^^^ Back at work. Lipstick? Check.

How are you feeling?

With my return to work this week, many people are asking me this.

My usual response is a chipper “I’m doing ok!” 

But am I?

I would describe my return this week – a week earlier than planned, but what I secretly thought would happen all along – as being at about 75% capacity.

My patient load is definitely less than usual and I have been trying to wrap up the afternoons by 3 PM or earlier. Our IVF schedule was also relatively light this week, slightly fewer than 20 cycles, and not all of them fell to me.

I’ve been doing less at home, too. I still have a 15# lifting restriction for another two weeks and am not allowed to raise my arms directly above my head or do repetitive motions. The post-operative instructions I received from the hospital had examples of What Not To Do and the arm movement section clearly said not to wash windows. I laughed out loud because I do not think I have ever – EVER! – voluntarily washed a window, much less repetitively so.

I told a few people that I’m feeling more tired than usual, but I had to dig deep and ask myself if I was really more fatigued or if I thought that’s how I should feel and was somehow telling myself/others a false narrative.

The truth is, I’ve enjoyed this week’s quasi part-time schedule.

By the end of my second week off of work after surgery (I took 2.5 weeks off total), I knew that I was sliding into a bad place where my daily activities of Eating Girl Scout Cookies and Watching Daytime TV could not continue. Next week I am diving back in, full schedule and full steam ahead. The IVF calendar is at capacity and I will need roller skates to keep up.

While I am desperate to get past this acute cancer phase (successfully, too, please, please!), I am slllloooowly starting to think about how After Cancer (AC) life will be structured.

The pace I’ve kept for the past 3 years is not a viable long-term strategy, nor should it be. I’d like to find a happy medium between my cookies/TV, quasi part-time and roller skates schedules, although everything now is still too raw and unresolved to feel like I can make extended plans.