Well hello there! Long time, no blog. It’s been over two months since my last post! The explanation for my absence is a good one: I’ve been busy living my life! Each day that goes by cancer gets farther and farther from my mind. When I went in for a checkup with my oncologist at the beginning of this month she said I only have to go every 6 months for the next 5 years, so my next scheduled appointment with her isn’t until October! That was music to my ears. I’m so over that place, so over talking to doctors, so over being poked and prodded. I went from seeing a doctor only once a year to getting cancer and seeing a doctor at least once a week, which was way too much for me to handle. And let’s not forget the daily radiation. What a pain in the ass that was!
I love being on the other side of this. When I first got diagnosed and was going through treatment, I knew all the dates of when things were supposed to be over but it seemed so long and far away, it was like it didn’t exist. Like I would never be done. But holy crap, I am in the home stretch now! I’m back baby, 99%! The only thing I need to make it 100% is my long hair back 
Any Mad Men fans out there? When I was watching the “Tea Leaves” episode a few weeks ago, Betty ran into an old friend (Joyce) who has cancer. Betty asked her what it was like and I wish I had the quote of Joyce’s response. Her description was on point; I need to find a transcript of what she said. Basically it went like this:
“It’s like being way out in the ocean, alone and trying to stay afloat and you see people on the shore, but they get farther and farther away. And you struggle to stay afloat, because it’s natural, but soon you get tired and give in and hope you go straight down.”
Granted, this is kind of morbid and Betty’s question of “What’s it like?” could also be referring to what it’s like knowing that you’re going to die soon. But it’s the next thing Joyce said that really struck a chord, something like, “and then your mind goes to ‘What am I going to fix for lunch?’” That perfectly describes, for me, the two disparate states of mind you have as a cancer patient. You have to go through these horrible treatments, feel like crap, lose your hair, and deal with all the scary thoughts that plague you. It’s so lonely. No one else around you (it seems) is going through what you’re going through. You’re out in the water and everyone you know is on the shore. But at the same time, your mind still goes to the mundane things in life. I still put out the trash and recycling every Monday night. I did laundry. I ran errands. All these things were so meaningless in the face of what I was going through yet I still thought about them. It’s a very weird feeling.
I don’t ever want to feel that way again. On the other side is such a better place to be.
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