Regarding the Bad Days

Some days are worse than others. I’ve already written a blog about how I’m not strong. I meant every word of it. I’m not strong. I get through everything because I don’t have a choice. I have cancer whether I like it or not and I have to deal with it the best way I possibly can, moment by moment and day by day.

Some days…my best is worse than it is on other days. Wednesday was one of those days for me.

You see the thing is, I have so many diagnoses right now, and so many medications to try to control everything going on with me, that between the symptoms of the diagnoses and the side effects of the medications, not to mention just plain being pregnant, my body feels like it’s part of some kind of sadistic science experiment from hell. And I’m not saying that just to use gratuitous profanity, I honestly feel like hell is the only place that could possibly come up with the stuff I deal with at times.

And it’s hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. Some days all my symptoms are worse than others. Wednesday was like that. Some days I am faced with debilitating, crippling fatigue. I’m talking like the kind of fatigue that starts in the center of your being and spreads throughout your entire body, even to the extremities of your fingertips, to where even simple tasks like keeping yourself fed and hydrated become more than you can handle.

Those days are the hardest. And that kind of fatigue is my most common symptom. It’s worse some days than others. Sometimes the steroids I’m on mask the fatigue and I’m more mentally alert even while my body is still tired. Those days are easier to handle because it’s easier to talk myself through it.

Other days…I just let it happen. I let the fatigue happen. I let the pity party happen. Sometimes it just has to so that you can move on. I’ll be honest, I spent a huge part of Wednesday just feeling sorry for myself. A lot of “Why me?” prayers were prayed. I had an emotional meltdown or two.

I’m not proud of it. However, I’m also not ashamed. It’s OK to have a moment of weakness every now and then, regardless of what you’re going through. You don’t have to have a cancer diagnosis during pregnancy (or just a cancer diagnosis in general) in order to earn the right to have a meltdown.

Life is freaking hard sometimes.

The trick is what you do once the meltdown is over, once that day is over, once that week is over, if that’s what it takes!

I took the day off. Then I dusted myself off and got started all over again. I got back into the fight. One bad day, one emotional meltdown, one horrible diagnosis doesn’t have to define how you handle the entire situation. The only way that happens is if you let it and quit fighting, and that can only happen if you forget what you’re fighting for. And there’s always so much to fight for!