Hope For Holly

I apologize for not writing sooner, however I can’t seem to look at the site without crying. Seeing the experience through Scott’s eyes makes it “real”. I still have those precious moments when I forget.

Thank you for your incredible support. Through the tears, I have been reading what my amazing husband has written and the supportive responses. I feel enormously blessed.
It’s wonderful to be home. It’s hard to express what it’s like to be given back your old life, but with new rules. I’m learning “the rules” day by day. Someone else called it “the cancer filter”. You have your old life back, BUT …
You don’t feel very good.
You don’t know when your going to feel better.
People “who know” treat you differently.

I’m fairly good at pretending that I feel good and most days I can convince myself that I’ll feel better tomorrow. The absolute hardest thing for me is when I’m having a blissfully wonderful “normal” moment talking with a friend, going for a walk, etc. when I’m reminded that I’m sick. Someone will give me “the concerned look”, sometimes it’s pain, and sometimes it’s a moment I missed while I was sick.

I don’t believe I took my family or friends for granted, but I now realize I took “normal” for granted. I KNOW that I’ll appreciate normal after my incision (with the third infection, ughhh!) heals, and I finish the six months of chemotherapy. The question remains if normal will ever feel as easy as it used to feel. Should it now that I know what life is like with cancer and how it is for the thousands living with it? Probably not.