Gosh it’s been a weird mental space again now that treatment is done.
I’m two weeks out from radiation. My body is still quite burnt and tender. The fatigue is quite intense at times - and frustrating.
I need to heal physically still.
But I’m also now reflecting on what the heck just happened to me. For a second time.
You push so hard through the physical treatment. It’s grueling and you barely catch your breath before you are onto the next thing.
So when it’s finally done….and you have a chance to breathe….the mental and emotional aspects crash onto you like a gigantic ocean wave.
I’m trying to be compassionate with myself and patient.
Like everything else I have conquered this before and come out the other side to a new place, a healed place.
I looked back at what 2017 me wrote in this phase and she was a smart cookie. It’s a time for convalescence. A time for rehabilitation and recovery.
It will take time to process.
One day at a time and one moment at a time.
We got this.
Dr. Hunter used a term that was in the article I shared awhile back - "Convalescence" - to take time to grow strong emotionally and physically. That is exactly what phase I am in now. He said that there used to be hospitals (or sections of them) that focused on convalescence specifically but it no longer exists given the expense. But that it is an important phase, to spend that time recovering from being sick. Jeff and I talked about this too - I've spent the last 8 months pushing forward to the next step, the next chemo, getting through surgery, radiation every day for 6 weeks - it was all consuming just to tackle each step physically, mentally and emotionally, and I didn't have much mental energy to reflect on what was actually happening and what it means to my life. So that takes some processing.
