Checklist For Your Wedding Wedding Booklet: Fill & Download for Free

This is an interesting question.There are several ways to answer it - some which I’m still discovering.There are thoughts, and there is brain activity.As far as thoughts, as in the things I’m thinking about—they shifted over time. I’ll tell you how it changed at the remarkable places I recall.When I first found out, I was in shock and denial. I thought it was just some new big word I would be associated with. Endometrial Adenocarcinoma. (That’s uterine cancer.) I didn’t understand in the least. I even thought it was a little funny, or special. My first thoughts were, “oh! Maybe they can fix me now so I won’t bleed so much,” and “maybe I can have sex with my partner again FINALLY!” We hadn’t been able to in a couple of years by that point, and it literally was painful - very painful - to even think about sex because extra bloodflow to that area exacerbated it all and I’d gush blood. Sorry for the graphic imagery. I certainly didn’t understand that this means I’d never have children and probably wasn’t even going to survive. My doctors didn’t even describe it that way at first. So, I remember going to Carabba’s, a chain Italian place, for dinner with my parents and ordering some dish; the waiter said they were out of such and such and I joked about having cancer, “so you have to bring it to me!” with a laugh. I was the only one laughing. I recall the waiter’s face being slightly smirky and slightly disbelieving as he looked at me and then around the table, like “wait, what?” Just sharing that to demonstrate that it literally was not in my head yet as a terrible thing. I had no idea how serious it was. I had never had any real serious illness before - never had a sip of alcohol, never taken a drug, never taken a pain pill. Had never been to the hospital. So my thoughts at first were light.Then came the day we talked about treatment. My mother works in oncology and knows all of my doctors, and there are many. She began going with me to all of them. She is a charge nurse at the James Cancer Center in Columbus Ohio, and has worked in the OR for many years, and these situations always remind me of why: she was visibly shaken by this - her baby has severe aggressive cancer, but she just puts that to the side and takes over while everyone else panics. Nurses are amazing. I saw it in her face at this moment and I won’t forget. Tears were in her eyes, but she spoke directly and with her hands, pointing her finger at certain words and making a sort of chopping motion with her left hand straight down into the palm of her right hand, to signify she really was certain, about whatever she was saying. It was all a blur to me. But I’ll never forget how I felt and what I thought about - she would take care of it. If there was an answer, she’d make sure it was found and tried. One of many times like this where I saw her take over. We are doing XYZ treatment and we WILL do neulasta shots and we WILL do this and that. Very stupidly, I remember only one exchange explicitly that day. As the oncologist informed me of the side effects of the carboplatin and taxol I’d be taking, the last thing on the list was alopecia. That’s hair loss. As a native american, with waist-length, super thick, shiny dark hair, it was my favorite thing about myself and something I took pride in. Loosely or braided, and braids were something special for us. So, when I looked up from the booklet and checklist the doctor had been pointing to with a pen, none of which had registered for me, I clearly remember asking, “I’m going to lose my hair?” He looked at my mom, and back at me, and said, “Yes.”I felt my lip tremble and then came the tears, hot, fat tears I could not stop. Why I lost it at that moment, I don’t know.I had previously suffered from some outrageously horrible anorexia - part of what got me into the disease to begin with. When my hormones went sideways because of the cancer, I gained so much weight that I literally more than tripled in size in a span of about two years (more like 18 months). So selfishly, and embarrassingly, I admit this here for the first time out loud: I was also slightly relieved at the idea of chemotherapy. I thought I would finally lose all this weight I had gained, because that’s what happens on chemo, right? Wrong. Not everyone loses weight on chemo - I gained even more. But part of what was in my head, I had gained about 250 pounds at that point and then had to lose my pretty hair, too? It was like everything I identified with was going away. I remember very clearly having a flashing thought of looking like Uncle Fester.My thoughts then lingered towards the impending chemotherapy. All I knew was what I’d seen on TV. Would it hurt? Would all these side effects I was reading about really happen?Then I had “the big surgery.” Where they went in and found out just how far it had spread. My first big surgery ever. My