The One Where I Feel Guilty

Feeling guilty is one of those useless emotions (like jealousy) that can eat you alive and is so hard to stop. I"m 3 days post my first chemotherapy treatment and so far I haven't really gotten sick as I expected. I've been extremely tired and pretty much slept all of today and had a few waves of nausea that passed quickly. It seems my medication is working. But generally speaking, I am ok so far. I've just become a prisoner of my mind though. I woke up sneezing so I was paranoid that I was sick. All night when I kept waking up, all I kept thinking was "is it time to be sick? am I sick?" I just feel very fortunate that so far I'm not one of the sick ones. I should probably knock on wood.

The only problem is that I feel really guilty when I get upset or scared. For instance last night it just hit me again. I HAVE CANCER! I just completed my first round of chemo. It just is very surreal to me. I'm not in denial, it just doesn't seem right. And with that being said, I cried for a while last night. I"m scared of the unexpected. I just don't want to go through all this. But then I feel guilty. I"m guilty because here I am whining because I'm tired and because I've got to be treated for cancer, a cancer that is VERY TREATABLE, while others around me are going through much worse. When I was getting treatment last Thursday I was most definitely the youngest person there, and by about 50 years. The other people were really sick and were really in pain. Others around me have brain cancer and even stage 4 lung cancer, which is much more scary than what I'm going through. But yet, I can't get those feelings out of my head that I"VE GOT IT BAD! I'm so thankful that of any cancer diagnosis, this is what I have, but at the same time it's very hard to be THANKFUL for cancer.

I'm scared to wake up every morning or after every nap right now. I just don't want to be sick, but that sounds like too much to ask. The good news is that this upcoming week I don't have a doctors appointment for the first week in about 2 months, so I'm thrilled I don't have to see a single doctor! WOOHOO!

Oh, I also chopped my hair off and dyed it brunette. Mid life cancer crisis I suppose.