mostly about chemo. It's like they're 2 separate things.

6 months ago when I got the call from my surgeon that I had cancer I wasn't that shocked. I knew from the second the nurse practitioner found the lump that it was cancer but its hard to hear those words nonetheless. I think the hardest part for me has been that this has thrown my whole life off of the course I planned ( I know the saying: If you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans). But there's a lot of disappointment when what you want and what you get aren't matching up.

I think that I'm mentally in a much better place than I was 6 months ago even though I'm physically not. My body doesn't look like it used to and I'll always have scars but that doesn't bother me. This part has been hard with side effects of chemo but I'm glad that I'm done with the anxiety anticipation left me with. The first almost 2 months after my diagnosis was filled with a lot of appointments but no real work. Now I've had surgery, had a port put in, started chemo and then I'll have radiation.

The last 6 weeks have left me drained in every state possible. I've been sick aside from chemo and that's been really hard. You can feel the toll that those drugs take on your body when you get an illness that should clear up in a week, not turn into pneumonia. But the weird thing is that I thank God for those drugs everyday. And that I'm being treated in 2012/13 and not years ago.

This is a weird journey to be on. Things are put into a perspective that I never would have seen otherwise. I always think or wish that I'd never been diagnosed but then I remember that the cancer would have still been there and I'd be much worse off the longer I waited to see the doctor. But I'm really lucky I went when I did.

May is going to be my new favorite month. Treatments will be over and I hope to hear those words everyone with cancer hopes to hear: you're in remission. But May doesn't mean this journey is over. I think that's when the work will really begin. Finding ways to keep myself in remission and help others who have joined this journey too. Plus maybe a little vacation for my husband and I. I need to see the ocean and some sunshine!

Yesterday, since I was still feeling run down, I went back to my oncologist for blood work and then was told I needed a transfusion. I was kind of relieved. I didn't want a blood transfusion but to not even be able to get out of bed to go to the bathroom without being winded gets old fast. So I was admitted to Alexandria Hospital last night and was released this morning. I'm all ready feeling a lot better. I just have a cold that I have to shake still (come on new blood!! fight this cold!) and then I'll feel 100%. I haven't felt 100% in about 6 weeks and I'm ready to be a normal person again. I've hardly left my house, except to go to the doctor or hospital, since Christmas Eve. I haven't even been to Target! That's crazy!