Done with Treatment...Now What?

I was so happy that there were no more surprises! July 9th came and I finished my last treatment! What an amazing feeling of relief. Now that I was finally finished life could go back to normal. I had read that after a few weeks any side effects from radiation should stop, so I made the decision to return to work as of August 2nd. This would give me three weeks to regain some of my strength and hopefully be less tired. I would be seeing my Oncologist the week before I was planning to return to work. She could give me the all clear at that point and I was finished.
I spent the next two weeks relaxing and taking lots of naps. I was feeling fine except for the tiredness. I had no obvious problems and no side effects at all. I went to see my Oncologist and everything was fine. I would be seeing her every three months for a checkup for the foreseeable future. She signed off on me returning to work on August 2nd.
I called my boss and told her I would be back on August 2nd, she was happy that I would be back. I let her know that I was still pretty tired, so would do what I could. She told me to do what I could and not overdo it. As the end of the week came, I was actually getting a little nervous about returning to work after all I had been through. I didn't know if things would be different for me or if I could do all the things I used to do.
Monday came and I got ready for work. I was tired, but I figured that if it became too much for me to handle, I could always leave early. It was nice to see all my coworkers, everyone was glad to see me back. As I headed to the back of the store to my office I was a little worried that I would not be able to keep up, we were heading into our busiest time after all. For us, Christmas was now, we had to make all the decisions for what we were promoting that holiday and then we needed to get our orders in within weeks. I made the decision to not worry about it, no one expected me to jump back in as if nothing had happened. I would take my time and catch up first before I took over my old duties. After being out of the office for four months, the first thing I needed to take care of was my email. I had thousands of emails to sort through, and that is what I did for the first couple of days. I also called some of my publishers who I used to talk to daily to let them know that I was back. I also called the person that had taken over my duties while I was out to let him know that I was back. I asked him to continue taking charge of our planner (this involves keeping it updated with changes and making sure that everyone gets their jobs done by the due dates) until I had a chance to catch up.

I made it through my first day back at work. I was so tired that I almost nodded off in the car while sitting at a red light. Four more days to get through this week. I knew it would be very hard at first to get back into my old routine but I figured I would get used to it. Somehow I made it through August. I still did not have any energy and I was completely exhausted by the end of the day. I did find out something that was going to help me a lot. Even after being out for four months, it did not take anything away from my vacation and personal days. I still had to take four weeks of vacation and two personal days! Now that was some really good news! I talked it over with my boss and decided to spread my vacation days through the next four months. I managed to get it so that I would not be working any complete 5 day weeks at all for the rest of the year. I couldn't believe I was still so tired and had so little energy. It was almost two months since radiation had ended, when would I feel normal again?