October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. It is also the month that I started chemotherapy. It’s hard to believe that one year has passed already, and as I sit and write this, I am finding it hard to “get into” breast cancer this year. At the same time, I can’t help but think that this is completely normal since for the past year, my life has pretty much revolved around breast cancer. I am finding myself at a crossroads of sorts. On the one hand I want to get as far away from breast cancer and get on with my regular life and on the other, I sort of miss some of the parts of my life that were effected by it.
Now I realize it sounds crazy to say that I miss breast cancer and its treatments and in fact that’s not what I miss at all. However, I do miss being able to do nothing for a while. Lazing in front of the television or in bed was actually something that I really didn’t get to do very often. My chemo was on Wednesday and typically with chemo you feel good on the day you have it and the day after. It’s the third, fourth and fifth days following that are usually your “bad” days. After that, you go back to normal- especially given the new anti-nausea drugs they have on the market. I found that I was pretty much able to do almost everything I did when I was not on chemo. But I digress.
My bad days were Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A “bad day” means that you’re just too tired to do anything. One of the things I miss most about my “bad days” were the weekends spent with my son, Max. He was 11 when I was going through chemotherapy, and since the weather was cold, we would snuggle in bed together watching our favorite show “Psyche.” Often I would fall asleep during the show, so we would have to “re-watch” it, which was fine with both of us.
Prior to starting chemotherapy, I used some of my American Express points (which I had been saving up for years for a family trip) to purchase an iPad. Max and I love to do hidden object games, so every other weekend I would buy one and we would play it together. Often, it would be cold and rainy outside and we’d be hunkered down under the covers, playing these games together. I have to say, I miss those days. If he had been a few years older when I got sick, we never would have had those memories, but because the timing of my illness was so perfect, I was able to spend those last precious days of his boyhood with him, and it really brought us so much closer together.
Another thing that I began doing on my bad days, was baking bread. Not in the bread machine, but with my mixer. I found that because much of bread baking involves waiting for it to rise, it was the perfect thing to do when you only have enough energy to get out of your chair and walk across the kitchen. I ordered some sourdough starter online and got into baking those types of bread. The beauty part of this “activity” was that after the bad days are over, I would have delicious loaves of sourdough bread to take to my friends who brought me meals and pitched in to help my family while I was ailing. I kept my starter alive over the warm summer months (when it was just too hot to bake) and now that the weather has turned cold, I can’t wait to start baking again.
I also miss the “excuse” of breast cancer. Not so much for other people, but for myself. When I was going through treatments for breast cancer, I never felt guilty if I didn’t feel like doing things (like exercise). However, one year later, I REALLY don’t feel like doing things, yet feel guilty for it. Everyone tells me to give myself a break, but after you’ve had this illness, I think you get tired of giving yourself a break. I miss not being able to excuse myself from overachieving.
This is going to sound very strange but right now, I miss being bald. My hair began growing back shortly after I finished chemo last January. By the time I started Radiation in March, I had stopped wearing head coverings (except for the hat I wear outside in the sun- which I wore before I ever got diagnosed). Now, my hair is about 4 inches long, but you would never know it because it is extremely curly. People who have known me my whole life know that I’ve always had long, long wavy hair. Surprisingly, I actually didn’t mind being bald that much and began going out in public with no head covering (a trend I see more and more with women). But this short curly stuff is driving me mad!! My hair dresser has done a fantastic job of giving me blond highlights, which are very flattering and everyone else loves my hair (just as I love the regrowth on my friends who have had breast cancer). And I suppose it looks just fine- but it’s not me.
And there lies the gist of things. A year later, I’m not me. I really liked the person I was before breast cancer and I don’t want to lose her. I’ve changed because of breast cancer, and I’ve always felt that change was good. But now I am in menopause with short hair, no energy and an extra 20 lbs. The menopause is permanent, I realize, and I’m not as bothered by that as I am about the changes that I’m not so sure are not permanent. My hair will grow back, but will my energy? I want to get back into doing my endurance events, and I’ve signed up for Team in Training to do a triathlon in March of next year. But I also feel like I’m a completely different person. All the years I spent cultivating myself so that I could be the rose I was- were those for nothing? Did that bud die with no new ones on the horizon? I think not. I’m just in between blooms and I think the next one will be more beautiful than the one before it, because that too is another silver lining of breast cancer.
Healthy Tatas 