It has been a good while -yet again- since I have written on my blog. I am trying to find the time and motivation to write again. I guess the good news is that I am busy. Busy doing life. Which for a while I was sidelined from. So busy is really good news for me.

I am about 10 weeks post surgery. I am a few weeks post a great vacation that we took to Wilmington NC and Charleston SC. I am grateful that I was able to take the trip. I got in the truck for the drive down south and a pain flare began. I likely did way too much preparing for this trip. Packing was the the likely culprit that took me from feeling pretty well before we left to being in bad pain on the drive down.

I was pretty bummed out. My recovery from surgery had been promising. I was feeling well. My pain level was down. But what I had noticed was that things were backsliding some. Things in my surgical area felt tight. I had been told to massage my scars and that they would actually get softer in time. My nasty radiated scar is gone so that leaves me with three new scars but they aren’t radiation damaged scars. I wanted to be positive but it has been hard. I am four surgeries in trying to rid me of this post breast cancer therapy pain – so I get defeated sometimes when I feel the pain intensify.

In that truck on the way to Wilmington , NC – I took pain meds- I just had to because this trip was important. I wasn’t going to mess it up. Kevin and I needed to get away.  We are caring for my mother in our home. And she is a wonderful person but Kevin and I hadn’t been away alone much in the last few years – so it was time. And well it was also our 20th Wedding Anniversary. I wanted celebrate that milestone!

I felt a lot of pressure going into this trip. I planned it. I love planning and I was excited to see the areas we chose to visit. I will write more about that trip later but I will say it was a lovely time. But I felt this pressure to not mess it up because of my pain. So in that truck I  was so frustrated with this pain flare. We cut a trip short last fall because of my pain and I was so disappointed. I really wanted to be able to take this trip and not have to cut it short. We were to be away for a week.

I was supposed to begin PT when I got home…another thing I was skeptical of because I hadn’t found any PT that ever helped me. So as we were driving I took out my Ipad and began searching for some type of PT therapy that might be designed for either breaking up scar tissue or for cancer pain in general.

One search led to another and I ended up finding a PT group near my home that performs a type of rehab therapy for cancer patients called ReVital.  I have been going now for a couple weeks. And the therapy group I am seeing near me is really great. I knew from the first visit they knew what they were doing. The therapist asked all the right questions. She knew about radiation damage and issues due to chemo. They work on breaking down scar tissue and are trying to stretch muscles and tendons in my arm that are damaged by radiation and were also made immobile due to frozen shoulder – I also had that after the cancer treatments.

PT is not without pain but the first day the therapist told me straight. If I don’t get this arm moving I am just going to get worse. So here I am going diligently to PT. The fact that horrible scar is gone is allowing me to do more than I would have been able to do if I still had it. So I am ever so thankful to Dr. Del Corral for removing it.

I feel hopeful for the first time in a good while. I know I will probably flare again (and I had a flare the first day of PT and when I left that flare was gone so that really gave me hope). I know there are steps forward and steps back. But I have been fighting for almost three years to get my life back. To feel normal.

Yesterday I drove my mom to her haircut appointment and while she was there I ran to the hardware store and to the grocery. I ran into a friend in the grocery and we chatted for a few minutes. I hurried through my shopping so I could get back to get my mom. It sounds so normal to people reading this I am sure –  but for me it is huge. Just to be able to drive and to have that freedom is so great. And Maybe some of you know this but I have had anxiety for years and shopping alone isn’t easy for me and for a long time I never did it. And now I am doing just that. I am trying so hard to just live life. Normal stuff is good.

So on that trip down south I didn’t know what I was getting into when I booked an appointment for PT. But sitting in the truck I felt like maybe it might be good. Just keep moving forward. That is always in my head. When we got to Wilmington I told myself I was going to enjoy our darn vacation. I was not sitting around! I was going to see stuff. And Kevin – as always- said he would do whatever I needed to do. There was no pressure from him…it was me pushing me.

So the ice pack became my good friend.  I toted it under my arm for much of the trip. Anti- inflam meds were needed daily and a few days into the Charleston leg of our trip I realized I was feeling much better – we had eaten and shopped our way through that city – and we had clocked some walking miles on that trip. It was very good.

All I can say is thank God for ice packs and thank God for the wonderful husband I married 20 years ago in April 1999. I often still cannot imagine my luck.

I am so grateful for being able to do normal things. I am grateful for a PT group that gets my pain situation.

And as my dad would have said- “Keep the nose of the plane up Anne” – I am trying Dad  – I really am.

Southern Mansion South of Broad Charleston SC