Twitch, Twitch, Twitch...

My eye twitch is back. It's been almost a month (!!!) since I was diagnosed with breast cancer and today is the first day my stress-induced eye twitch has been acting up.

I feel like I am under house arrest. Granted, it's a clean, pampered, how-can-we-take-care-of-you-are-you-sure-you-don't-need-anything? kind of house arrest, but I'm still feeling a bit trapped. And admitting that makes me feel like the world's biggest ingrate.

I know I need to rest. I know I need to take things really easy and I know I'm not the best person at recognizing my limitations until I've exceeded them. I am surrounded by people who love me and want to take care of me and I know I am very, very blessed to have this kind of support. My house has never been this clean, my meals have never been this prompt and tasty. The people who love me are taking better care of me than I can take care of myself.

And yet I have to ask permission to shower. Because I'm not allowed to do it alone. I can't leave the house or take a walk without a buddy. Because I'm on too many medications.

Any time I mention plans I have in the upcoming weeks, I have to assure everyone that SOMEONE will be there to babysit me to make sure I'm okay. Because apparently when you get cancer at 35 you suddenly become 10 years old again with a burning need to get into mischief.

I know all of the overprotectiveness is because people care about me so much. I do not mean to complain because I know how very, very lucky I am to be so loved.

But it would also be nice to be able to find things in my own home. It's been cleaned and scrubbed so much in the last week - for which I am INCREDIBLY thankful - but things don't end up where I'm used to them being. I actually haven't seen my glasses since the day I was diagnosed with cancer, so I've been wearing my old pair with the out-of-date prescription for a month because no one knows where my regular ones got stashed in the Benah-has-cancer cleaning frenzy.

When we first discussed healing time with the surgeons, I was told to expect to take at least a week off work, then kind of ease back into stuff. I asked my plastic surgeon on Monday when I might be able to drive again and he said it would be at least another week to ten days - or not until I'm off the Valium completely.

But because of the expansion process of the reconstruction, I will likely be on the Valium for at least three more weeks. Or longer. And while I'm on the medicines, I can't shower alone, can't go for a walk alone, can't drive....

Twitch, twitch, twitch.

I really don't mean to complain, but this feeling of house arrest, of being grounded, of having to ask for permission to do just about anything was NOT part of what I expected from cancer. I expected surgery, pain, feeling sick and tired. The twitchy cabin fever is just another unexpected side effect.

Ergh.