Every Step of the Way: A Nurse's Cancer Diary - Entry 13
Nancy Cohen, BSN, RN, has graciously shared her personal journal, in which she writes about doing battle with cancer for the second time in her life. This is the 13th and final installment of a weekly blog that enabled readers to join her on the journey.
Entry 13: Facing Forward
December 28, 2011
I’ve been attending a support group for women with breast cancer. I hope it helps me to cope as I’m able to express my feelings and fears in a safe environment, although two of the women are in stage 3, which means their cancers are advanced, metastatic. One woman is a nun in her seventies and the other woman I met many years ago at my old hospital. We were both treated at the same time by the same physicians.
I feel terribly sad and afraid for them. And I wonder about my fate, too. Maybe that’s selfish but I think it’s normal.
I’ve now completed two cycles of chemotherapy and survived both so far with the hope that both the steroids and the wonderful anti-emetic continues to keep the nausea at bay. I’m able to eat and maintain an appetite. I am now facing my third infusion in one day.
In the meantime, my son is coming home from visiting his grandparents in Delaware over the winter break and we will be reunited. I look at him with renewed hope and pray I am able to take care of him for a long time. Until next time, diary …
Click here to read Entry 12: Hair Loss as a Family Event.