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Can you HEAR me?

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Happy Monday!!!  Can You HEAR me??? Do you SEE me? Picture this, screaming into a pillow so no one can hear you. That’s what this picture illustrates. I had my first therapy appointment since being diagnosed with cancer.  I feel like I find myself often screaming on the inside, so that no one will hear me. I don’t want judgment, or to be considered the broken wing friend. I’m tired. And I keep asking if there is still something wrong with me, since I see so many others feeling fine post chemo, and surgery. Why do they feel fine? Why am I tired. Why am I wanting to scream at the top of my lungs so now people will hear and see me? Did I suppress too much during the last 8-10 months? Did I try to be somebody I am not for the sake of others ? Was I afraid of being too dark, even though that’s how I was feeling? The weirdest part is a lot of times I feel nothing. I am a very emotionally expressive person- and lately I don’t even know HOW I feel. I want to be the best version of mys...

Mental health: cancer edition

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 Hi everyone! It’s me Soulful sunflower! My non/profit is official! Woohoo!!! 🌻🌻🌻 soulfulsunflower inc. Please feel free to share so we can continue to raise donations, clean beauty and skin products, as well as anything you can think of to add and make someone smile!  On to the important part, MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS:  I look ‘FINE!’ I don’t LOOK sick! Cancer has stolen more things than I care to share. My Mental health is 💩But my personality HAS always been to be bubbly, smiley, LOUD, happy, KEEP GOING! But I don’t feel fine, I get anxious ALL the time. I don’t have cancer written on my forehead, so how will anyone know- that inside parts of me are dying??? Sometimes I want to scream I’m SICK! But I’m not sick. I never was ‘sick!’I HAD cancer, but I don’t anymore. Chemo made me feel sick, surgeries made me feel sick, but I was never ‘sick’ from cancer. I don’t write this to make anyone feel bad!  I have been through YEARS of trauma. Cancer has legit broken my f...

What NOT to say to a cancer patient

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 Hi everyone! It’s me, Soulful Sunflower🌻 I forgot to post this months ago. But I didn’t want to forget to post period! So here we are in posting retroactively! Xoxoxo  Ive been MiA, well because I haven’t felt well and chemo was cancelled. 🥳🎉 yes, I needed the break but all this does is prolong everything. My poor body is like nahhh I am done! But here I am, gearing up for my next one. Just for a little education snippet:  My white blood cells were 500. Causing me to be severely neutropenia:  occurs when you have too few neutrophils, the Mayo Clinic states neutropenia is “A type of white blood cells. While all white blood cells help your body fight infections, neutrophils are important for fighting certain infections, especially those caused by bacteria.”  My hemoglobin came down to 9.5: Typical symptoms of low hemoglobin include: weakness . shortness of breath . dizziness . fast, irregular heartbeat. pounding in the ears. headache. cold hands and feet. pale...

Chemo done, surgery partial done, now what?

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 Hi, it’s me! Soulful sunflower! I have let you down and not written more like I had hoped. Spent more time on IG giving away goodies to people who are fighting their own cancer journey!  I figure I’d repost my thoughts on now what?  Hi everyone! Happy Monday:) I said bye to my dad and step mom today for awhile until my next surgery. Thought the best way to say goodbye, would be by doing a giveaway to 3 cancer patients this week!! ⚡️ #giveaway ⚡️ I’ve been struggling to navigate my mental health lately of where I am at with everything.  I don’t “look” sick to the naked eye people assume I am sooo happy! It’s not that I am not happy- I’d probably like to say more indifferent or I feel nothing. It took so much to get through chemo, took so much to get through my 5 recent procedures where I had to go under anesthesia. I’m tired, and despite what people see, the smile, the hair growing back, I’m not really sure ‘happy’ is the best word to describe it. They say the bigges...

Chemo day dad...

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 I have to do a quick little brag post... the morning starts like this, oh yeah- hi it’s me, Soulful Sunflower here ready to do a quick post, one where I don’t rant but I do a humble brag on my dad. The day starts like this:  My dad comes over a half hour before chemo. He packs the car with what looks like my luggage. I’m not joking. I have three duffle bags packed with shit, that I think I might need even after ten sessions. So we pull up- my dad and I covid screen and we sit down. I check in. I wait my turn. My dad sits in waiting room until it’s time to cap. Mind you sometimes he waits hours. Literally I get there at 8:30 and he may not come back to help u til 10:30. It’s soooo crazy. But the best part the part I have to completely brag about. This place is hard to o into, there’s sick people and you want to do for all of them, even though I’m sick. It’s really crazy.. but my dad comes to the back when they give me the go ahead that chemo is happening, and he starts to set ...

Let’s get Real

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 Hi! It’s me soulful Sunflower 🌻🌻 I’m here to report all the things.. this one may be like the word vomit. And there will be no real flow, so here it goes...  First and foremost- I want to be real about my hair. I am 7 weeks in and I still have hair on my head. I don’t have ALL my hair. But I have hair. There is ZERO guarantee about hair.. buttttt they say to focus on what you do have. So here it goes: the pictures show basically how much hair I lose every time I touch my hair that is some that falls out.  With that I wonder how there is still hair on my head, but instead of asking any questions- I look in the mirror and I just say I am a badass. I am fighting for my life and I am a badass. I have HAD a lot of self-talk!!!! Positive vibes only 👏🏻 I want to bring up a few ideas and see if anyone has other ideas to help. But first I want to say- the people who continue to support me I am forever indebted, because we may have been strangers or only spoken a few times, bu...

Making the best out of the sourest lemon

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  Hi guys! It’s me SoulFul Sunflower🌻 This week has been Hanukkah and I wanted to do something fun for the family and so we all got t-shirts! So far doing small projects here and there is one thing that keeps my spirits up, but it also helps me focus on something other than chemo. Lots of times I find that I’m exhausted really easily, part of that is because the insomnia is real. I already was a bad sleeper, but chemo/steroids takes your sleep to a whole other level.  This week wasn’t so bad, I tend to feel pretty crappy when I get home from chemo but not crappy enough to not eat LOL. So I’m typically pretty starving. I then don’t sleep at all because I’m wired from sitting in a chair for 6 hours freezing. Then Wednesday I try to do something even if just a walk around the block- as you may not know- I don’t like the SUN at all, I’m terrified of it, but now with chemo it makes you burn pretty quickly. So I try to go when there is NO sun. Or less sun. By Friday I feel ok, a ti...