Streaming Depression?

I'm four plus years out from my cancer diagnosis. Triple negative cancer patients hope and pray to make it to three years because the chance of recurrence becomes much lower when that milestone is reached.

I know I'm lucky to be here. I know that I should be living my best life and doing things I've always wanted to do. I should be kinder and more loving. I should be grateful for every single moment I have with my family and friends.

And yet...life gets in the way of living. Does that even make sense?

I've watched some documentaries on Netflix about people who are dying. I know, super cheerful, right? I watched one about a woman who was 36 years old when her breast cancer came back in liver. She died five months after being diagnosed with the mets. She was so beautiful. She loved her husband and her step children and her parents and everyone so much. She cried when they started her first round of chemo to try and fight the liver mets. She was a beautiful crier.

Her message was to wake up and start living before you're dying. That's a beautiful message.

But when you're dying you don't worry about bills and cooking dinner and laundry and vacuuming carpets. You can bask in the beauty of sunlight and the sounds of your family's voices.

Please know that I'm grateful to be able to worry about eighth grade homework and making sure Liv takes her vitamins and chill pill each night. I'm so grateful to have to think about the next orthodontist appointemnt and whether she'll have cavities once those braces come off. I'm glad to bandage her fingers when she picks them bloody.

I know that Cristina (the woman in the above documentary) would trade places with me in a heartbeat if she could. She'd be willing to worry about the mortgage and college applications and tuition and what's for dinner (AGAIN).

Sure, we should all live like we're dying but life gets in the way of that and I suppose we should all be grateful for that.

Just a Hair Away from Ordinary

Back when I was told I had cancer and then informed that I would lose my hair during chemo, I didn’t care. I mean, I was fighting for my life. I was willing to sacrifice my hair in order to live. It was a no-brainer, right?

Right.

So during treatment and my subsequent baldness, I didn’t let it bother me.

Though, honestly, what the hell, cancer treatments? It’s bad enough to hear that you have cancer but do we have to lose our hair too? It’s just adding insult to injury, you know?

Now, though, I’m almost four years out from when I got my diagnosis. My hair has been growing out for over three years. It’s back to the texture it was before treatment, though to be honest, it’s a little thinner/finer than it was before. At least it seems that way to me.

But it grew. It came back and for the past few months, I’ve hated it. I wore it in a ponytail every single day. It was past my shoulders and felt limp and thin and stringy; not pretty, nothing to be proud of.

So, one recent Wednesday (how’s that for bringing it full circle?) I took a quick shower after screaming at Olivia for making a mess during her own shower (OMG, that is a post for another day…) and after my shower, I grabbed the scissors and made that first irreversible chop. I cut a good four inches off my hair.

Then I went to Alyssa’s room and handed her the scissors with the request, “Please make the left side look like the right side.”

And she did. She did a great job. She snipped and cut and did that angled thing around my face and you know what? I finally, FINALLY like my air again. It falls somewhere between my chin and my shoulders. It’s pretty much all one length and it looks so much fuller and healthier. I stand in the front of my fan for maybe two minutes each morning and flip it over to get it kind of dry and then I go. I don’t use product, I don’t scrunch it, I don’t straighten it or blow it dry. I just wash it, comb it, use the fan to dry it a little and I go. And it’s so freeing.

I haven’t felt this free about my stupid hair since the say my mom and girls shaved my head on the sixteenth day after my first chemo.

I just realized that I no longer had to grow my hair out just because I could. I didn’t have anything to prove anymore. I don’t have to let it keep growing just because I’ve been bald. I can cut it and enjoy it and still be grateful for it. I can stop fighting with it and let it be a little shorter and a lot cuter.

Cancer took a lot from me. It took my health, it took my freedom, it took my hair. But I’ve come so far since those days of fighting cancer…and so has my hair.

Post-Cancer Mindset

There was a time, way back in my teens and twenties and maybe even my thirties that I felt like I was invincible. I felt like I was going to live forever and that I’d always be young and healthy and beautiful.

Then I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 46.

Reality and my own mortality smacked me in the face so hard that it knocked me over.

So yes, my cancer was found very early and I was never actually on the verge of death but hearing the words, “You have cancer,” well, it does something to you, emotionally, mentally, maybe even physically. It’s like a slap, it hits you so hard you can barely breathe.

