Overwhelmed

How was the first full day home from the hospital?

In a word:

overwhelming

The first full day home from the hospital and I am already overwhelmed (yes, I keep writing it because there is no other word that completely conveys that feeling).

As I laid in bed last night, asking God to help me stay calm today, I realized that I need a plan to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed on a daily basis.

For those of you just joining in on this journey through the 31 day writing, you may not know that I have stage 4 breast cancer (you can read more about that here). For the last 5 years, actually just a few weeks shy of the actual anniversary of the diagnosis, my husband has been the primary care giver in our household.

Now that my husband has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer also, the tables are flipped. I am overwhelmed with the daily decisions that have to be made. What do we need from the grocery store? What do we eat for lunch or dinner? I have not had to make these decisions on my own for a long time.

Today I have come up with 4 steps I’m taking to keep from having that feeling of running away, or more importantly, not throwing my cell phone against the wall and breaking it into smithereens:

Turn off the sound notifications on my text messages (except for immediate family).

Friends and family are wonderful. They want to check on us. They want to know what they can do to help. But receiving text messages constantly throughout the day makes me think I need to respond to them immediately. I realized that I do not. So except for texts from my daughters, I will not be responding to texts except during certain times. I haven’t decided what those times are yet, but just knowing that has calmed my nerves already today.

Keep a small notebook on the table next to me.

People want to help. They need to help. I get that. But it is overwhelming to have to think about what someone else can do to help you when all you are trying to do is breath and get through the day. I have figured out a few things that need to be done around the house, and will continue to discover more things throughout the upcoming days and weeks. Keeping a notebook of these things will allow me to delegate these tasks to the people who will be able to do them.

Do the mundane.

There is comfort in the mundane. Doing laundry, it has to be done, but it makes me feel like I have control of just a small part of the craziness going on around me. Folding clothes, putting them away, paying the water bill (ok, I admit, I’m the nerd in the family and having control over bills and the checking account is calming to me, maybe not for everyone). These things are not pressing, there is no one asking me to make a decision, they are things that I can do on autopilot.

And finally, today I will remember to breath.