When we got married we got a lot of decorations for our house that weren't exactly on the registry. One of these items was a small sign that said "blessed," at the time I disregarded the sign, it was cute, matched the decor in our living room, so it could stay, but honestly I didn't care much for it. I had seen signs like these around at stores and honestly had thought they were stupid. Putting up a sign telling people you are blessed seemed like you were just bragging about the things you have. At the time I didn't realize how truly blessed I was. Sometimes it takes something serious like a disease or hard time to realize how blessed you are. I would give anything to go back and relive even one of my worst days before cancer. I would love to have a long day at school, running to the grocery store, cooking dinner, doing the dishes and even the laundry. It sounds like a simple day but even now if I took on all that I would have to sleep for days to recover from all the activity.
Now I look at that sign and think about how truly blessed I am which sounds funny since I am in the middle of my cancer treatment. However, I am blessed my treatment is going well. My body is responding to the treatment. I have some side effects from the chemo but mainly I am just fatigued all the time. My doctors are thrilled about the progress I have made. In fact I found out this week that not only are my tumor markers back down to normal level but also my scans came back clear meaning that the cancer is no longer evident. My doctors have officially told me that I am in remission. This was something that I had dreamed about since hearing that I had cancer. And honestly I was beginning to think that it might never happen. However, I was so excited about the news but it only lasted a few minutes. When I asked my doctor if this would change anything in my treatment he promptly responded with a solid "No." I still have to go through another round of chemo next week. Then after that I will have a surgery where the doctors will go in to visibly look to see if there is any cancer left. Once I recover from the surgery I will then go forward with the stem cell transplant. With that I will have another round of high dose chemo and then I will need to stay in the hospital for four to six weeks as I rebuild my immune system. You would think that once you get the all clear and the official "your scans are clear" talk you would be done with everything and life would resume as normal. However, that is not the case. I still have so much more to do. On top of that I still look like I have cancer, I still have no hair and my body is still weak and most days its hard for me to get out of bed. Even though I am cancer free mentally I have been in a hard spot knowing everything that is coming up. I still don't know the timeline of when I will be done with my treatment. Honestly thats the most overwhelming part. I feel as though life right now is series of dominoes, depending on how this round of chemo goes determines when my surgery will be. What they find in the surgery determines how long my recovery time is. Depending on the recovery time it will determine when I will go in for my stem cell transplant. And the best part is not even the doctors know. Every time I ask them what the timeline is they give me different answers. It could be three more months or it could be up to four to six. I constantly feel like I am living in a hamster wheel where I am running and running to get ahead of this but the wheel just doesn't stop turning. People come up to me all the time lately and tell me that they have found my blog so inspirational. However how can you be an inspiration to other people when you can't even be an inspiration to yourself? I have to admit that it is hard. My life is no longer what I thought it would be. It sounds terrible but I had just gotten used to the idea that I was dying only to be told that I was going to live. It sounds like something that I should be excited about. It should be easy to adjust your mindset for this but I have found it to be harder than I thought. I am excited to have such a good outcome but at times I am overwhelmed about what life will be like after my treatment, because my life won't be the same. I will have to live scan to scan waiting for the other shoe to drop. The thought of waiting in suspense to see if the cancer will come back is terrifying. I am not sure how people live with that feeling. I have reached out to other cancer survivors and counselors because I know this is something that many cancer survivors struggle with. However, for now I have to live in the present because the future is so daunting. Each day I have to think to myself "is today a good day or a bad day?" If its a good day (which is the most likely answer) I have to live in that moment and enjoy the day. Often times when life feels overwhelming its important to take note of the good things in life and let them out weigh the bad. Now at times I feel guilty for being so overwhelmed with everything going on. After going through this process I have realized that others in my position aren't so fortunate. Ovarian cancer is often known as the silent killer because it often goes undetected until it is too far along. My cancer was found when I was only at stage 2 but often times this is not the case. I am thankful every day that God allowed it to be discovered so early on that I have a good chance of coming out of this and being cancer free. However some people aren't so lucky. I have had so many people praying for me and it shows. I wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for every single one of those prayers. I want to thank everyone who has kept me in their thoughts and prayers over so far. I also want to ask that you keep me in your prayers as we go forward. I still have the toughest parts of my treatments ahead of me, but at this point we are trying to keep the cancer from coming. Which sounds amazing that I can finally say that.
1 Comment
Tracy Corrao
9/22/2019 04:59:23 pm
Prayers continue for you and Kyle - God is with you and will continue to place His healing hand on you. Hugs
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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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