Snap Out Of It!

So, I am waiting. I am still waiting for that new blood to kick in. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the extreme tired that I was all week, yesterday I was an 8 and I might have moved into a 7 today. I guess I had unrealistic expectations regarding what a blood transfusion would mean to me. I was thinking it would be like those runners who use blood doping where they transfuse their own blood and get this incredible burst of energy and win races. I thought I would be back to my old self, and that is simply not true. Instead of my body being made of 1000 pounds of lead, its only made of 800 pounds of lead instead. So better, but certainly not the outcome I was hoping for!

But I guess if this can bring me to a place where I can have my next chemo, then that is the point. As much as I want to live a "normal" life I think I have to resign myself to a new type of "normal." My normal is fighting this disease. That is my life. I live between treatments and blood tests. There are other things I want to focus on, my relationships, my friends, my family, my work, my home, but this cancer is like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room. No matter how much you try to ignore it, its always there, in the middle of the room and you can't get around it without noticing it and acknowledging it. Its always there, right in the middle of everything I do. And everyone that interacts with me sees it too. They know that I am still me, but I am sick and I have...cancer. When you have cancer people treat you differently. Not in a bad way, I am terribly spoiled by my friends and those who love me, but the cancer is always there. I should count how many times a day I review my current medical status! "How are you" takes on a whole new meaning when you have cancer. And I want to share how I am, because I believe, people really want to know how I'm doing. And what a gift it is to have so many people that care about me. Its amazing and humbling. But I can't wait for the day when I can answer "How are you" with "GREAT" and then go on to the rest of the conversation.

So I have to shift my perspective and my definition of what my normal life is and simply accept the fact that normal has changed. I'm going to be sick and tired for the next few months. Get over it and deal with it, it could be worse! Remember in the movie Moonstruck when Nicolas Cage tells Cher he is in love with her and she slaps him across the face and tells him to "Snap out of it." Well, that needs to be my mantra - snap out of it Patty - you have to go through this for awhile first, and then you can have your other life back. You have to live through the tests, chemo, side effects, deal with side effects, have more tests, chemo...and the cycle just runs over and over. And while I am dealing with this cycle I keep my eyes focused on the prize, the end, the outcome of all this suffering, the day when it is all over and I get to quit chemo and find a new normal life. Because I am fully aware that metastatic breast cancer changes your life forever. I will forever be dealing with this is some way, I'm just looking forward to the day when it isn't in the center of my life. And until then, well, I'll just have to snap out of it!