And once you’ve heard those words, at least once I heard them, I can’t stop thinking that every single twinge, every new pain, every ache and cough is the first sign that the cancer is back, this time with a vengeance that won’t be stopped by mere chemo and radiation.

I recently had a pain on my tongue (gross, sorry) and it hurt like a mother-trucker. My first thought was that it was cancer…yeah, of the tongue. My second thought was to worry I’d have to have surgery to remove my tongue. Would I be able to work if I couldn’t speak? Would the removal of my tongue just be the beginning and after a while, the surgeon would have to go back and remove part of my jaw? Would I have to wear one of those weird plastic half-masks to cover my disfigurement?

All this went through my head in an instant.

What the hell, Brain? Seriously?

I mean, the whole pain on my tongue was probably from eating an entire bag of butter mints over the weekend. Once I’d rinsed my mouth with saltwater and then again a few times with the antibacterial mouthwash the orthodontists gave Olivia for the sore in her mouth, guess what? The pain was pretty much gone.

But for those few hours between the pain manifesting itself and my home remedies, my brain went to the dark place, the place where everything is cancer, everything is leading to my untimely death.

I know that everyone who has faced a serious illness feels this way and we all do what we can to get past it so we can at least enjoy the life we’re lucky enough to still be living.

The moral of this story is to not be a glutton and eat so many butter mints in one sitting that it makes one side of your stupid tongue raw. I might be an idiot.

Then I Took Down the Christmas Tree

The Saturday after Christmas (so December 26) I woke up in the middle of the night with jaw pain.

I’ve had fairly regular pain since August (September? Hell, I don’t know.) which is when I got four fillings in three corners of my stupid mouth. Remember that trip to the sketchy farm with the one-footed chicken? My jaw hurt then and it was about a week after my fillings.

So. I didn’t think much of it. I just took a couple of aspirin (ibuprofen, whatever, Jan) and went about my business.

But this time, the pain didn’t actually go away. It stuck around and got worse.

I muddled through the weekend and made my way to work on Monday and Tuesday. The pain wasn’t constant but it was definitely building. It was all along my lower left jaw and making its way toward my ear.

On Tuesday night around midnight, I got up and found some stronger pain meds, which helped me sleep. I decided I’d call the dentist the next day to see if they could fit me in and figure out what was going on.

At 6:30 the next morning I took another dose of the strong pain meds and went to work.

By the time I got to work, I was sick to my stomach. My jaw didn’t hurt as much, though. So…lose/win?

I went outside at 8:04 to call the dentist. I thought maybe being outside in the cold January air would help my nausea.

The dentist office was able to get me in at 8:30 that day. Yay?

The appointment took maybe seven minutes and cost $94 for the dentist to tell me I needed a root canal in my lower back molar. I’ve never had a root canal before so that was a daunting prospect.

Because this tooth is the farthest one back, the dentist gave me referrals to two endodontists. You know what means, right? It’s going to cost more! Yay specialists.

The dentist also gave me a prescription for antibiotics and strong pain meds (read: narcotics.) I went to Walmart to get these prescriptions filled. Check your local listings but the Walmart pharmacy in my area doesn’t open until 9:00am. I was at least 10 minutes early since my dentist appointment took less than twenty seconds and cost almost a hundred dollars.

Alas, the air inside Walmart isn’t as refreshing as the frigid January air in northeastern Indiana. So… I wanted around Walmart for five minutes and then had to make my leisurely way back to the restrooms because, hello narcotics on an empty stomach.

I’d been guzzling water all morning because I knew this was going to happen. Thank you eleventy million weeks of morning sickness.

I made it to the restroom and wouldn’t you know it? The only stall open was the middle one.

You know what’s grosser than throwing up in a Walmart bathroom? Throwing up in the middle stall of a Walmart bathroom while the ladies in the stalls on BOTH sides of you are taking massive dumps. There I was, yacking up all the water I’d drunk that morning and on both sides of me, BOTH, were the sounds of women shitting.

It was horrible as it sounds.

I cleaned myself up (physically, emotionally, I’m not sure I’ll ever feel clean again) and went to find the pharmacy open for business.

