Reality Hits

Last night I hit a wall emotionally. For a couple days I had kept thinking, “This isn’t what I asked for. This isn’t what I want.” It probably sounds stupid, but it was the way I was processing and accepting my new reality. Last night we went to bed late and I just fell apart without any warning to poor Danny. I sobbed and raged and spilled every awful thought and fear I’d tried not to have in the past month. The emotion surprised me as much as it did Danny, I think. After going through about half a box of kleenex, I settled down enough to get to sleep around 1:30am. Poor Danny got less sleep than I did when Joey woke him up after a bad dream and wanted to cuddle. The alarm went off at 7:15 and Danny called my Mom to ask her to cancel our morning plans. She sweetly offered to take the kids and she and Danny got them ready before I even woke up. I am well cared for. I woke up and Danny was on the phone with Lindy, the nurse coordinator for melanoma patients figuring out why my stitches are driving my crazy and getting a refill of pain meds for me.

I ended up calling Lindy later in the morning, finally ready to ask the question I’ve been too scared to ask. If my lymph node dissection comes back clear, will I need to do the year of interferon treatment (the equivalent treatment to chemo for melanoma?) The answer was a solid yes. It’s my best chance to prevent recurrence. Once the drain comes out after my lymph node dissection, I will begin a month of high dose treatments, followed by 11 months of self administered shots. I had thought I was out of tears, but there were a few more at this confirmation. I’m so thankful the kids weren’t home. THANK YOU MOM!

Now we begin making plans. For my first month of treatment, it sounds like I will need rides to and from the cancer 5 days a week and the advice I am hearing from other interferon recipients is I won’t be up to taking care of the kids, so we’re going to need to figure that out. We have some good beginnings for those plans and I am so thankful for the community of support we have.