Life after cancer and chemo

Cancer and chemo - In pursuit of the sometimes elusive and hard-to-get C's, i.e cash, credit card, condo, car, I am very certain that these are 2 C's that nobody wants.

Life after cancer will never be the same as before. The sooner I realised that, the sooner I can get on with living. True, changes have to be made, especially our diet and lifestyle. Being resilient and adaptable helps.

Of course, I don't deny that sometimes there are frustrations. There are times when I wish I could live life as free and easy as before.

I have never lived for the main purpose of eating and I only eat in order to live. So, I can handle a restricted diet without much problem. In fact, I would be really happy if I can live on air and water alone, if not for the fact I would be lacking in nutrients and substance. It would have saved me a lot of time, effort and hassle, and money too. Although, I must admit sometimes, there are temptations, and I wish I could indulge a little. I am quite careless about the food I eat and I really detested the idea of having always to go organic and having to stick to a special diet. A cousin in the States told me that she did that for 3 years and she got tired of it.

Personally, I don't really think that food played a big part in my getting cancer and relapse. In fact, before my relapse, I was mostly on vegetarian and fish, and yet I still could not escape from it.

And yes, I tire easily now. I take 2 to 3 naps a day and usually, my naps last for 2 to 3 hours each time. If I have a prior appointment, I would set an alarm. And, if I don't have time for a nap, I resort to coffee to keep me awake. Of course, there are times when I am frustrated by my fatigue as it eats into my time, and there are a lot of stuff that I want to do. Normally, after an outing, I am flat when I reached home.

Borrowing WC's analogy of the car engine to explain her energy level, before cancer, I tried to force myself to go at 2000cc or more when my capacity was only about 1800cc. Now, I only have a capacity of less than 1000cc and it kept sputtering and threatening to die. I kept having to rest and recharge.

I accepted the fact that I have had cancer, but I do not allow that fact to control me. I do pay more attention to lumps and aches and pains, but I do not spend each day of my life living in fear that the cancer is going to come back.

At the same time, I do not live in denial, neither do I avoid talking about it. Denying and avoiding it does not mean that the cancer will not come back, neither does not being reminded about it helps.

I am very open about my condition. I find that usually when I share, people become sympathetic, in fact too sympathetic for my liking. When I share, I am not looking for sympathy, but awareness.

On the plus side though, I find that my sickness has brought me closer to my family and friends, now it seemed to be fairly easy for me to make new friends. Several Saturdays ago, I attended a talk on vertical gardening at Hort Park and ended up chatting with a retired nurse from SGH. I regretted not getting her contact, but she has access to my blog and hopefully, she may decide to leave her contact under the 'comment' in my blog.