I am beginning to think that copying is a choice. It sounds crazy even to me but I think you have to grit your teeth and decide: that's it, I am going to deal with this and then it becomes easy. If you don't cope, it's more difficult.
I look at my dad who lost his partner after 54 years and he mourned for a month, and then got on with life. I still cannot believe my mom is dead and sure my dad cannot either but he is totally cheerful and takes delight in everything. He got sick last week and we were told it was serious. By Saturday afternoon I felt hysterical, thinking I felt like hiding under a duvet and never coming out. Then I decided that my dad would hate that, so spoke to my sisters saying we had to grab life and enjoy it. So we all went out that night and this evening spoke to my dad and he sounded brilliant.
I wouldn't say I am not coping with having had cancer but have to admit that the niggly side effects of the treatments often get me down, but not for long. I want to feel 100% again and will do whatever it takes. This morning got on the scale and was 2,5kg more. Damn - either eating or boozing too much or it's the tamoxifen pills but I am going to beat it. Giving it a week, then going to Cape Town again next week and if my weight is not down when i return, going to see the dietician again, whether I can afford her damn expensive consultations or not.
Sadly therapy has been a bit of a disappointment to me. I knew the day I was diagnosed that I would start this blog and go to therapy but think it helped the least of everything I have done. Biokinetics and having contact with The Lymph Lady who is so clued up with the treatments and their side-effects have helped far more. Excercise has been a big, big help. Like going to a biokineticist the minute I got diagnosed and banned from gym to get a programme of low-energy exercises which I did consistently, if not everyday, during chemo.... combined with a bit of recuperative yoga poses. Now I do bio - high-energy bio which includes 15 minutes of cardio - three times a week and yoga once a week.
Not sure why the therapy was such a disappointment cos went to the same therapist i had been to before and who had been very helpful in giving me pointers to deal with work problems in the past. Now I still have work hassles but hopefully just deal with them a bit better!!
Everyone tells me I am a coper, that my attitude is good but i often find that annoying. I have no choice but to deal with it. However, this weekend in Cape Town with my dad in intensive care made me realiser that coping can be a choice. That you take action and things become easier.
I live in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I was diagnosed with breast cancer on Thursday January 15 2009. This is my journey with cancer and other musings as surveyed - initially temporarily hairless - from under my hats.
Showing posts with label cancer and therapy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cancer and therapy. Show all posts
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
a bit miff
Not feeling elated today but, for once, it has nothing to do with cancer or illness or side effects or anything like that - which is probably a really good sign,and so I am smiling again. Am sick of illness.
Kinda pissed off with work, with my career, with lack of opportunities, with my lack of entrepreneurship, with the fact that from those at the meeting today, I was the only one not invited to tonight's big work function. OK, there have been years in the past that I was not invited but if I am good enough to present the 'diary' for a major section of work, why am I not good enough to be invited? I guess when they drew up the invite list I was not in my present position, so that is probably why I was left out.
And financially feel left out too. Mentioned by car expenses to someone today, that I spent over R10 000 on it last month, adding "and my car is only four years old", and they exclaimed, "but you should never keep a car that long!" - as if I could afford to buy a new car (plus my car is an el-cheapo).
So now that I have given up therapy (my medical aid for therapy ran out and I was becoming resentful of it cos I did not feel it was helping me), I feel today that maybe I need to go back - with the proviso that I do not discuss cancer, sickness, side-effects and other moans.
Oh dear.
Meanwhile, sipping an ultra-dry shiraz sparkling wine which I think needs berries in it (the frozen ones, which u just drop into the glass) to make it more palatable.
Kinda pissed off with work, with my career, with lack of opportunities, with my lack of entrepreneurship, with the fact that from those at the meeting today, I was the only one not invited to tonight's big work function. OK, there have been years in the past that I was not invited but if I am good enough to present the 'diary' for a major section of work, why am I not good enough to be invited? I guess when they drew up the invite list I was not in my present position, so that is probably why I was left out.
And financially feel left out too. Mentioned by car expenses to someone today, that I spent over R10 000 on it last month, adding "and my car is only four years old", and they exclaimed, "but you should never keep a car that long!" - as if I could afford to buy a new car (plus my car is an el-cheapo).
So now that I have given up therapy (my medical aid for therapy ran out and I was becoming resentful of it cos I did not feel it was helping me), I feel today that maybe I need to go back - with the proviso that I do not discuss cancer, sickness, side-effects and other moans.
Oh dear.
Meanwhile, sipping an ultra-dry shiraz sparkling wine which I think needs berries in it (the frozen ones, which u just drop into the glass) to make it more palatable.
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