first encounter with general anesthesia and hospital stays. I’d never even been drunk before. It wasn’t until I woke up that I realized how bad it was, and even then they didn’t tell me “officially” for about three weeks. My thoughts were focused on myself 100%. I realized I’d never be able to have children. They told me when I woke up that the cancer had spread so far that they had to remove a lot of things, like my ovaries, and hadn’t had time to save or freeze any of them. Then I found out it had spread to my lymph system. Again, it was all a blur to me at the time - it didn’t really sink in. I wasn’t crying or sad. That would come later.I threw a wig party right before chemo started, and we all wore funny wigs. Family from near and far drove in, and friends from around the country came. Some play in bands, and set up a stage and played live music, occasionally inviting me up to sing - it was fun. The main center piece of the party was supposed to be the head shaving station while everyone stood around and cheered, with me going last. All our hair was up under our colorful and sometimes funny wigs. Almost every man there, including my dad, shaved his head. I was so moved. When it came time for me to go, I took my wig off and—surprise!—I had already buzz cut off my pretty locks and donated them. This was just three days before chemo started, and my thoughts were mostly just this sort of “party” mindset. Not really “party,” but overall it was light, and entirely self centered.Two weeks after I began chemo, things really started to hit hard. My hair began falling out. My pubes went first, all at once. I went to the bathroom to pee and they all came off. My head was shaved to about half an inch, and it started coming out in itchy patches - the tiny hairs got everywhere and itched too, and it was super hot out in early August. I felt miserable. I had gone on a weekend away with my family - we had cancelled our annual big vacation to stay local because of ME - and I remember my mother arguing through tears with the owner of the home we had rented on this nice lake, because it was not clean, and her daughter was in chemo, at her “nader” (my white cell count was super low). I felt like a huge burden at that moment.This was when my thoughts started to change.I found a baby rattle sock in the laundry room. One I had bought off ebay that was super cute, to use when my partner and I someday became pregnant, because we just knew we would be, and we wanted a few children really badly. I had forgotten about them. When I found that sock, I lost it. I cried ugly, hyperventilated, just lost it.When I went back to the doctor for my next visit a few days after (I’d visit the doc first before every chemo), I told him about it and teared up even sitting there in his office. He laughed a bit. I said, I guess I thought that removing all my lady parts meant I wouldn’t cry like this. He told me something that would change how I looked at myself forever again, after: No, he said. No, it’s just the opposite. You don’t have the hormones anymore to control your emotions. He laughed a bit again, apologetically.I began to forgive myself for my strange swings of emotion that would come on so strongly. I still work on it today.But then came the biggest event for me. To now, all my thoughts had been about myself.My mother then posted a Facebook post. It was something about being very sad that day because she had a dream about a little girl. One who would look just like me, with glasses and long dark hair, and be a little bossy and smart. The grandbaby she realized she’d never have. She didn’t name me specifically, but everyone in the world knew what she meant.Suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had only been thinking about me. MY cancer, MY pain, MY loss. MY emotions.My mother had gone with me to every single chemo, which lasted all day long, took FMLA to sit next to me and brought her books to study (she was going for her advanced nursing degree). She rarely ever let her sadness show to me. She expended all of her energy on taking care of me and making sure they were doing the right thing - watching everything and every touch for contaminations,My thoughts then changed. I had been such a burden and the people around me were being so gracious. Dealing with my own mortality was a huge issue I’d thought about but eventually faced. But I had given zero thought to how it was impacting the people around me. The cancer itself, the sickness, the depression, the anxiety, the impacts on their work schedules and sleep schedules.I tried to change my thoughts to be more aware of how I was impacting the people around me. I couldn’t help things, but I could at least be sympathetic and grateful. And acknowledge things. My sister had a wedding coming up and I was the entire center of attention! She would never complain in a million years, but I felt so bad stealing her thunder. She had asked