Waiting for Armageddon

Makes me sad to read the last posts  - I was happy to start living again, but then...

I went for a 6 month check up with Dr Bovine and she palpitated an area that seemed weird to her.  An emergency ultra sound - 6 biopsies, an mri and and a tag inserted, it has been determined that I have different and much more invasive cancer which did not appear on the mammogram - I got a clean bill of health from that (last week).

I have never come back from the radiation treatment even close to my old level of energy and fitness.  Everyone told me it was will power and not feeling sorry for yourself - including doctors.. So I thought (as usual) that it was something that I lacked and it just made me feel even less competent. This last 6 months have been hard because I had no energy and that just makes every day hard, even getting up in the morning has become a 2 hour event to drag myself aware.

 I am mad at myself for not believing me (does that make sense?)  - this is such uncharted territory for me, that it was easier to believe I was lacking some quality that everyone else in the world had to bounce back from a cancer event.  I thought it was some combination of depression from the losses of the last year coupled with the ritual mutilation of my body.

They never did an ultra sound or mri before my last 2 surgeries - so this cancer has likely been there hiding under the mammogram calcifications for who knows how long.

This time I am not on the lucky side of the cancer ward.  Double mastectomy, stripping of cardinal lymph nodes to determine whether it has spread, and 5 months of stretch my chest muscles to insert an implant behind them.  Chemo is on the menu if my lymph nodes are compromised.

Talk about the pop up book of phobias, I have never wanted to see my bald head, nor my ribcage where my breasts were

I am scared and tired and don't know how to get thru this - it will happen - but I wonder what it will feel like to lose body parts that I have always (at least since puberty) had?  

Dammit - I just started feeling that my life could be ok again - playing agility with the dogs, the job going well, everything starting to have the appearance of a life again, and now gone again and worse.

6 weeks without lifting anything more than 5 lbs - dear god, I live alone, how could I possibly get laundry down 3 flights of steps, groceries, etc - not to mention the dreaded vaccuum?

I am going to have to farm out all of my dogs during this time, including Ben, - he has had some serious trouble with stairs, which when I can carry him, works out ok.  So I am losing all my comfort, how awesome is that?  Just me and the tv and the boxes with dead dogs in them that I can care for.

 The death of 3 beloved dogs last year, 2 lumpectomies, radiation, and the assurance that my life was back to ''normal'.  6 months later after a clean mammogram, a very large  invasive cancer, double mastectomy, likely chemo, possible death.

Seriously - if you were me, would you believe this would all turn out ok?