February 11th marked the anniversary of when I was declared cancer-free.
The day I strived to see for almost three years. I thought that day would mark the start of my life returning to “normal”. However, my “normal” never did return. So much has changed and so much will forever be changed.
It’s a bittersweet day that I don’t know if I’ll ever get comfortable “celebrating”. There’s someone who meant a lot to me that unfortunately passed due to their own cancer fight during that time. They never got to see me obtain remission or meet my son they were so excited about. It’s also hard because January 2019 is when the pain started and unfortunately four years later, it remains.
The biopsy I just had shows there was radiation damage and part of my bone has died. This has been incredibly hard to swallow. I have a toddler and I feel I am not giving him the full attention he deserves because I'm constantly in pain. I want to be that mom that jogs around or able to just run after their kid. This last biopsy has left me with not being able to even slow jog because my leg gives out. In time I am hoping it will return to at least being able to move a little faster, but that's completely unknown at this point. My body has been put through a literally hell. Even if by some miracle I heal physically, I don’t know if I’ll ever heal mentally.
I am due for another scan. I haven’t been able to bring myself to call my oncologist and I cancelled my last appointment. I was upset by the radiation damage and being told I’ll have lifelong pain.
I was scheduled to have surgery next week to see if the cancer spread to my uterus and cervix. The imaging has been showing problems but they’re unclear. It’s scary when “things” show up and it takes months to get an answer. This has been almost a year that my doctors have been trying to figure out what’s wrong. However, because of the position we are in financially, we had to cancel that surgery and will reschedule whenever we are more financially able to have my husband off work for a couple days. Whatever the answer may end up being, I’ll work through it. I just really pray one day I can have peace again and know what it’s like to not always be a science experiment.
