Moving Forward

Last week I had a colonoscopy and it was clear. I kind of expected it to be clear since I've received regular scans for quite a while now. Yet it was still nice to hear. I honestly don't know how long it will be before I am excited about being told I'm in the clear. As I've said before, my confidence was rattled when I was diagnosed with this recurrence. And my emotional state over the many months is still not something I recognize as familiar.

Over the last few months I've been up & down, going from being really blue about my health and having to rebuild my life, to feeling good and creating the life I want to live. The blues seem to be less frequent, but they still hit me pretty hard when they come. Honestly, I thought I'd be in a better space by now, but I'm not and I guess that's okay. I still have a lot of fun doing the things I love. I guess it just takes more for me to get motivated lately. It's obviously not a permanent outlook, and for that reason, I look forward to feeling more and more myself as time goes on.

Another part of it has to do with my doctors and nurses having told me, now that I've had a Stage IV diagnosis, a recurrence sometime in the future is highly probable. Of course I like to focus on the possibility of my being in the healthy, cancer-free side of that probability. Somebody's gotta be. And yet I am not going to pretend I don't "look over my shoulder" and wonder what's coming down the pike. I definitely do. I am still quite rattled from the recurrence not to mention all that preceded it. I really want to be past it all, which I suppose is a good sign. And perhaps I've forgotten how hard it all was. And maybe the impact is more than I anticipated.

So, I look around this apartment which we've been in since May 15th and continue to try to think of it as home. It is "home" in the sense that it's where I return for sanctuary from "the rest of the world," but something is missing. Cuddling with my boy on the couch and watching a movie this evening made the place feel a bit like home. Perhaps once the snow sets in, we'll feel like we're in our little den. I've also been thinking about having a house warming party. It didn't interest me upon moving in since I was receiving chemotherapy and waiting for the scan results. Perhaps it's time.