24 Weeks - Half Way!

Yeah! I'm half way! 24 down, 24 to go.

Man, this is a long haul. I feel this way especially on days like today. And I've had days like today more times than not.

I'm pretty pooped out. Don't want to do much but have much to do. More accurately, it's not that I don't WANT to do much, but that my body is weary. It doesn't want to expend the energy. And when I do anyway, I pay for it. My heart likes to race and skip beats and stuff like that. Doesn't feel good. Experiencing my heart struggling to keep beat is - well - disheartening. Ha! Honestly, it's more disconcerting than disheartening, but you get the point.

What's a girl to do? ...Press on. Trust God with what I cannot control and do well with what God trusts me to manage.

Even though I'm not in and out of hospitals, I haven't lost weight or lost all my hair (some is now growing back), I'm not vomiting with each dose of treatment, I still have considerable strength to lift and accomplish mundane tasks, I can move up and down stairs without extreme fatigue, and I can play with my family, my life is not normal. As my Mayo Clinic physician's assistant put it, "You can't really have a life while on treatment, because you don't know how you'll feel day to day."

I mean, I do have a life in the literal sense, but it's difficult making far off commitments. I can't be certain to keep them. It's not unusual to make plans and then the day comes and I'm like "no way." This is especially true if the activity involves long drives, moving around (continuous walking, standing, lifting, moving) or even high energy conversations or social events. There was a surprise party I had planned to attend for over a month. When it got here this past Saturday, there was just "no way." I was bummed to have to change my decision to go. But I'm glad I did. It was the right choice.

If I think too much about "24 weeks left," I get anxious. At first, I thought I'd begin counting down the weeks at the halfway point. But now, I think I'll keep counting up instead. That way I won't get in such a hurry to be done. I mean, I can't hurry this thing up anyway; I can't control time. I don't even know the end date, and that's a good thing. I finish sometime early next year - that's all I know. And that's enough for me.

My 12-year-old daughter Alana stated it perfectly: "If I focus on the future, there is no future, because I missed out on the present."

Now, back to today...