Questions I’ve asked Myself Through Treatment
What is the worst part going to be? The whole thing is horrible, but when will I be past the “worst?”
The hardest part was definitely two distinct 48 hour blocks of time where things were scary and unknown in the beginning. As far as the treatment it started out with the hardest parts and got easier over time. Chemo was miserable. I hate feeling sick. I’d rather be in pain than be sick. My mastectomy surgery was huge and took 6 weeks to recover, but with time and patience it was soon behind me. And honestly the pain wasn’t as bad as I imagined. I did lose all sensation across my breasts so that probably “helped” with the pain of the recovery. Radiation was easy. Show up every day and lay on a table for 5 minutes. Toward the end I did feel a burn on my skin similar to a sunburn, but nothing like the hardships of chemo or surgery. My second reconstruction surgery was even easier. No pain, 2 week recovery and the end of the road for my cancer treatment so I didn’t have any complaints at that point.
How fast does hair grow back?
If you look online it says hair grows about 6″ a year, or 1/2″ every month. And my hair did just that. I did use a 3 step regrowth treatment that was recommended to me by a hairdresser who specializes in “Chemo Girls” for cancer survivors and is also the wife of an oncologist. I’d say I was comfortable with my hair length about 6 months after I cut it back to 1″ and started to like it again after a year. I’ve never had short hair so this was hard for me. But even a year out, I’m still waiting for the day I have long hair again. At least long enough to put it up.
How “fast” will time go by through this?
At times I felt it was never going to end, but when time did pass I couldn’t believe how far I’d come so fast. I was counting down days, weeks, months, treatments left, treatment types left… every way I could count down to make it feel like it was almost over. I even had a countdown on my phone to my one year mark of my treatment ending, which you can see in my “blog.” I usually try to sleep through illnesses, but you can’t sleep for a year straight! It was the slowest and fastest year of my life at the same time.
Will I feel normal again?
I was talking to a coworker one night about something she had been through and I remember she said at the end of her story, “I have a new normal” and that stuck with me. Will I have to have a new normal after this or go back to feeling like I was before? Well for the most part I feel like it never happened actually. I’m back to my happy energetic self and feel perfectly healthy. The only exception to that is the obvious adjustments to the part of my body that has permanently changed from my surgery. I have some lingering local pain still, but only if I touch that spot, and I’m working on range of motion through physical therapy, but for the most part I feel like me again like it never happened.