If a book has a conclusion does it get to have an epilogue as well? I'm not sure. When I wrote Episode 25 as the Conclusion, I was done. Everything. I was done treatments. I was done living away from home. I was done thinking about cancer. I was ready to forget and move on. I was also wrong. I'm not done. Not by a long shot.
Every morning, I wake up and my first action of the day (literally, while I'm still in bed) is to swallow a handful of pills (two Vitamin D, two low-dose anti-anxiety pills, and one Tamoxifen). With a wake-up call like that, how can I forget? Sometimes I lie back down for some more rest. Sometimes I get up ready to take on the day. (It's a real blessing that I have two teenagers at home to keep me busy.) When I get up, I brush my teeth and, yep, you guessed it, I look in the mirror. As lovely as my hair is right now compared to six months ago, the darker colour, the softer texture, and the short length is another reminder. I constantly run my fingers through my hair to see if it has grown in the past five minutes. No, I'm not forgetting. A bath or a shower? Just another visual reminder that I'm not who I used to be. And often, I run out of breath. Can't forget why I'm short on breath. Oh, yes, and let's not forget chemo-brain (also known as fog brain). It is a thing. This week alone, I missed three appointments in three days. Keeping the house clean? Not even close. My kids don't understand why I've changed and what's different about me. They're frustrated. I just keep telling them to be patient but I know I've been doing some dumb things.
And get this, I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm alive. I live and move on my own steam. I can do things. I can care for my family. I can expect a lot more years out of this 1964 model. I am grateful. In so many ways, I feel that 2015 is a new beginning. I will elaborate on that in a future post. To that end then, I extend an invitation to you to continue the journey with me. I have started a new blog called Dawn's World. It won't be exclusively about my cancer story. There will be other events as well which, I hope, will be fairly mundane but, I also hope, will make for interesting reading. I have also created a Facebook group called Breast Cancer Warriors . It is a closed group designed to be a resource for breast cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers. If you have a story to tell that you think will encourage someone or if you need encouragement yourself, click on Join Group and we'll get you in. With that, I bring this blog, My Experience with Cancer, to a close (maybe) and look forward to seeing you all again in Dawn's World.
