The gift that keeps on giving

I titled this post as the gift that keeps on giving.  The reason- chemo side effects still going strong.  Do I consider chemo a gift since hopefully it will leave me cancer free for quite some time?  It depends on the day.

I got glasses last week.  I have been having terrible headaches in my eyes if that makes sense.  It has gone on ever since I finished chemo.  I refused to believe that chemo ruined my vision because it has ruined so much else.  I also thought maybe my headaches were from not sleeping at night and I am sure that is part of my eye straining/pain problems.  I decided at the end of April to go get my eyes checked and sure enough I have some vision loss.  Most of my vision loss is farsightedness but I do have some slight nearsightedness too.  So now I have glasses for work.  Last Monday I was so sick to my stomach trying to get used to them.  I only wore them for about 75% of the day.  With each day since then I have been able to increase the amount of time I wear them.  My headaches have for the most part subsided but my eyes still have that strange feeling that they have had for quite a long time.  It is almost like they are dry and I have to blink a lot!  It is weird and very hard to describe.  I also got driving glasses but right now I haven't used them since most of my driving is during the day and I need my sunglasses.  I mainly got them for night driving since I have been told that they will help to clear up some of my night blindness but I try and stay away from driving at night. 

I am still not sleeping well.  I got a Fitbit for Mother's Day and it tracks my sleep or in my case lack of sleep.  It shows me just how terrible of sleep I get each night but I already knew that.  I continue to be exhausted at the end of every day.  The time of day I look most forward to is after dinner because that is when I go take a shower and lay down in my bed and most of the time that is at 7:00PM.  That doesn't mean I fall asleep, but sometimes I do.   Considering I am up about every 1-1/2 to 2 hours because of hot flashes and then I am awake from anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour after each one I can justify laying down at seven.  After a hot flash you cannot just fall back asleep it jolts you wide awake.  I fight sleep each and every night and sometimes I even have a little anxiety about going to bed because I want sleep so bad and I know that I will not get it.  I remember back to when Kaci was a newborn and wanting sleep but knowing I wouldn't get it and wondering if it would ever end and it did end and I was able to get sleep again that is until cancer hit me!

I feel that my body has failed me in so many ways.  There are so many things it cannot do anymore and I have pain each and every day but I always tell myself that this body is temporary and one day I will get that release just like each and every one of us will.  I don't like thinking like that but it is honestly the only thing that gets me through each day.  If I had to live like this forever and ever I could not be happy.  I am happy because I am alive and get to spend time with my family and friends but some things are just so hard to do anymore.  I love exercising but when I get going a debilitating hot flash will hit that knocks me down.  I cannot stand and I cannot continue what I am doing.  I have to sit down and wait for it to go away.  These hot flashes during physical activity seem to last the longest and take quite a while to  go away.  I guess I need to be thankful that I can still get around on my own and that on the outside I look fairly normal to everybody else.  If only they knew how I really felt inside.

One last thing and I would like to give credit to a new friend whose blog I follow super close and who has been through more in her lifetime than most people.  Imagine having hip replacements in your 30's only to get diagnosed with breast cancer in your 40's and still have two young kids left to raise.  Because of her I am going to take more time to myself.  She has been deciding on a career change to help give her less stress and I have decided to cut back my hours at work to give me more time with my family and getting things done around home without being so exhausted all the time.  I am excited to spend some extra time with Kaci this summer as I will have every Friday off and when she goes back to school I will get some precious time to myself that I so desperately need.  I honestly feel like I run around like a mad woman most days and I cannot focus so good anymore so my brain is super foggy and I forget stupid things like turning off the bathroom faucet after washing my hands (yes that really happened) or losing my favorite pair of shoes and looking for them high and low until I was in tears and then having Jeff ask me if maybe they are upstairs near the treadmill and then remembering that I just wore them that morning when I was exercising as well as every morning for the last few weeks.  Then I went and locked myself in the bathroom and cried until I couldn't cry anymore.  Losing my memory has by far been the hardest part.  I have such an obsessive compulsive personality and when I forget something or cannot find something I really freak out and now that these things are happening more frequently I cry a lot!  I hate that I cannot remember things and I have an even harder time when Kaci gets mad at me because I cannot remember a conversation we had and then I cry and then she feels bad that she hurt my feelings.  It is a never ending cycle.  She is stuck with her "new" mom as my life will never be the same.

I don't want this to sound like a downer post but this is what I go through on a daily basis.  I am looking forward to summer and sunshine which is always good for my soul.  We are getting our trailers and ATV's all ready for a lot of camping trips.  Jeff only has one class this summer and it looks to be pretty low key so that we can enjoy a lot of family time.  School is on May 26th for Kaci and she and my mom have some fun plans on Tuesday and Wednesday's since my mom doesn't work on those days.  She is also hoping that she can hang out with Jeff's mom this summer too and best of all she gets me and I get her all to ourselves on Friday's!!!