Good Morning! Rainy cold day here in Winnipeg. Before I was so busy caring for my husband I didn't have time most days to check in. Now I have the time, because the last two months he is doing better. His chelation therapy is working, and he will be on his pump for awhile yet. Dr. visit at cancercare July 31st.
He's back to making meals and doing dishes. Before well for four years I was completely overwhelmed here doing everything for him, and to run the house and car, mowing and shovelling snow. Driving him 3x a week 45 minutes a day to the hospital. Now he has handi-transit and can go himself most times. What I'm finding is I have a lot of time on my hands and spend a lot of time alone here, because he is either gone or sleeping. My life has revolved totally around him, and now not sure what to do with my time, even tho I am so grateful for down time. I have no excuses left not to stay quit. My mental health is good most times. I still struggle with painful memories that come up from my past when I quit. It seems like I pushed everything down with cigarettes and didn't deal with the stuff as it happened.
Now...........I can learn to cope without resorting to smoking, because I can actually talk about this stuff now. Honestly for so long I just wanted to numb out these painful memories and not deal with them. It's a good thing hard drugs were not available to me, because I probably would have been another kind of addict. I am a nicotine addict tho, and I must face that. I must accept that I can never have another puff!! I have been the queen of denial, even tho I had breast cancer 7 years ago. I never did accept that I was going through that either, wouldn't let myself believe that I was close to dying. I had stopped smoking for six months then. I was almost through the worst of it, and then relapsed. I've been doing my best to get the mindset I need for this again. I've quit a zillion times, I am the dumbest person on earth, not to have seen what the heck I was doing to myself by smoking! It's not fun going through two surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and a drug called Tamoxifen for 5 years! The worst part they told me is even if I didn't smoke ever again the cancer could come back as lung cancer or brain cancer or any other kind of cancer.
I am fortunate to have had 7 more years of life, now I'm wanting more!!! Gonna stay quit, and face my issues here.
Thanks for listening to me ramble on about myself. When I saw Dian's blog and Ellen's blog I realize how deadly smoking is!!
xo
