Getting to know you...

     Well it has been some time since I've written here.  Life has been so busy, but I am thinking that is a good thing.  I had recently my every 3 month check up since remission and my doctor said I was healthy!  It's nice to hear that.  Though this past week I had a scare.  I felt a tighting in my neck and pressure behind my ear.  It was enough for me to go in and see what was going on.  It was that same feeling that I got back in July of 2010 right before my diagnosis.  Luckly it turned out to just be a cold.
     I guess I am coming to terms that I have a "new" body in a sense.  It can be very frustrating after knowing yourself and how you respond to colds coming on etc, that I am now faced with I don't really know my body all that well.   This isn't something that comes to me easily since I like to be in control of things.  So it is a learning process to say the least.  The tightness in my neck was right by my scar and my doctor thought it could be the scar tissue stretching from the cold.  Who knows....just well it sent me to a place of a new reality for me. 
     I am in remission for cancer.  Such an ugly word, cancer.  I've been given the chance to continue living and that is such a gift that others with this horrible disease may not get.  October 8th is another big date for me; the one year mark of my very first chemo treatment.  I have come a very long way.  Instead of fearing when I would lose my hair I can now say I've had three haircuts since May.  I've been told that my hair looks really cute short....but I guess for me it just isn't how I see myself.  I guess I could go the hair extensions route but yeah that may just be a tad over board! 
     For awhile I had been very protective of my scar and how much I showed but lately I honestly forget about it.  Then of course you get the people who are looking at you and you know they are wondering "what happened?"... I guess I would be doing the same thing.  I had one little girl at work ask me about my scar and asked if I had fallen down.  Oh if only that were the reason :)  I don't mind people asking me about it, it keeps putting the word out there about cancer and to be your own advocate when it comes to your body.
     My next big scans will be in December and that will be just shy of the year mark of me ending my chemo treatment.  Providing all goes well we go to every 4 month visits and PET and CT scans for the next 5 years every year.  So I am making progess, just slow going with A LOT of waiting in between.  A few weeks back I went to the Post Office to buy stamps and I had the cashier Post Office guy ask me about my scar.  Like I said I don't mind talking about it but well right in front of the whole place was a tad weird.  Then the other cashier said it must be hard not knowing, you must worry.  Well 1. thanks for pointing that out and 2.  yeah I do worry!
      What I have come to learn is that I don't and can't control everything.  Sometimes you just have to "worry" about every day life and what it is offereing and not think always about the unknown--for it will happen soon enough.
   

“There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.”------Harry Crews

 

 

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society  

(Always a great place to donate.  The Nashville Chapter has helped me with literature and copay help and just general support!)



Starting to not wear something covering my head ....big step for me!