I’m starting to wrap my head around things

For the last few days I’ve tried really hard not to actually think about cancer or anything related to it. I was able to talk about it in general to people, but when (let’s say) a doctor’s office calls and wants to refine some of the dates and times and I have to focus on the details, that’s when I would freak out.

At the moment, I’m probably more anxious about the upcoming procedures than the actual cancer diagnosis. I have never done great around needles or hospitals. In fact, when I had to go to the ER (which started this whole process), my biggest concern then was I was going to have to get an IV!

I haven’t even been able to bring myself to put my doctor appointments in the calendar on my iPhone. It just makes things too real.

In just the last 24 hours, I feel like I might have turned a corner. I’ve been able to read over the documentation that my oncologist provided. I have my port put in next Wednesday and several tests on Thursday, and today is the first day I can think about those appointments and not get anxious.

If there’s one thing I learned while I was in the hospital is that none of the things I feared were as bad as I feared them to be. Getting the IV didn’t hurt like I thought it would. My two procedures were both painless (one of them I don’t even remember). So this is forcing me to face my fears.

I’ve starting thinking through what I need to pack when I go in for chemotherapy treatments and doing research on that.

I can’t say I fully ready to tackle this cancer head on, but I’m beginning to. And that’s a start.