Statistics

The other day I was looking at the ‘Stats’ tab on my blog. I was blown away. Over 6,300 page views since I started. Views came in from many different countries. Even last month, when I barely wrote, over 400 page views. 6 today alone and it’s not even 930am yet!

I am incredibly humbled. As you go through something like cancer treatment, you go from being overwhelmed with love and care, to slowly dwindling attention. As people feel that you are ‘better’ or have gotten over major hurdles, they don’t call as much – and trust me, I understand! Life is busy, things must move on.

But with the lack of focus on your health, you can’t help but feel that you ‘should’ be ‘totally fine’. While I feel much much better than I had been, there are some residual effects from the cancer treatment that have not gone away – and might not for a long time.

My hands/arms are still numbish. My left arm/shoulder still hurts a lot and I don’t have as much range of motion as before. My endurance and muscular strength is very minimal – I went for a 45 minute walk the other day and my hips were so achy the next day. It takes more and more time to recover from simple activities. My mind is sharp some moments and completely gone the next. And I’m tired. Really tired.

Cayley stayed at his house last night and I told work I wouldn’t be in until noon so I could just sleep until I felt like it. And what a difference it makes! I woke up at 830am, slowly got out of bed, ate breakfast and now here I am. Feeling pretty good, but wondering if I will crash this afternoon.

I also find it weird that for 33 years I fended for myself quite nicely – okay, maybe more like 15 years but you get the idea. Sure, I had help in a lot of areas of my life, for which I am grateful. And this past year, I’ve had more help than I could have imagined. You would think that when 15 years of being independent vs 1 year of not, the independent self would emerge the clear victor.

But holy cow, do I still rely heavily on people, and miss when I don’t have the help around. Doing the dishes, laundry, and trying to clean up in one evening after a ½ day of work leaves me so exhausted and grumpy. I just can’t do most day-to-day activities like I used to. On my trip to SF, Cayley wasn’t with me and I went through the trip ‘fending’ for myself. Don’t get me wrong, my co-workers are amazing and helped out whenever I asked, but it’s a different feeling asking for help, rather than having Cayley just know that I will be tired soon, or I shouldn’t life certain things etc.

Maybe I need to give myself a little more time to recover fully, but it’s hard not to feel frustrated with the whole process.

Anyways, moving on – literally! Cayley and I have started looking for condos/apartments to rent for our time in Kelowna. So far, things have been really busy but we have seen a lot of places and narrowed it down to a few we’d like. We’ll keep looking, but we are being a bit picky in terms of location and what we want.

With the title of this blog in mind, I felt I should provide a few more statistics as of late:
369 days from the day the lump was first felt

357 days from my first doc’s visit to check it out

.005 or ½% - the chance that someone my age gets breast cancer

11 months since I was told I had cancer

10 months since I have been home and started cancer treatment

5cm of hair that has grown back after leaving due to my first chemo treatment

20lbs gained on chemo

16lbs subsequently lost as soon as I was done chemo

$200 per shot of nuepogen I needed to take while on treatment

$30,000+ the amount I cost the BC health care system for that drug ALONE

8 rounds of chemotherapy

1 surgery with 2 amazing surgeons

400cc of fluid sitting in my tissue expander

28 radiation treatments

23 physiotherapist appointments

10 Herceptin treatments done

7 more to go

10 trips I took this year for fun

8 weddings I attended

3 times I was a bridesmaid

1 time I could not be :(

2x 5km races I ran to support amazing charities

6 soccer games I played – in limited capacity

2 eyes that got opened to the very complex, but incredibly caring, cancer treatment process

1 heart that felt the incredible amounts of love and support from those around me

More than I can count - friends/family who made countless gestures or sent thoughts to make me feel better

1 smile that refused to stay hidden, despite the numerous tears that tried to make it go away :)

And this last statistic makes my heart a bit sad, feel heavy but at the same time determined to do all I can to help:

1 more person I know, who is my age, who just got diagnosed with breast cancer. Dammit.