This blog is months overdue. I’ve written it about 4 different times and scrapped it each time. I just can’t seem to get all the way through it but here goes attempt #5 anyway…maybe taking a different approach to the subject will help.
I still find it kind of odd when people at work who I haven’t seen in a while ask me how I am doing. I have to stop and think about my answer because the first thing that I think is, “I’m fine, of course. Why would I be any different?”
Thing is, I was off work for 3 months because I was diagnosed with Uterine (Endrometrial) Cancer in the beginning of November. The week after Thanksgiving I had a complete hysterectomy (including ovaries) and in January I started 5 weeks of radiation treatments.
I was off work from Thanksgiving till the end of February. So this is why they are asking me how I am doing.
Partly I believe that the outcome could have been prevented (or caught earlier) had I been going to the gyn as a woman should go. I didn’t though and here we are. I know better now and thankfully it wasn’t any worse than it was. Although I guess cancer, surgery, and radiation is pretty bad. Hindsight is 20/20, right?
I know I seem so matter of fact about this all. Partly, I have dealt with health issues with my husband for years from unknown diseases to his APS diagnosis to multiple mini strokes and mental breakdowns – his and mine, mind you. If I had a breakdown every time some health issue came our way I’d be committed. So I deal.
I’m not saying I haven’t had some issues with dealing with all of this, I certainly have. And the complete hysterectomy has thrown me into menopause which has been a blast, let me tell you. It’s been a lot of trying to process frustration that I don’t know what to do with and needing to just be alone and calm down. That and the occasional night sweat and hot flash thrown in. But again, I am dealing.
My mother was diagnosed with the same cancer a number of years ago. She was 54 at the time though and not 37 like I was. She also didn’t need radiation. She has said something to me that has rang so true for me as well. She told me that she said to herself that, “this is not what’s going to kill me” and then she did what she had to do (surgery), took time to recover, and went on with her life.
And that’s what I’m doing too.
This cancer isn’t going to be what kills me. It isn’t going to hold me back. I’m not going to dwell over it or be sad or depressed because of it. I did what needed to be done and now all of that is over.
Don’t get me wrong, some of it wasn’t easy. I was in a lot of pain after the surgery but I healed and it did get better. It took time but I took the time to heal. Radiation wasn’t easy. I won’t lie, the side effects were a bitch. I thought they would never end…but they did.
I often wonder if I should have reacted differently. I was watching a program and a woman they were interviewing said she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and her world completely stopped. That didn’t really happen for me. I had a few moments but then I was pretty much fine. I still am pretty much fine. My husband (and sometimes I think other people) was waiting for me to break down and snap but it never happened.
Is that wrong? Is something wrong with me because that’s not how I reacted? I don’t think so, but I don’t know.
Maybe I’m just wired differently.
All I know is that this cancer that I was diagnosed with, “this is not what’s going to kill me” and that life goes on.
