I follow a couple of social media accounts that post comical things about what life is like when you have cancer. The other day one of the accounts posted a video of a football player at practice and as he is running down the field he manages to catch a ball labeled chemo, a ball labeled radiation, a ball labeled surgery. Then suddenly a ball labeled mental health comes out of nowhere and roasted him in the head, completely knocking him out. I laughed out loud the first time I saw the video and then after watching a few times I realized that this is truly what its like having cancer. You spend a large amount of time preparing for things like chemo and surgery and then suddenly out of no where the mental health aspects will leave you knocked out, much like the football player.
World mental health day was on October 10th so I thought it would be important to talk about the mental health side effects that go along with having cancer. Thankfully we live in a world today where talking about your mental health is not as much as a stigma as it was before. As a school teacher I have always made sure to take time out of the day where the students learn about how to take care of their mental health. We talk about anxiety and how it can affect how we feel about school and tests. We also talk about how to handle our emotions. I think it is so important that students realize that it's okay to talk about these issues and that it's not a bad thing if this is something you struggle with. My junior year of college I went through a terrible time where I was constantly having stomach aches. Any time that I knew I would be in a social setting I would practically make myself sick. It took several months, and lots of doctor appointments before they recommended that I see a therapist for anxiety. I hadn't even considered that it was my brain that was making me sick. From then on I have taken lots of steps to help me cope with my social anxiety. I still dread going into social settings but I have the tools now that I can handle them much better than before. However, even though I was dealing with a mental health illness I didn't tell many people about my struggles. Its funny because when I got diagnosed with cancer I made this whole blog to document my journey along the way. When I was diagnosed with social anxiety I would have never thought of sharing this with people on social media. I barely even told my closest friends the severity of what was happening. Even now I have to admit that I am a little nervous to be making a blog post about my mental health. You want people to think that mentally you are fine. It's scary to admit to people that you aren't always looking on the bright-side of life. It's scary to admit that sometimes it's hard to get out of bed and that some days you are filled with thoughts of dread that you can't imagine a happy future. You see people don't normally talk about their mental health but when you have cancer it's even less of a thing to talk about. You have so many doctors appointments and other physical health problems to deal with that often times your mental health goes unnoticed. For me, this summer I was so caught up in living hour by hour and just focusing on how I was physically feeling each day that I didn't pay attention to how all of this would effect me mentally. It wasn't until my physically health started to get better that I was sacked by the mental health side effects. It took me until now to realize that this summer I almost died, I also lost my ability to have my own biological children. Both of these things on their own could wreck a person and honestly the feelings and emotions of it all are finally catching up to me. I often feel silly for trying to push away my feelings but that is often what we are told to do. As a society the expectation is to "buck up" and to continue on like everything is fine. However, everything is far from fine. But if there is one thing I have learned through all this is that you determine your own path. When I have days where I am feeling blue I have ways of helping myself stop the train of thought and help myself get off the negative train of thought. That is the key in dealing with your own mental health. It's important to find things that can change your mood. It would be so easy for me to lay in bed every day. Somedays I feel like it. But I have to find ways to motivate myself, I take my dog for a walk, read a book, or do something to change my scenery for once. These things are so important to helping change a gloomy day to a brighter one. One of the biggest things that is hard for me now is looking ahead to the future. Before getting cancer I wouldn't really stress when it came to the future. I had an amazing husband, a wonderful house and everything was looking great. However, now I can't even look forward a few days because the future is so unknown. We don't even know if we will be home for thanksgiving and Christmas or if we will till be in the hospital. Even further than that my life will be dependent on my most recent scans and blood tests. It's a different way to look at life. Because of that I no longer can plan things too far in the future, around here we are living day to day. And sometimes thats the best thing to do. Each day we think about if it's a good or bad day. And the good days are definitely more prominent than the bad days. Sometimes you just have to take it one day at a time and do whats best for your mental and physical health.
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AuthorMy name is Kimber Graham and I have 25 years old. I am a second grade teacher, been married for a year, and have a six month old puppy named Luna. Oh and I have ovarian cancer. This blog is used to document my journey through this time. It may not be perfect but it is honest. Archives
February 2020
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