Here it goes

I met with my therapist yesterday and we discussed my emotions again, he told me that he feels like I am still holding back. He said he can see the "sadness" in my eyes but understands that I can not fully open up to him, after all he is a stranger to me. Opening up and crying to Ryan apparently doesn't count because he is my husband and he will just reassure me that everything will be ok, he will not be able to just listen and not respond. He suggests that I keep a journal of my everyday emotions and to also get everything out in one entry. He wants me to write exactly what I am afraid of and why, what makes me sad and why, what makes me angry and to share that, then start my everyday journal of daily feelings for just myself. I figured my blog is the perfect place to write my first entry to share so here it goes;

I am scared. Not a day goes by that fear doesn't find its way into my life. I think my fears are justified, I have cancer, not a cold, not a headache, not something that can be easily treated and then guaranteed that it is gone forever. I am scared of the possibility that this can always return, and if it does return I am no longer curable. I can be treated to make a better "quality of life" but not cured. I am scared out of my mind for the surgery. Nothing anyone says will be able to calm those fears. I can't imagine being put to sleep for 5 1/2 hours while someone removes something that has been a part of me for 31 years and someone else trying recreate those things that were removed. None of it seems safe or fair to me. I am scared to wake up and be in pain, to have drains hanging off my body and to look at myself after having surgery. Sure, the surgery will remove the cancer and help to save my life in the long run but implants or not they are not mine, it is not what I was born with, they will be something that a man created to try and make me look "normal". I am scared of the unknown, I don't know what happens after you leave this life, I don't want to be without my kids or Ryan, I don't want to find out.

I never thought that I would have anger or even resentment towards people for something that I have and they don't but, I do. I am angry that this has happened to me. I know that no one is promised tomorrow and that we can just as easily die going to work as we can from an illness the difference is I have the same chances of walking out my front door and being hit by car as the next guy plus I have the chance of dying from cancer. I didn't ask for this, I don't want this. I find myself getting mad looking at a mother and her teenage kids in the mall, why did she get to see her kids make it to their teens? I get angry at Ryan sometimes because his chances of seeing our kids grow up are better than mine. Of course if something does happen to me I would want Ryan to find someone, to move on. He deserves to grow old with someone and to have a person to go through life with but, it makes me mad and very sad to think someone else would get to share their life with him. I get mad when people complain now about silly things, who cares if you don't want to go to work or clean the house, at least you are alive and healthy and get to do those things. I am mad that I am scared, that I have to have surgery, that I have to experience this. I am angry that people can not feel what I feel. That no one can fully understand any of this unless they have been there.

Sadness. I can explain my sadness in two simple names, Gabrielle and Cole. These past 5 months have been the saddest months of my life. I can't help but look at my beautiful kids and think I am so lucky to have them but why, why would this happen. I fought for 2 years to get pregnant and have my babies, why would God let me fight so hard for them and then take me away? I get sad thinking about if they had to go through life without their mommy, the only person who knows them best. I know when they are sad, when they don't feel well, when they want to just be with mommy cause I can make it all better, who will they turn to if I am not here. Like I said before, I would want Ryan to move on but the very thought of someone else getting to be "mommy' to my kids is heartbreaking. Why should anyone else get to shop with Gabby or cuddle with Cole, why should someone else get to be there for them, they are mine damn it. I want to see Gabby in a white dress walking down the isle one day, I want to see what Cole decides to be when he is older, I want to hold their kids in my arms. The very thought of having to say goodbye to my kids is more than I can handle.

Why would I sit around and think about these negative thoughts? Because these thoughts are a reality for any parent fighting cancer. Do I honestly feel that I will be alright in the end, yes I do but I can not help but be overwhelmed with emotions until I have surgery. I have to take it one day at a time and continue to fight until Dr. Pahnke tells me that everything is gone. Yes, I am so happy to be done with chemo but now a new emotion of even though chemo was hell it was working has set in. It kicked the ass out of my cancer and me but it worked, now I have to go 1 month with no chemo and something still in my body. I am uneasy about that. I am full of emotions about work, I have returned to work and I love it there but it is extremely hard to be there, I can't bring myself to go into the chemo room. The thought of that room makes me want to cry, it makes my stomach hurt. I want to go back there and talk to Dawn and the other nurses but I can't. Finding a balance between work and home has been challenging, when I am at work I wear the wig, I talk to my co-workers, I am normal again but, as soon as I get home I take the wig off, Ryan is back on second shift so I am alone with the kids, I instantly become the girl with cancer again. People can only reassure so much that you will be fine, my fears and emotions will never completley go away, I will never be the same again. I will be improved in some ways and damaged in others. It is hard to "let go" of what or who I used to be and find out how to live in my new "normal".

"A woman is like a tea bag, you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water" Eleanor Roosevelt.