The Return to Health - Step One

How many steps are there to returning to health?   I am not sure but I am happily taking them and hopefully you'll be happy to read them!  

STEP ONE:  

The first step to returning to health is getting off of medication.  There is a lot of medication involved in cancer, both over the counter and prescription.  Here is a peek of what my medicine box looked like. 

There were more...trust me!

Considering the only medication I took before this was birth control and the occasional Claratin (although I hadn't taken either for well over a year), this was quite the change.  On discovering the box in the kitchen cabinet my husband said, "Wow, how did we go from a household with one prescription to a box of prescriptions so quickly?"  It happens fast my friends, really really fast.

In order to make life easier, I placed the box right in the kitchen cabinet.  After the side effects of chemo started to wear off, this constant reminder of being sick needed to go. 

Moving it out of the kitchen was a really liberating moment.  I placed the plates back where they belonged, walked to the bathroom, cleared some space in the linen closet, placed the box, and shut the door.  It sits next to the shampoo and conditioner that I didn't need after I lost my hair and the giant bottle of dial liquid soap I used in an intricate disinfecting ritual before and after surgery.  It was then I realized this was the first step to returning to health, closing the door on the meds all the complications that come with it.  The daily schedule, the long list I had to take to each appointment, the worry about leaving the house and not having the right one, the constant tiredness, the fog.  The schedule, the list, and the worry have gone away.  The fatigue and the fog...still working on that those.  For now, the meds have been put in their place and I'm  moving on...