Not to complain....

When you fight cancer you tend to have a different perspective on life. Your perspective changes about pain, about being sick, about most things. There are so many of us cancer patients who have moved on from being in the trenches of the fighting and we carry scars. 

From baldness... to having hair again...  life goes on.  You cannot always see the scars, but they are there. Some of them are physical, while other scars are mental.  I have experienced both, so for those of you who are recently out of cancer treatment, know this is YOUR new normal!

1st For the first few years I hurt. My body was sore from the massive amount of chemotherapy I went through. I had a foggy brain and had a hard time remembering. Chemo brain IS REAL.

2nd For us women, we often go through early menopause. Now this fact is RARELY mentioned or talked about...but when you are only 40 and go through menopause it is quite a shock.

3rd  For the third phase, about 2 1/2 years after treatment we may experience extreme euphoria!  There are moments when you want to TELL EVERYONE, "HEY, I AM ALIVE!!!" This euphoria alternates between massive fear of a reoccurence. The emotional highs and facing the fear of a reoccurence had me on xantax... it is a mind f-ck and scary as hell, combined with gratitude and happiness.

4th Once you are about 5-6 years out of the treatment you begin to feel free. You begin to feel as if you can LIVE again. You can plan LIFE.

5th  Overall, you begin to not give an Eff what others think because you almost died and you did not die and you are here!!!

Me and my bff in Canada last summer!

All I can say... is I will ALWAYS feel the swelling in my arm due to lymphedema and I will always feel sore where the double port was in my right artery near my right collar bone.... I will always think about cancer... BUT I will NOT COMPLAIN BECAUSE I AM ALIVE!