A Weak Little Sissy

It's been over a week since I've written. I've been wading my way through a combat zone- October! It's Breast Cancer Awareness month and it's driving me nuts! While I'm very, very appreciative of all the attention my "popular" disease gets every year, I'm really tired of being reminded about it so much. I know, I know, I sound very ungrateful, huh!?

The truth is that I'm pretty darn annoyed this past week or so. What's that saying about fatigue making quitters of all of us? I'm tired and it's making me grouchy. My radiation onc told me from the get-go that this whole process would make me tired, but I brushed it off thinking that nothing could be harder than chemo.

While I was certainly right about that- radiation is nothing compared to chemo- I have to admit that it's still making me feel pretty exhausted. Every morning I do ok and I guzzle enough coffee to give an elephant a jolt, but by around 4 o'clock I hit a wall and it's all I can muster to get the kids in bed at 8. I've been pushing past being tired, thinking "Who am I to complain? People have it so much worse..." But today I ran into a fellow bc patient at the docs office. She gets radiation just before me and we've struck up a friendship. She didn't have to have chemotherapy, so she quite possibly doesn't have my frame of reference, but today she said, "I'm so tired!" and I was so grateful to her for sharing! I needed someone in my shoes (actually she's had one week less radiation than me) to admit being tired so that I could relax and allow myself to take things a little slower too.

There was a commercial once where this shirt-less man was sucking in his stomach as a pretty woman walked by. After she's out of sight, he lets out his breath and his big belly bulges and drops over his pants. When my friend admitted to being tired today, I mentally 'let my belly out.' It was an immediate and huge relief to stop faking it and say, "Really? You're tired? So I'm not just a weak little sissy? It's ok to be tired? Great news!"

It was a good reminder that sharing our personal feelings and experiences, regarding any matter, is a great thing for us to do. You never know who needs to hear that you've struggled too.