We in the cancer community refer to the weeks without treatments as 'gap' weeks. For the most part these gaps in treatment are supposed to be the best times, the most enjoyable for us because the medicine is all the way in and working really hard to get us better. People who are on vigorous chemo schedules often travel in between treatments, they may plan parties and really just try to enjoy themselves before their next treatment.
Because I am still a newbie, I haven't really been able to schedule myself around my treatments. Last gap week on this day, I was excited to be going on a trip and maybe that was enough of a distraction to keep my spirits high. This week I feel...well, in one of the blog's I read he described it as the bleo-blah's. The bleomyacin is one of the drugs in the ABVD that I am taking and one side effect is depression, or the blah's. All week, I have been down. Until today, I couldn't even find the motivation to write which is pretty much the extent of my existence. It's like a bad mood, only nothing improves it. One of my dear college friends usually describes it as a funk.
I am in a funk. I tried food, chocolate, vitamins, drugs, t.v., ipod, writing, sleeping, not sleeping, walking, talking, reading, showering, playing with my kids, surfing the net, petting my dog, and sitting outside; but I just can't shake the funk. It is stronger at times like last night when I finished off a half of a bag of Doritos, which I normally do not like, candy and pop while watching bad television till 2 am after popping a diazepam and hoping to get some shut-eye. Sometimes I can ignore it long enough to have a conversation or respond to an email. It's got to be something about the distraction from it that keeps me 'up' enough to survive.
When in a funk I tend to focus on the negatives and ignore the positives. I even neglect the very things that could help me get out of the funk like good nutrition and rest. Like right now, for instance, I should be sleeping. But I can't because the funk is in my head and it makes me crazy. The funk makes me whine about my hair loss when I should be happy to be alive. The funk makes me complain about my children and their little personalities, when I should be thankful that I was able to conceive. The funk makes my fuse short with my husband when I should be thanking him for putting up with me. The funk makes me think of stepping into the street when I hear the loud trucks whiz by my garage. The funk makes me feel tired, lonely and sick. I hate the funk.
Dear Lord, please take away the funk, help me to overcome the funk, give me the strength to rise above the funk. You have given me so many blessings, Lord. Thank you for words to speak and write with, thank you for people to talk to. I am so undeserving of your blessings. Thank you for friends who call when I need it the most, for strangers who offer so much to us; who open their hearts and give the food from their tables, who offer to watch my children when I can't find a sitter, who offer to can my vegetables when I would have let them rot. Thank you for friends who sacrifice time and energy to provide for my family, when I cannot. Thank you for communities of people who care about their neighbors. Thank you for teaching us how to love each other. Thank you for handwritten notes and packages in my mailbox. Thank you for wonderful small gifts and amazing survivor stories. Lord, give me the courage to climb up out of this funky disposition and enjoy the blessings that I am not worthy of receiving. In your Heavenly Name I pray, AMEN!
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