An Unexpected Reaction during this Unexpected Journey

My last chemo was Thursday, July 2nd. I was elated. Finally, I was done with the weekly trips to the infusion center and everything they entailed! I had the typical side effects after chemo: sleeplessness from the steroids on Thursday night and Friday night, then a physical crash on Saturday and Sunday. I believed that I would feel a little better each day starting Monday, and the process of recovery would be smooth and easy.

Then I had some trouble sleeping Sunday night, and woke up Monday morning with a new side effect: stress and anxiety. If you have never experienced this, it feels like your blood pressure is up (I checked mine and it was normal) and you are just stressed about everything and anything that pops into your mind. Now, mind you, I do have some things in my life to be stressed about. I have breast cancer, and until I have my surgery, which is still not scheduled but will probably be a few weeks from now, I will not know if my cancer was all killed by the chemo, or not. After surgery, I'm still facing weeks of radiation and then maybe months of oral chemo. On top of all of that, we are living through a global pandemic, so I have the threat of possibly contracting COVID19. In addition, I teach college dual-enrollment classes, and we still don't know if we will be teaching online or in person starting in mid-August. I don't know if I'll be physically capable of doing my job if I have to teach in person, because I don't know if I'll be recovered enough at that time. The timing of all of these things coalescing at once is enough to be extremely stressful in anyone's life. 

I stayed stressed from Monday through Thursday, but managed to make it through my MRI Thursday morning okay. I called the oncology office and spoke with one of the chemo nurses. She said it's fairly common for people to feel this way after they are done with chemo. She said if it gets bad I can call for a prescription for something to help with it. I'm not too keen right now at putting more drugs in my body, though, so I'm not sure what I should do about that. I already have an Ambien prescription to help me get to sleep, and some nights I take a half of one of those so I can relax and fall asleep. I called my parents and they prayed with me, and my mom sang to me. I got my family and friends praying for me. I got a good night's sleep Thursday night, and Friday I felt much better. Ahhhh, I thought; the stress is gone and I feel better now. I had a great day Friday. Then I had another really rough night's sleep Friday night, and yesterday, Saturday July 11th, the anxiety was back. I struggled through the day with it. Last night I took a whole Ambien, and got a great night's sleep.

Today I'm still feeling stressed, although it doesn't seem as bad as yesterday. I don't want to get in the habit of taking Ambien so I can sleep. I don't know if I should call tomorrow and get another prescription, for something to take during the day. I am praying a lot, meditating on Scripture a lot, trusting God in all of this. I know that He is good, that He loves me and my family, and that He wants me to have His peace, which passes understanding. My sister Ruth suggested Psalm 121, which has helped immensely. Give it a read and you'll see what I mean.

I will update on here after my appointment with the surgeon on Tuesday.