1 Year After Remission

So – it’s been a while.  I realize that I have been very quiet on my blog.  I tried to convince myself and everyone around me that I was doing well since my remission report on March 25^th, 2011.  I have a confession…I AM NOT!!!  I won’t go into all the details and will try to sum up the last year and few months below.  From here on out this blog will be my outlet for dealing with life after cancer – I hope that it will help others going through the same emotional battle dealing with the aftermath as well as help my family and friends understand just a glimpse of what I go through every day.

March 25^th, 2011 – I got the remission report!  I can’t even tell you how excited I was, my husband was, and everyone else who is in our lives.  We celebrated – drinks and dinner with so many people.  I drank my 12 year old Jameson that D & I had purchased on our trip to Ireland.  Life was great…for a little while. 

June 2011 – My Aunt, Cousin, and mom all helped D throw me a 30^th birthday party.  I can’t even express how much this meant to me.  It was so wonderful to have everyone there.  See, here is the thing that non-cancer people don’t realize…when a person is battling cancer, if they are as lucky as me, they have so many people around them at all times.  Honestly, there wasn’t a weekend that there weren’t people at our house and there wasn’t a day that my phone didn’t have numerous phone calls and text messages coming in.  But then when the remission report came, these things slowed drastically.  And it is no one’s fault; I was healthy again and no one had to worry anymore…life goes on.  The truth was, I wasn’t fine…the cancer spots may have been gone, but they left more than the scars on my body…they left a huge scar on my mental state.  The week before my 30^th birthday I mentally broke down…and D can tell you, it wasn’t pretty.  I lay on the kitchen floor and just cried and cried and told D that I was broken.  This was a Sunday – that Monday I called my chemo nurse and asked her if they could recommend a therapist who deals with this type of thing.  She did and I started seeing him on Wednesday. 
I was down, down deep.  The therapist and I talked about everything.  At the time I was jobless, so that didn’t help anything because I was at home with too much time to think.  At the same time of all of these emotions with me, I was in a perpetual fight with my best friend and his girlfriend.  I couldn’t wrap my head around why her and I didn’t get along and I let it eat away at me…so much so, that my therapy sessions that were to be about my fears of living after cancer became sessions on how to mend the situation.  Needless to say, this didn’t help anything.

August 2011 – I finally got a job!!!  I thought “I am cured – I have a purpose and self-worth again”; not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to start a new job and have to take time off for therapy sessions…so I stopped.

September 2011 – January 2012 – Life went on.  I was busy at work.  D and I were entertaining a lot, visiting friends, going to games, etc.  In this time, I could feel something was wrong inside of me.  I thought that it was just inside of me and I wasn’t projecting it.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew I was “off”.  I chalked a lot of it up to the fact that I lost my best friend…I had driven a wedge so far between us because his girlfriend and I couldn’t get along, that all contact stopped.  D had mentioned a couple times that he thought that I was so negative…I thought he meant about that particular situation, but hind sight 20/20, he was trying to tell me that the feelings I was having inside were coming out. 
In this time all I could talk about was buying a new car, buying a bigger house, and getting the new diamond setting for my engagement ring.  I was so focused on these things…I thought they would make it all better.  Now, after many therapy sessions, I have learned that this is “normal”.  After people survive cancer, they want to speed through life.  And it is true – I always thought that I had a lifetime to get that bigger house, buy that nicer car, etc…but once I got cancer and survived, all I wanted to do was fast forward and shove 40 years of a future into the present.  I don’t think I have to tell anyone, the stress that this can cause with a couple.  Now, not only did my caregiver have to be there to try and pick up the pieces of me left over from cancer, but now I was asking him to provide things we just financially weren’t ready to take on. 

February 2012 – February 12^th to be exact.  This day will have forever have changed my life.  I knew that I had been having a lot of emotional difficulties with dealing with life after cancer…and so blindly I leaned on my husband as my rock, my one true, my support.  Now, I know that some of you will say “well yeah, that is what spouses are for”, and I will agree with you to a certain extent.  However, in the condition I have been in, I also should have been going to a therapist and my husband shouldn’t have been bottling everything up inside, however, it happened and we are here.  Doug had been acting a little strange since his birthday in November, but had become stranger in the week leading up to 2/12/12.  On that Sunday I sat down with him and asked him what was going on.  And that is when it happened – my world crumbled.  He told me that he wasn’t sure about a lot of things in his life anymore and that I was one of them.  He wasn’t sure if he loved me anymore.  I cried, I screamed, I just couldn’t deal.  On Valentine’s Day – a day when most couples show their love for one another – we started individual counseling.  And our world hasn’t been the same since.

March – present – So as I write this, I am alone.  Our once 1200 square foot house has become a hollow mansion.  My husband and I are separated and divorce seems to be on the horizons.  I am an empty shell of myself.  Every day I cry.  I didn’t know that the human body could produce that many tears.  I want so bad to save my marriage, but I truly think I broke it so badly. 

For the people who know us – this news will be quite a shock.  Believe me, I am still in shock.  And some may ask why I write about this.  I have thought long and hard about it, but if my little blog about how people deal with cancer and life after cancer can help at least one person seek help before it is too late – then it will be all worth it.  I don’t intend to go into all of the intricacies and personal conversations that have happened; that would not be fair.  But I feel it is important that others going through what I am going through don’t feel as alone as I do.

I am so tired – tired of fighting.  For thirty years I have struggled with health issue after health issue…and now this mental health issue is too much.  I feel like I am letting everyone who knows me that I am letting them down by admitting all of this, but I just can’t do it anymore.  I am not the strong survivor that everyone thought I was and for that I am sorry.  At this point I don’t know if I will ever be Renee again, but I want to try.  And like I said – hopefully I will be able to help at least one other cancer survivor going through this feel as though they are not alone.  I may not post everyday – but I hope to post enough to be helpful.

And for my friends and family reading this, please don’t feel sorry for me – I did this, I let my thoughts get to me and sought help deep into feeling this way.  I am truly sorry to let everyone down, but this is my life today and I need to learn how to cope.