Dancing With Cancer Memoirs...The Empty Nest

I've had seven out of twelve chemo treatments. But I went for five weeks without due to low platelets on day and insurance issues the next. My FMLA ran out and I'm switching over to COBRA, which will cost me close to $700.00 a month. How can anyone afford that when they are not able to work???

I was doing alright until August 16th. That's the day my 18 year old daughter up and moves to Kansas. To be with a boy she's been talking to since she's been in middle school. How could she leave at a time when I need her the most? Cancer may have knocked me flat on my back, but that made me curl up in the fetal position and pull a bunch of blankets over my head. Cancer and the empty nest do not go well together. But she has to live her own life her way. She was not put on this Earth to please me, she has her own destiny that is seperate from mine. I'm angry and hurt but I'm trying to understand. And now, for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no one to focus on and worry about but myself. What a strange feeling. That's what I've always done; for the first half of my life that's what I thought I had to do. I think that's part of the reason I'm in this health crisis. I totally neglected myself. I stopped paying attention to what was going on with myself and my health.

Thankfully we keep in regular contact with each other and she is planning on visiting the week before Thanksgiving. She has a job and an apartment with roommates. She has her first boyfriend. She makes her own dental and doctor appointments. She's doing pretty good and I'm proud of her. She is even planning on taking some college classes next year. Not bad for someone who barely graduated high school.

But I'm still so hurt I can barely stand it. I begged her to stay at least until I'm finished with chemo, but she grew so resentful and passive aggressive I finally told her to just go.

So another chapter in my life comes to an end and another begins. I'll be done with chemo around the first week in January, which is when this whole nightmare started in 2008.

I had five weeks off chemo and it felt sooo good. Now I'm back on it and I feel like crap. I'm still having a hard time with it mentally. So many people's cancer comes back usually more agressive than the first time. According to statistics I have about a 44%-64% chance of being alive in five years. What's up with that? How can those cancer cells survive being napalmed so much? Every other cell in my body is being obliterated, how can microtumors hang on so? Will I always wonder if I have any more ticking time bombs floating around in my body waiting for an opportunity to take hold somewhere? Will I ever again draw a breath free from cancer-anxiety? How does one move on with their life post-cancer? Right now I just feel so stuck.