Yippee!!

I'm done with radiation! I had the last one yesterday. Now I just wait until it's time to go back to the doctor, and hope that everything is okay. When I got to work today, my co-workers had gotten me a cake and a gift card to celebrate. I work with some really great people.

My sister is on bed rest right now because her blood pressure is too high when she gets up and moves around. They've already said she's not going to make it to July 22, so right now she's going to the doctor twice a week, but just barely passing the stuff that she'd need to fail for them to put her in the hospital and induce. I guess it's good she's doing well, but I know she'd like for this to be over with. She's pretty bored sitting at home all the time in bed watching TV. I'm ready for her to have the baby, now that she's at the point where it would be OK for her to have it and it shouldn't have any problems. I just want to be able to start spoiling my little niece or nephew rotten!

Anyway, considering how much is going on in my life right now, I really don't feel like there's a lot to say at the moment.

I recently read another post elsewhere in which someone talked about letting go of a lot of the dreams they had before being diagnosed with cancer and creating new dreams as, I guess, part of their process of grieving over what cancer had taken from them. I'm only just now starting to really think about the future much, at first I was overwhelmed, and then, despite the doctor being optimistic, there was (and still is) some part of me that's just not sure enough of what kind of future I can have to really make plans. It sounds silly, when, as I said, the doctor fully expects me to make it, to worry about the future, but I guess cancer is something I associate with death, and that is just hard to get past. I don't remember a lot about the day I found out I have cancer, as far as details, but I remember thinking that it meant I was going to die, and wondering if I needed to start making funeral plans, and trying to think about what I wanted to be sure to do for my parents and my sister to give them something to remember me by. I'm not quite that negative anymore, but I'm just not up to making plans for the long term.

You could argue that no one's life is certain. That's definitely true. My life even before the cancer certainly wasn't what I would have envisioned back when I graduated from college. But somehow, that's different, or at least it feels different now.

Some dreams and hopes are definitely not possible anymore. I'm not going to have kids. I don't know whether I would have or not, or whether I wanted to or not, but it's definitely not happening now. That one's easy. But what about getting married? In addition to the difficulties anyone has trying to find that special someone, now I get the added excitement of making sure that special someone is okay with the lack of certainty in my life that I'm afraid will always be there, because I don't know when or if I'll have a recurrence. I know that fear lessens over time, but I wonder whether it ever goes away? And I'd be afraid of how he'd react if I did have a recurrence. Everyone thinks they'd stick around and help in a situation like that, but some people just can't handle it, and while I understand that, understanding wouldn't make it any less traumatic.

My primary fear right now, though, is that after I'm done with radiation, when I go back for another CA-125, CT scan, and whatever else they decide I need, that there will be cancer there. The logical part of me thinks that's highly unlikely, because when they were checking the CA-125 levels throughout chemo, they were going down, and there's no reason to think the radiation isn't working. But that little nagging, negative voice in my head keeps nitpicking anything that seems even a little off. Back pain from sleeping wrong or just sitting at a computer all day at work? Sinus headache? Random freckle I never noticed before? The little voice says "Cancer." I know from talking to other cancer survivors and reading their blogs that this is normal, but that doesn't make it easier to deal with. I shouldn't be having to deal with this at all, and that pisses me off more than anything. I should be celebrating fully with my sister over her pregnancy, not hoping like hell I don't burst into tears at her baby shower looking at all the cute baby stuff she's getting, knowing that's not ever going to be me.

This post is a bit rambling, and maybe I should spend more time editing it, but I'm tired now, so it just is what it is.

I never would have believed that going through cancer treatment could be routine, but it is. I get up, go to radiation, go to work, go home, go to sleep, just like normal, except I'm starting to get more tired than usual. They warned me that I would, it's one effect of the radiation. I feel like I'm never home, though, and when I am home, I'm too tired to do all the stuff that needs to be done. Right now, I'm trying to get some laundry done, and I attempted to make a casserole to take to my sister's shower that her friend is giving her. Everyone was asked to bring some kind of food item for them to have in the first few weeks after she's had the baby, or I guess before she does, whenever she's too tired to cook much. Anyway, I had the whole thing put together, it's all cooked, I put it under the broiler to melt the cheese on top, and managed to burn it. And not just a little bit, either, I mean the whole top is completely black. Maybe I'll call mom and tell her she has to do the casserole.