current ponderings

What might Liz be thinking about these days you may be you are asking yourself, well let me enlighten you....

As soon as I hit send on the “crushing cancer” post I feel like I jinxed myself!  Or maybe I just allowed myself to be aware of the ways we are still struggling.  Honestly our day to day is a whole new kind of easy, but I’m wondering if that’s just this stage of life because when I think about the actual cancer aspect of our lives I realize it’s not too different from the past, except for Jeremy. Jeremy is so good, he’s so good at pushing himself to participate in our stuff. In the past I think when he was tired he rested more, part of that I know was just shear exhaustion from the treatment but part was also I think wanting to escape that this is his reality. Now I see him showing up until he literally can’t keep his eyes open and even then he retreats for only as long as he needs to recover and then is back out with us. He will rest outside if we are playing outside he will rest in the yard at party if that’s where we are, he wants to be where we are and puts everything else aside to be there. He apologizes for needing to nap, and I try my hardest to never let him see me struggle because he needs more time. He's so much better at taking care of himself too. He prepares his body for chemo and in doing so helps his body recover faster. He really is so good but that doesn't mean this isn't hard.

We are crushing it at this game, but I think that looks very different than one might think. It doesn’t mean our lives are normal, it means we’ve adapted. We go to the grocery store together and when nausea hits we stand in an aisle while I fish drugs out of my Mary Poppins bag and we wait for them to kick in. It means when he gets home from work he sometimes retreats to take a pain pill so the feeling "of being hit by a truck" can subside since he couldn't take the pain pill at work and drive home. We go to a friends for dinner and I don’t drink because I know I will be driving home with a husband possibly falling asleep in the seat beside me because he wore himself out engaging. I cherish these nights because instead of asking me and the boys to go alone he used his energy and good vibes to simply be with all of us before he needs to rest his eyes. All of this (and so much more) is what crushing it at this game looks like.

This in no way is a poor us blog. This is a simple reminder and validation that this is life with cancer. Rainbows and sunshine look different for us.  Sometimes I think I post so much about the positive that I may be taking away from the real struggle that is life with cancer so I wanted to take a moment and honor everyone's struggle who has been here. We can adapt but that doesn't make this normal.  Dealing with childhood anxiety and depression brought on by worrying about a parent's death isn't normal. Stressing because you said til death do us part but you thought that meant around 90 not 40 is not normal. These are all just the tip of the iceberg really, there is soooo much more the weight could crush you. Feeling your mortality this closely isn't normal, but we deal, and we are surviving...hell we are crushing this, it's only cancer after all.