It's interesting how good humans are at adapting to loss.

When I was first told that I had lymphoma, my immediate thought was that cancer kills. But that was quickly usurped by the idea that it wouldn't be me dying, at least not then. 

Even though I was smacked with a diagnosis that leaves many dead, I felt blindsided for only a few minutes before I made the decision to be one of the survivors, no matter what it would require of me. 

Fortunately, it has so far been my fate. 

When my hair-shaving party was held just over four months ago, I didn't want to be there. I kept shoving others in front of me to get their hair shaved because I had no desire to do so, even while dozens of people who love me surrounded me in support.

I cried every time someone happily sat down on the stool to have their head shaved, like they didn't give a rat's ass that their hair would be gone with one swipe of the clippers.

Why not, people?

I was falling apart knowing that I didn't have a choice but to lose my head of hair. 

I had to fight back tears when it actually happened, and cringed with the sight of myself in the mirror. 

But now?

I flip my wig or bandana off of my head as soon as I walk in the door to my home and spend the rest of the evening bald. Sometimes, I even remove whatever I'm wearing on my head as I drive home, allowing cool air to soothe my hot scalp. If I'm really in the mood, I go in public with a bald head (I would do this more readily, but my head gets cold quickly!). 

I constantly rub the stubbles on my head in a weird, OCD-kind-of-way because I love the way it feels as I drag my hand across my scalp. And since my hair began growing back a few weeks before my final chemotherapy, my head feels like a baby chick's, all soft and fluffy, so it's even more enticing to touch. 

I was certain that I would feel mortified without eyebrows and eyelashes, but they fell off so slowly, I only noticed they were gone when I tried to put mascara on the few remaining hairs.

Now I highlight my eyes with a brown pencil, put on red lipstick, and call it good.

I don't fuss over make-up, nor worry about how I look before strutting out the door, confident as though I had a full head of my own hair with eyebrows and lashes to match. Even though my eyebrows have mostly grown back in, they are now very blonde so they still don't show up against my light complexion.

When I lost feeling in my fingertips within 12 hours after receiving my first chemotherapy treatment, I got used to it within a few days. When the same cotton-under-my-skin feeling reached my toes just a few weeks ago, I knew what to expect. This neuropathy may even follow me for a lifetime. 

Que sera.

The chemotherapy may have numbed-up the tips of my fingers and toes, but it also saved my life. 

I am sure I will even get used to the idea of dying should that scenario be my story before I'm ready. 

Although I just learned a month ago that the cancer could no longer be detected on my PET scan, my mortality was put into question during the months when I had no idea if the chemotherapy was working or not. 

Fortunately, my treatment went well and I am finally done with nary a trace of cancer. 

But while I was home recovering after each treatment, I missed 7 days of work each time, which also meant lost wages, sometimes twice in one month. You can imagine that I lost a lot of money during that time, and you'd be right. My absence totaled just over eight work weeks, which amounted to about 20% of lost income for this year. 

That financial loss is a huge chasm that I will most likely never be able to recoup, but the upside is that many of you contributed money, while others donated vacation days, making my financial loss a bit more manageable. 

The external losses of cancer are obvious but they are also temporary, and will soon be just a distant memory.

Sadly, other losses have been more difficult to deal with and understand. 

During one of the most challenging times in my life, I was given an opportunity to see a real-live snapshot of how people behaved while watching my journey unfold. You've been privy to how beautifully so many people came to my aid. 

​As surprised and ecstatic as I was (and continue to be) by the outpouring of help and love, I am just as sad to report that some of the people I thought were part of my support network disappeared when cancer came on the scene. 

No explanations. They just never showed up. Or they quietly vanished. It was perplexing, but I just assumed each time that perhaps a diagnosis of cancer was just too much for some people to face. 

My chemo nurse confirmed this when she told me, "I've seen so many people lose best friends over cancer. It happens all the time."

And I was shocked. 

Because I lost one of mine, too. 

It was both heart-breaking and confusing when she disappeared because I didn't see it coming. She slowly started to fade into the background of my life, then her final departure was swift and harsh.

There are so many questions left dangling. 

And so much sadness left to face. 

Of all the losses that cancer has thrown into my life, losing trust in someone who was like a sister has been the biggest loss of all. 

A colleague recently commented that since I was deemed "cancer free" on my PET scan a few weeks ago, it seems like all the fanfare around me and my diagnosis has disappeared. 

And she is right.

Most people have stopped calling or texting to check in; meals are no longer delivered; bracelets have been taken off; fund-raising has come to a halt; and the focused attention on me is non-existent.

But I can hardly blame anyone.

After all, the minute there was no cancer found on my scan, my view of myself and my needs changed, too. 

