Working Again

I was really happy that I was still entitled to my vacation time. I had no plans to go anywhere, but having those days enabled me to take at least one day a week off. Having those days made all the difference in the world for me to make it through the last part of the year. I was still so tired, I really missed those daily naps I used to take in the afternoons. I was hoping to regain some of my energy as time went on. I had read somewhere that it could take up to a year after treatment to regain your energy. I just had to take one day at a time and hope that my energy would return at some point.

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. By that point I am usually so tired of the hot weather and sunny days. Many people think that Southern California is always sunny, but that is not true. Our winter is more like autumn and it is our rainy season. One thing that happens every year around this time is that I get a little more tired than during the summer. Maybe this has to do with less hours of sunlight, and when it is dark outside my body tells me it is almost time for bed. This meant that I was extra tired this year. 

I did have some lasting effects  from my ordeal other than the tiredness. I guess I can say that the tiredness was partially to blame for the other effects. Before surgery I had been pretty strong with good muscle tone, I feel like I lost it all during surgery. My abdominal muscles were cut through during surgery and that destroyed the stability of my core muscles. Putting on a sock could cause me to pull an abdominal muscle. Even after the surgery, I had to be really careful not to do anything strenuous for the first six weeks after surgery. This meant that  I was not able to do any working out, I could just take short walks. Once those six weeks were up I went right into radiation and chemo. That was enough to deal with, and I certainly had no energy to work out at all. Even at this point, a couple of months after treatment had ended and I still had no energy, just making it through the day at work was hard enough on me. This being said, I was also dealing with poor muscle tone which made doing normal tasks even harder. One other side effect that I was hoping would go away were those panic attacks. I wish I could say that they went away after treatment, but I could have another attack at the most inopportune times. I have found myself going to see my doctor and standing in front of the elevator and that panicked feeling coming over me, time to take the stairs. At least the attacks did not come too often. 

November came and Thanksgiving was right around the corner. I sure had something to be really thankful for this year. I survived Cervical cancer and the treatment! I usually go to visit my Mom during Thanksgiving week, but there would be no traveling for me this year. I was too tired to even think of braving the insanity of an airport during Thanksgiving. Instead, I planned my own little Thanksgiving at home. I could have some turkey and take a nap and rest. I did miss seeing my family, but I had a relaxing Thanksgiving. I am one of those people that puts up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving, not this year. I was not as strong, so this year I needed a plan. I keep my decorations in the garage, I have two large totes and a small tote plus my little tree that need to be brought upstairs to my apartment. I decided to try to bring up one each day and to put up my tree the next weekend. That was the plan, and it did work out, the larger totes were difficult but I managed to get them upstairs.

 On Saturday I began to decorate, now this usually took me a few hours to get the whole house done, but this year I would have to do it in stages. Now the first step was to make room for the tree and get it set up. I moved a few light pieces of furniture and started setting up my tree. 

I was able to get the tree set up and the lights on it the first day. I had to take frequent breaks, but I got it done. Sunday I was able to get the tree decorated and put up my other decorations around the apartment. It's a good thing my place is small so I was able to get it all done. 

I was really looking forward to Christmas, not only because I love Christmas, but because I would have off from Christmas until after New Years. It is a slow time at work and most of my department took that week off. Christmas came and it was wonderful. I had the best present ever this year, my health. I was able to relax and recover from working the last four months. Now the only problem that I could see was that I was going to have to start working five day weeks again when I got back to work. I hoped that I would be able to adjust to working full weeks again....