3 weeks ago my life took a really sharp turn, one that will affect me for the rest of my life. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. If you have no experience of going through this, or of a friend or loved one fighting to make it through, then you will have no idea of the grief, fear, and anxiety that has affected me since I found out. I felt healthy, I was eating right, exercising, and losing weight. But that doesn’t count when it comes to a cancerous tumor growing inside you.
Right now I’ve lost 26 lbs. I still eat healthy, but my appetitite fluctuates greatly. Anxiety is a great hunger suppresant. I expect I will continue to lose weight over the course of my 9 month treatment. However, my ability to be completely dedicated to shopping, preparing and eating healthily every day will be impacted. My ability to go for hikes and snowshoeing adventures will be affected. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the coming months, but it will be the strangest and scariest journey of my life.
I don’t expect I’ll be posting here often, so if you don’t hear from me, there’s a really good reason. I didn’t fall off the wagon, I’m dealing with a serious illness. Already I’ve had 2 biopsies, 2 blood draws, an EKG, a MUGA (to test my hearts ability to function), a bone scan, an MRI, a CT scan, and had a surgery to put in a portable catheter in me, for which I’m still healing and have not yet recovered. In the next 2 weeks I begin 5 months of chemotherapy, and I will have surgery in the spring. During that process I will get chemo weekly for 12 weeks, then the second half is every other week for 8 weeks. I’ll have an additional 3 MRIs and several biopsies and many many blood draws. All that before a part of my body is removed. What I don’t know is how much will be removed. This will be a 9 month process before I can heal and move on.
Good luck everyone in your weight loss struggles. I’ll be dealing with it myself, but in a limited fashion over the next year.
dietmaven out.
dietmaven 