As promised, I wanted to summarize a conversation that I had with my therapist yesterday afternoon. She was asking me a little bit about my work because I mentioned that I want to be able to travel by the end of October. We had not talked about work terribly much in previous sessions, and it was great that it came up yesterday.
I am an event planner. I spend my days working on schedules and details that come together to make an event, be it large or small. I also spend time working through worst case scenarios and contingency plans with members of the events team. We talk about the "what ifs" and what we will do if they happen, and we are constantly on the lookout for things that are going wrong or could go wrong so that we can fix them.
My therapist asked me to consider if I am doing that as it relates to my health, and a light bulb went off over my head. I totally am. I am working through the "what ifs" and contingency plans because that is just how my brain works. I gather information so that I can work to make the best possible decisions and so that I have as many details as possible. That is how I am programmed. The difference between and event and cancer is that I have a lot more control at an event. She encouraged me to try to pinpoint the aspects over which I have control and focus on them. I have control over what I eat, how much I exercise, and what supplements I take. I do not have control over how effective chemo was in killing my tumor. As much as I would like to have control over that, I do not.
At events, I do not have control over everything either. I do not control what our speakers say though we provide them with guidance, and I do not have control over the actions of others though we provide direction and training. Sometimes, we just throw our hands up and say "what is done is done."
It was a great conversation with her, and it helped me see myself a little bit more clearly. I had honestly never thought of things that way, and I laughed when she helped me draw that conclusion.
She was also thrilled to hear that I have been able to amp up my exercise in recent weeks and said that exercise is really the best possible thing that I can do for myself right now because of the way that it changes the chemistry in the body. She said that exercise can keep people with mild to moderate depression (not me) off of medications at times. Pretty interesting.
One other note from yesterday - I went back to the chemo room to say hi to my nurses after my oncologist appointment. It was great to see them, and it was even better to say a quick hi then walk out. They were all fawning over my hair growth, and one nurse told me that she thinks that it is coming in grey! She said that people often have grey hair after chemo. We shall see.
I remain pretty solidly on edge about Friday, and it is manifesting itself in me being a little weepy, a little impatient, and a little distracted. My surgeon called me today to check in and to see if I have any questions about the procedure on Friday (how nice). When I expressed my anxiety, the assured me that my feelings are totally normal and not unique to me. He also also promised to take excellent care of me, and I know that he will.
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