Cancer and the mind

I am fast approaching my LAST chemo treatment. I am delighted that I am moving on from this awful but necessary part of healing. Although I live everyday with cancer it is often absent from my mind or at least it seems that way. I realized this last weekend when some folks we were visiting that I don't see very often asked how I was doing. I knew they weren't just asking about my physical health but my mental health. At the beginning there were many many dark moments. Now it seems that there are almost no moments at all. At some point the auto pilot switch got thrown and that is where I am most of the time. All I have room for is chemo and my family. My brain can't really hold anything else right now. Oh certainly there is the occasional bubbling up of fear, sadness, anxiety, etc., etc.. Maybe this is bad, maybe I am in denial. All I know is that most of this year has been the worst ever, and what keeps me going is my amazing partner and the funny, silly, happy, goofy, smart, delightful 20 month old asleep in the next room. Perhaps when chemo is over I will be able to move some of the fog that seems to cloud that part of my brain that lets me process truly how devastating and life changing this all really is. But for now I am in the fog and I have my eye on the prize, being done with having toxic chemicals pumped into my body. That's my prize for now, that and the fact that last week when I saw my surgeon, even she who feels up women with odd lumps in their breast all day long couldn't feel my lump. Not at all, not even a little bit.