WOW this is the longest I've gone without posting since I first made this blog.
Things have been busy. I've been wanting to write a post the past few weeks but I just never have the time.
So this is going to be a doozy.
I participated in a survivorship clinic day through my local cancer clinic. It was a day of resources, doctors appointments, and general information for survivors. I found it helpful but horribly depressing.
This is how the day went:
They threw me in the physical therapy center first where I talked mainly about my neuropathy issues and fatigue. They recommended an exercise program to help the fatigue but the neuropathy doesn't seem to have an easy fix. Which I knew and it just sucks more and more everyday.
She recommended compression stockings to help with the swelling caused by the neuropathy. Oh joy. That is JUST what I want to wear. This just keeps getting better and better! Pffffffff.
Other than that, the visit was pretty helpful and I opted to join a twice a week exercise group for cancer survivors to help the nerve issues and fatigue.
After that they led me down to see the doctor. I didn't realize this was going to be as depressing as it was.
HOLY JEEBUS. Talk about the talk of doom. It basically went like this:
"HI THERE. You beat cancer! Now let me tell you about all the wonderful things the chemotherapy did to fuck up your body and put you at risk for secondary blood cancers, heart problems, and nerve damage! Oh yeah, and no drinking alcohol for you and eat those veggies!
Hey, how about a cookie to go with that news?"
Oh wait, no one gave me a god damn cookie. Seriously doctors, hand out some cookies with your doom and gloom news.
So after that lovely hour of "Hey you're alive but not for long!" they sent me off to talk to the oncology counselor for some wrap up questions.
(I'm really only at an increased risk of like 5ish percent for other cancers so its not as dire as it sounds- I'm just being a sarcastic butthead.)
I love the way they packaged that. It was like a shit sandwich. They lead you in with some general advice, follow it up with a great massage of lavender and bliss and then send you packing through the gateway to hell and once you crawl out of that, miserable and shaking- it's off to the shrink!
Great tactics.
Sarcasm aside, it really was helpful. And meeting with the counselor was actually great because she had a sense of humor and gave me a cool bag to keep. Yeah, cool bags.
She validated my feelings on the whole 'your cancer is gone so half your support crew heads for the hills!' and told me that's totally normal for survivors.
Which sucks to hear but it's always nice to know the abandonment you feel is the same feeling felt by all the other cancer survivors too.
Yay abandonment!
(Disclaimer: if you're thinking 'HEY I didn't abandon you blondie!' then I'm probably not talking about you.)
Overall, that was a rough eight hour day. Tons of helpful information but it was ruined by the hour long talk on how to spot cancer recurrence, what the health risks now are for me, and describing the next five years of blood work and tests.
But enough of that garbage, check out this HAIR!Not the most flattering picture but I'm past the point of giving a damn.
It's growing like crazy! It's super thick and blonde. It's not coming in curly but that's okay. It's HAIR!
So this is the official timeline of these pictures: four months out from my last chemotherapy treatment. It's at least two inches long.
I can put gel in it and spike it up. That's sorta
fun. I'm not sure what to do with gel so I just kinda smear it in there and hope it looks okay.
I'll keep updating on the hair as it comes. I'm sure by Christmas I'll have a decent hairdo going on and that makes me so happy.
So in short, survivorship clinic managed to be a nice combination of helpful and a pile of poo. So there's that.
But I'm grateful that I even had a survivorship clinic to go to. It seems like my cancer clinic is on the ball when it comes to aftercare. So that's good.
All the perks of big city hospital care aside, I'm really missing my care team back in Wisconsin. It's hard to connect to these people at the clinic here. They're nice and that's great. But they're not the ones that saved me. No one could ever replace that level of gratitude and connection I have for the nurses back in WI.
It's a toss up. Seeing my old clinic might aggravate my post-chemo trauma feelings but it would be nice to be going through this after care treatment with the care team that saw every step of my battle.
Potato, potato.
Is that how that saying goes?
I'll leave you to ponder that.
No comments:
Post a Comment