2014 in Retrospect

With 2014 coming to a close I thought it would be a good idea to sum-up 2014 with a blog post as well as provide my thoughts on what 2015 will bring. I'll probably go off topic at points as I'm writing whatever I feel like, but I'll try to keep this not too long.

2014 was a very eventful year for me and I think this year can be broken up into three main parts:

Late December/Early January-Late March 2014 were my last three cycles of chemo. Looking back at it now; the hardest part of my treatment. Especially the time from cycles 4b-5b, I just hit a roadblock. I was more tired, my body just wasn't bouncing back as easily as it did before surgery. Then I had the bladder issues, bone pain, and other nasty side effects from my treatment that I just didn't experience in the beginning. It was really demoralizing. And to add to all of the pain from the chemo, my arm was never healed from surgery and pretty painful.

The second section of the year would be from April(treatment complete) to September. This timespan I didn't have much to say about until I really thought about it the other day. Well first, I got the all clear with my scans on April 10th. A little off topic, but after going through something like cancer you have dates that you remember from the life threatening experience whatever it may be. Like for me the dates that stick out to me are, August 29th diagnosis date, September 4th-first day of chemo, December 10th-surgery day, March 21st-last day of treatment, and April 10th-cancer free. Continuing on- after receiving the all clear with my scans, and finally being cancer free I began to recover from chemo. I started getting my hair back, although it's not growing in as fast as I would have liked. It's still thin in places. If it's not good by next year at this time its getting shaved off. I refuse to put Rogaine aka miracle grow on my head. What's weird is that I have to shave my face every other day now, but before cancer it was more like once a week. In this time my arm got a little stronger, but the bone was not taking and required another surgery which set me back a little. It didn't really become obvious to me until I began noticing how much better I have gotten lately with my energy that my energy really didn't improve over the entire timespan from the end of treatment to the start of school by much. Feeling so tired for such a long time in chemo made me forget what it feels like to have so much energy like I do now. I'm not even sure how close I am to what I was before my treatment, but I feel pretty well now. Well enough that I'm going to start exercising soon, but more on that later. I enjoyed the summer. I did as much as I could with the limitations I have with my arm.

The period from September(start of school) to now could be best described as a period of change and finding my "new normal." This was much more challenging than I expected it to be. It didn't take long before I realized that I couldn't go back to how I was pre-cancer. Going back to a daily routine with returning to school really made this apparent, and it did so quickly. Within the first 2-3 weeks of school I was beat up, tired, and my performance showed this. I gave it my all to get that far, and had no energy left to give. I had to make adjustments, I couldn't just force the "old me" to come back.

I wasn't eating well enough, I wasn't resting enough, and I was studying too much. I started the semester at 140 lbs. The most obvious change I needed to make was to gain more weight, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy because it's never been for me. So I made adjustments to my diet, and since then I have gained 14 lbs! Just one pound shy of my stretch goal, but I still have a few days left in this year to do it. I feel stronger and more energetic, and I look it too. With more time out from chemotherapy the effects began to wear off, like the tiredness for example, making school a lot easier for me. I changed my study habits a little bit. I cram less now, but I never really crammed to begin with. The only times I ever crammed for anything this semester was more due to catching up on rest. I think the latest I stayed up studying was around 11 this semester, and throughout my freshman year I was regularly staying up past that time doing homework. It was rare for me to be up past 10 this semester. It's harder for me to focus on things for extended periods now so breaking things up helps me stay engaged. I needed less naps as time progressed, but realizing I needed to take them in the first place was a big help early on in the school year. Fighting the tiredness was the worst thing I could have done. When I struggled hard in the beginning everyone was telling me to not worry about it, and just getting back to school was a great accomplishment itself. But this wasn't enough for me, I needed more. I needed to do well because doing well in school has more of a symbolic meaning to me. I want to beat cancer, and I want to beat it in all ways possible. I ended up doing well in all of my classes receiving A's in all of them.

It was so important for me to return to school. I can't say this enough. Being trapped inside my house for over a year was not good. And not having anything to keep me busy made me just focus on my cancer. Even after I went into remission I was still obsessing. It didn't really change until I went back to school. I didn't have time to be looking up every research journal ever written about Ewing's sarcoma to read. I still look up the most recent news regarding my cancer like new treatments and whatnot from time to time, but it's not consuming my life like before.

If I was a puzzle before August 2013, then getting sick took me apart, and in the process destroyed some of the pieces. Once completing treatment and getting the "all clear" I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to figure out how to put myself back together. Since then I have assembled a lot of the pieces that I had left. And some of the destroyed pieces have been replaced by new ones that I have created in this challenging process. I think this will become easier as time goes on. One important thing to remember is that not all change has to be considered a loss.

Wow this is already really long! I'm going to make this a two part series. Part two won't be as long. It will be about my thoughts and expectations for the year ahead.

Merry Christmas

Happy holidays! I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season. Family and Friends are what I enjoy the most about this season. In the next day or so I'm going to update this blog to catch you up on what's been going on since my last update. I have a lot that I want to write about so stay tuned. Here's a picture from this morning before Church.