Mom’s the Best Medicine

Just a quick update to tell you I got my third COVID shot. I am soooo happy and thankful to get it, but I got terrible side effects from it again. It took me down for a day and a half. I could not move a muscle. I just laid flat and very still because every muscle and joint in my body ached. I think it was compounded by chemo two days before. I was weak and ran a fever twice. And I had my chemo headache and nausea. I was pretty miserable, so it was really nice having my mom here to take care of me! I am just glad that getting so sick hopefully means my immune system was doing its job and that the shot works. I can handle two days of pain for that. However, it makes me think of what pain will be like when the cancer comes back and progresses. I can’t help it — I know that the cancer may not come back, miraculously, or that it might not be for a while yet, so I don’t want to think about it when I don’t have to — but the fear is always there. The thoughts are always there. Thank God, they are tucked way back in my mind right now, but every time I get the COVID shot and have such bad side effects, it just makes me wonder about what kind of pain I will go through and how I’ll be able to handle it and how I’ll handle it. Cancer has a mental and a physical fight. So far, I’ve only had to deal with the mental aspect of it. I hope it will make me stronger for the physical part of it when the time comes. And it makes me wonder what true strength is — the ability to fight through the pain or the ability to let go when you’ve made peace with you sparsely, your life and your pain. The greatest mental struggle for me is how much pain is worth how much more time? I just don’t know that yet, and that’s the thing that scares me the most about having metastatic breast cancer.

That “you sparsley” above is supposed to be “yourself”! It won’t let me go back and fix it!