{"id":807,"date":"2017-11-27T02:56:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T02:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/driventosurvive.wordpress.com\/?p=807"},"modified":"2018-09-23T17:29:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T21:29:43","slug":"cancer-derailed-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/2017\/11\/27\/cancer-derailed-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Childs’ Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog has been a long time coming, and probably my most personal one to date.\u00a0 But it’s something that I want others to understand.\u00a0 Please bear with me.<\/em><\/p>\n

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There are lots of things that people without cancer know about the disease.\u00a0 Chemo, check.\u00a0 Mastectomy (full or partial), sure.\u00a0 Radiation, you betch’em.<\/p>\n

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But there is so much afterwards that makes your life hell that no one thinks about.<\/p>\n

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Specifically, kids.<\/p>\n

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As someone who lost her mom at a young age to breast cancer, I’ve gone around and around on this subject as an adult.\u00a0 While I’ve never been convinced that I NEED<\/em><\/strong> to be a mother, as some do, I always thought I would be.\u00a0 And while some would say I fiddle-farted away my best child-bearing years, the truth is that I met my husband at 35, and got married at 40.\u00a0 Every part of me is glad that I didn’t settle for any of the duds that I dated when I was younger.\u00a0 But it does get more challenging when you form your family later in life.<\/p>\n

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As we found out.<\/p>\n

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Fast forward another five years, and I was 45.\u00a0 We had just moved halfway across the country, and settled in a new house.\u00a0 And I had not given up on the idea of having kids.\u00a0 We had even given some thought to adopting if my almost half century old eggs really would not function.\u00a0 Then it happened.<\/p>\n

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BAM!!!!!<\/p>\n

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“You have cancer.”<\/p>\n

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And that was that.<\/p>\n

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A year of treatment.\u00a0 A year and a half of not working.\u00a0 A year back at work with mind-numbing fatigue and pain.\u00a0 More surgery which I’m estimating will set back my physical recovery another six months.\u00a0 This is all a constant reminder to me.<\/p>\n

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I am 48, and I can barely take care of my cat.\u00a0 My husband spends most of his time taking care of me.\u00a0 We are running out of people to take care of the kids.<\/p>\n

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Oh, the other part that is a deal breaker?\u00a0 The early menopause.\u00a0 Happens to a lot of us pink sisters.\u00a0 You are welcome for the TMI.\u00a0 But it makes me angry, because at least one decision has been taken out of my hands.\u00a0 And I don’t like that.\u00a0 Cancer took away one of the most personal things I could have done in life, in an instant.<\/p>\n

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Then there is the whole adoption idea.<\/p>\n

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I would still like to do it.\u00a0 As someone who was raised by a non-biological mother, I can tell you that actions define a mother, not a bloodline.\u00a0 But my actions are not what most at-risk kids need.\u00a0 Anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, PTSD, fatigue, pain, and mood swings.\u00a0 Not to mention the financial toll that cancer treatment leaves in its wake, although I’m confident I could figure that part out if I could get the rest of it in line.<\/p>\n

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Why am I telling you this right now?\u00a0 Because like any self-respecting psycho, I keep these feelings tamped down in the back of my brain.\u00a0 It allows me to focus on my day-to-day life with some shred of sanity.\u00a0 But then something cracks it open.\u00a0 In this case, it was a picture of someone with her baby doing some fun activities I had always imagined doing with my kids.\u00a0 It hits me out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

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And then the denial is broken.<\/p>\n

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No one asks for this.\u00a0 No one asks to lose control of her body, her life, her reason for being.\u00a0 And all I can do at this point is keep focusing on my mental, physical, and financial recovery.\u00a0 But when you see someone with cancer, ask yourself:<\/p>\n

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“What hidden side effects does she have?”<\/p>\n

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Because I guarantee cancer has taken something precious from her.\u00a0 It has derailed her life, no question.\u00a0 And maybe there is some way that you can help, even if all you do is really talk to her and listen.\u00a0 We just want others to understand how broken we are.\u00a0 And how badly we want to be put back together.<\/p>\n

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At the very least, my cat will thank you.<\/p>\n

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The worst thing that breast cancer did to me… Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[29,30,16,10,51,59,52,47,32,18,37,19,34],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/pexels-photo-322070-1.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driventosurvive.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}