Helpless | A Modern Hamliza Story

Chapter Seventeen

Another New Chapter of My Life

January 10, 2021

I'd like to begin by apologizing for taking so long to update again. I feel like nobody actually reads these or cares much about my journey, but I hope there are a few that have stuck around. There are so many exciting things that have happened since my third round of chemotherapy began, including the fact that I am now cancer free!

Back at the end of August, I finished up treatments, and found out in September that my pancreatic cancer is gone. Since then, my husband and I have been celebrating and making more memories to help us remember 2020 not just being a bad year, but also a year with excitement. In fact, he took me to Paris to kick off the next chapter of my life where I am cancer free. A year where we started a scary chapter of our lives and then another chapter that was exciting and maybe also a little bit scary.

First, we got our first pet back in September. His name is Milo Raven, and he's captured the hearts of both my husband and I. He's the sweetest little kitten, which we adopted from a rescue shelter, and for now he's our little baby.

Don't worry; he's not a coping mechanism for our lack of a child, unlike what one of my husband's coworkers told him at work one afternoon. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during that conversation. Or maybe I don't, if not being there has saved me more guilt and grief. My husband and I always joke that Milo is our way of practicing for a baby when the time does come.

Another exciting thing that happened was our three year wedding anniversary on December 14! I can't believe that it's already been three years. We were only twenty-five years old, with so much excitement for the rest of our lives. We didn't expect these last three years to be what they have been, but I feel like the two of us have only grown closer through it. I know, it sounds cheesy, but it's true. Even though all my friends didn't think that the two of us could ever be more in love than how we were as lovesick eighteen year old teenagers, we continue to disprove that even ten years later now.

The last bit of catch up is that I just started back at my old job. I wasn't able to perform at my highest ability while being sick and especially with how sick I was during my chemotherapy treatments. Each round the symptoms seemed to get worse and worse. I was grateful when the school I work at told me that I could come back and start working with my kids again. I started back on the 4th of January, and it was so exciting to see all the old faces and some new ones as well.

This is why I have called this a new chapter. I'm not just getting back to my normal life. That could never happen after what I went through. I'm starting new adventures to go along with my old ones.

I am hopeful that this next chapter will also be new because we're hoping it includes a child. Once we get the okay from my oncologist, we're hoping to try naturally for six more months and if nothing happens, we're going to go and see fertility specialists again.

Maybe the way we'll get our baby is through the help of a little bit of science with IVF or other options. A new chapter with new adventures and probably new heartbreaks. Isn't that what life is? I just hope that at the end of this chapter, the sum of my adventures is greater than the sum of my heartbreaks.

Eliza pulled out the card her kids made for her on her first day back on the job. Most of the kids still remembered her even though they had moved up a grade now. It was very colorful, most of the kids choosing the brightest colors they could find, even though it was supposed to be a drawing of Eliza and them out on the playground at recess.

The grass was fluorescent hot pink, Eliza had bright green hair, and the sky was purple. It was sort of a mess of a drawing, but it was special to Eliza. On the inside, the principal had written "Welcome back, Mrs. Hamilton!" in big letters and each of the children she worked with signed their names in all sorts of colors.