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!

Little Bursts of Sunshine out of Lemons

Most people who know me well would say that I'm pretty good about finding a silver lining in even the darkest cloud.  When life gives us lemons, we have to make lemonade. I can look back at several things throughout my life that seemed so challenging (Oh, my gosh, I'll never survive this!!!) at the time, and find positive things that came from those events.  What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, right?  I don't think that I've ever dealt with anything more challenging, frightening, or frustrating than breast cancer, but one of the things that keeps me going is what I call my "Little Bursts of Sunshine."  The little bits of sunshine come in so many shapes and sizes, and in some rather unexpected places...

More often than not, when I open up my mailbox, I find an encouraging, sunny, cheerful or funny card. (It's so much more fun than the usual stack of bills and business correspondence.  Who knew, that getting cancer would turn up the excitement levels on my daily postal deliveries?) These cards have come from all over the United States, some from people I know, some from people I don't.  My mom's Sunday school class has done a great job of sending me cards on an almost weekly basis, along with encouraging little notes and tons of prayers.  One day I came home to find a hand made card in my box created by my neighbors girls.  You can bet that brought tears to my eyes.  And there was the card from a children's Sunday school class in Pennsylvania, suggested by a sweet little angel whose family I placed a rescue boxer with... more tears!  (I don't think I've ever cried so much, actually, I know that I haven't!  Actually, prior to my cancer diagnosis, I was so exhausted, that no matter what happened, I was pretty much unable to cry for several months!  I guess the tear fairy new I needed to be stockpiling...)  For a while, my mom had the cards displayed on the bookshelves in my office, and it brought me such joy to walk into my office and see them all lined up there, bright and cheerful bursts of colors and good wishes.  Knowing that all of those people were thinking of me, rooting for me, and praying for me has been so uplifting.

There have been a ton of fun packages arriving in the mail!  Several weeks ago, I got a fantastic box full of all kinds of goodies from my cousin and her boys.  Each of the boys had made me a get well card and written me a wonderful little note.  Shortly after that there was the beautiful ruffle scarf handmade by one of the girls from my mom's church.

I am also blessed to have not only 1, but 2 chemo angels.  My angels send me beautiful cards, pictures, notes, and all kinds of little things that make me smile.  These amazing tulips arrived several weeks ago, on a particularly bad day, and my spirits were immediately lifted!  Tulips are my favorite, and it would be impossible not to love this beautiful bunch of blooms, I smiled every time I saw them for a week!  As screwy as my brain is right now, I can't remember anything, and for weeks had notes scattered all over the place... then one day, a beautiful little blue (my favorite color) notebook arrives and all of a sudden... the chemo patient with the wonky chemo brain has some semblance of order... now where did I put that book?  And where are my keys, and my glasses, and my wallet, and my cell phone...

Chemo Angels is such a powerful program, it's just amazing to me that complete strangers would volunteer to brighten the day of someone going through cancer treatments, and I will certainly be signing up to be someone's angel as soon as I am done with my cancer battle.  My angels have definitely made a positive difference in my spirits as I go through my treatments.

And of course, there are my 2 little boxer angels who are constantly making me giggle and smile.  They both follow me around the house making sure I'm okay, dozens of times each day.  When I shower, they wait outside the shower for me to emerge.  When I go somewhere and arrive back home, they're both waiting for the door with kisses and wiggles to welcome me home!  And when our days are over, and I collapse into bed with my heating pad, they both snuggle up and get as close as they can get to me.  They're never far away, and it makes me so happy to be loved by these two little creatures!  They are my guardian angels!

These of course are just some of the things that have made me smile over the course of the last 3 months, as I've mentioned so many times, the kindness and compassion of friends, family and even people that I barely know has been staggering.