The Looming "C" Can't Get Me!

I'm a bit of a wreck at the moment. It's no one thing in particular, just a culmination of days of unrest and uncertainty, being alone with my thoughts too much. I've learned that mini-meltdowns are ok. You're allowed to cry, in front of others, in the quiet of your own bed at night, in the car...in a bathroom stall. Wherever you damn well choose, at least if you have cancer. My crying jags have come in various spurts. No one thing sets me off. Today I think it was that I had such a good day with Sammy.
We spent the day hunkered down at home and he is just getting so big. He's ready to crawl, screeches all day, and smiles whenever I sing him "You are my Sunshine," which just melts my heart. My parents have set up the house now so that Bill and I have our own living area, and they have their own. So Sammy and I were visiting my Dad today and I watched as my Dad smiled and encouraged Sammy to try and crawl to him. God that boy was frustrated. He can get himself up on his upper arms and attempts to scoot, but he looks like a frog unable to get his footing. Soon though, he will get there soon. And I know we will be cursing the day he started moving. Nothing will be safe from this boy's left hook! He already tears at stuff and clings to things like fly paper. We joke that he is an octopus with the speed his hands move at at the table!
So why would a "good day" set me over the edge? Because, inevitably, in these good moments where I feel like my old self, have no awareness of the cancer that lingers inside me, I am shocked back into reality. It's like a big letter "C" sits over my shoulder saying, "No, no. No fun for you, your life is in our hands now!" Seeing my son attempt to crawl sets my mind pacing ahead, as all mothers do, thinking of them getting on the school bus for the first time, graduating from school, finding their true love, giving you grandbabies.....I am constantly reminded how fast it goes, but I feel like I have a timer set on my time with my son, that ticks incessantly in the background while I try to enjoy the little things.
Most days I am ok. Most times I can press snooze on the timer or cover it with a blanket in my mind, so I can ignore it. But then there are days like today, where no matter what I do or how hard I try, that damn cancer will not go away. I'm making a bottle, there's the big C. I am pushing a cart through the aisles of Target looking at clothes for spring, there it sits atop the clothes rack. I'm driving my car to the mall, it's waving to me in the backseat when I look in the rearview mirror. It's everywhere. I can't avoid it. Especially now with my lack of hair and array of scarves atop my head. People everywhere are aware now.
I can't sneak out to the store for alone time. I can't eat a meal in a restaurant on my own now without stares. I know, everyone means well. It's just some days I have lost my sense of self. Today is one of those days. The cold and darkness doesn't help matters and I know that the vast majority of CNY'ers is sick of the winter too. It makes us feel trapped and depressed and wondering why we live here again?
But I sit here today having a mini-meltdown because I just feel so frustrated. I go to reiki and my practitioner told me that she could sense that my spirit is done with being sick. Ain't that the truth. But she also told me it was ok to be frustrated and upset at the situation, this was not going to make me lose my positive outlook. For so long I have felt like I had to present this united front of "kicking cancer's ass!" and holding others up, that I didn't allow myself my own time to let reality hit.
Reality is hitting these days. The novelty of my diagnosis has worn off. People still offer to help still and send positive thoughts, but life has moved on. I'm in everyone's thoughts, I know that, but they have families and lives to attend to. That's the reality of cancer. You get hit by the train, but it keeps on going because it has other stops to make. You go to your appointments, you find yourself planning your schedule based on nausea/tired days versus ok days. You waste hours of your time sitting in that chair having poison injected in your veins, and praying that the poison works. You lay in bed at night, the quiet scariest of times, and push the "what ifs" away as the looming "C" tucks itself in next to you for the night. It's still there, it's always there.
Most days, I don't let the "C" win. It shows up, I push it away and carry about my business. But it's ok to let it affect you, to let it catch you off-guard, let the tears fall. You did nothing to deserve this, life is not fair. I can ask "Why" and I can crumble. But I will get up. I will not collapse into nothingness. That is what the "C" wants. I will prevail, I have to prevail. I will do it by hearing other people's stories of hope, by watching my baby play, by just living each day. There is no shame in crying, there is shame in giving up. Although I am having my meltdown at the moment, it won't last forever and before you know it, I will be saying, "We got this!"