Warm Bodies

Several weeks ago I read the book Warm Bodies. Yes... a book about zombies.  It's not my usual genre but I'm one of those people who insist on reading the book before I watch the movie.  I saw the preview for this movie and it looked hysterical so my sister-in-law and I decided that we were going to see the movie.  We haven't seen the movie yet but we have both read the book.  Anyhow...  The book is about a zombie whose name is "R".  He calls himself "R" because he has no memory of who he was before he turned into a zombie.  "R" meets a human girl and saves her from the other zombies.  He begins to grow self-aware.  He starts to feel things both emotionally and physically and he eventually turns back into a human.  Chemo had kinda turned me into a zombie.  The past several weeks I have been slowly becoming more self-aware.  Every day I start to feel a little bit more normal.  I can feel the fog lifting from my mind.  I have almost completely regained all the feeling in my fingertips.  I have the energy to think and to feel.  I have begun to feel human again.  It's the most unusual experience... literally feeling like I'm coming back to life.

I have started to exercise.  My friend Heidi talked me into taking one of her classes on Mondays and Thursdays.  Last night I was extremely close to tears half way through the work out.  I am doing a modified workout from what everyone else in the class does and I'm doing less reps and I come in last every time... by a lot.  As I was doing the exercises I started to make excuses for myself in my head.  "You just finished chemo.  You've had 2 surgeries.  You had a baby 4 months ago."  I started to feel defeated.  I got discouraged and it caused me to get a catch in my throat.  The catch in my throat caused a tightness in my chest as I held back the tears of frustration and anger.  And then I got a horrible stitch in my side and pain in the muscles around my expander.  And then I couldn't run.  It was exasperating.  It's going to be a lot of work getting back in shape.  I'm going to have to learn how to deal with this disappointment in myself so that it doesn't get in my way.

Tomorrow is my first day of radiation.  I thought I was starting today but when I got there they informed me they had given me the wrong start day. I found that pretty irritating.  Six more weeks and I will finally be finished with treatment.  I can't wait to be done.