here comes round 11

tomorrow will be round 11 if my bloodwork cooperates.

since i posted about round 10 we took a week off of work to go to disneyland and take a trip to bend, oregon. it was our first family vacation in over a year and i think more than well deserved.

when i was in infusion for round 10, my new psychiatrist came in to see me. we had a really good discussion and i really like her so i hope that she stays around for a while.

there were many parts of our discussion that have stayed with me since we talked. but there is one that i probably think about every single day.

since she hadn't met me yet, she was getting the quick story on my background and what led to my severe panic attacks and the anxiety i have been fighting daily since the end of march. so we talked about the current status of things, how i have been feeling due to treatment and my daily battle with anxiety and how that has really turned things upside down for me, how i am still working full time, being a mom, etc. we also talked about how i don't feel like i am doing a very good job at any of the roles that i have. i don't say that to make a pity statement, i say that as part of the daily battle that i go through with my anxiety and the emotional agony that comes along with it.

we were talking about how i am my harshest critic (self admitted) and i have high expectations of myself that everything i do is done well. and that with the growing fatigue continuing, the tiredness from that and the anxiety meds, the other side effects i am dealing with, that i am just so tired that i just can't do many of the things that i want to do or am used to doing before i got so sick earlier this year (and to be honest, in some ways even back to when i was sick last summer on the steroids).

at one point, she leaned forward and looked my right in the eye and said "you have cancer. you are sick. you are going through cancer treatment every other week. you are tired. you can't do everything you are used to doing. you just can't. i am shocked you are even working full time right now."

you have cancer. you are sick. 

those words. i don't think that someone has directly said to me "you have cancer" since the day i was diagnosed. 

and then the tears came.

but she did that to make a needed point. it worked.

because that is so hard to hear but of course i know that. and she is right. i have cancer. i am sick. and i am tired. and i can't do everything i want to do and that frustrates the absolute shit out of me.

so i am trying with baby steps. but it is hard. i slept in late on saturday because i was so tired to only go straight into anxiety the second i woke up because i hadn't got up sooner and started doing something that needed to be done. the same thing happened on sunday but sunday i just about went into a severe panic attack. i had to remind myself (and barrett helped me) that my body is telling me i need to rest. and oftentimes, the weekends are the only time i get to.

it is all so hard and i hope that with time it gets better and easier. the start of school has us back in a routine again and maybe that will help me.

i hope so.

i would love to gain some normalcy of what my life was like before i got so sick. like writing here. one of the things i like the most and never do. so maybe not as much as i used to before i got sick (that is obvious as i hardly post anymore) but more that i have been doing. and maybe that means i let something else go that is less important.

i am trying to figure it all out.

but in the meantime, time marches on and treatment days come.

tomorrow is one of those days.

so onward. one way or another.

anywhere i fight, you fight. xo