Blogging for a better life

This past month has been an extremely challenging month, aside from all others! I guess you can say I really got into a slump of things. It’s one thing when you catch a cold. You have one single thing to focus on. Rest and chicken noodle soup usually does the trick, along with a whole lot of Kleenex. With cancer and chemotherapy, chemo really does a number on you. It’s not just about chemo knocking you out during treatments; but, it’s also about everything it destroys in addition to cancer. It’s about learning along the way in recovery, about the power of cancer and chemo. And it’s also about the individual learning just what they’re truly made of. There’s a lot of things in this world that challenges us. However, cancer and chemo hit all at once. This past month has been about an extreme amount of overwhelmingness that took me into an abyss. And I’ll share with you, just how I’m working on climbing my way out!

I will say this; at the very beginning of my cancer journey, I voiced it aloud that I honestly believed that God was mustering up one amazing story! …one amazing testimony, all complete with a whole lot of lessons that you just can’t make up!

It seems like the latter half of 2023 and all of 2024 has been about recovery and learning new things every day and or every week in how chemo has impacted my body. Before cancer, I was never a complainer, and I was never a doctor’s visit kind of gal. Not that I’m a complainer now; (at least I don’t think I am), but more of an explainer. Anyways; if I’m not getting follow-up scans for my oncologist, then it feels like I’m visiting a slew of other specialists. Rehab seems to be kicking my butt! Who knew that trying to regain cognitive skills can leave you physically exhausted! Trying to participate in speech therapy following occupational therapy feels like an epic failure! Talk about a knockdown on your lack of intelligence, self-confidence, and self-esteem!

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll mention it now. Before cancer, I was a restaurant general manager who was constantly on the move, working anywhere from 60-70/80-hours a week. Whether it be in the store or at home for the store. The true definition of rest was not in my vocabulary. It hasn’t been until cancer; where I am (or think I am), truly beginning to understand rest.

Rest is the foundation of health. Without rest, we are constantly burning ourselves out without even realizing it. And while I’m beginning to understand rest, I won’t say that I don’t get frustrated in my recovery for every time I struggle in doing something or for every time I’m too exhausted to even think and function “normal.” I still wonder whether or not I’ll be able to function in the capacity I once did before cancer, while making healthier life choices for myself. All of this has left me this past month in serious darkness and solitude; that if I never would have shared, no one would have ever known. Not to say that I would have injured myself or anything; just that I was feeling very dark.

How am I working on climbing my way out of this rut with a more positive outlook into my future? Honesty and vulnerability. Raw and real. There’s no other way. I can’t tell you how many times I would openly cry in public, (which I never did that prior to cancer) or how many times I would purposefully avoid trying to get out or run into people. I could literally sit in the quiet dark from the time I woke up, until it was time to go to bed. Pulling myself together to go to my medical appointments this past month has been a lot of daunting work for me. But how am I working on climbing my way out of this rut of an abyss? By being as brutally honest and vulnerable as I can be with my care team and to the one that takes care of me at home. By being open to the possibilities of trying other ways to heal and move forward in my life. By doting on the one that I love, to help in taking my mind off of my challenges. By asking God to help me reset and restart again, no matter how frustrated I get. To allow myself to dream like a child again. Lastly, and the most challenging of them all, following the advice of my entire care team in allowing myself grace and acknowledging and accepting that I have gone through a tremendous trauma. Which this trauma just seems so surreal to me. That sometimes, I don’t believe I’ve been through and am going through this. That Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma truly is my reality!

There is something to be said within the cancer journey. Cancer seeks to kill. Chemo seeks to destroy, leaving the opportunity for the individual to rebuild. What a devastating lesson to learn from cancer; but you don’t have to be affected by cancer to understand that this is a lesson for all. It doesn’t matter your age, ethnicity, nationality, financial status, etc… Each day we wake up, we have the opportunity to rebuild and to recreate a life that we have dreamed of having! As long as we are willing to fight for it and understand that despite what the world may see…it is most definitely okay to reset and restart. But again; FYI, Strawberry Cake really does make it a little bit easier!

(C) 2024 AeKyung Yoo