We all sighed a collective sigh of relief, then jumped back into our lives--the ones we were unabashedly living before taking a hiatus to focus on me as I wrestled head-on with cancer. 

I dove back into my old routines as quickly as I could once I left the oncologist's office that beautiful day when she told me my cancer was gone. Within days, I returned to work full-time with the same energy and stamina I had before cancer; I resumed my walking and yoga routines; and I began to live life as though cancer was never a part of it.

I got so busy, so fast, that I haven't posted a blog in 4 weeks, and I rarely keep Facebook apprised of how I'm doing these days. I've barely had time to slow down with this new schedule. 

It has even been difficult for me to remember that just last month I was still flat-out on the couch recovering from chemotherapy #6. It feels like another lifetime, one that I was only vaguely a part of. 

I had cancer? 

It doesn't seem possible, nor real. 

But, wait a minute...

Although I'm clear of cancer, that doesn't mean I'm altogether out of the woods, either.

I am just finishing three weeks of radiation that has been uneventful and relatively easy. My 2.5 minutes on the "hot seat" happen at the end of my workday, five days a week. The most tiresome part of each day is driving thirty minutes each way to and from my sessions, just to show up for a few minutes. This new routine is boring and intrusive. 

But radiation is also potentially dangerous and I'm not entirely through with this cancer journey yet. Everyone keeps forgetting that, just as I do. 

Since radiation kills fast-growing cells (just like chemo), and the area of focus is my chest, I was warned that my throat may feel sore and I may experience heartburn as my esophagus' lining becomes vulnerable to breakdown. I was also told that if it happened, it would be near the end of my 20 sessions since my radiation dose was so low. 

But after just seven sessions last week, I felt a stabbing pain just below my throat when I swallowed a stewed tomato from my lunchtime soup. It continued every time I swallowed, like nails were scraping the inside of my esophagus. It wasn't exactly my throat that hurt, but the area below it, so I assumed I was experiencing the side effects I'd been warned about. But when I met with the MD that same day, he confirmed that it was too soon to be troubled by side effects. 

He also peered down my throat, but didn't seem concerned. He handed me a prescription for a lidocaine cocktail that would numb my esophagus so I could eat, and I was sent on my merry way. 

But the lidocaine didn't help.

In fact, the soreness only got worse. You'd think that as a nurse I'd be worried about Strep throat, but it never crossed my mind to consider it a possibility. Probably because never in my 55 years have I ever had it.

By day #5, I was still choking down food while wincing, so I finally called the doctor. She wasn't worried about Strep, either, but recommended Ibuprofen to curb the pain. I am not one to reach for medications quickly, so that hadn't crossed my mind, either. She described my symptoms as the "perfect storm": a possible cold virus combined with the beginning of radiation side effects. 

It is moments like these when I want to raise my white flag. I'm no longer is severe distress, but I'm tired of this on-going, seemingly never-ending journey. I want to quit walking and sit down and rest. I want my life back. I want to quit worrying about new symptoms while feeling paranoid about old scary ones. 

This transition into the life I lived before cancer has been slow.

I jumped back into parts of it, like work, but the rest still feels disjointed with several pieces dangling. I feel overwhelmed about how to move forward. And there are so many people to contact after falling off the grid for six months. 

My house is disheveled after 6 months of ignoring it. There are birthday balloons from July still floating around my ceiling, and the weeds in my yard are choking whatever has been trying to grow around them.

My coaching business feels dormant, ready to spring anew, but can it be revived considering the lull it has taken? 

I've had to remind myself to take it easy through the end of the year. After all, it has only been six weeks since chemo was completed. I've experienced a severe trauma that needs patience and tender loving care as I navigate my way back into my life while I create a new future. 

But I have no idea what that future looks like, or what I want it to be. My coach thinks that's a good thing, to not have a clue about my next steps. While I find it somewhat freeing, I am also a woman who likes to plan. And I have no plan this time. 

As quickly as cancer stole my life, it also gave it back to me when I wasn't exactly expecting it. But more than feeling jubilant about it, I mostly feel lost. 

There is a need inside of me that has to know what this was all for. There has to be a reason that cancer interrupted my life and I don't want to miss or waste that lesson. I've written my theories about what it meant, but what do I do with that information now? 

My world view has changed, but little else has. I work the same job, live in the same house, surrounded by the same people, doing the same things. 

I feel an enormous responsibility to change something, or do something in a big way, but as I see the finish line just 6 radiation sessions down the road, I can't help but choke back tears of immense joy. On November 16th, just a week before Thanksgiving, I will be done.

​This journey will be officially over.

The best I can muster today, as I see my future opening up, is to bow on bended knee in deep gratitude that I was given another chance at life.