I have a large pile of thank-you notes I need to send to all the people who helped me get through the last six weeks of awful. I was feeling so discouraged and stressed and didn't know what else to do except to pray. So that's what I did. I prayed for help and it didn't take long for help to come. I still had to do radiation, care for a newborn, and help with the opening of our practice. None of those hard things were removed from my life but at least I was given the help to get through all those things in ways I could never have imagined. I have learned to swallow my pride and wave the white flag of defeat. Letting people see me at my worst and allowing people to help me was hard a first but once I swallowed my pride and surrendered, my burdens were lifted.
My last day of radiation was weird. I went in and got zapped just like I had every time before that, but when I hopped off the table for the last time I had a spring in my step. Win, my favorite tech who always told me to slow down as I hurried down the hall, put my mask in a garbage bag for me to take home and I joked that I should have brought a bow to make it look all official. Then I got to ring the bell, signifying the end of treatment, while Sarah and Bria, my other two techs, cheered and took pictures. I laughed through the whole thing. Mostly because I felt like a fraud. I'm not bald {not completely anyway} or sick, or dying. Ringing that bell is for people who really had to fight. But you know what? I'm still a cancer survivor. I had cancer and now it's gone. {I hope.} And now I get to spend the rest of my life going in for follow-ups to check that I don't have cancer, and being paranoid at any little bump or brown spot that appears on my skin. So I decided to ring that bell with pride, hugged my techs goodbye, and laughed when Win handed me my mask with a big bow on it that he'd managed to dig up from somewhere. With tears in our eyes, I hugged my friend Laura, goodbye too. Her battle with breast cancer is far from over. I could see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes as we talked in the waiting room while doing the jigsaw puzzle each day. I told her I would keep her in my prayers, and I have. To all my friends and family both near and far who have been praying for me, sending gifts and cards, watching my kids, making meals, and loving Henry while I went to my appointments, you have changed me. The kindness that was shown to me was unprecedented and more than I deserved, but definitely appreciated.
So creepy! And trust me, there were days when this mask was much tighter than others. If I didn't lay in just the right position I knew right away!
Check out those awesome bolts that snapped me to the table. They remind me of Frankenstein!
I am in the process of permanently losing about an inch of hair from my hairline and new blisters are emerging each day. The surface of my skin doesn't have any feeling but my head hurts underneath. You know that ache you get when you have a bad cold and you bend over and the pressure hurts your head? That's how my head feels. And it itches. Due to a cowlick I have parted my hair in the same place my entire life which shows off my scarring rather than hiding it. I am now trying to train my hair to part in the other direction to cover the site up. It's a losing battle.
These pictures of Henry were taken my first and last day of radiation. He's grown a lot in 6 weeks! He's not going to know what hit him when he gets to take a morning nap in his bed every single day instead of getting hauled around to be babysat. I'm so glad he's too young to remember the chaos of the past six weeks!
You did it! Annoying how we always learn so much from hard things. I guess maybe learning so much makes the hard things at least worth something. Good work!
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