Fast facts (if you don’t have time to read the full post): I finished radiation last Tuesday. Weird fatigue has settled in my body along with emotional confusion and distance. Christmas was hard to get into the mood for. I basically found myself going through the motions. Purrito has been really sick since the 23rd. That has been incredibly stressful. I am glad I am on vacation but this doesn’t even feel like a vacation because of how stressed I am about my cat.

TO THE LONG VERSION!

Lately I have found myself wishing I was still in chemo. The only thing you can do during chemo is treatment. You shove your feelings so far down so your instinct to survive is all that drives you. You disassociate. You become a version of yourself that only exists when you feel death living in your body. Sometimes a feeling bubbles up and you’re forced to cry it out or scream at the body wash in your shower or shove it back down. You keep going. That is all you can do.

I am now at a standstill. I am not in chemo. Most of radiation is done. I cannot shove the feelings down anymore. They choke me, begging for some resolve but there is none. How do I cope with the numbness in my chest? How do I cope with feeling like an outcast? How do I cope with feeling like I am disgusting, unlovable, and a monster? I don’t. Being done with treatment is just the beginning of cancer. It is everything after that is hard.

There are impossible choices I know I need to make soon in my life. As a planner, I keep playing out those choices and their consequences. None of them have great outcomes making it nearly impossible for me to actually make a decision. People say they are there for you, but it feels like the support has dried up. I think everyone is exhausted of supporting me and at this point I am not really relatable unless you’ve actually gone through treatment, too. There is only so much support one can give before it becomes “too much.” I wish I could scream and tell people how not fine I am. I wish people could be in my head for a day so they could understand how I really feel. Survivorship has left me feeling out of touch and emotionally distant.

How is it I can crave connection but also blatantly ignore it in the form of texts and calls and messages from people? I don’t feel like talking about normal things and I also don’t feel like talking about how I live in existential dread, so really there is nothing to talk about it.

My cat is also really sick. The financial burden that comes with that is just about as heavy as the emotional burden. My cats are my kids. I have found that I am extremely triggered by the thought of cancer. Surprise, surprise! Friday we took Purrito to the vet because she was wheezing. In a nutshell (because honestly this story can get pretty long), she was showing signs of congestion so they did a radiograph, gave her an antibiotic injection, and some fluids. And of course it cost a fuck ton (almost as much as my out of pocket for my personal insurance for the year) but we took her home and they said give it a few days for the antibiotic to kick in.

Of course the holidays were this weekend but we tried to do our best to care for her. We got two humidifiers to help with her congestion and I bought special food to try to get her to eat. No luck. She got worse. This morning I took her back to the vet and they called and said that she has a fever and some sort of respiratory infection. Her radiograph results came in and showed her lungs and heart were infection-free, but her stomach lining was showing some inflammation. The vet mentioned the phrase “possible lymphoma” and I about lost my shit. My cat cannot have cancer. I am putting it out in the world that nobody else close to me can have cancer. I got so triggered. She said it was less likely, but for now we are treating her for dehydration, more antibiotics, and trying to get her to eat. She is at the vet for the day and my anxiety continues to rise as I anxiously wait for an update and my credit card bill to reach it’s limit.

I know some people might think is it fucked up that I am concerned with how much this is costing me. I love my cats. I will pay whatever to take care of them but I am not going to sit here and pretend that the financial burden doesn’t stress me the fuck out on top of my own medical bills. Like that is just dumb. Both of those feelings can coexist. I just want to be transparent with how stressful this situation is making me feel. I am stressed potato.

I also have been getting headaches about once a week for the last three weeks. This is especially notable for me because I essentially have been headache free since starting my hormone blocker injections in April. It is hard to explain the anxiety that comes with cancer. I am now convinced there is cancer in my brain because of the frequency of my headaches. I mean there probably isn’t but I am not going to rule it out. I wish I could just get a CT scan every month just to make sure nothing is growing where it shouldn’t be.

My lower back also has been hurting for the last few days. I think it is muscular but I have no idea. I cannot tell what kind of pain it is and it makes it so confusing and hard for me to answer when people ask if I think it is bone pain or muscle pain. I don’t know. I know I am an expert in my own body but I don’t know anymore.

This blog posts makes me feel like I am falling apart. I am, sort of.

In brighter news, the sun is out and is melting the snow. It is nice to see the sun. I’ve missed it. And I am done with part one of radiation. Oh and one of my nails is COMPLETELY normal! It is still a challenge to use my fingers but I look less scary now. Nailed it.

Today’s song lyrics of the day are brought to you by Taylor Swift.

“I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser
Midnights become my afternoons
When my depression works the graveyard shift
All of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room”

– Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift