catching up

 hey. it's been so long since writing in the blog, i half considered not doing it anymore, but it's easier to quit than to keep going with so many things in life, and i didn't want to start the new year off slacking, at least when it comes to writing. 

i realize i missed half of november and the entirety of december, so i'll catch you up: the scan i was previously blethering on about did indeed come back stable, and that was good. that was an early birthday present. i took the results call while grocery shopping (why?) and then cried a little in the dairy section. the emotional up-and-down every 6 weeks is pretty brutal. but this was/is good. 

i started back on the trial at the beginning of december. i was relieved to get back to it, honestly, and that first day back, everything went ok. while they were hooking me up for my infusion, one of the newer nurses asked if i was going to receive one drug or two drugs that day, and the other nurse told her, andi only gets one drug from now on. 

she did say it in any way other than an informative one, a plain statement. but you know me by now: i let it pierce my psyche and consume me for a while. i let myself dwell on the fact of it, feel shitty and scared, and by the time i got home from the hospital, i had sunk into a bit of a depressive state. 

i mean, ok, i've been in depressive states before for a lot of things worse than this, but something about it, probably combined with the time of year and/or general exhaustion, took me a level lower than usual. and that's it, i mean, that's what has kept me from checking in here, and writing. i have been struggling to lift myself back up to the regular (or rather, functional) state of living with this thing. 

to be honest, for a while, i'm not sure i necessarily wanted to lift myself up. anyone who struggles with their mental health understands this feeling; the hopelessness is part of the disease itself, and you get into a dark cycle. to be clear, i was not suicidal. i was mostly super-low energy. i had few distractions and i did not try very hard to find any. it was tough. 

what i think is, the longer i live with this illness, the harder it gets, or maybe the more tiring it gets, to roll with the constant changes, the perpetual life-and-death unknowns. not that it was ever smooth sailing, really. but like anything challenging, these kinds of things take their physical and emotional toll. 

and let's be honest: the world as it is now -- even without cancer -- is exhausting and hard, full of scary unknowns and constant frustrations. people who maybe didn't think about such things before, are having to change the way they approach the world, take stock of their lives, understand what they're grateful for, look for joy in people and things that are smaller and closer to home. i'm generalizing of course, but i think you know what i mean. 

so, here we are. i had an infusion just before the new year, and tomorrow, another scan. we'll see if this single drug is working on its own to hold down the proverbial fort. maybe my immune system has learned a lot in the last 6 months. and as i told my nurse-sister who was awaiting the results of a COVID test after treating several positive patients, let's also allow for the real possibility that things are okay. there's an equal chance of that being true. quantum mechanics vs. fear? (p.s. she tested negative). 

so i don't know. but i don't suppose anyone else does either. it's not the most "rah rah 2022!" kind of outlook, but it's not all gloom-and-doom, either. hope to write you more soon. xx