The Time Is Now: One Year Later

One year ago today, I woke up to Jeff bringing me pancakes in bed and a card for my birthday that promised he would be there for me "no matter what happens".

365 days ago I was told I had cancer.

I sat on this post for a very, very long time. I knew I wanted to write something to mark the date. I have been sitting here, trying to determine exactly how I feel, and yet nothing I wrote felt right.

So, I decided to write a little post to myself. That is a very lame and cheesy thing to do, I know. I try and avoid the lame and cheesy but I had cancer, and it's my cancerversary, and I'm also turning 25 and am officially "an old lady" (too much Sons of Anarchy) so I feel like it's warranted. Story of my life.

So here it goes. If I had known a year ago what I know now, what would I have said?

Dear Sam,

A year ago the thought of writing yourself a letter would have made you laugh in my face. I know that. You would have told me you were way too busy to read it. You probably also would have been knee deep in boxes and on your twelfth hour of work as well, but let's not even go there.

You don't know this yet but 2015 is about to be the craziest year of your life. Seriously though, everything is about to change - and I don't just mean your hair colour. Although you will have pink hair this year (and no hair for that matter, sorry to tell you). Remember that time you played around with wigs when you worked at a salon? Yeah, well, you're about to become an expert on them.

I wish I could prepare you for the shock you're going to be in when the doctor says the big "C" word. To say you were in full denial was a real understatement. The devastation is unfathomable. I am so sorry.

I can't even begin to comfort you, but you learn quickly that, like anything else in life, the pain numbs out after awhile. It's sad to say you become used to life with cancer, but you do.

You sleep for about a week straight (amongst all of the appointments), and I hope you always remember how much clearer your mind and focus are when you're well rested. I don't just mean to deal with the cancer, I mean to deal with life after cancer as well. If there's one thing you should take away is that you need to sleep more. Everything seems so much more manageable after a good nights sleep.

I think I always knew mentally you could endure a lot, but I didn't know how much you would be able to endure physically. Chemotherapy ain't a joke. There will be that one night when you eat too many snacks, get too excited about Christmas presents, and then proceed to spend the rest of your night hugging the toilet until Jeff calls the nurse to knock you out. Guess what? You learn your lesson. Thank goodness, this only happens once.

When you finally go for surgery, you are fully ready for them to remove the cancer. You just want it gone and you aren't nervous. I wish you would have been more mentally prepared for how it will affect you. A year later, looking in the mirror at an uneven scar, you still find it very hard to come to terms with.

I'm so proud of you for talking about what you're going through. Looking back on it now, I don't know how you got the courage to do it. I don't think I could have. I think the fear of the unknown really motivated you to connect with others, and it worked. You very rarely felt alone.

One time you asked yourself if you were going to die. You only ask once, though. You will cry, and cry, and sit on the ground hugging your knees wondering if this is it for you (But I really do want to get married! I want to have children and see them grow up! I am just starting my life, how can it be over already? Do I really never get to go to Disney World again?), and all of a sudden something washes over you and you're calm. Something is telling you you're strong enough to deal with this. You repeat that over and over. I hope you continue to for the rest of your life. It's a great mantra.

Once you invest time in your hobbies, I hope you never lose them. Keep investing time into reading, writing, creating, reflecting. It keeps you, "you".

Things don't happen by chance. People will be introduced into your life at the time you need them most, and it isn't a coincidence, it's fate. Life gives you what you need. Trust that, always. (How you nourish it and what you do with it is up to you, though).

You have really great family, friends and colleagues who really step up to bat for you this year. Remember them, cherish them, give back to them over the years that follow. Don't take all they have given you, and given up for you this year, for granted.

Take some deep breaths and allow yourself to feel all the feels. You're not going to feel so positive some days. That's okay. Some days you won't even get up or turn on a light, and instead will binge listen to Serial for 12 hours. That's okay, too. Just don't make it a habit.

A year goes by really, really fast. You make all these grandiose plans for your time "off" and then next thing you know it's passed you by. This is typical of life, I think. Not just cancer-life, real life too. Make the moments count. Now's the time.

PS:

Put on the cream they tell you to use after radiation. Why are you so lazy!!! Your skin is coming off in sheets, and you still forget to use that cream! You crazy lady.

Love, 

Sam of 2015

Recovery: Who Am I To Give Advice?

November 26, 2015 

I was all set to publish a post today about my thoughts on Pink-tober. I had it fully typed up and all I needed to do was hit post. I didn't though.

I started having these feelings that it isn't my place to tell you how you should and shouldn't support a cause. Who am I to be preaching? Less then a year ago I had never donated my time, and very little of my money, to any specific organization. And if I bought a breast cancer product, it was by chance.

I have a lot of moments where it hits me that I just had cancer. Those I can't believe it really happened moments. Times where I find myself thinking and acting "normal" again and then feeling like I shouldn't be, because everything changed and I just feel so different on the inside. I can't lie, I feel sorry for myself in these moments. This year I missed out on so many opportunities.

