Before I dive into the Why Me rabbit hole, an update on my first treatment. So far so good! Friday night I slept 12 hours and woke up Saturday morning a little shaky and my hands were swollen, and I head a headache. The headache lasted all day despite my normal methods of treatment - Excedrin, water, food, caffeine. While the headache was annoying it was not debilitating. It was a beautiful day, so I rode along with Ramsey on errands, and we went to check on progress at the new house. I then took a 3-hour nap to rally for Top Golf for Helton's birthday.
Today I feel pretty normal, the nausea meds they gave me last for 2-3 days so hoping if those wear off today that I will still feel good.
So now -- Why Me?
When Abbey was a toddler and become very, very talkative one of the things, she asked relentlessly from the backseat of the car was "Why?" Why is that person doing that, why does that sign say that, why did you go that way, why are we going here, why, why, why. Once day I was at the end my patience and I gave the cop out response of "I don't know". With all her energy and strength, she yelled back at me "Don't tell me you don't know! You know!!!"
That is what I want to yell at whoever will listen when there is no clear answer as to why at 37, I got cancer, why it spread and why it is currently active. There is no breast cancer in my family...lot of other cancers but not breast cancer. I was on birth control for many years, but so many women are. I had just lost 50 pounds so at one point I was overweight but not obese. I don't smoke, drink very little...So at the end I settled on.... bad luck.
The answer of bad luck is fine most of the time, but I am also a person that struggles to fall asleep at night. I can't shut my mind off and when that happens, I start to spin, and when I spin in my brain it can go in some very strange directions.
It starts with...why me?
Is it because I am not religious? I don't think so because I have seen some wonderful religious people lose their lives to cancer.
Is it because I have been drinking Pepsi since I was probably 5 years old and would prefer a fountain Pepsi over water any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I don't think so -lots of people drink soda and don't get cancer.
Is it because my favorite lunch is Cheez-its and a Pepsi? I don't think so because my grandma had Cheez-its and wine for a snack every day and lived until 104.
Is it because when I saw the Doctor in January I dared ask if I could consider myself in remission. That I dared say the word out load and that he dared so I had no active disease.?
Is it because a month ago when I was going through tubs of all of the Sidney athletic clothing, I have kept all these years that I found the hats I wore when I lost my hair, and I donated them to Goodwill?
Then things get weirder
Is it because I didn't spend enough time with my mom when she had cancer?
Is it because I was a bad friend to my best friend Julie in the 7th grade? She forgave me and we are still friends today!
Is it because I met a boy at Business Camp before my junior year of high school that I fell for even though I had a boyfriend?
Is it because I have always been a bit of a know it all?
Is it because I was a bit of cry-baby as a child - especially if I was embarrassed?
Is it because I was a suck up and a brownnoser, and no one likes those people. This one takes me down the winding path of when I was in first grade with my favorite teacher in the world, Mrs. Lloyd, and it we had a good week we got a peanut on Friday before we went home. Well, I didn't like peanuts so Mrs. Lloyd would put one raisin in the peanut bowl just for me. Did that make me the annoying kid? If it did, I didn't learn my lesson and was voted the biggest brownnoser of my Senior Class 11 years later.
By the time I get to this point in my spin down the rabbit hole I usually have to get out of bed and tell myself out loud to knock it off. Trying to answer the question of "why me" has caused me to revisit every bad thing in my life I have ever done from the smallest thing to the ones that still make my stomach hurt to remember.
But no matter how often this happens and how bad I make myself feel I still never get to what I would consider a good answer. I want to shout like my 3-year-old Abbey would have but at who and what good would it do?
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