CHEMOPAUSE!

     Chemopause! Yep, that’s what I named this; it’s what I am going through right now, kind of like a Cancer patient’s menopause- but with Chemo being paused. There was no other word for where I am right now, so I made it up. Makes people laugh when I say it, so it works for me. 

      I had my last chemo on August 10^th, had to get fluids the following week for dehydration. Need to schedule my Pet Scan and Cat Scan to see what happens next in my warped life. So I won’t say out loud that I am done with chemo, only “paused”. I have learned in the past 12 months not to get excited about anything. For every time that we thought something good was happening, we got thrown under the bus again (seemed more like being thrown under some supersonic high speed train). I’m not being pessimistic, I am being REALISTIC. I thought after surgery in February that I was done with chemo, but that wasn’t so and I restarted in April. I figured the second go at chemo would be easy, wrong again…..got a port, had reactions to my chemo cocktail and then a change up in the cocktail, followed by 2 platelet transfusions, a hospitalization, neuropathy, my hair started falling out again, then it stopped falling out, a summer full of overwhelming tiredness and blahness. To be honest it’s been a rough 4 months.

               It’s October now, its chilly out, the leaves are turning colors, I have hair again, tight curly chemo hair (so much for the straight hair i wanted) and I am finally starting to feel human again, like one of the living, instead of the walking dead. Little by little while on Chemopause I am getting some of my strength back, I’m not totally “me” yet…I still miss “me”.

               My blog profile pic has been chosen to be in the 2012 Expressions of Hope Calendar, for the American Society of Clinical Oncology.  I am so excited about this!!!!!! Hey, I get to be a calendar girl and I didn’t even have to take my clothes off- just my hair!! Pretty cool isn’t it? J

               Yesterday was 1 year since I went for the scan that found the mass on my lung. October 18^th is one year since my lung biopsy and October 20^th is one year since I was diagnosed with Cancer. One year since my world and my priorities changed drastically. Bizarre that a year has gone by…so much lost, so much found……..among the losses were the ”friends” who disappeared, the ones who took off, running away from me and cancer, the ones who could not deal….funny how some of them walk right past me in a store and don’t know it’s me anymore. But in retrospect they are minor in the grand scheme of things for me.  It’s been 1 year since my real friends stayed and helped me and nursed me through the hell I have going through, they stayed for this ride and I am eternally grateful to them. One year since my family has all pulled together and became passengers on this ride, my mom, my siblings, uncle and cousins from all over this world, bringing me their love and helping me through the darkest journey in my life. I don’t think I could have gotten through this year without them!

               So, here I sit on Chemopause, waiting and at the same time, not wanting to schedule my scans. Not wanting to know any answers right now, just wanting 1 month for ME! A “Rebecca Month”, no tests, no chemo, no blood work, no answers, whether the answers are good or bad or ugly. I just want this 1 month to feel like a living human being, to be ME…..Rebecca, Becki, Rif and the Rebel that I truly am. I don’t think that’s asking too much! J

Stay tuned

 xoxo