RAYS OF SUNSHINE

Thursday, April 13

We have radiation dates! I've decided to call the treatment: Rays of Sunshine. Much better, don't you think?

I start Tuesday, April 18. I will receive a daily dose of my Rays of Sunshine until May 9 (excluding weekends). This will be followed by about 2 weeks of recovery and healing. OK! Here we go...

To read more about this next phase of treatment, go to my previous blog post: STRONG AF

I didn't expect treatment to start so quickly. I was told that it would start in about 2 weeks or so, but here we are. I had other plans for the coming week before it all started. Not anymore!

One of the most challenging aspects of this cancer journey has been timing. Ya, there never is a good time for this sort of thing to happen, and that isn't really what I am talking about here. It's more about the inability to plan.

I knew, very loosely, the timeline of how this journey would be, I had envisioned that I would be done by Spring. I had my heart set on the Spring Equinox! Now this wasn't a date I pulled out of a hat willy-nilly, it was a guesstimate calculated around what I was being told about how long the different stages of the treatment would take. What no one accounted for, me included, was the lag between the stages of treatment - the time in which more tests were made, or the true length of down-time or how much time a second surgery would add to the overall time-frame. All that.

Haha, this brings up my time as an event planner... the important parts, the magic, if you will, was always in the details. And that is exactly what I have been missing this entire time... there are no details. It's more about generalized timelines and "wait and sees" and needing to go with the flow and give up on inflexible planning.

In December, as I was looking ahead, David and I had decided to take advantage of ticket specials that Straford Festival was offering. We looked at the calendar and booked tickets for April. Two different shows in fact. I was hopeful and wanted something in my calendar to look forward to. Well, as it happens, one of the shows falls exactly during one of my treatments. I'm giving the tickets away.

And then there is my business. There's anxiety around that. I was hoping to have been able to get more planning done and lots of behind-the-scenes stuff too, but there has been a lack of energy and motivation. I find that very frustrating. Then the cycle of upset and being pissed off at myself and the cancer pops up every now and again. It's been a struggle. I want to plan and move forward, yet I'm needing to start anew on so many things and this takes time, energy and space - emotionally and mentally. Nope. Empty on all counts.

I had plans for late 2022 and early 2023 - the time to relook at what needed changing in my business, new offerings, planning, execution... all the back-end technical and administrative stuff too. Instead, my time was taken up by travelling along the Pink Road and honestly, it has been all-consuming. And as I enter this last phase of treatment, now isn't the time either.

And so I surrender. Moving things or removing things from my calendar and to-do lists. Giving myself more space. Really allowing myself the healing and recovery time necessary. Finding JOY wherever I can and see what I need as I go. And for now, having the Rays of Sunshine be the only thing on the schedule.