Day 59: August 4, 2019

Took me three days, but I have finally gotten on board that it is August.


I'm not going to lie, sometimes all of this is just overwhelming. I think that is where I personally was yesterday- for really no good reason. But sometimes it is just overwhelming, and I was in a bit of a funk. The treatment. What we are actually doing here (IE: CANCER). The cost of treatment. The implications of what is actually happening with chemo. Changes in all of us- whether good or bad. Justin missing work. All of the other stuff in life that continues regardless of treatment: house projects, work, kids, all the things that continue to speed right along and don't care about the elephant in the room that you are dealing with. You like to believe and think that life has stopped, but truthfully, it hasn't. It carries on with  or without you, so if you don't keep up with it, when you get back to it, you find that you have some catching up to do, which sometimes makes it even that much more overwhelming. I think it's ok to embrace even the days where it seems overwhelming. It's ok to feel sad. It's ok to cry. We've had all of these emotions. It's not always a pretty process... clearly. And some days, even at the end of it all and perhaps even more so because it is the end of it all, it seems just... overwhelming.


Sometimes in those moments, it is hard to see the positive. It's hard to see how far we've come. It's hard to see that we are ALMOST OVER THE HURDLE. I don't have a good solution, either, for how to get through it. I tried to go on a walk- wasn't feeling it. Did some yard work... worked out a bit in the gym. Pretty much all half ass. Talked to Justin. Read my book in the sun. Basically tried all avenues of just allowing myself to breathe and decompress. Sometimes, you just have to allow yourself to be in a funk. I kept thinking, man life is hard. I think back 10 years ago to when I met and was dating Justin and our youthful "problems" and dreams. You kind of know you will be thrown challenges in life, but you never really expect to have CERTAIN challenges. I told him at one point yesterday, in some ways, selling everything and just starting all over in the middle of nowhere might be good once all of this is over.... that life is just hard and let's get back to the basics of what REALLY matters.  Irrational I know. And CLEARLY, things could be MUCH WORSE. But, what we have learned is that sometimes you just have to embrace the muck. Embrace the feelings for what they are. I felt overwhelmed as we all have at certain points in this process, and the best way to combat that was just to try all those routes, and then realize that tomorrow is a new day in which we can just start all over again and hopefully being in a better frame of mind to tackle them one at a time.


First up: Oliver today. Did not feel well, at all. After several really good days, it is too bad that cancer/chemo reminds him all too clearly that he is still in this. He was tired, his throat hurt, just overall felt yucky. His buds came over to say goodbye (one of them is flying back to Michigan tomorrow), and they were all pretty low energy also.

 What we did today? Did our best to enjoy the gorgeous summer weather in the pacific northwest. Bright and early this morning the kids, Colleen and I made the trek out to a blueberry farm by our house to pick blueberries! Next time we'll bring our hiking shoes and hike before or after. Owen couldn't believe that he has hiked this mountain before (he has!)

 

The kids were enamored! At one point Bennett said: I could do this all day. Until 5 minutes later he decided, maybe he was done. Ha! We have been before but Owen was too young to remember and Bennett was a baby on my chest.

We spent about an hour and got 8 pounds of blueberries! This is awesome, and we have huge bags of bluebs in the freezer now, too, for the winter! We might even have to go back there in a week or two, to get more to stock up for the winter. In case you didn't know: blueberries are definitely a superfood! Even better when you can pick them yourself and know the source. If you freeze huge bags, you can put them in your smoothies, or thaw out later to juice, etc. Win-win!

When we got home, Justin was still playing 50 million tree pick up. The game that never ends... he decided to take a load of the scraps to the dumb. GREAT PLAN! It actually ended up working really well as the dump by us takes yard waste (which we did not know).

One of our friends who we know from her sons' involvement on the bike team brought by a boat/kyak for the kids. Of COURSE, this became a fun toy in the driveway yesterday afternoon.

Justin also washed the cars, and since it was almost 90 degrees here... he got the kids with the nose. Which was then reciprocated from them to him.

There were baths afterwards, and B decided he wanted to get "all fancy."

To which he then broke out the dance moves...

Owen is of course our perpetual athlete, so his idea of changing clothes into something else was his baseball uniform. Ha!

Later in the evening, cuddling on the couch for family movie night. Pretty low key day, but we did get a fair amount of work done around here, and the kids had a blast with another summer day in which they just run all over, get dirty, enjoy the sun. We will miss these days once we are back in to the rhythm of school and the cooler days of fall. One more month to go! They start school September 4.

#oliverstrong with the mountain behind the picture. Kind of like the real #oliverstrong- with his army mountain behind him. One more day of chemo tomorrow, and then we are done with chemo... hopefully forever. We believe we will be done forever!