I know deep down I am so grateful for every opportunity my cancer gave me on a fresh start in life but in it's place it also left a permanent heartache. A knowledge that every single day I wake up there will always be some fear and sadness. A naivety that disappeared: the feeling I once had of being invincible is gone now. I am only guaranteed one day at a time and I know that.

I often even think to myself how I have to prepare myself in case the cancer comes back. I never want to feel that same shock I did a year ago. Although I have managed to donate many of my hats, I can't let go of my wig. It provided me with so much strength and a sense of normalcy that I can't bear to part with it just yet.

Many people have come to me recently and told me someone they are close with has been diagnosed with cancer. I have become somebody's hope. The same validation that everything would be okay that I searched for when I was newly diagnosed.

Getting over cancer is almost worse then being diagnosed in the first place. I want to move on with my life but I don't ever want to forget what this year taught me. I don't ever want to forget how this year changed me. This week I had a day where I didn't think about my cancer once. I was too busy! When I finally got to bed, it freaked me out. It's like breaking up with a boyfriend. I have been thinking, dreaming and discussing cancer for a year now. It has been my constant. To suddenly move on is heart wrenching. You force yourself to do it because you know you'll be better off without it but that doesn't change how hard it is.

I had just started back to work after a long and gruelling year of Stage 3B cancer treatment. I remember taking all my hats and donating them to the hospital, but I kept my wig and favourite white hat - “in case I might need them later”. 

Sam

What Life Looks Like Now

It's been two months since my last blog post and I've been having mixed feelings about it!

Part of me is so happy that I have taken my life back. I have really been able to relax over the last month. I've started feeling like myself again. I also started back to work!

The other part of me is so sad, because I truly love to blog and connect with those of you that take the time to peek into my crazy life.

I've had a few people ask me how life has been and how the transition from bed-ridden cancer diagnosis to a full return to work (more like, return to life!) has been. So, as I'm off on this beautiful November day, I was sitting in my reading chair and thought I would write you up a post about what my post cancer life is looking like!

I spent the majority of the last two months indulging in all of my favourite things. I got to take a fall cottage getaway with my best friends, have a crazy Halloween, spend Thanksgiving being EXTRA grateful this year with my family and friends, watch two of our best friends get married, and of course, plan and execute some absolutely fantastic fundraisers in benefit of the Run for the Cure. I'm so happy to report that my team was able to raise over $10 000 for cancer research. I was so proud and received such amazing closure that day. I truly learned that fundraising is a real skill and learned SO much. Mainly, starting our campaign earlier to avoid September burnout like this year...........

 

I have been listening to new music and rediscovering the old (new Ellie Goulding, the Amy Winehouse obsession is back, and of course some new One Direction ). I'm realizing how relaxing cooking can be, and continuing in the habit of reading 4 different books at a time and getting all my story-lines occasionally mixed up.

 

 

However, life is life, so unfortunately it hasn't been all smiles! I actually struggled quite a bit since my last blog post. Losing a friend to cancer makes the reality of this disease very, very real. It was not something that you just get over. It makes you question everything, and, ask "Why me?" for the umpteenth time (Why Me? seems to be a recurring question on this blog. If I didn't already have a perfectly fitting name I would just name this blog "Why Me?"). In honour of this, I made a little list of the top 5 struggles I've personally had in my return to life post-cancer diagnosis.

Top 5 Post-Cancer Struggles

1) Anxiety

It isn't the kind of anxiety over having a zit or wondering why someone isn't texting you back. It is real, full blown,  can't breath panic type anxiety that hits you when you least expect it. Namely staring at your ceiling at 3AM when your cats just won't shut the hell up and you've been googling "why is my hand numb" and you're on page 44 of a thread on WebMD and everyone is telling you that you've developed a second cancer.

You realize you took this whole year to rid your body of cancer only to realize that for the rest of your life you're going to live with the notion that it could come back.

I first started having this worry when I put all of my beautiful chemo hats in a box to take to donate to the cancer center. I started thinking, maybe I shouldn't part with these. Maybe I may need them again. Then I started looking at my wig, my bestie for those few months last winter, and I had to stow her back under my bed. I kept saying, you just never know. I ended up having the courage to donate the hats, but the wig still sits under my bed. I'm just not ready yet.

I had these really crazy shoulder pains for awhile that I was sure were bone pain, an early sign of stage 4 cancer. I had ghost pains in my breast that had been removed. Some nights, I couldn't sleep with the anxiety that I was sure my cancer had returned.

I've heard from others that the nerves, while they never disappear, will lessen as your life becomes less "cancer' consumed. It's important to remember the feeling is normal and when you're having any concerns your oncologist is usually more then open to checking it out.

2) A deep sense of loss

It was 5AM, I was walking to the bus to go to work, and I had this deep feeling of sadness come over me. It just seems to hit sometimes. The whole, "I cannot believe I actually just had cancer" thing. Telling someone the other day "On Christmas last year I was recovering from chemotherapy" just seemed like the craziest thing. I am still in shock that this whole year even happened to me.

I get that kind of feeling in your stomach that you get when you're in a big fight with a friend or you've had a really bad breakup or you've lost a pet. I am seriously mourning my cancer. I spent a whole year living with it, battling it every single morning when I woke up, wondering what side effect or appointment I would have next.

