It ain't all bad, yet.

Instead of exercising last night at Livestrong, we listened to a guest speaker. One of the topics was lymph edema, the other was pelvic pain. The speaker asked us to introduce ourselves and let him know if we had anything we wanted covered. As the intros went on, and questions were asked, I realized my cancer experience is completely different than all the other people's in the room. Most of these (mostly) women had similar side effects and lingering health concerns, based on what they were saying.

It seems, without knowing all the facts, that most of these people went through the intense chemotherapy. The kind that knocks you on your ass, makes your hair fall out, causes debilitating fatigue and a multitude of other issues. It also seemed that most had had lymph nodes removed (I have not). I would venture to guess that most were early stage cancers. These are the impressions I got from the questions asked.

As I sat there listening, it dawned on me: I haven't experienced any of that! I don't want to say my cancer diagnosis is worse than someone at a lesser stage, but my prognosis probably is. I thought back to my mother in law, who died from gall bladder cancer. She almost died from the chemo! It was that harsh. Granted, that was 15 years ago and treatment has probably come a long way, but it seems it still really wipes people out. Because in my case, our treatment focus is quality of life and progression-free survival, my doses have been much lower and more tolerable. I expect it will eventually catch up to me, but for now, I am so lucky!

I guess if you're looking for a bright side, that's it.