Friends have been reminding me how I haven’t updated this blog and I realize this may be the only way I’ve communicated out to some friends about the goings-on. I’ve kept up more with IG and my helpinghands app. Totally understand if you don’t have socials though.

Since last post in December…let’s just rattle off what’s happened: I finished 6 rounds of TCHP chemo, I continued with just immunotherapy (just the HP part) for a month until the surgery results tell me whether I gotta go back to chemo (it did), I had surgery, the imaging even prior to that and the pathology came back showing what we’d long suspected: I did not get Pathologic Complete Response, so as planned, I started my 14 rounds of TDM1 every 3 weeks in March for my HER2+ BC. So I guess I’ll be in chemo until December. It is easier than the previous chemo. I get headaches in the first week, I’m just tired and fall asleep on the drop of a hat even in the middle of the day, the middle of a meeting, once, while driving. Not at night though. Still insomniac. For my HR+ BC, I also started my monthly ovarian suppression injections and daily aromatase inhibitor medication (which arguably can be rougher than chemo because it’s constant). Chemo is rough one week every 3 weeks, is the best way to describe it. Oh I also picked up a 3rd oncologist, a radiation oncologist. We’ve discussed my treatment plan — it will be likely 4 weeks of daily radiation therapy starting in May.

What’s probably hidden in all that information is that I’m actually really overwhelmed. I think it’s this absolute need I have to believe and act like things are normal. I need it to be. I just don’t know if I am healthy enough, physically and mentally, for things to just be normal. Two things happened just before I started writing this: earlier, I saw a documentary on modern day slavery and it was brutal and I thought I should be ashamed for whining so much when I am so lucky. But also, just before I went to get my laptop to type this, I had a full-on sobbing cry. I was feeling super crummy today, laid down a bit midday in the middle of making my lunch to calm down my nausea and headache. Then I went back to work. I skipped dinner. I tried to go to bed early, I played scrabble on my phone, I turned off the lights, when, suddenly, pity party, and then tears, loud, snotty tears. My cat stopped her zoomies and sat next to me briefly. She looked like she understood but she also seemed confused and slightly exasperated. Then she went back to the war she was waging with my curtains before I interrupted her with my bawling. (Yes, I am anthropomorphizing my cat very much so). I think it’s these medications that are putting me in induced menopause that are also making my mood quite swingy. It’s also making me very foggy. I’m constantly: where did I see that thing and in that file and what conversation did I have with which colleague kind of foggy. Very frustrating.

On top of my endocrine therapy which is super not fun, I think day 3 -5 post chemotherapy is worst. (I just cleared day 3, oh boy!) Not dissimilar from my previous chemo, actually. The big difference is, I believe, and indeed most everyone in my care team says this chemo I’m on is “easy”. It is easier. But it isn’t easy. But because it’s supposed to be easy, I push myself so hard. I need to. I went back to dance class. We started rehearsal for San Francisco Carnaval Parade scheduled for end of May. I’ve dance paraded before. It’s kinda hard, but so fun and I want to do it so badly. I love being part of my dance community. I want to be strong and prepare and know that come parade day I can do it. I know it’s very likely I will not be able to. But I don’t want anyone else but me saying I can’t. I did almost 11,000 steps at dance rehearsal on Sunday, a scant 2 days post chemo. At several points during, my heart rate was in the mid-180s bpm. I was clawing for air. But I was very proud of myself. I need to believe I can.

Between all the treatments I’m on and the treatments I am still about to undergo, there’s the push to do it all — from the simplest most normal things to, well, dancing for several hours in the heat and in full costume. By normal everyday things I mean even chores. It’s important to me to keep a pristine household (well, maybe pristine is a bigger hurdle for me these days). Since January I’ve singlehandedly taken on every chore from carrying loads of laundry and bags of groceries up and down my 3rd floor walk-up, to getting on my hands and knees to scrub floors, the tub, the toilet. There was a good several weeks after surgery I wasn’t allowed to carry anything heavier than 5 lbs, but I did anyway. Are they serious? Dragging my Dyson is easily 5 lbs. I am living alone with my cat and though I love it and enjoy our solitary existence… she is entertaining (look, she just dragged her leash clear across the apartment to my bed because I guess she wants to go out at 11 pm), but she is useless with chores, and indeed with all her litter that needs cleaning and her hair all over my apartment that needs vacuuming and lint rolling, she’s an extra chore. But she’s saved me since I adopted her in September, so I guess I’ll keep her. Last year, I was on top of getting help from friends through the helpinghands app, but not as much these days. Yes, friends still do come visit, and offer help, and my niece Alex flew in to help me through surgery, my friend Eva is adopting Kimo cat for almost 1 week while I go on a work trip, so I’m not really alone. I know I can reach out when I want/need it. I don’t often these days because, you know, life is normal now! I have been meaning to get cleaners for the house and I have done pick up wash-and-fold for my laundry, but I haven’t recently, because…why can’t I do it all?

Can’t I? I am in treatment full time, I work full time, I make a living, I keep my household, I go to dance rehearsal, I run errands, I hang out with friends, I bake. Life is much the same as it was except for that first part on that list and as such I am not exactly healthy. I am still gathering side effects like a never-ending shopping list. And I really miss my hair (I have been wearing wigs more often, even if it’s just those hats/caps with hair even though I thought I wouldn’t wig very much). I was telling a friend I almost liked it better when I was bald because then I knew I was in the middle of treatment and hair was the least of my worries. Now here I am, still in treatment (but with chemo that doesn’t cause hair loss!) and with my misplaced belief in my life in normalcy and bad hair. (So much for allowing that sad documentary I saw earlier keep my perspective in my charmed life, eh?)

I don’t much know the point of this post. I don’t think I’ll edit it, I’ll let it be and read it again in the light of day tomorrow. Maybe it will be funny. The run-on sentences and the meandering tenses will be anyway.

I do know what I wanted to write when I started mostly to make myself stop crying… I don’t feel very well many days, but it’s not all days. I am not lonely because I feel so much love and understanding from so many people. I tell myself I’m lucky all the time, but sometimes I judge myself too harshly when I forget that I am very lucky. I am strong simply because I have to hear myself say it…And everything is normal now…right? Because if it isn’t I’d be sad again, and I’d been sad. It didn’t help very much. I do get angry — mostly at myself — because sometimes angry is better than scared. I’d been scared.. Then I apologize to the universe for forgetting that I no more have any reason than any other person to be scared. I don’t even know why I’d been crying as hard as I just was. Maybe because I hadn’t in awhile and I’m due. We’re all due.

Anyway, let me go find my cat, play scabble online (play me, I’m decent!), then try to get my beauty sleep. I get to do it all again tomorrow.