OK, so one thing I have discovered. Cancer turns you into a narcissist out of necessity. You cannot concentrate on anything but CANCER when you are in treatment. Your life belongs completely to the doctors scheduling your every daily move ( on their time I might add). In some situations, I feel like I should change my name to CANCER.
No longer can I walk in a room and have a normal conversation that does not involve cancer. The first question anyone asks is how are you.. are you OK? You cannot get around it! And I will admit I prefer that question to the folks who just melt away. I appreciate that even after two years of this cancer stuff, people care enough to check on me. I myself am tired to the bone of this cancer stuff. I bore myself with all the stuff I am going through, I would rather be dancing, riding, reading, or teaching ..pretty much doing anything but relying on cancer treatment weekly! I am just praying for the day I don't have to be in treatment!
On the flip side, there are some folks who just cannot handle looking Cancer patients in the face. Unfortunately, some of these folks were very close friends prior to my diagnosis. I am not sure if they just think cancer is a death sentence or they just hate dealing with someone who's only interest on a daily basis is fighting to stay alive.
Every cancer patient has also run into a friend, or Doctor who looks at you like the Grim Reaper is visible and sitting on your right shoulder. You can never imagine what that "look" actually means until you are faced with it. I swear they should give Doctors a class in bed side manner... lesson one never look at your patient like they have one foot in the grave!!! That look is very scary if you are a patient. I still remember being transported in an ambulance to the ER , and having the "well meaning" EMS tell me that his cousin had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer( like I had) 6 weeks ago and " by the way he just died last week! This kind of weird, bad stuff happens fairly regularly.
In conclusion, please excuse me if I am not focused on the things you are used to enjoying with me. I apologize if I am not calling, texting, or emailing with the frequency I did prior to my illness. I promise, I am getting well as fast as I can and things will go back to normal!!!!
Friday, June 21, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Survivor's Blog- June 19, 2013 Update and how to use "Social Media" to stay sane during all this crazy .......
Hello Everyone-
I want to apologize for the lack of blog entries lately. I am just so worn down from treatment that I am lucky to make it to teach about 4 hours a week! About all I do otherwise is try to make sure we have food on the table and a handle on the house ( or as best I can do on the house...). Mostly I have spent 6 weeks in a Doxil induced sleep.
I wanted to let you all know that I am still on this new weekly chemo regime with Topetecan. I am having some wicked side effects but, so far I am managing all of them. The good news is the treatment I had with Doxil 6 weeks ago that almost took me down is finally leaving my system. I no longer want ( or need) to sleep 24/7. The mind blowing exhausting is slowly receding.. so you should see more of me on Social Media. To those of you I owe phone calls, visits, letters, etc. you may actually see those in the next couple of weeks. I hate, hate being as flaky and helpless as this treatment makes you .. so am slowly trying to dig my way out....
I also owe a bunch of folks thank yous.. for helping keep the Robinson family afloat in the last few weeks. First of all a big thank you to my husband Oscar, who has taken early lunches a bunch lately just to come ferry me home from chemo. Poor guy has started feeling like he has cancer! He got mad today because -- we had to do an unexpected CT scan in the morning!! I would also like to thank Erin, who drove all the way to Irmo from Fayetteville, NC a couple weeks ago.. only to get me to the treatment center and find out they could not treat me that day!!! Courtney and Thomas, thank you for holding down the fort in NC so Erin can be here! David, I appreciate your coming and hanging out with me during chemo when I am hopped up on steroids.. especially when chemo is so hard to watch if you have recently done it yourself. As always thank you to my Dr. Smith, and Kathy, Mary, Brigette, Sarah, Durell, and Elaine.. who are so kind an happy no matter when I go in for treatment or how obnoxious it makes me. And thank you to everyone who realized if I wasn't calling them or blogging, I must be sick , and sending me wonderful " cheer up" cards.. you all know who you are!!! Also a big thanks to Volunteer Larry, who handed out, and explained the cooling scarves I made for my fellow cancer patients today.. thank you for literally being my legs when I ran out of energy!!!
The real reason I wanted to blog today was to point out that Social Media can be a great tool for those of us in cancer treatment. A Face book page or any of the other social outlets available, allow you to communicate with everyone in a much simpler less tiring format. Sometimes blogging is really the only thing I physically can manage. For example, instead of calling all my family, when I am too tired to really have a conversation. I can post a status to my social media site and everyone immediately knows how I am doing and why I am not calling.
Please remember if you choose to blog or use social media, you do need to use discretion. I have never been a fan of posting details that could jeopardize my privacy or identity. I also think a bunch of medical details if they are not completely necessary is a bad idea too... you never know how many employers and insurance folks may hit your blog to check you out in the future!!!!
I want to apologize for the lack of blog entries lately. I am just so worn down from treatment that I am lucky to make it to teach about 4 hours a week! About all I do otherwise is try to make sure we have food on the table and a handle on the house ( or as best I can do on the house...). Mostly I have spent 6 weeks in a Doxil induced sleep.
I wanted to let you all know that I am still on this new weekly chemo regime with Topetecan. I am having some wicked side effects but, so far I am managing all of them. The good news is the treatment I had with Doxil 6 weeks ago that almost took me down is finally leaving my system. I no longer want ( or need) to sleep 24/7. The mind blowing exhausting is slowly receding.. so you should see more of me on Social Media. To those of you I owe phone calls, visits, letters, etc. you may actually see those in the next couple of weeks. I hate, hate being as flaky and helpless as this treatment makes you .. so am slowly trying to dig my way out....
I also owe a bunch of folks thank yous.. for helping keep the Robinson family afloat in the last few weeks. First of all a big thank you to my husband Oscar, who has taken early lunches a bunch lately just to come ferry me home from chemo. Poor guy has started feeling like he has cancer! He got mad today because -- we had to do an unexpected CT scan in the morning!! I would also like to thank Erin, who drove all the way to Irmo from Fayetteville, NC a couple weeks ago.. only to get me to the treatment center and find out they could not treat me that day!!! Courtney and Thomas, thank you for holding down the fort in NC so Erin can be here! David, I appreciate your coming and hanging out with me during chemo when I am hopped up on steroids.. especially when chemo is so hard to watch if you have recently done it yourself. As always thank you to my Dr. Smith, and Kathy, Mary, Brigette, Sarah, Durell, and Elaine.. who are so kind an happy no matter when I go in for treatment or how obnoxious it makes me. And thank you to everyone who realized if I wasn't calling them or blogging, I must be sick , and sending me wonderful " cheer up" cards.. you all know who you are!!! Also a big thanks to Volunteer Larry, who handed out, and explained the cooling scarves I made for my fellow cancer patients today.. thank you for literally being my legs when I ran out of energy!!!
The real reason I wanted to blog today was to point out that Social Media can be a great tool for those of us in cancer treatment. A Face book page or any of the other social outlets available, allow you to communicate with everyone in a much simpler less tiring format. Sometimes blogging is really the only thing I physically can manage. For example, instead of calling all my family, when I am too tired to really have a conversation. I can post a status to my social media site and everyone immediately knows how I am doing and why I am not calling.
Please remember if you choose to blog or use social media, you do need to use discretion. I have never been a fan of posting details that could jeopardize my privacy or identity. I also think a bunch of medical details if they are not completely necessary is a bad idea too... you never know how many employers and insurance folks may hit your blog to check you out in the future!!!!
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