Can I Get A Buzzer Please?

Well I made it through my last chemo appointment. I say it that way, because yesterday was a hard day. I think there was so much excitement and celebration around that actual last appointment, and that feeling of making it..but yesterday, going on day 5 of feeling like absolute crap, and my hair still shedding, it just hit me that I'm not quite there yet. I did the thing, I got the meds, but they're still in my body for quite some time, creating all the lovely havoc that they do.  I guess I just felt like after Wednesday last week, and making it through the toughest days after, it should feel a little conquering a Ninja Warrior course or something.  Like there should be some sort of buzzer I should get to just hit and just end this all.  Boom! I'm done! I made it...now go.

It struck me yesterday that this isn't quite exactly how this works, and that was a hard day to deal with.  First I need to let these awful, yet wonderfully lifesaving drugs, work their magic.  Then, there is that next step of learning how to deal with what is next.  Like I said, I want that buzzer to hit. I did my part.  I fought this. I lost my boobs. I lost hair.  It was a rough summer.  Let's move on.  But how do you move on from this? My statistics are promising. I'm so lucky for that.  But nothing is guaranteed and that is hard. I want so badly to say chemo is done forever..but I find myself pausing in the back of my head and hearing that little voice that says...I hope.  I don't want to hear that little voice. I want to move forward with courage and confidence and say, I am done with chemo FOREVER!!! I want to shout it! Maybe it's because I didn't get to ring that darn bell lol! Apparently ringing the bell is kind of a big right of passage when you finish cancer.

Well at my infusion center, would you believe that someone complained about the bell, because for some people, my dad included, chemo is just part of life. There isn't an end date or a finish line.  So apparently the bell was offensive to some and they took it out.  That makes me sad, but what can you do.  Looks like I might need to find some sort of bell to ring myself lol!

Then there are photos like this that strike me to.my.core.  This popped up on my Facebook timeline this morning.  Avery dancing with her daddy when she was little.

I remember exactly the moment when I snapped that, flashing forward to her future and thinking about her future wedding someday and wondering what it would be like. Now, what this awful, cancer has done is completely changed the way I think about stuff like that. Now I see this photo today and my first thought was just please dear God let me be at her wedding someday.  Please let me make it to that day.  Let me be here to raise my babies.  Those are NOT the thoughts a mama of an 11, 7 and 4 year old should have and I hate that I have them, but I do right now. I'm not quite sure yet how to switch that or when it does. I know this is all a process and this is one step on the journey.

So for now, as I recover from this last chemo and get ready for this next phase, I'd love it if you could please send some prayers my way that I move into this next phase, and that I can try to find some peace for how to move forward without the terrifying thought of this disease consuming every moment.  If you've done it, I'd love any tips or advice that might've helped you too. I really am confident I will get there. I know it's a process, but darn it, I just want to enjoy being done!  I just sure wish there was that magic buzzer that I could slam and say PEACE OUT CANCER!