Can Superwoman be Super Without Her Cape?

(A special thank you to my Chemo Angel, Eve who sent me the above picture on a card!  It was absolutely perfect and I adore it!... The fact that it had a pooch on it didn't hurt either!  Thank you, Eve!)

If I thought my body didn't feel like my own before the last chemo treatment, what am I to think now?  4 treatments have left me really feeling like my brain (or one that sort of resembles my brain) has been put into someone elses body.  Not only do I not recognize the bald head and the face with the "Chemo Glow" that stares back at me in the mirror every morning, but the body doesn't even slightly resemble the one that I started with back in January.  My energy levels have dropped to a level that I never even thought possible, it doesn't matter how much "energy" food I eat, it's just not there.  I would kill to pull my hair up in a pony tail (but I don't have any), and my finger nails hurt so bad, that typing feels very strange.  And have I mentioned that coffee tastes horrible?  This is the cold hard reality of my situation right now.

I can't say that I wasn't warned.  A customer that battled and survived breast cancer 5 years ago told me "Don't plan on loosing any weight with breast cancer, if anything, you're gonna gain it..."  I remember thinking at the time... "Oh the news just keeps getting better!"  And then I thought, "Nope, not me!  I'll keep moving and I'm not a big eater, so I'll be just fine!"  WRONG!

I am still moving a lot, but the eating thing... well, that isn't working out so well for me.  I have insane cravings, almost all the time.  The steroids and the chemo make me hungry for calorie laden foods at all hours of the day.  I'm eating foods that I would only look at and dream about pre-cancer.  It's completely out of my control.

I am having a difficult time adjusting to the body that I'm living in.  I don't really care that it's temporary, I just know that I hate it, and I can't wait for it to be gone.  I will not be the least bit sad to see it go.  There is nothing that I like about this body, and for the first time in my life, I find myself unable to find something good about the fact that my body has swelled up like a loaf of bread dough on top of a hot stove.  Cheekbones?  Those are gone, replaced with chubby little chipmunk cheeks!  I swear they're so chubby that they're impairing my vision.  Bony ankles, nope not here, these look like they belong to the Pillsbury dough boy!  Even my chicken legs are gone. My long, slender fingers have been replaced with pudgy fingers that I most certainly do not recognize (and they don't work like the long, slender ones did either!)  I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be able to continue to wear my wedding and engagement ring much longer.  None of my clothes fit, and if my feet continue to puff up, my shoes aren't going to fit either.  Never ever in my life have my shoes not fit.  I don't even think I could stand to have my tennis shoes on right now- hells bells, I probably couldn't tie the damn things.

All of this is quite disturbing, everyone keeps trying to tell me that once the steroids are done, and the chemo is finished that my crazy cravings will disappear and I will drop the weight! (If I hear it one more time, I cannot be held responsible for my actions... Surely they can't lock a cancer patient up, right?) But, what if I don't?  I'm not a person who does chubby well, it's just not in my nature, and I'm sorry but I don't even want to accept it or consider it, or live with it.  It's making me nuts!  I've pretty much maintained my high school weight (or less) for most of my adult life, until now.  Sure, there were times when under unusually high amounts of stress, or around the holidays, a pesky 5-7 pounds would creep up on me, but those pounds bothered me so much that I would immediately do whatever it took to get them off my body.  I've never had to resort to going out an buying larger clothes.  Never... until now.

I can't wait to drop these pounds.  Superwoman can't be Superwoman if her cape doesn't fit... and if her cape doesn't fit, she certainly can't fly... and she's still got a lot to go through!