Committment

With each round of chemotherapy I find myself having to recommit to the process of treatment.  This past week, for the first time since I was diagnosed, I began to feel like the cancer I had is gone.  Obviously I have no way of knowing whether that's true or not.  But intuitively I just feel like it's gone, like I don't have cancer anymore.  Even if that's true, the remaining three months of chemotherapy will give me the best chance of avoiding a relapse.  And if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I never want to go through this again.  So I find myself recommitting to chemotherapy.  Considering the prospect of spending another week in the hospital getting pumped full of drugs, and then dealing with the subsequent side effects.

After this past round and the challenging experience I had with a neutrapenic fever, this recommitment is a challenge.  I desperately want to be done with this process.  I desperately want my life back, my body back.  I want to play outside and spend time with my friends, and to have days during which I don't feel nauseous or exhausted.  And I know that I will have those things.  When I finish chemotherapy I will be able to return to a normal day to day existence.  The problem is that I don't want to live in the future, waiting, on hold.  I don't want to spend the next three months thinking that things will only be better when, and so forth.  I want to be happy now.  I want to feel ok now.

This illustrates the psychological battle of having cancer.  Part of it, anyway.  The other part being that there are certain things that will never be the same.  And there will always be the possibility that it will come back, or that I'll have some kind of long term complications from the chemotherapy, or something else along those lines.  I'm not as worried about those things, however.  It never helps to worry about something you have absolutely no control over.  I can only move forward and try to believe that things will be ok.  But this day to day process of waiting out my treatment is taking its toll on me.  It's a challenge to stay present and to stay positive, knowing that this will all be over at some point but having to wait for that day to come.  I'm hanging in there with it.  I'm doing my best.  I'm trying as hard as I can to take care of myself.

Yesterday I decided to stop taking pain medication, which I've been taking for the past couple of months every day.  So my body is in a bit of turmoil, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.  It got to the point where I was wondering whether the meds were causing me more problems than they were fixing.  We'll see how it goes.  I may have to take them again.  But I think I just needed to know that I didn't need them.  The same way I needed to know that undergoing this treatment is a choice I'm making.  Not something that was just forced upon my by circumstance.

So I've recommitted to chemotherapy.  I've recommitted to the fight.  I've recommitted to giving this my all.  The same way I do every day.  Tomorrow begins round 5 of my treatment.  I've officially reached the halfway point.  Three months from now I'll be done and I'll be recovering and focusing on healing my body as best I can.  For now I will just do my best to survive and to persevere.  I will meet each challenge head on, and will face each day with as much courage and strength as I can muster.  The support of those around me helps significantly with this.  Knowing I'm not alone, and that there are others out there pulling for me makes a huge difference.  Thank you for your continued support and love.  Round 5, here we come.