I'm sure the title of this post has some of you wondering "What is Cindy talking about?  Thunk?  Is that even a word?  What is the 'it' she is referring to?"  I'll do my best to properly articulate what I mean.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, I couldn’t see past all the negative ways I believed my life would be impacted, I truly couldn’t.  I thought I’d go from feeling perfectly healthy to feeling not just sick, but sickly.  I thought the next year of my life would-be put-on hold while everyone else’s moved forward.  I thought I’d lose the level of success I’d achieved in my career, and never have a chance to get it back.  I thought I’d spend many days unable to get out of bed due to fatigue and/or nausea.  I thought people would see me as “sickly” or “fragile” and would no longer see or think of me as anything but a burden.  I thought that I’d lose my zest for life and lose whatever it was that made me, me.  I thought my dating life was over as well as any possibility that I would one day find someone special to share my life with.  In addition to all of that, I thought I’d feel sorry for myself and spiral into a depression.  In other words, I was convinced that my diagnosis meant the “death” of everything that made me, me. I was also convinced that my diagnosis meant the end of the future I was working towards, hoping for, and looking forward to.  It was all I could think about and couldn’t be told any differently.

Welp, let’s just say that I have never been so wrong about anything in my life.  There is no part of me that feels sickly or weak.  I’m not sitting on the sidelines while life goes on and leaves me behind. I’m as strong mentally as I always have been, and this cancer has no impact on the future I saw myself having prior to the diagnosis.  I have as much confidence as I did prior to the diagnosis and I don’t feel broken or as if I have less to offer than anyone else.  Of course, there are things I still struggle with, but everyone has things they struggle with, they’re just different.  I realize I have a long way to go, but I don’t spend my days worried about the “what if’s” of my remaining treatment.  If I did that, I’d be allowing cancer to take away from my present, and I refuse to do that.

I turn 51 next week and the only thing I’m bummed about is not being able to celebrate like I did last year. Not because I have cancer, because of all the COVID related restrictions. ☹

Now onto the boring medical stuff. 

The three rounds of chemo that I have completed have been worth it because the tumor is shrinking.……  woo hoo!  I asked my doc if that meant I could cut out some of my 13 remaining chemo sessions, and he looked at me and said “nope, nice try Cindy.”  O well, you knew I HAD to try.  😊

This Tuesday is my last round of “red devil” chemo. Yayyyy!!!!   Two weeks later, I’ll start going once a week, for 12 weeks with the new drug.  Praying it’s as good to me as red devil.  I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t, but I don’t want to jinx it either.  😊

I’m hoping that I didn’t come across as if cancer is a walk in the park, its not.  I’ve definitely had my moments where I couldn’t get up off the floorr and I realize that everyone's experience is different.  My point is that I never imagined that I’d feel the way I do today, both mentally and physically.  Like I said, who’d have thunk it?