Day After Herceptin

There are many difficult and frustrating things about my experiences with cancer, but my top two most difficult and frustrating things have to do with having cancer AND young children and the expectations I put on myself.

I look back on the year and wonder how we were able to make it this far.  It was definitely NOT on our own.  I've had more help than I can list here--family and friends coming to stay and take over when I couldn't get out of bed.  There have been helpers making dinners, doing shopping, cleaning my home, babysitting the boys, helping the boys get to and from school, and babysitting the boys some more.  The list of service goes on and on, and I doubt we would have been able to function without it.  Having young children and cancer is not easy.  Not one bit.  I'm sick and in pain and have "boo-boos" of my own, so I'm compromised in fixing my boys' pains.  My patience level--already something I struggled with--is now even lower because I'm tired and rundown.  Not being able to lift and hold my children, race them through the park, and be a "normal" mom of little children is beyond frustrating.  I hope they know and feel that I love them, even though I'm different than I used to be.         
 Most people have high expectations for themselves, and women especially seem to want to juggle and balance many facets of life, all at the same time.  I am no different in that I want to be able to "do it all," but this disease and the treatment for it slows me down.  I'm better now than I've been at earlier points in the process--better at both allowing myself to NOT do some things AND feeling better to be able to do many of the things I want to do.  This time of year and all the fun events make it even more tempting to push the limits.  I'm feeling the effects of that pushing too hard today.  Staying up way too late to go to a Christmas party the same day probably doesn't help, either.

Now that the treatment process is easier than it has been, it's easy to forget, to almost pretend that none of it exists.....until I can't lift my arms to change a light bulb or have to use a shovel to push open the garage door because getting it to reach the top is out of my range of motion.  I even think I'm a "regular" mom, until another Tuesday rolls around, and I have to find someone to watch my babies while I sit in the oncologist's chair again.  Having children and cancer is difficult and frustrating, but my children are also a huge motivator to not give up, to stay strong.  I have many reasons to get up everyday, to keep on fighting, and to keep trying to live up to my own expectations--and the most important of those reasons all live under the same roof.