I didn’t get back to work until almost 10 that morning. I walked in and my boss, bless her, took one look at me and told me to go home. She also told me to take the next day, New Year’s Eve, off; which gave me a four and a half day weekend. Too bad I felt so bad, we could have partied hard.

Hahahaha. That’s funny.

I should have called the endodontist that day when I got home. Alas, instead I slept off and on in the heated recliner and wasted an entire day mourning my life choices.

I did call the next day, which was a Thursday for those not paying attention.

I called the place that had an office that has a twenty-nine minute drive from my office. They also have office that is a fifty-five minute drive from my office. This is pertinent information that will come into play later. The second endodontist has an office that is halfway between the two offices of the first endodontist, which is about a 35 minute drive from work.

The office that is closest to work only does the procedure I needed on Thursdays. They had an opening for a week later, on January 7, at 12:40. Did I want that appointment?

What do you think?

I took the appointment and prepared to suffer for seven more days. Oh, woe is me, I’m such a freaking martyr.

I figured out that taking a full pain pill every six hours was torture. But if I took half a pill every five hours, I got just enough pain relief to be semi-productive. By semi-productive I mean I was able to get laundry done, wash dishes as needed and cook food so that my family didn’t starve. But the vacuuming did not get done, the kitchen did not get swept, and I think Olivia might have been extra stinky because baths were not a priority unless they were my baths as I attempted to wash away my misery.

I managed to get through Monday and Tuesday at work but Wednesday brought the narcotic fog and residual pain in my stupid tooth.

I decided to go home early. As I was leaving work, my phone rang. It was the endodontist’s office. See, the closer office is actually in the same office as O’s orthodontist, who has offices in both Kendallville and Angola. We see him in the Angola office but have been to the Kendallville office once for Alyssa. So I knew where I was going to get my root canal. Except wait. No. There was a problem with the compressor at Dr. D’s office and so, if I wanted the root canal done the next day, I’d need to drive to the farther office, down on the south side of Fort Wayne. It could be at the same time, though. Yay.

Obviously, I acquiesced. What else was I going to do? Reschedule and suffer another week or more with the pain of the tooth and the awfulness that goes along with narcotics? No. I just couldn’t stare down another weekend of misery. So I accepted the appointment and went home

When I got home I went straight to bed where I slept soundly enough to dream for an hour and a half. As I wavered between sleep and waking, I felt someone leaning against the bed, as if they were leaning over me. I assumed it was Tom or Olivia and ignored them, pretending to be more asleep than I actually was. When I finally rolled over, no one was there.

Huh. Neither Tom nor Olivia will admit to coming up to see how I was doing. Alyssa said she locked my bedroom door to keep Liv out.

Double huh.

Finally, it was Thursday, January 7. I made it through the morning at work with not nausea because I didn’t take anything for pain that morning. I’m a slow learner, but I do learn. And guess what? I got to the appointment, got two extra shots of anesthetic (apparently, I’m a tough nut to numb) and then it was done. I was super numb but hey, that meant I wasn’t in pain.

When I got home that afternoon, I felt so much better I took down the Christmas tree.

