What's Normal for A Cancer Patient

In this video Jane describes what's normal and not normal for her as she goes through this process.

Waking up and having my own hair, having some reconstructed breast, not being nauseated and having more energy. I have an incorporated normal into getting up and being bald and putting a wig on my head to go outside. That isn’t normal for me. Over the last few months with the chemo therapy, normal has been at some degree of nausea, almost all the time, and a very warp sense of appetite and even some things you just can eat anymore. So it’s like—and I don’t feel normal about that. Now, I’m not going to feel normal right now about losing my breast, and the pain that goes within and I know I’ve got a few weeks to go through where it’s going to be painful and going to be very uncomfortable. And I was limited on my mobility, even like I can't even take the cap off of the medication container because you have to push down and twist, and it hurts too much to do that. For sure, I can't drive for two weeks, so unless people are going to take me around I don’t even really want to go out, actually. I mean, you know, it’s like it’s not much fun cause you’ve got these drains banging at your side and they’re hard the camouflage. Most helpful thing has been the moral support I have at home and just knowing when I come home like because I worked through the chemo therapy. I maybe had a taken a couple of days off that were particularly bad as far nausea but just knowing when I could come home then I could relax and not having a lot of other duties and worries here at home. So my husband has been excellent in helping with that and my kids too, my friends. But still it’s hard to ask people for help. What you realize is that when you’re incapacitated, not everybody understands what you can and can’t do, and you have to say things like, “You know, I need you to hold the arm out from my robes so I can get in the in.” or “I need you to put a pillow under my back” or just little things like that that you don’t always anticipate. Like just to get in to bed, I have to have step stool to get up because our beds go high just. There are things I can't really do for myself right now, or it hurts too much to do them. I’m not supposed to do that. I think it’s just kind of like you’re tired and you really—the less ado about stuff the better off. I just want to do and get over with. So, I mean it’s not like its just fun roller coaster ride to be on. That’s definitely roller coaster ride but not a fun one. I just assume we get to the end of the ride where I get through the treatments and all of that and kind of get my life back to some sort of normalcy.