Well, it’s been a year. In so many ways, it’s been a year for so many. It’s been a season of first anniversaries related to my diagnosis, and they were all pretty exhausting. Grief is not linear, the first year is hard (especially in the middle of a pandemic), and some days it feels like we are right back where we started it in our recovery. But as of December 17th, I am officially one year NED (no evidence of disease)! Instead of monthly blood draws and quarterly exams, I now have quarterly blood draws and exams every six months (I protested this strongly and lost). This will be the first month in 15 months that I haven’t had my HCG level checked and it’s taking all my willpower not to MyChart my doctor right now and beg for labs to be sent in. I’ve gotten so used to the comfort of normal blood results at the end of each month as a way to calm my anxiety about my cancer that this new schedule will take some time to get used to.
My oncologist is very optimistic about my prognosis – she feels like the hysterectomy was a curative surgery and we caught this early enough that we shouldn’t see this come back. We need to stay vigilant for a bit of time because this is a slow-growing cancer, however, which means she’ll be my best friend for the next 4-5 years. So, on the one hand, it’s super comforting to know this oncologist at the top of her field at one of the best hospitals in the country feels really good about my diagnosis and I can probably take stock in the fact that she says my cancer is most likely cured.
On the other hand, and I imagine this is no different than anyone else who has ever been diagnosed with cancer, it feels really hard to trust my body again – and that mistrust bleeds into different parts of my life. It’s more than reading into and worrying about aches and pains and symptoms, though I do my fair share of that, but sometimes it’s difficult to stop myself from thinking the worst. My doctor said if the cancer was to come back, she imagined it could be sometime between the one and two-year mark based on the pattern of growth. Cue anxious and irrational thoughts…
Example: as we were putting the lights on the Christmas tree this season, I told Mason exactly how I like them strung (deep in the tree and wrapped around the branches, not just circled around the tree – it takes a lot of lights and it’s a pain in the ass to get off, but it makes for a very pretty and well-lit tree). He rolled is eyes because I tell him this every year (and he’s usually the one who has to unstring them before we recycle the tree, so he’s well-aware) but I told him I just wanted to make sure he knew in case he needed to do it himself one year. And he looked at me with a knowing look because he knew exactly why I was telling him. And then I went to the bathroom and sobbed. And then, because we weren’t finished decorating the Christmas tree and Charlotte was very excited, I took a few deep breaths, wiped my face, and continued with our evening. Scheduling grief can be tricky, but sometimes you actually need a toddler banging on the door ready to decorate the Christmas tree to snap you out of your mood 😊
Photo Credit: wmw.photo
The fertility stuff is all just blah at this point and I’m still feeling stuck and bitter about it. I had a lot of work to do on the acceptance of my cancer diagnosis before I could really start to work on anything else and I feel like I’m making a lot of progress there, so hopefully I can really start to work on some of my attitude toward the infertility issues. My therapist and I are working toward “radical acceptance” of my situation – a complete acceptance of the facts and reality of a situation without judgment. Yeah, not quite there yet – still pretty judge-y. But I’m working on it. I’ve been getting versed in some of the support and advocacy work in the infertility community, and though I do have to remind myself to take a mental break from it all, it has been a very helpful and supportive place and has given me back a semblance of control in a situation where I have felt like I’ve had very little.
One interesting thing I’ve discovered about myself is I don’t feel totally comfortable calling myself a cancer survivor because I didn’t have a typical cancer treatment experience (irrational thoughts like “have you suffered enough to call yourself a cancer survivor?”), and I don’t feel like I totally fit in the infertility world either (for a lot of reasons, and I’ll probably do a whole post on secondary infertility later on). So it’s been tough to find a place where I fit, and going into quarantine 4 months after my surgery didn’t help.
Other little things that I’ve been thinking about the past couple of months:
- I have a new way of estimating how long it’s been since I’ve used a purse or a bag – if I find tampons in it, it’s been over a year and it goes in the sell or giveaway pile (if it’s really cute, I might think twice – because it’s COVID and where would I be using a cute clutch right now?) But seriously, I had tampons in every single bag, drawer, glove compartment (wtf?) and it’s getting really annoying still finding them over a year after my surgery. Side note, I also had really big maxi-pads in my center console in my car just in case my water broke while I was driving (like that would have been my main concern at that point, and also like the maxi pads would have helped?) Other than my cancer being cured, not having a period is the only good thing to come out of this whole situation.
- Someone else’s joy is not my loss – I’ve been working really hard to disassociate the two. This has been especially hard with the flood of pregnancy announcements in the past few months (pandemic babies are a real thing apparently). Lots of healthy babies on perfect timelines with reasonable budgets– this is where my “radical acceptance” becomes difficult 😊 But someone else’s joy has nothing to do with my loss, and pregnancy news is joyful. It should be celebrated as such!
- I think one thing that is really standing in my way of radical acceptance of the full reality of my diagnosis is the cruel irony that pregnancy is what caused my cancer and infertility. I’ll write more about this later when I talk more about what I have learned about secondary infertility, but this is something my therapist and I have been working on. She has really helped me start to put this in perspective a bit though, just by asking if there was anything I would have done differently if I could have seen the future. And, of course, the answer is no (other than maybe getting my HCG checked regularly after Charlotte was born!) So there’s really no sense in focusing on this fact, as unfair as it might seem.
So what are we doing this New Years Eve? We’re taking stock. Everything was tested this year. We’re taking a minute to be grateful for what we have and thanking each other for the grace that was shown in the tough times (and will be shown in the tough times to come, no doubt). We’re frustrated that we are still feeling stuck in many ways. We’re so happy that we’ve made it a year with no evidence of disease – that’s a huge milestone and we know that’s something to be really grateful for. We really want to give Charlotte a sibling, but we feel like we have some work to do before we get to that point, and we know it won’t be an easy journey to get there. I’m trying not to let myself spin out too much about the age gap anxiety – there’s no such thing as a perfect age gap.
We’re currently waiting for frozen pizza to cook and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – because we have a 3 year old and that’s what New Years Eve looks like in our house in the middle of a pandemic. COVID is still making me super anxious, but I’m trying not to let Charlotte in on too much of my anxiety. Her main concern these days is learning how to pedal her new bike and calling out family members who are speaking with any bit of food in their mouths – “Dad, you have to chew, THEN talk!” Penny is whining because she wants to be fed. Laundry is everywhere upstairs. The Christmas toys are still exploding under the tree. The Christmas decorations are starting to drive me insane. I’m getting really anxious about how much work I need to jump back in to on Monday. And despite my Type-A personality (and blood type) I’ll wait for my next appointment for my bloodwork 😊 Happy New Year!
Life One Step At A Time 