Update – almost a year later

I’ve been called out on facebook, via email, and in person on how I haven’t updated my blog in a long time – so while I have a bit of time this morning, I thought I should give a bit of an update as to where things sit with me.

First, sorry for the delay! I have been busier, and as a result more tired, than I would have liked this past month. For starters, we moved! Yes exciting, but for me it was super stressful as well. It is great living with Cayley and in the downtown area of Kelowna, but it was hard for me to handle the stress of the big move.

The other area of my life that has gotten quite busy is work. I accepted a 70% of full time job at my company to be the Marketing Manager. It is a great organization and I’m really happy to be there – at the moment it is a really busy time so I am having a hard time keeping it to 70%!

On top of all that, I still have many doctors appointments and follow-up visits. Last week I had 2 doc visits, this week I had 3. So I actually have a bit of a health update:
Radiation Oncologist – says things look good from his perspective, I’m healing up nicely and he does not need to see me again.

Medical Oncologist – says my heart has been handling the Herceptin well – no changes since I started which is great. Said that we will continue with the last 5 Herceptin treatments which will last me to mid-July. Also said it is time to start Tamoxifin – this is a pill-form of a drug I will have to take every day for the next 5 years. Yes, FIVE years. When she told me this, it is not like I didn’t expect it – not like I didn’t know it was coming at some point – but it still overwhelmed me and immediately all I could think of was “I don’t want to do this”.
Of course, I didn’t say that. I took the prescription and got it filled and started taking it that night. So far, no real troubles and hopefully it stays that way.
The Doc also said that I will have to have follow ups for the next little while, but not to think about that for now.

Plastic Surgeon – was happy with how things were healing up for me. We made a plan to get the ‘exchange’ done – where I will have day surgery to replace my temporary implant with a permanent one. This will likely be in mid-summer. If the timing works out, she might even be able to take out my port-a-cath at the same time.

That’s about all from the medical side of things. I’m still really out of shape but trying hard to get more exercise in. My body doesn’t respond like it used to, so I am feeling very frustrated at the lack of progress. But I am trying and hoping to push myself a little harder to get in shape faster.

On the mental side of things – well, I’ve become a bit of a ‘worry-wart’. I had heard stories of people going through a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment and coming out on the other side with no cares in the world. All the small stuff didn’t seem to matter anymore, they were carefree, and really happy about pretty much everything.

Not me. I have started to worry about the silliest and smallest of things. Things that will likely never happen, but I still worry. Situations that will likely never occur, but I find myself stressing over them anyways. I automatically get nervous about something new. I don’t want to be like this and I asked the psychologist if this is a normal reaction. She said that many people feel this way after treatment and that self-care is the best thing I can do right now. That means lots of rest, lots of exercise, lots of doing things to ease my mind.

As the month of April has gone by, I feel like I’m getting better at this ‘self-care’ thing. I’m not worrying as much, I’m trying to get lots of sleep, but I still often crash with exhaustion and headaches. I’m getting there :)

Almost a year has gone by since I have been home and a lot has changed. I am not where I thought I would be at this time, but I can’t help but love where I am at right now. I miss SF and my friends there and really wish we were closer so I could see them more. I wish I could have as much energy as I did before to squish everyone and everything into my day – but for right now, I will have to settle for doing the best I can with the energy and time I do have.

So that is a bit of an update for now. I don’t imagine there will be much to write about for the next little while – but if there is, I will promise to be better about writing! For now I will try my best to get and stay as healthy as I can so I can hang out with all of you again soon!