Recovery PART 1

We've come through the winter and spring and now summer is upon us.
Although these are seasons of the year, I feel that I am just beginning to enter the "spring" of my life.
It has been a very long and painful road since I was told I had cancer June 8, 2011 and now on June 8, 2012 I will receive my latest test results which will determine if I am cancer free or not.


In this post I'm going to share with you about my recovery from cancer. I have read many posts from different cancer patients and survivors and although I hear alot about the treatments and journey TO recovery, I haven't heard much about the actual recovery process itself.


So if you are a fellow cancer patient or perhaps you have a loved one or friend who has been diagnosed with cancer, I am writing this to you. I want YOU to know I understand where you're at, I've been there myself and hopefully something I say will encourage you that trouble doesn't last always. God promised joy in the morning and that trials, no matter how hard or dark MUST come to an end.


Ok, so recovery for me began the first of March. I had completed all prescribed treatments (8 months of chemotherapy and 22 days of radiation) This is also when my hair began to grow back.
I had become accustomed to my bald head so seeing little sprigs of hair popping up in various places was such a welcome sight!


I was expecting a completely different looking set of hair as my doctors had warned me that I could have a different hair color and texture, but I did not experience that to the same degree as others have.


My hair has grown in slightly lighter than before and a little more coarse but that is probably unnoticeable to those who aren't looking for it.


I spent alot of days just resting and relaxing from the months of taxing doctor visits, hospital stays and trauma that was unleashed on my body. I took time for "me" and to do the things that I enjoyed.
I also began to completely change my eating habits to include loads of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables and organic produce in order to rebuild my body from the disaster the poisonous effects of chemo had accomplished within me.


I pampered myself and just enjoyed being alive. This was all very well and good but it wasn't long before a restlessness was birthed within me. I began to feel that I should be "doing" something. Anxiety and depression started knocking on my door and I began to feel trapped.


I would worry that I would never fully recover and be able to reestablish myself into the "real" world. My hair was long enough to wear without being covered around April but even though I was excited about this, I still felt that every time I stepped out of the house my short hair labeled me "Cancer Survivor"'


Although my friends and family assured me that I looked "great" and the label of Cancer Survivor was something to wear with pride I felt that it somehow hindered me. I'm not ashamed of my experience and therefore not ashamed of my short hair but I did not desire to be DEFINED by it.


Anyone who knows me knows that I am normally a positive, happy person with a bubbly personality but when you experience the emotional trauma for a year like I experienced, your natural personality can take a hit.


I became angry, sad, upset, disappointed and depressed. I felt as though I was riding a giant swing and at any given time my emotions would "swing" from one extreme to the other. Never having experienced severe mood swings or depression before, I was left stripped of everything and scared of what may happen next.


I was still attending church faithfully, still involved, still praying and reading my Bible, still happily married to my husband and doing everything I knew to be "right" and "good" but I felt so alone and empty.


There is really no way to describe how broken and stripped one can feel after experiencing traumatic emotional and mental pain. The only way I know to describe it was I felt mentally and emotionally raped.


I had to honor of meeting and talking to a fellow cancer survivor and she described those feelings by telling me that what I was experiencing was a loss of innocence. My body had betrayed me and done something that wasn't "supposed" to happen and I had lost my trust and innocence in my own body.


That was so accurate to the things I was experiencing and feeling that all I could do was cry. I literally felt like my body had turned me over to a hostile agent and I was being held hostage against my own will. The one thing that I had loved, taken care of and trusted to be faithful to me all my life had done the worst possible thing it could do and had tried to destroy me.


I began to try to work through my feelings as best as I could. I did countless hours of online research of different cancer patients and how they described recovery, I looked up medical causes and remedies, I delved into the physiological and spiritual aspect of things and when it was all said and done at the end of the day all I could come up with was what I was experiencing was completely "normal" for cancer patients.


BUT knowing that what I felt inside was "normal" didn't necessarily help me.


Now I want to stop right here and say if your are a recovering cancer patient trying to find your way back in life and you're experiencing these things, DON'T GIVE UP!!! First of all I would tell you to take a deep breath and give yourself some TIME. My problem was I felt as though I had taken plenty of time for me and now it was time to reestablish myself in the real world.
Well I have news for you honey, it took months, possibly years of treatments to get you to where you are today and it will take every bit that long to get you BACK to where you were before all of this happened.


Don't become overwhelmed by the odds stacked against you, you fought cancer and won by taking it one day at a time, so that's exactly how you're going to overcome the recovery process.
If you feel that it's too much for you to handle DO NOT hesitate to make an appointment with your doctor because hormone therapy might be in order and you may just need to speak with a counsellor and get your emotions in the open so you can better deal with things.


My problem was I had been strong for everyone for so long throughout the treatment process that when it was finally all over I felt that I could finally let my guard down and be afraid and show my anxiety because I didn't have to be strong for anyone anymore. I could show my true emotions and let them be strong for me.


That's good to do that and to deal with  your emotions but you don't want to continually live in those negative emotions and keep reliving the past. There comes a time when you need to lay everything that was done to you to rest and "forget about it as soon as you can" and MOVE ON!


You have a bright, new future ahead of you and you don't want to cloud it up by looking over your shoulder to the things that might have been or could have been had this experience not happened to you.


In closing I want to say that dealing with your emotions will take time, prayer and effort. When you feel yourself spiraling downward into that black hole of helplessness and worthlessness, just find that warrior in you that rose up and said "I will NOT be defeated by cancer!" and rise up against those negative feelings and emotions in the same way and determine that you WILL NOT be conquered.


It also helps to find an activity you enjoy and throw yourself into it with all of your heart. Do whatever you must to get your mind off of the negativity and back onto something that is positive.


I will continue my experiences of my recovery journey in another post titled "Recovery PART 2"


Stick around! ;)