I have been flipping back and forth between reality and denial for the past week. I just googled the definitions of each of those and here are some things I found . . .
reality - the totality of real things and events
denial - a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality
In reality, I have cancer. Reality stinks. In denial, all is well. I like denial. I'm finding out that it is not good to stay in either place too long though. Too much time in reality and life can become very overwhelming. Too much time in denial isn't safe either because eventually you have to come out.
I have been helping with vacation bible school at our church this week and have completely immersed myself in it. For those of you that don't know, I attend the church that has the crazy huge number of kids - we have averaged around 600 a day! It is organized chaos. It was wonderful being a part of this week and putting cancer on hold. As this week comes to an end though I am again hit with the reality that in a couple weeks we will begin chemo. As I said earlier, reality stinks.
I did have some encouraging news earlier today though. I talked to my nurse and she doesn't believe that my hair will fall out with this chemo. Yaaaaaaa!!!! Her biggest concern for me is nausea and my blood counts. Both of these can be helped with medication. When I talked to my doctor a week ago I felt like I had been given a death sentence. After talking to my nurse today I feel like I've simply hit another bump in the road. It's a really big bump and it's going to leave me pretty beat up and bruised but - it's not the end of the road.
Please continue praying that we will not look beyond today. We will not be able to make plans for a while because I will probably be having unexpected trips to the hospital for blood transfusions or I will simply be too sick to go places. This was really hard for us when I first started chemo two years ago.
Pray also that we will make the right choices for treatment. This disease is so sneaky and a lot of it is a guessing game. There are a lot of options out there and we need to decide what is best for us. Right now I will be going in to the lab on August 10 to have my blood work done including my CA125. I have a doctors appointment on August 12 with my oncologist to discuss my treatment and after that we will head to the chemo clinic and let the fun begin.
I need to get to bed now so I have enough energy to make it through the last day of vbs. I wish I could bottle the energy that these kids have!
