Learning to Love Life Again

Life is not perfect and that is okay.  It is the details of our lives that make us human and special.

I am back in the hospital for chemo.  I am doing well, or as well as one can do while getting chemo and stuck in the hospital. I find joy in talking with my nurses.  Those that know me know I am very talkative person, but being in the hospital the other patients seem to keep to themselves and I have no one to talk to.  Sure I have Brandon here with me most of the time which I am so blessed, however it is fun for me to talk to others with cancer about their experiences.  I tend to be the youngest person in the hospital every time I am inpatient and that is getting old.    The hospital does help me feel physically better, but mentally it is very isolating.

I am so eager to get well and keep myself out of the hospital.  I want to share my experience with cancer with the world.  I believe that there is so much to cancer that is ignored.  I think that when we go to the doctor and learn we have cancer the focus is on the biological or physical changes we will go through.  Don't get me wrong, I think we need to be prepared with all the facts, but I think the facts that the mental changes we will go through should be addressed as well.  We are human and it is my belief that we are made up of mind, body, and soul.  Since we are made up of three parts, it saddens me that we primarily focus on the body.  I think cancer care should focus on all three.  I read a statistic that some 80% of people diagnosed with cancer experience depression.  I am sure that there are various levels of depression but the fact is depression is out there.  Our bodies are thrust into a change with cancer and by default so do our minds and souls.  I believe cancer patients need more access to emotional support through their cancer experience.  I have found so much more joy in my life since I have been working with a psychiatrist and social worker.  I have always thought I am strong woman and I can take on the world.  Cancer has burst that bubble wide open for me.  I have learned I do have limits and that I don't need to take on the world because I live in my own perfect world, it just took me getting cancer to realize how awesome my world is.   Everyday I can choose be focus on the bad in my life or the good.  I have realized that the more good I focus on the better I feel.  What a blessing is that!  I am learning to love life again.  However I do not believe all cancer patients are taught the simple fact that we are how we feel.  I believe there needs to be more focus on the changes that occur in the WHOLE body and that includes the mind.

Any of you agree that there needs to be changes in the way cancer and mental health issues are addressed?

My "normal"

Cancer changes us with it. 

Period.

There is no other way to describe it.  Cancer touches us and then BAM nothing else is the same.  No matter how I try to be the same as I was before I was told I have cancer, I can't.   Recognizing my new "normal" has been hard.  It is still hard.  I still can't believe I have cancer, again.  

I have always felt different from other people; feeling like I CAN fit in anywhere but NEVER feeling like I actually BELONG anywhere.  Cancer has made me feel that way even more.  I look "normal" yet never feel normal since I am a sick no one can see.

Through much soul searching, I have come to the realization that my new normal is just me being me.  I am on this earth for a reason and that reason is to be me.  I BELONG here on earth to be my own kind of normal.  I have spent my life too busy trying to be normal for everyone else but never knew what normal was for me.

Cancer changed me.  Cancer made me realize my normal is okay.  I was worried and anxious about how I would change at the beginning of my cancer voyage and now I am grateful.  I know I am weird, but I am grateful for my cancer.  It has given me the gift of new life, a new normal , a genuine normal, and that is a real blessing.

Was it hard for any of you to accept your new normal after cancer?