Side effects mostly gone and a new normal!

My side effects from my last treatment are gone with the exception of a little bit of numbness still in my fingertips.  My doctor said that can last up to a year and in some people forever.  With the little bit that I do have I don't expect it to linger too long.

This last round I started with side effects earlier than I did on the last three.  Wednesday afternoon I started to get really tired and had a hard time concentrating so I left work around noon.  I came home and slept and took it easy the rest of the night.  I stayed home from work on Thursday and Friday and stayed in bed for most of the days.  I had my usual leg pain and fatigue.  Saturday morning Kaci had her first dance competition so I was awake at 5:45AM to get ready for that.  I had it in my mind that Saturday I had to buck up and just get through the day no matter how I felt.  I didn't sleep good Friday night so I was a little tired but we made it through the day.  We had to be to Roy High at 8:15AM for her first performance at 9:00AM.  After the performance we came back home with our family and made breakfast and then went back to the school at noon for her next performance at 1:45PM.  We stayed until close to 5:00PM until the awards were done.  Then we went to get something to eat and was home by 6:00PM.  I was absolutely exhausted.  I put on my comfy clothes and got into bed and watched TV until I fell asleep. 

Today we had a family birthday party for Kaci, she is turning 10 tomorrow.  We made it easy and had pizza, salad and breadsticks for dinner and then had an ice cream sundae bar for dessert.  I am glad Kaci didn't want me to make dinner.  Tomorrow for her birthday I plan on working a half day and then we are going to take her out to lunch and to Build a Bear workshop.  We are finally going to use the gift cards that Jeff's friend at work gave us when I was first diagnosed.  How thoughtful of them to consider Kaci during this hard time.  She is so excited to finally get to spend them and what better of a day to do it than her birthday.  It will be fun to spend the day with my little family.

I have taken it easy today after our super busy day yesterday.  I did manage to get our laundry done and get our taxes filed.  I knew this weekend was going to be crazy with everything we had going on and I stressed about it all week but now that it is over it really wasn't as bad and I imagined it and I was glad to actually feel pretty good this weekend.  I know the tiredness is here to stay for a bit until all the drugs get out of my system.  Some people recover after a year, others sooner.  I don't have a lot of time to be tired and I just need to keep going.

Starting this week I will go back to work full-time.  I am looking forward to getting back into my old routine.  It has been 5 months since I worked full weeks consecutively.  Of course I do not know yet what my schedule will be with radiation but either way I will be at work every day.  I am looking forward to the summer and taking some vacation time off for long weekends camping at Sourdough and a week in August to hopefully go to the Tetons and Yellowstone.

I still can't believe that I am done with the chemo treatments and I didn't get sick once (Kaci was sick 3 times during my treatment).  I feel like that had become my new normal and here I am thrown out there again to figure out yet another new normal.  I am sure I will be saying this again once I start and end radiation.  I guess my "new normal" will be once all the treatments are over and real life begins again.  I know that my "new normal" will be wonderful.  After everything I have learned going through this I see the beauty in absolutely everything.  Life has perspective now and I have more compassion than I ever imagined was possible.  I seriously love people.  I find myself looking at others that I do not know and wondering what their story is about and wondering if they are suffering or going through hard times.  I instantly love everybody that I look at.  I realize that we really are all brothers and sisters and we should treat everybody with love and respect all the time.  Life is beautiful and I am so thankful for this experience of breast cancer to make me realize all of these things.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  You need to find the blessings even during the hard times because they are there.