Appointments

So, the week of Thanksgiving I have two appointments. One, on Monday, is for a PET/CT scan to make sure it is all where it is supposed to be. I'm not really worried about this one. It will be the 3rd PET scan I have had to have, and I now know that they are one of the easiest things associated with the cancer. But then, the next day, I have to have my port out. Now, I say HAVE TO, but I really do want it out. I don't mind getting IV's for regular stuff and I think that it would be worse to have them keep using if for my tests, and needing to have it flushed every month...**shudder**. I just don't think that anyone who has not experienced it can even fathom what that is like. And it seems like it would be such a non-event. And its not. It makes me tingly inside just thinking about it. And if I don't have the port out this month, I have to come in and have it flushed before December. And to me, its just not worth it. Just take it out.

(I just said 'and' before a bunch of those sentences. Sorry English majors)

I have recently been catching up with some of my new cancer friends. I like to talk to these women, cause they are going through exactly what I went through. And in some cases, they are going through much worse things than I endured. I have mixed feelings about some of the things we talk about. Sometimes, I look back on symptoms, or individual experiences, and I just laugh, it seems so ridiculous to have had itchy feet, or cried over losing my hair. That was so long ago now. But it is new to them. And yes, it is still hard to be bald. But I am used to it now.

I decided that I didn't want to join a support group, or see a psychiatrist early on in my treatment. I thought that it would not matter who I talked to, no one would know exactly what I was going through. Plus, my doctors and nurses told me that everything I was experiencing was normal, so what difference did it make. I now see that even just having someone to talk to who has gone through something similar eased your mind so much. I am so glad I can talk to Meg and Amy about what they are going through. I may be done with the treatments, but it is by no means behind me. The things I experienced will be a part of my life forever.