Staging and Mental Health

We've learned Alex is at stage 2A Unfavorable.  Not the worst news. 

Stage 2A Unfavorable:

  • 3+ locations - in his case most of his neck, surrounding his chest cavity, and centrally located near his lungs/heart.  The PET imaging was startling.  Everything in his neck light up and so much of his chest.  We know the images will get duller and are focusing on that.
  • Unfavorable - lower cure rate, higher likelihood of a recurrence, more aggressive chemo and overall treatment wise.

Work stresses haven't helped my mental health.

Additionally, there's a lot happening a work: deliverables as well as mid year performance reviews.  I always find those tiring.  We're not perfect people and the focus on where I need to do better can be tiring.  I also use the time with my team to interview them on where I fall short as a manager, what I can do to improve the team dynamic, and uncover what they need from me.  

From a reflective perspective, this was poor timing.  I don't have bandwidth to hear about my flaws. I'm taking my usual post-it reminder approach. But I decided (for the first time in a long time) to not spend energy over-indexing on the feedback.  I took corrective actions and made what commitments felt achievable but that's it.

I'm taking time this weekend to get outside and enjoy our new yards.  Share some pictures on Insta and essentially focus on our family.  We're finally celebrating Father's Day Monday.  And I want to make that as nice as possible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sleeping or not

I’ve struggled with sleep for a while, even before Alex’s cancer diagnosis. It started during the pandemic and worsened with stress from my parents’ health issues and my mom’s passing. In 2021, I began taking anxiety medication, which helps me manage stress and overthinking. Though I still think a lot, I can now shift my focus away from stressors. Six weeks ago, I started hormone replacement therapy and noticed an improvement in my stress response and sleep within the first week. However, as Alex’s diagnosis approached, my stress levels spiked again, and my sleep suffered. Since the diagnosis, I’ve been in a constant state of high alert. I usually read before bed. Before the lumps were discovered, I read fiction. Now, it’s mostly about cancer treatments and resources. My sister gave me books on alternative cancer treatments, but they made me angry with their unscientific claims - full of fallacies, untruths, and lacking in compassion and common sense.  It doesn't help that the auth...
Read more

Yard scape

Our front and back yards are nearly there.  Next weekend I should be ready to share some snaps!  The boys built the new gazebo and furniture - we're waiting on a couple chairs to be replaced and then we'll get rid of the things no longer serving us.   Exited to start using it! 
Read more