Celebrating 10 Years With A Nap... Chemo, You Suck
AS FEATURED ON FIG
WOWZA BOWZA! So FIG-Lancaster has asked me to tell my story. The following is a blog that was featured on FIG. I am so incredibly honored and humbled to be a part of their community so be sure to stop by and take a look, especially if you are looking for something to do in Lancaster, they are like Big Brother...they know EVERYTHING!
This past weekend was my 10 year wedding anniversary. My husband and I have spent the last 3 to 4 years going back and forth about whether we would spend a long weekend sipping cocktails on the beaches of St. Lucia or exploring the islands in the Florida Keys. The location was a continued debate, the way we would celebrate was not. We would wake up late, we would spend long lazy days with our toes in the sand and a cocktail in hand and we would not check our emails, we would not make dinner reservations. It would be a lazy man’s nirvana and the absolute perfect way to celebrate the last decade of our life together.
The morning of our anniversary, I woke up 2 days off of my latest chemo treatment. I was tired, REALLY freakin tired. I rolled over and woke my sweet husband with a grumbled request for my morning stomach injection and flopped a pillow over my head to check my Instagram feed as he gave me my shot and went downstairs to retrieve coffee. My husband spent the day in NYC at a conference and I spent the day, at work, refusing to even acknowledge this monumental achievement.
You see 3 months ago, I was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer and our life, my life, took a drastic left turn. As a self-diagnosed Type A control freak, this took some serious re-grouping, but I am a control freak, so I regrouped. Seven weeks to the day of my own diagnosis, my baby sister was diagnosed with cancer. My life shattered and my heart broke into a million pieces.
However, I am a mom. I am a wife. I am an Interior Designer (one of the lucky ones that LOVES her job). I realized that now I just have to add the *cancer fighting _______ before each of my identities. I do not however have to let it become its own identity. So for the most part, I spend all of my energy being a mom, and a wife, and a designer and when cancer pops into my life a ruins my day, I would love to say I handle it with grace but I do not. I pout, I throw tantrums, sometimes I yell curse words in the back yard just loud enough to make my neighbors think I have developed a case of Tourette’s.
I did not handle missing my anniversary celebration with grace. I handled it with the charisma of my 4 year old being told that Doritos would no longer be sold in the Unites States (this would be a travesty in our household). I mean I was not being unreasonable, I would have compromised. My husband and I talked about getting a babysitter and simply spending a late summer night hitting all of our favorite stops in town; Pickle fries at Fenz, coffee cured filet at Checkers, that AH-MAZ-ING bacon slab at the Penn Square Grill. When the convention in NYC came up we decided to make that an anniversary trip and fit in a 2 day binge of yummy food and too many beers and maybe even a show.
In the end, I worked and then I slept, oh and I pouted. You see 3 days off of chemo, my tongue and mouth are numb and food tastes like a mouse burger and spam sandwich. I can’t eat drink or touch anything colder than room temperature (and don’t get me started on my thoughts on warm beer). So I pouted.
Today I got coffee at Starbucks and watched my daughter gymnastics class, I traded feeding tube feedings for stomach injections with my sister and I sat in the sunshine and read a book. It’s a new day, tomorrow I am going to go for a run, Monday I am hoping to hit yoga. In February, when I have kicked cancer square in the ASS, I am getting a babysitter and taking my husband to the Keys or an Island, actually as long as it’s hot and sandy and the drinks are cold, I don’t give a damn where we end up.
The morning of our anniversary, I woke up 2 days off of my latest chemo treatment. I was tired, REALLY freakin tired. I rolled over and woke my sweet husband with a grumbled request for my morning stomach injection and flopped a pillow over my head to check my Instagram feed as he gave me my shot and went downstairs to retrieve coffee. My husband spent the day in NYC at a conference and I spent the day, at work, refusing to even acknowledge this monumental achievement.
You see 3 months ago, I was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer and our life, my life, took a drastic left turn. As a self-diagnosed Type A control freak, this took some serious re-grouping, but I am a control freak, so I regrouped. Seven weeks to the day of my own diagnosis, my baby sister was diagnosed with cancer. My life shattered and my heart broke into a million pieces.
However, I am a mom. I am a wife. I am an Interior Designer (one of the lucky ones that LOVES her job). I realized that now I just have to add the *cancer fighting _______ before each of my identities. I do not however have to let it become its own identity. So for the most part, I spend all of my energy being a mom, and a wife, and a designer and when cancer pops into my life a ruins my day, I would love to say I handle it with grace but I do not. I pout, I throw tantrums, sometimes I yell curse words in the back yard just loud enough to make my neighbors think I have developed a case of Tourette’s.
I did not handle missing my anniversary celebration with grace. I handled it with the charisma of my 4 year old being told that Doritos would no longer be sold in the Unites States (this would be a travesty in our household). I mean I was not being unreasonable, I would have compromised. My husband and I talked about getting a babysitter and simply spending a late summer night hitting all of our favorite stops in town; Pickle fries at Fenz, coffee cured filet at Checkers, that AH-MAZ-ING bacon slab at the Penn Square Grill. When the convention in NYC came up we decided to make that an anniversary trip and fit in a 2 day binge of yummy food and too many beers and maybe even a show.
In the end, I worked and then I slept, oh and I pouted. You see 3 days off of chemo, my tongue and mouth are numb and food tastes like a mouse burger and spam sandwich. I can’t eat drink or touch anything colder than room temperature (and don’t get me started on my thoughts on warm beer). So I pouted.
Today I got coffee at Starbucks and watched my daughter gymnastics class, I traded feeding tube feedings for stomach injections with my sister and I sat in the sunshine and read a book. It’s a new day, tomorrow I am going to go for a run, Monday I am hoping to hit yoga. In February, when I have kicked cancer square in the ASS, I am getting a babysitter and taking my husband to the Keys or an Island, actually as long as it’s hot and sandy and the drinks are cold, I don’t give a damn where we end up.
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