I have been thinking a lot lately about the quality of my remaining life, and how that might be affected by chemo. Please don’t say to me “you’ve gone this before, you can do it again”. Those seem to be the worst words I can hear right now. I don’t want a repeat of what was before.

The surgery I had, and now the lymphedema in my right arm have me feeling sorry for myself. I remind myself that this is temporary. My arm strength will come back and if I keep up the compression and get back into swimming, it will get better.

I’ve started going back to the pool. I cannot really swim much as I don’t yet have strength in my right arm, but it is getting better. I need to start working those muscles more so they get stronger.

But back to the quality of life thing. The last quick conversation I had with my oncologist, he mentioned chemo – specifically TC (Taxotere and Cytoxan). It is an “easier” chemo than the ACT I did the first time – however, I was almost 10 years younger then. I feel like I was in better shape – although I need to remind myself that before surgery I was in great shape.

I’m worried that I will do chemo and it will negatively impact my quality of life for the rest of my life – and if the cancer comes back (or has already spread) then I’d be ruining some of the good time I have left. I’m having a harder time seeing beyond the treatment – especially not know what the treatment will be. I cannot see what things I will no longer be able to do.

The surgery recovery has me down because it was more intense than I was expecting. This leads to me feeling sorry for myself.

On the flip side, I am starting to get more involved on site again. I am starting to see a time when we can move into our new home!