The struggle is real....

The time was coming up for my 9 month scan and check up.  I have said before that I do feel like at times I am on a 3 month break from dealing with cancer, that is until my date starts approaching.  About a week before my scheduled date I do find myself getting a little off, not sleeping well and anxious.  It is hard to explain to anyone that has not lived with cancer so I tend to not talk about it.  I am still working out the best way to deal with these appointments where I do not let it consume any of my time, I just haven't found the magic puzzle piece as of yet.  My appointment was suppose to be the day before my Bro-n-law's last chemo treatment and I was sooooo excited for us both to be continuing to take steps forward in our journeys.  Then I got the call that my appointment needed to be pushed up to the day before Thanksgiving.  Ugh, I already had my mind absorbed on this certain day but what can I do about it.  Another week was not going to kill me but it was going to consume more of my time mentally.....

My scan days start at 3:30am because we have to drive 1 1/2 to get there and the blood work has to be done before the 7am MRI.  What really stinks about that is I get no sleep the night before for obvious reasons so I am basically a stress ball at this point.  After my blood work, then 2 hour MRI my next appointment is with my hematologist who has been keeping a very close eye on my Iron.  Since my surgery I am having a hard time absorbing the nutrients I need and one of those is Iron.  I am extremely anemic so she wants me to start getting Iron infusions through a IV to try to correct this.  Now it is 11am and time to see the doctor for my appointment and results.  That is not really how it ever goes though, my results are never done by then.  The doc sent me to get my infusion and told us to come back after to get the results.  At 1pm we did just that and he could not get the results to pull up on the computer and he had to head to surgery.  He told the nurse that he would call us later after surgery and she guaranteed he would.  Now at this point I have been doing my test, appointments and treatments for 7 hours so here comes my breakdown.  I have and do a very good job of keeping it together but my poor husband could not help me with this one.  All the way home I was upset, frustrated and just mad about everything and I mean everything.  I don't think I have had a breakdown so bad since I found out my diagnosis.    It all came out at once and basically all came down to the fact that I am suppose to be able to go in and jump through all these hoops and then leave with my results.

That night came and went with no call.  I knew about 9pm the doc wasn't going to be calling.  Now the part that really sucks at this point is I knew he was going to be out of the office until Monday since the holiday.  So now I had to mentally wrap my head around the fact that I would not hear anything until then.  The hardest part for me and I am guessing anyone else that has to wait for results is you start analyzing why your waiting, is there a problem?  I go back and forth between thinking he didn't call because everything is good, to he didn't call because it's not good.  I know I am my worse enemy when it comes to this.

Thanksgiving helped because I stayed busy with family.   I was having the after effects of upset belling and nausea from the infusion but I have definitely been through worse.  Then I made my daughter and husband help me finish the outside lights, against their will :) We topped it off with some black Friday shopping but for ourselves :)  I got a good night sleep because I simply wore myself out.  Today I am going to do the same thing and tomorrow and the next day, stay so busy I wear myself out and maybe with the help of some wine ;)

When it comes to Scanxiety, I think in time it will get better but I am still so new at this.  When it comes to expecting things a certain way, I should just always expect the unexpected just like my diagnosis.  When it comes to staying positive, I do and I will but everyone has those moments of weakness and Cancer does not help that.  When it comes to the future, this is part of my future and I think that being mad at times is ok but just for short amounts of time.  When it comes to being blessed, I am blessed beyond belief and realize that daily!  When it comes to the struggle of everything that comes along with my new normal, the struggle is real.