Perspective

I am at work right now... not such a great day here. One of my coworkers is in a crap mood, which infects me. Guess I'm not thinking about cancer much, just horked off for no reason really.
So very glad for the new hire they made while I was gone. His first day was my first day back. LOVE HIM. Not in a *Brown chicken Brown cow* kinda way, more like a little brother. I think it's kinda crucial that you have someone to talk to at work that you can enjoy yourself around. That was one of the great beauties of being in the Navy or even working as a waitress. The co-workers. And this new guy is just fun. Yay for fun in the workplace.
On the Cancer front, or Chemo front- side effects are minimal this round because I didn't get the Full Monty of the Oxcilliplatin since it sent me into near anaphylactic shock, I only got about a third of the dose. (got the full dose of all the other junk though) That's the stuff that makes my fingers numb, makes me sensitive to cold, and evidently makes me nauseous too. Though it will be short lived- Chemo again next Monday and I will probably get the full dose this time and so it starts all over.
I gotta admit, my sense of humor weakens with every treatment. Chemo really breaks you down, because it's almost constant (this "break" cleared my head a bit) and when you feel like shit on a CONSTANT basis, ANY amount of humor you had about it, or all the "refreaming" you could do with your situation suddenly becomes rare. Not that I would be mad at anyone making light of it and cheering me up for a bit- it's that i can't really think of anything humorous about it on my own. Just another reason I love the New Guy- he heard me joking about my fannypack and saw that as a signal that HE could make light of it too.... whew! When I told him about not being able to drink cold beverages or use cold water to wash my hands, his response was "That sounds made-up... couldn't you just drink it through your 'drug straw'?" pointing to the tube coming out of my chest. I almost peed my pants. I have since decided to call the tube my "drug straw" that goes into my rockin' fannypack.
I really NEED people like that around me, not people that look at me with pity. I can only be serious so often.

It's exhausting to be serious.

When I do get in the dumps and actually decide to call someone to wallow in my situation, I only need a bit of serious then it is up to that person to slap me in the face to get me out of it or else it will just last longer. I called Aryn (one of my BFFs) one night last week to wallow- to complain about my husband and to cry about having stage 4 cancer and to have side effects and whatever else I could think of. When I started on the cancer whining- she said "Okay, I'll let you talk like that for about another 5 minutes, then you're done. Because this isn't Rachel talking- it's the cancer. And you can't let the cancer talk for you." I wanted to come through the phone..... and hug her.
I don't think I'm atypical from the average cancer patient... or am I? I HONESTLY don't know any other way to deal with this. And as I said before- I don't know that I could do a support group because I'd go in happy and come out crying. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

5 more rounds of chemo and I can get back to being the ME that I know is in here somewhere... But right now, I feel like I've lost my wit- or at least the wit I have on my own- and I'm turning to others for a steady supply of it... or at least turning to others to get me kick-started.

hmmm. This post was supposed to be short. Sorry 'bout that. :-)