It has been a long few weeks at the homestead, which includes barely more than four walls, but we rarely leave the driveway, due to the pandemic. As restrictions lift, I am getting antsy to leave, but know that the amount of people I will encounter will cause such anxiety that it isn't worth it.
Because I will be damned if I fought cancer to get sick with covid-19. Me, or any of my family.
But as we paddle (barely keep our heads from sucking in water) through these murky waters, I realized in one moment, that I actually forgot I had cancer. I was walking to the mailbox and it seemed quite normal. Actually, it was not normal at all, as we only pick up our mail twice weekly now and keep it in quarantine for three days before opening it. I walked down the street and slowed my pace as I came out from under trees into the sunlight. It was a simple thing, that reminded me of something I would always have done - enjoy the sunlight. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we enjoy it much more when it is out. Being from California, I realize now that I took that hot orb for granted.
I had not one thought in my mind except receiving the sun's rays. I did not think about my screaming kids, how I was going to get my third grader to take her AR quiz, how I would help my kindergartener concentrate on his opinion writing lesson, or what I had on my own to-do list. I had a completely empty head. And then it hit me - I forgot I had cancer.
It is almost impossible to forget that I went through something, as I am reminded by the saline bags attached to my chest. And they do not always feel quite right, which I have come to understand as normal. Sometimes I get twinges or zings of pain as nerve cells grow back and turn back on. Sometimes my right one feels like its swimming around in my skin. Sometimes my sides under my armpits hurt because that is where the drains were taken out. Sometimes, I just know they are there and are fake.
But in that one moment, I forgot. I was just walking, enjoying the heat from the sun, not noticing how my breasts rubbed against my shirt, or what spots on my breasts could feel the shirt rubbing and which could not.
Now I have not had a moment since then where I forgot. And the journey will always be with me, but it gave me brief hope that there will be a day when it is more than a moment that I forget that I had cancer.
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