What Started As a Text To Ra

Chemo Day 6: I got out of bed today and was productive! I did lots of out of the house holiday shopping, and put away tons of laundry despite the bone pain in my back. Yeah, that I learned could be from the cancer, not from by screwed up back. 

🥁🥁🥁🥁

First day of: 

No diarrhea.🥇 

No nausea.🏅 

No vomiting.🎖️

Pruritis is still horrendous, but it seems to be worst in the evening, so I’m calling today a win, as I was able to FINALLY leave the house and be productive. Hence…

TODAY: 🏆 

(I did wake up with a migraine, but it went away after a Diet Coke and an Imitrex.) And… 

My Emgality was FINALLY approved by insurance, so hopefully my migraines will decrease substantially once I pick it up from the pharmacy. 🤞🏻

In addition, Alan and I met with our therapist who completely validated that while yes, the diagnosis could definitely be worse, it is STILL COMPLETELY okay to feel HORRIBLE AND it is still AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE to have to wake up every day with cancer for the rest of my life, to have to swallow chemo every day for the rest of my life, and to have to worry about which associated cancer is actually going to kill me, especially knowing my body and how it doesn’t exactly play by the rules. 

That was exactly what I needed. It helped me grieve and process so much that I’d been feeling throughout the week. I’d been feeling so much shame and guilt over those emotions. Alan actually validated me the most, because of course he did… 🤪 He said that when he had AML, he was so incredibly grateful that he was diagnosed with the worst cancer that had to be treated so insanely fast, a cancer that had to be CURED. He remembered being so glad that he wasn’t diagnosed with a cancer that you just had to live with for years because he couldn’t imagine living like that. I cried and cried when he said that. It validated everything that I had been feeling, and took away all of my shame and guilt. 

“It’s you and me against the world,” he has always said. He even had it engraved in his handwriting on the back of a necklace with Hawaiian wood he gave me years ago, a promise he’d take me to Hawaii some day. ☺️ You’d better know I fucking believe him that it’s the two of us now. 

So while I met this diagnosis with an  insanely ridiculous amount of optimism, (according to my therapist to whom I first spoke virtually in the hospital parking lot first thing following my diagnosis last Wednesday afternoon, several of my dearest friends, and, yes, even myself), after nearly a week of processing, I have learned better than to have regrets, and I wish I would’ve processed the diagnosis before telling anyone, though you kinda knew all along, right? Because now, after a week, I can tell you that the chemo does have side effects and they’re awful. I now know that the CPTSD with which I have been diagnosed related to Cancer is so fucking complex, hence the COMPLEX in the name (duh), that I’m keeping Kleenex and mascara in business single-handedly. It hits me out of nowhere, the triggers being things I’ve packed so far into the back of my brain that I didn’t even know these memories existed before they have me stuck in a panic attack, crying hysterically, or running for my fucking life out of nowhere. 

One sure fire trigger that gets me every fucking morning, without fail, for a reason that I absolutely CANNOT describe, is taking my chemo pill. Every morning I wake up and easily take all of my morning medications. And then the pit of doom rises in my gut, in my chest, in my throat. 

In my head: Go into the basement fridge that Alan thoroughly stocked for you for this very purpose. Choose a tasty beverage, quick swallow the pill, no big deal. But no. CPTSD has another idea. Instead of this simple simple process, here’s what happens instead: Pull the chemo bottle off my bedside table. Start getting teary eyed. Begin crying like like a middle school girl who just got dumped at the school dance. Go downstairs to get a drink with which to take the chemo. Open the drink once back upstairs. Decide if I can take the pill alone. If I can, play the song that feels right. Open the pill bottle, take out one pill, and swallow the chemo with my drink of choice, hopefully between sobs.  Close the bottle. Proceed to cry to the rest of the song. 

Chemo Day 1 involved purchasing a Diet Coke from Target, driving to Rachel’s grave in the cemetery, and swallowing the chemo pill while leaning almost all of my body weight on her grave, and sobbing hysterically. I then poured her the remainder of the Diet Coke which looked terrible on the beautiful freshly fallen white snow covering her grave. 🙄 Oops. I hoped she was laughing somewhere. 🌌

Today, for the very first time, I didn’t fucking cry. I just took the damn pill. I don’t know what that means, if anything, and I do still reserve the right to cry tomorrow. But I did it once at least, right? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t know if I should tell you any of this or not, but I want you to know that my optimism has faded. I’m no longer grateful I got this one. I’m fucking livid that I have cancer, and I’m fucking furious that Mom and Dad don’t give a fuck. Hell, Aunt Jill actually said she was happy for me! Woop de fuckin’ doo! Maybe we could get them all to throw a huge Emily got fake cancer party?! Or at least get them to cater it, maybe? 🤯

Seriously, though. I’m in a rough spot, but I’m getting up again, and I’m trying to live. I’m going to live with cancer. I need to earn money for when this inevitably goes very far south and Alan needs to take time off to take care of me, and then there won’t be anyone to earn money for our family anymore. He’s thinking a lot more long term than I am. I hope he’s right, and I also know my body. That’s what fucking blows. I know my goddamn body and so I know that it will fail me long before it should. And that’s fucking terrifying. 

I love you, Ra. Please tell me if this is too much honesty. I need to know.