Desperately Seeking Normal!

Just want to rant today.  I have totally neglected writing on this blog.  Seeking My Zen Garden is truly my quest these days for sure!

 I have had good news that I received over a year ago but thought if I "announced" it I might be jinxed.  After 3 years on chemo of various types and combinations, 3 recurrences the worse to my liver, I was declared NED in December 2012 and have been off chemo since the end of that month.  In October 2013 a couple of "spots" returned to my liver, but after scans and MRI's every 3 weeks for 3 months they didn't grow and the last scan showed they were reduced in size.  So everything should just be good and happy for me, right?  Except it's not.  I keep waiting for the next big blow, it's out there and will hit as we all know there's not much chance after 3 recurrences.  And I feel guilty.  I think why have I survived almost 6 years when others go so quickly, young mothers with kids are especially difficult to understand why they were taken.

Today as I read the "News this week from OCNA" ( a forum for those of us with Ovarian Cancer ) there were so many notices of those from this sight who have passed on.  It makes me so sad. 

It seems there is always this demon following me around just waiting to attack.  I try to remember my past life before OVCA.  My normal happy, carefree life.  I want it back.  I am happy, but not care free anymore.  I still work,  I play tennis several times a week--which has improved greatly since being off chemo this long! :) I work in my yard--which is much easier and I can work most all day now. Life is better for sure off chemo.  But I'm not the same carefree, fun-loving person I used to be.  There is so many changes to my body, so many parts missing after five surgeries I am truly amazed that our bodies can still function at all when so many parts are gone!!  Everything I eat goes right through me.  I give myself injections weekly.  I take a boat load of supplements (when I remember) my hair is finally growing but is so very thin, but that's so much better than bald! And at some of my happiest moments, those times when I can truly forget I have cancer and that the demon is lurking behind every corner, the thought can just crash in and ruin it: This won't last, you have cancer, there will be no cure. And then sometimes I feel myself getting angry with my family and friends who thinks everything is all better now.  They don't get it.  How could they? They don't have to worry about being close to a restroom, or what they eat and when they eat, etc. They don't see the demons shadow lurking in the corners.

It's such a roller coaster down a path I know none of us chose.  I just want to find my way back to who I use to be, traveling down the path of the life I choose and not being dragged down this hellish road.

So, normal, mine has disappeared.  Yes, I know, we have to get used to the "new normal."  But I don't like it!