Blogging for a better life

Lately; but not lately, it feels like I’ve been stuck in forever where the revolving door doesn’t stop for exit. I entered the revolving door over two and a half years ago and it just keeps going. We know that once you enter a revolving door, you have to move at the pace it revolves. If you move too slow you’re going to get bumped in the rear with the possibility of being thrusted into the door in front of you. If you move too fast, your face will just be smashed up against the glass in front of you.

I think post-chemo recovery is much like the revolving door. You’re inside this broken body that represents the revolving door. Inside this broken body, it’s your job to find the pace and the rhythm that works to move into resting and recovery. Just when you think you may have gotten it; something happens, and again makes you doubt, fear, anger, frustrate, and every other emotion that exists. Right when you feel like you may be getting better and stronger; than out of nowhere, you wonder where all your energy and your words went. You haven’t done anything too differently. You’ve been following the regime that your care team has laid out for you. So, you think you’re on the right track in recovery. But all of a sudden, you don’t understand where the additional fatigue on top of the other fatigue came from. You have your moments of silent breakdowns where you’re lost in the thoughts of how surreal your life has become. You don’t understand why you can’t get your body to work right. You think maybe if I try just a little bit harder; but that trying a little bit harder only leads to another crash.

You cry your tears in the dark and mourn the loss of absolutely everything cancer has taken away from you; but amidst the tears and in the parallel of your thoughts, you are still filled with an abundance of gratitude for what you have and for who you have in your life that’s cheering you on in their own unique way. Those are the ones that have surrounded you in the thick of it. Those are the ones that surround you daily, weekly, monthly…helping to build you stronger, reminding you to have grace, loving on you, loving on you, and loving on you some more. I honestly don’t think I could; (I know that I couldn’t) have been doing this post-chemo life thing without those that are currently in my life.

Everyone around whether verbalizing it or just silently living it with me, has always been about grace and healing isn’t linear. I honestly think I’ve never heard those two thoughts in my life as much as I’ve heard them during my cancer journey. (And now it’s hit; just like that; I can tell my grammar just hit incorrectly and my chemo brain won’t allow me to figure out how to correct it), so all I can do is just keep pushing through and hope that my readers can rearrange and help connect the dots.

So; before cancer, I thought resting was sleeping and taking a break from the world. During my cancer journey; my mindset shifted into, resting is about not doing (what feels lazy) but isn’t lazy. But now where I am in my cancer journey, I’m confused. Because resting is supposed to restore, and I don’t feel restoration at all. I just feel more fatigue. Picture yourself getting up washing your face, brushing your teeth, pressing brew on your keurig, and then feeling like you literally want to crawl back in the bed because you feel like you haven’t slept in a week. Yep, that’s been post-chemo life for I don’t know how many months now. But; it’s exhausting being exhausted.

Lost about recovery. Well, recovery or healing isn’t linear. So now; picture yourself inside a corn maize and can’t figure how to get out. And now, this is where my brain literally stops and maybe we can pick up on these thoughts another time.

(C) 2025 AeKyung Yoo