This week has been pretty rough so far. I went for bloodwork yesterday and I am at the bottom as far as my platelet count – all to be expected. But I have been feeling pretty awful. Lots of light-headedness, fatigue, some nauseau and overall almost no energy. I suppose this is just the effect of the chemo and where my blood counts are but I haven’t felt this bad in a while, so it feels particularly awful. I spoke to the doctor about it and she didn’t seem very concerned. She said it is a result of my low blood pressure (normal for me), still being anemic, where my counts are and the heat. I am trying to accept that answer although I have had some periods of high anxiety and there is a fuzzy line between what is real and what is produced by stressing about it. As I told my friend, I thought I was over all of this by now. I thought I was better equipped to let these bumps in the road roll off my back, but they still stress me out.

I’ve been hearing a lot about cancer lately. The nine-year old niece of one of Brian’s co-workers was just diagnosed with a form of leukemia and facing a really rough fight so far. At an appointment the other day, a woman was telling me about another lady that worked downstairs and is going through the same course of treatment I did last year. And then this morning I opened an email only to learn that someone I had read about in January – a true cancer warrior – passed away yesterday.

I have been doing all of this “soul-searching” and coming to terms with the idea that we all have our place and purpose and that worrying about any of it is wasting time. In that regard, I have dramatically improved over my past experiences. Although I get anxious or worried or flat-out afraid sometimes, I can much more quickly let it go. I think that having been reminded of cancer so much in the past two weeks, as well as knowing that I have another biopsy coming up, all of a sudden I am focused on cancer again. I don’t think I live in denial about it, but I live as if I am alive and cancer-free and have the rest of my life in front of me. But I still hesitate making commitments to go places or do things because I don’t want to let other people down just in case I might find myself back in a hospital bed. I think I try so much to avoid the fearful thoughts that I do drift into denial and I know that’s not healthy either. As I described in a much earlier post, in meditation I have learned that when thoughts cross our mind, we must acknowledge they are there and then let them pass. Trying to fight against them only makes them worse. So today, I embrace the fact that I hate feeling sick and run-down and it scares me, but I will not dwell on it. I did more today than I did yesterday and hopefully tomorrow is a little better as well.