Last round of PCV started, missing work?

Hello all,
After a 2 week delay, my blood counts recovered and I started the last round of chemo. This last couple weeks have been horribly stressful, I soo want to be done with this.In an effort to start cleansing my body of all these chemicals, I stopped taking one of the prescribed sleep aids, amitriptyline. There was a possible interaction with the procarbazine chemo, so I would go for two weeks without it anyway, so now its stopped. The Dr. said I could quit it any time.  I also stopped taking zantac for stomach acid. I was taking this daily for years, without it I would usually wake in the night and have to walk downstairs in my undies and take some tums. I'll take it If I have something I know will disagree, like a beef sammy with peppers, but not everyday. That leaves me with the anti-seizure lamotrogine and Xanax. It will be a while, if ever that I can get off these. Enough technical details already.

This early retirement not going back to work concept is hard to swallow. My self-worth has taken a hit in the gut. I find myself looking down at me feet and looking back thinking, that was it? That was my career? I aimed too low at the onset and met my career goal when I was like 25. After that, I started seeing what engineering management looked like beyond that and was not really interested going there. I has aspirations of starting my own business, but what the business should 'do' eluded me. I did take a stab at one time, but that fizzled out. I ended up doing about the same work for 20+ years. If I ever get back to work, I am going to do it with a much different perspective.

But there is a silver lining,

Its very clear to to me now what they say about how one will ever look back on their life and be remembered for what they did at work. On the contrary, with all the time I have with the family now, what I missed while doing those 60 hour work-weeks is staggering. The awareness I have now about what each family member is feeling and dealing with is enlightening. I am feeling that I spent most of my life running down a dark hall, occasionally pausing to peer through a door to 'see' my family. I essentially visited with my family, never taking the time for feel with them. Now one kid is off at college, another a junior. I had to keep the money coming, had to keep health insurance, had to be a key player at work for job security, had to get that project done on time. I do not think I was born with much ability to emotionally connect with people. I can write a book about all the relationships I screwed up. Work provided a convenient way to suppress this shortfall in my personality. Not surprisingly, 20 years suppression did not make me a better person, but this last year surrounded by my family has.

Next MRI is mid-October. I'll be done with chemo by then, and should be back to the watch and wait with a MRI every 4 months.

Fall is my favorite season, get out enjoy it.

-Ed