Still Catching My Breath

I’ve been thinking a lot about what just happened to me. It still doesn’t feel real. I never had any symptoms. I wasn’t sick. I felt completely fine, and then all of a sudden I was on this horrible roller coaster. One day I was living my normal life, and the next I was scheduling surgery, meeting with oncologists, and getting tattooed for radiation.

It’s hard to explain. Things have slowed down now, enough for me to breathe, but I still can’t believe it all actually happened. I don’t feel like a “cancer survivor.” I don’t feel heroic. I feel like maybe it was a weird misunderstanding, or it wasn’t really that serious, or maybe I just haven’t fully processed it yet.

And yet, I did go through it. I had the surgery. I completed all 33 radiation sessions. I kept showing up, even when my skin was struggling and my energy was low. I did it all, and somehow I’m healing incredibly fast. Just days after finishing radiation, my skin almost looks like it did before. The tan is fading, the irritation is gone, and my body is bouncing back like it never even happened.

I’m planning to have these radiation tattoos removed. I don’t want the reminder. I don’t want to carry this around on my skin forever. I did what I needed to do, and now I’m ready to move on.

People talk about having a “new lease on life” after something like this, but I don’t feel that either. I mostly feel sort of confused. Like I got dropped into a storm, handled it all on instinct, and now I’m trying to figure out what just happened. I’m so thankful that I’m smart and organized and independent. I was able to line everything up, manage appointments, ask the right questions, stay on top of things. I understood the treatments. I made the best decisions I could at each step. I did the work.

But it still feels like a strange detour. Not a collapse. Not a crisis. Just a bizarre, exhausting, emotionally intense interruption. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe thinking of it that way helps me reclaim my life without giving cancer too much power. Maybe not calling myself a survivor helps me feel less like a victim.

Of course, it’s not over yet. I still have to meet with the medical oncologist. I still have to decide about hormone therapy. I still have to schedule the surgery to remove my ovaries because of the BRIP1 gene mutation. There’s more ahead. But the big wave has passed, and I’m still standing.

This has been, and will be, a huge year for me. So much to carry, and yet I don’t feel crushed by it. I keep telling myself that next year will be better. Next year, all of this will be behind me. Next year, I will feel lighter.

At the same time, I feel this urge to fix everything. Go to the gym. Lose weight. Eat better. Cut back on alcohol. Meditate. Journal. Be a whole new person. I want all those things, but I’m also kind of tired. Not broken or defeated. Just tired. And maybe it’s okay not to overhaul my life all at once.

Right now, I’m just lining up the dominoes and knocking them over. One at a time. That’s my pace. That’s my plan. And for now, that’s enough.

And I know this blog isn’t changing lives or even being read much at all. But it does help me to have a place to keep it all. A place to put it all down. It gives shape to everything I’ve been through, even if it is barely looked at.

I am always so thankful for my friends and family. They cared and worried right along with me. And my husband is just the greatest man. He couldn’t go with me to all the appointments, but he did go to the ones that were most important. And his good job and good insurance have allowed me to sail through this experience without worrying about money the entire time. The Tesla he got for me made the entire experience easier, and the daily drives were actually something I looked forward to.

Throughout all of this nightmare, I do feel so grateful and in many ways, lucky.

I think I will be a better person after this year. Because I never fully understood what people went through. I never knew what any of this meant. Of course, I was always supportive or kind or understanding when someone I know was going through something like this. But I didn’t really get it.

But I get it now.