Yet Another Milestone

I achieved another milestone today. I don’t know how to put this because this truly is the intimate details of my life, but this morning I had sex for the first time in six months. I really had very little desire during chemo. I simply didn’t think about it much. Howard has been very patient and loving during this time, never pushing me at all. But he was completely delighted this morning when I was interested in more than an exchange of chaste little kisses.

In fact, we really kissed for the first time in a long time. Kissing lead to caressing, to peeling off our pajamas and my discovery that everything still works, despite lack of pubic hair, enforced menopause, and prescription estrogen inhibitors. It was even fun.

Howard said that it seemed like it was finally safe for me to inhabit my body again. That was an insightful comment. I’ve had a war waged in me these past months. It hasn’t been philosophically tasteful to me at all. I get so tired of the “war on (drugs, terrorism, poverty, terrorism, cancer, etc.)” mentality that seems so Western, so misguided, so stupid. And yet I felt I had to go with this paradigm for lack of a better one. I haven’t really been in my body for six months, perhaps longer.

I went to work again today for a couple of hours. This time, I decided to do only what I could. It took hours to just get out of the house. I couldn’t locate my work keys for a while and that took detective work. I gave up on trying to take the bus since I had so many delays and I drove. Mary was there. I got there at her lunch time so we had a chance to talk. I tried to locate a letter that I needed to answer and couldn’t. I didn’t try to do a whole lot. I felt like it was enough just to be there. Being in that context makes me realize how much I have lost in terms of cognition. I found it hard to concentrate. Just looking over the files was overwhelming. Everything seems so complex. But I just allowed it to be complex, to feel the emotions I was feeling and to take the baby steps as needed. I keep having to recalibrate, to scale back my expectations.

I found a job online yesterday that gave me hope that there are job possibilities out there. I’m still not going to apply for anything until June at the latest. I see other women in my group who are doing well four months after last chemo and I’m hoping that I’ll be in better shape by then.

Yesterday marked six weeks after the last chemo.