This morning, I officially closed my file with CCAC which provided me home care. I don't need care anymore, because I'm in the clear. It just feels like I am moving on from what was such a big part of my life for the past year, and I never want to forget how hard it was.

Sometimes I go a full day where I haven't even thought about my cancer at all. Then I feel so guilty. I feel like I'm doing a disservice to myself, and everything I've been through, to just move on.

3) Aches & Pains

Okay so if you're like me and had a hard time with bone and joint pain during your chemo, chances are you weren't the most active. I had the hardest time returning back to work for my first 3 shifts. After my first day I literally felt like I had done the toughest work out of all time (and one time way back when I had done the Gillian Micheals Shred, and I couldn't even sit on the toilet for a week and I think it was actually worse then that).

My body isn't in the shape it was when this all started. I am realizing how HARD it is to get back into shape once you're out of shape. It seriously sucks. Getting winded running up a set of stairs? My life, every.single.day.

4) Struggling To Do It All

Okay, so this is something I seem to be continuously learning and re-visiting so it may be a life long lesson for me.

I signed up for a course at Algonquin back in August: History of Furniture and Design. It was Thursday nights from 7-10. Most people in the course were going for their diploma in Interior Decorating. I was just doing it for... fun.

Until I went back to work, I was exhausted, and the idea of being in class until 10PM and then going to work for 6AM seemed ridiculous.

I started reading this book called Essentialism where I found the following image:

I realized this is a good example of my life. I am interested in so many different things, and I invest all of this time into learning a little bit about everything. I realized that even with this course, I wouldn't become an expert on the History of Furniture, even though I was spending 3 hours in class and about 3 hours on homework per week.

I decided I wanted to invest all of my time into my return to work and my recovery. Returning to work after a year off would be a learning curve as is. When you're me, and you realize the way you were working was all wrong and you essentially need to change everything you were doing, it's a REAL learning curve.

So, I dropped my course. Surprisingly, I did so with very little guilt. I was missing reading books for fun. I learned SO much in the few weeks I was there, and it is something I would like to pick back up again later in life, but the timing was all wrong.

You can't do it all. Sometimes you have to focus your energies on becoming an expert on one thing then being somewhat knowledgeable on a bunch of different subjects.

5) Getting back Into a Routine

I spent a year either sick and in bed, sleeping in until 11 and staying up until 4, and basically doing whatever in the heck made me feel better at the time being (because I had cancer so that basically gave me a free pass to eat chips in bed and re-watch all 10 seasons of ER).

That being said, it was always hard for me to have nothing to do most days, when all of my friends and family were working. I felt very inadequate and unproductive. So, I thought I would love getting back into a routine!

And I have, don't get me wrong! I am loving having a reason to wake up in the morning again. I went back to work nervous I wouldn't love it anymore, that I changed so much over this year and it wouldn't be a good fit. I went back and felt the opposite. I loved it more then ever.

That doesn't mean that the whole waking up early, working hard and giving up the freedom of cancer life has been easy though! Balancing life and work is hard - now I remember why I was no good at it!

Unplugging after work is something that is still very hard for me. We're all so connected through e-mail, text and our cell phones that I find it hard to "turn off" sometimes when I'm at home. I don't think this is a cancer thing. This is just a life thing that I find I'm still struggling with.

So many of you were so concerned about my work pattern and how I would transition when I returned. Seriously, my first day back I think I counted like 18 messages of people ensuring I wasn't falling back into bad habits.

I'm happy to say that with integrating a planner and organizing my day before I fall asleep I have been able to accomplish more then I ever have, and in less time.

So... everyone. Back off! (Kidding. Love you. But seriously. I am fine.)

  

In other news, "The Un-Organized Mind" was named the blog of the month by Rethink Breast Cancer. Super exciting!! So for all you new readers... Hi!

Despite struggling a bit, I've declared this "the winter of soup" and have started by making a spicy hot & sour soup, a potato soup and a hearty winter stew. Turns out when your hands are full of food and your timer is going off, you don't have as much time to look at your phone so it's a healthy way to relax. Plus, now Jeff can't tell everyone that I've never made him a meal in the 6.5 years we've been together!

I've also been reading quite a few good books, one of which I mentioned above called "Essentialism" which I'd recommend you check out if you find you're working so hard and never feeling very productive. It teaches the art of saying no and prioritizing, so you can complete your best work. If you're looking for a funny but rewarding read, check out "Furiously Happy" by Jenny Lawson. A hilarious take on mental illness (with a great message).

This Saturday I'm getting dressed up for a nice dinner with friends and a party back at our apartment to celebrate my birthday. It feels pretty surreal that my one year cancer-versary is coming up. It feels like it's gone by so fast until I close my eyes and remember how bad the hot flashes were and that feels like forever ago. I would rather not live till I'm 50 then go through menopause and have hot flashes again. KIDDING. Bring on the hot flashes, as I've heard 50 is the new 20.

 Oh, and I should probably tell you: had my first post-cancer mammo and I'm still in the clear. Six more months of living cancer-free! Now that's something to celebrate!

 

Saying Hello from my Herceptin treatment!

xx

Sam