me to be her maid of honor, but I said no because I was embarrassed about how I looked. I called her up and changed my mind. When it came time for my speech, I was so ill that I could barely stand up and my poor sister had been in tears worried about me all day. They offered to just let me skip it, but I was determined. I had put together so many wonderful memories of her that I wanted to make sure I shared them. I’m so glad I did that.After my treatments ended, I thought a lot about death. I thought a lot about cancer coming back, and I was scared. My type doesn’t have blood markers, they can’t just do a blood test. We basically have to wait for symptoms. So, every illness, every fever, every bump and bruise, everyone got terrified. I had lasting damage from the chemo that eventually made me angry and frustrated, with some loss of motor function in my hands and sensation in my legs and feet.I had to lose a lot of weight, and I thought about cancer a lot as a positive catalyst, as well. I was TERRIFIED. I had so much to lose by then that I considered bariatric surgery, attended the meetings and saw the psychologist. But I was too afraid of another surgery. I started walking and eventually running, and eating tiny portions with the help of those nutritionists, and every time I didn’t want to go for my run, I thought about cancer. It isn’t losing weight to fit into a bikini, it’s out of the terror of realizing that if cancer comes back, it’s because I didn’t do enough to help myself. That’s how my thoughts went. I was terrified of the machines again, all day of clicking and whirring and feeling miserable, being the youngest person in the chemo center by more than half, being angry about it and stuck - it was like a prison. I wanted freedom. I thought about running all through chemo, the sound of sneakers on pavement constantly in my mind. So that’s what I did. I ran. I couldn’t always feel the ground, because of the nerve damage, but I ran. I trained for a couple really big running events, and all through my training, whenever I’d get tired in the 5th or 6th mile, I’d think about cancer. I’d get angry, and I’d run farther. You can’t catch me again, I’d think.Mothers day came, and that was hard. Very hard. I thought about how cancer had robbed me of doing the thing my body had evolved to do. I’d never get to create a life with my mate or pass on my DNA. Feel what pregnancy feels like, experience what birth is like, see a baby and look at what traits were passed from me and from him. Those thoughts were very hard.Since I was being burned from the inside as well with radiation (into the vaginal cavity), there was zero ability to think about sex. I should go further and say more like, I was insanely repulsed by anything romantic at all. It would eventually lead me into a very difficult decision, probably a stupid one but it seemed right at the time, to tell my then-husband to seek out a partner for physical intimacy, because I felt so bad that he was so young and was unable to have any kind of intimacy with me for so long. Not even just that I was being selfish and could have stimulated him some other way - it was so painful before and post-cancer to have bloodflow to my vaginal area, and any kind of intimacy does that to me. I could not do it without extreme pain. So my thoughts turned to sympathy for his situation. I tried to do what I thought was right - not be selfish - and that ended up going so tragically wrong that I have written on the subject at length elsewhere, as it turned into a heated affair that I am still hurting over.And then … cancer came back. And then I thought… this is it. But unlike last time, I was more prepared mentally. I didn’t broadcast it all over social media. I quietly dealt with it and told myself that we all go eventually. I Thought about life and love, and tried to forgive people, listen to people, spend time, check off the bucket list, really prioritize what matters.This post is a lot longer than I initially intended, my apologies. I guess I just wanted to capture all the thoughts. Just like with anyone else, the range is all over the spectrum. And there is still selfishness, enlightenment, empathy, sympathy, foolishness…love, desire, sadness. I guess sadness and anxiety are ones you always think about with cancer, but I never thought about how it would impact sex and relationships.A small note on the other type of thought that I mentioned at the start: the medications interfere strongly with your ability to think clearly about anything at all. And the medications for the conditions you can get, like mine, make thinking so difficult that sometimes I just can’t! I literally keep coloring books and colored pencils around for the times my medication dosages increase because I can’t do anything useful. It’s like being in a cloud.I hope that answers your question, OP. Again, sorry for such a long answer, but… the answer really is “everything.”