I'm Finished!!

Here are some pictures from my last day at radiation:

After my last treatment was finished, I exited with mask in hand:

Here is the sweet crowd that was there to cheer me out of the clinic:

And yes, I cried. I have to say I try not to cry in front of others, but I couldn't hold back that day. I can't even explain the mix of emotions I was feeling and still feel today.

Here I am getting my "certificate of completion" from the sweet staff (that, and my card noting my date in June to visit again for my last appointment with the radiation doctor):

And this is where my mask now sits - in my bedroom. Creepy, huh? I am thinking of spray painting it and hanging it on the wall - modern art, some might call it. I just never want to forget what I have learned through this whole experience.

Is it all really over? It's the question I keep asking myself. Since last November, I have had the word "cancer" rolling around in my head every day. My last radiation treatment was Tuesday morning and as I think about it, it seems like it all ended rather abruptly. Each radiation appointment was so fast that I had fragments of conversations with other patients and the radiation therapists. I planned on passing my aunt's (a breast cancer survivor) information onto a woman with breast cancer interested in knowing what to expect with radiation in that area, but never got to say goodbye. I spoke multiple times to a man with some unknown cancer (I'm guessing prostate) and never got to hear more of his story. I never got to ask what exactly the machines do around me during my treatments - how close they come to me, how they move. I so enjoyed my radiation therapists and have gone so far as to send a thank you note to them and asked them if they wanted to come over for dinner. Crazy? Probably. But cancer has taught me not to care so much about what others think. It matters that they know they are loved, cared for.

It feels as though I am in this limbo land - I'm not the same person I was before cancer. For one, I still don't have much hair (and am still losing it from radiation). I'm less afraid of being affectionate. I am have much more empathy for others. I am less inhibited. However, I am trying to jump back into the life I had when I was still healthy. My house is a mess, Samuel needs to be home schooled, meals need to be cooked, etc.. I don't have the energy yet of a healthy person and I am trying not to be disappointed in my body. In the grand scheme of things, I feel insanely blessed to be here at all and I don't want to forget that in the minutiae of everyday life. I realized over the last five months that God is a big God and brought me through the hardest season of my life. Again, I don't want to forget that. I guess I would like to wrap "cancer" up in a nice neat box and place it neatly in my past. But it's not quite that black and white, as it turns out. What's it like to live day to day without the desperation of just surviving? Without seeing medical professionals multiple times a week? Refocusing my emotions and thoughts on a "normal" life is going to be a transition, and a much more difficult one than I had planned. But one huge thing I learned in the last three weeks is how to gain control over my thoughts (something I had to practice every minute of being strapped down to that radiation table) and with this new skill, I can do anything. Even transition into this new "healthy" life.