PUSH

Last week I went out with a couple of friends of mine for a day trip.  We went just a couple hours away to just have lunch, go shopping, girls day out. 

I have new hours at work.  I start work at 5:45am and work until noon, sometimes later on during the day.  I should go to bed early, but being a night owl is hard to give up.  I just can't get my ass in bed before 11pm on most nights.

So back to the trip.  It was a great day with friends. Started out about 10am and we got back home around 5 or 6pm.  Great food, a lot of laughs and some shopping thrown in there.

I didn't realize how much the trip to a town just an hour and a half away would wipe me out.  I didn't drive.  I have to ride up front, if I sit in the back seat I get car sick.  Always asking to sit in the front seat is a little embarrassing for me, but it beats the alternative.   Chemo made tolerance for that worse.

When I got home I had that fatigued feeling.  The same feeling I got when I was going through chemo, that tired worn out feeling.

Now being a 3 year survivor I would have thought that feeling like that would be gone.  But no, it isn't.

Being a cancer survivor is hard sometimes.  You do things you did before you had cancer, expecting it to be what it was like before, sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. 

This time it was not.  The fatigue I felt felt exactly like chemo fatigue.  Feelings like that can bring you right back to a particular moment.

Remembering how shitty you felt, or looked.

Even after playing hockey this season, even after the two times a week pilates session I did in addition to the hockey.

I still have times when I feel like that.

I hate that.

I have to remember that it still takes time to heal from cancer, even after three years.

I have to remember that I still have to push myself sometimes to get back to where I was before.

Or push myself past that, to be better than I was.

That is the place I want to be.

Mel is the producer/co~host of The Vic McCarty Show. Listen Live Monday~Friday 10am-noon eastern time on wmktthetalkstation.com

Check out my podcast The Cancer Warrior on Empoweradio.com Available on demand and also available on Itunes.