You know whenever another family reached the end of their treatment for some or the other form of childhood cancer I would always ask "so does it feel nice to be done with chemo?" "Not to have to give tablets anymore?" "Does it feel scary in any way?", but now that we are here, it seems less dramatic than I thought it would be. We sort of quietly slipped into this new routine. It doesn't really feel as if something is missing (which I thought I would feel if suddenly after all this time we suddenly won't have to give chemo anymore), perhaps this would be because Bianca still has all her other medicines that we need to give - her acyclovir tablets every day and her co-trimoxazole every weekend and for the first 3 months she'll still get her IVIG transfusion.
It also doesn't feel scary at the moment, to not have the "safety net" of the treatment. Okay fair enough Bianca hasn't had any funny looking bruises just yet that would make me wonder "hmmm is that only a bruise or does it mean something different?" Maybe because we've had to adjust on short notice so often since Bianca was diagnosed, it made the transition into the "after chemo" part of our journey a bit simpler. Also, I guess if Bianca went straight from intensive therapy to being done instead of the way it was on maintenance where despite being on chemo she was at home for most of the time, she even managed school, perhaps because of being on maintenance the end of treatment felt less dramatic and not quite as different to before.
Perhaps the scary part hasn't come yet because throughout Bianca's treatment we've had to adopt a "you can't choose what happens in life, but you can choose how you handle it" kind of attitude. We've never allowed the "what ifs" to take hold of us and invade our minds. But perhaps the scary part will still come. Perhaps once we start finishing off some of these other normal medicines. Who knows?
It is just so different to how I imagined it would be. But I'm super-glad though that we reached this part of our journey!
It also doesn't feel scary at the moment, to not have the "safety net" of the treatment. Okay fair enough Bianca hasn't had any funny looking bruises just yet that would make me wonder "hmmm is that only a bruise or does it mean something different?" Maybe because we've had to adjust on short notice so often since Bianca was diagnosed, it made the transition into the "after chemo" part of our journey a bit simpler. Also, I guess if Bianca went straight from intensive therapy to being done instead of the way it was on maintenance where despite being on chemo she was at home for most of the time, she even managed school, perhaps because of being on maintenance the end of treatment felt less dramatic and not quite as different to before.
Perhaps the scary part hasn't come yet because throughout Bianca's treatment we've had to adopt a "you can't choose what happens in life, but you can choose how you handle it" kind of attitude. We've never allowed the "what ifs" to take hold of us and invade our minds. But perhaps the scary part will still come. Perhaps once we start finishing off some of these other normal medicines. Who knows?
It is just so different to how I imagined it would be. But I'm super-glad though that we reached this part of our journey!
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4 comments:
I really admire your attitude. I wish you could teach me how to ignore the what if's, I'm paralyzed by them (especially during treatment) almost all the time!
Hi there!! I just wanted to thank you for following my blog and for praying/sending encouraging words! :-) May God bless you!!
I think we often build things up in our minds to be bigger than they are and when we get there it's almost anticlimatic.
I'm also super glad that you chaps are where you are now ;)
xxx
I haven't left a comment in a long time... just wanted to say hello. I think that I will be afraid when the treatment is over, that the "what if's" will just take over my life. I still have days where I panic about relapse, late effects of chemo, but mostly relapse.
So glad that Bianca has reached this milestone! Here's to no more cancer- ever!
Sarah (Mollie's mama)
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