Impersonator

Tom’s been looking for a used car to purchase for his and Alyssa’s use. The one she currently drives to school and work is fine as long as it starts but that’s the iffy part, so he wants something a bit more reliable. He’s been perusing FB marketplace for vehicles. But see, the thing is, he doesn’t actually have a FB account. He doesn’t seem to think it’s necessary for him to have an account because I have one and I can keep in touch with his sisters and extended family for him. Huh. Of course this means that he’s using my account to look at vehicles and message the owners. I don’t actually care that he’s doing this. What’s the big deal? Well, the big deal comes along when he messages these people and pretends to be me talking to them, saying things like, “My husband is the one who will be coming to look at the car. I’ll hurry him along.” Yeah. I have never ‘hurried him along’ in all the years of our marriage. But this isn’t even that big a deal. It’s kind of funny to read the messages he sends out in which he’s impersonating me. But then he was communicating with a woman who is selling her vehicle and she mentioned that her son would be the one to show my husband the car because she is in the hospital receiving chemo or leukemia. Tom, pretending to be me, said to her, something along the lines of: Sorry to hear about the chemo. I went through that for breast cancer a few years ago. Just keep the faith and everything will be fine. You guys, please tell me that you KNOW I wouldn’t say that? Okay, so no, I didn’t actually say it but she thinks I did and it’s just so trite. No one who has been through cancer treatments would say that! We’d say something like, “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through chemo. That sucks so much. I’m wishing you the best.” We would not tell her to ‘keep the faith’ and ‘everything will turn out okay.’ It doesn’t always turn out okay, damn it! And those of us who have faced serious health issues know this. We don’t say that to each other. We just don’t. It’s kind of like those of us who’ve had a child in the NICU or suffered a loss. We don’t say things like, “Well, at least you know you can get pregnant” to a woman who’s recently suffered a miscarriage. We don’t say things like, “Hey, at least you have one baby” to someone who’s lost one of their twins. We know the odds aren’t always in our favor. We know that things can go bad from one heartbeat to the next. Keep the faith? Are you fucking kidding me? I ought to slap him for that. I know he meant well. I know that; which is why I’m taking deep breaths and thinking before I speak. I just…I don’t know how to explain to him why what he wrote was wrong. I don’t think he’d get it and it would probably hurt his feelings. So…I’m letting it all out here and reminding any readers who haven’t been through sucky times to maybe think about this stuff and how they might want someone to respond to them if they were to suffer something horrific. Just think about it.

Numb

At my most recent dental cleaning I was told I needed four fillings.

Thank you so much, chemo for the dry mouth that has led to, at most recent count, eleven cavities in two years. Yikes.

And let me tell you, I feel like every subsequent session in which I get fillings is worse than the last. I have to talk myself through these appointments, telling myself not to be such a baby, to suck it up. I remind myself that the drilling, numbness, pain isn’t going to last forever. Nothing lasts forever so grow up and deal.

I only almost cried twice during this latest appointment. Well, wait, I only almost cried once and then, on the drive home, after the appointment, during which I was numb from ear to ear and was having actual trouble swallowing because of my enormous numb tongue in my mouth, I almost cried then too.

But it wasn’t the pain or fear of pain that almost made me cry during the actual appointment. I almost cried when the woman giving me the shots to numb my mouth told me that the worst was over.

I told her that wasn’t actually true because the shots didn’t bother me nearly as much as the drilling and grinding. The smell was awful and the sound of the drill is horrible and the sensation of pressure on my teeth makes me crawl out of my skin. She patted my shoulder and said, “Well, after what you’ve been through, this should be a piece of cake.”

Don’t be nice to me! That’s what makes me cry, damn it.

I haven’t been through any more than anyone else who’d had a major medical issue. Don’t give me more credit than I deserve.

On the way home, I thought about getting there and finding Liv and Tom in their usual places, her on the couch with her tablet and him at the computer. I imagined asking him if Olivia had eaten dinner yet (I wouldn’t be home until after six at this point.) and I imagined him saying she hadn’t and the thought crushed me.

I just couldn’t handle the thought of getting home, helping her with homework AND having to get her dinner around.

At that point, I still couldn’t talk because my entire mouth was numb. I still had to work hard to swallow and yet the coming dull ache was there, right behind the numbness.

But, look at me being all unnecessarily pessimistic. When I got home, Tom and Olivia were at the kitchen table, working on her homework. He looked frazzled and she looked like her usual cheerful self. So that’s a good thing.

I walked in and Tom could tell by looking at me that I was not well.

He told me to go sit down. I shook my head and managed to mumble that I could help with homework. I could read the questions, find the answers and point to them for her to write them down.

We were done forty-five minutes after I got home.

I was still numb even after O was done with her homework.

Tom, bless his soul, heated up dinner for her, which made me entire freaking year, and I settled on the couch where I felt sorry for myself for the rest of the evening.

After this particular filling session, I felt more abused than usual. Apparently, I had some bleeding on the right top part of my mouth.

The dentist put pressure on it. The assistant (What is her actual title? She helps while he’s drilling and she prepares and puts in the fillings…) put pressure on my gums. She said that it’s normal, my gums were just angry. She suggested warm salt water for the next few days.

These sessions just keep getting worse.

I know. I KNOW that if this is the only lasting effect I have from chemo that I’m lucky but it sucks so much. It hurts, it’s inconvenient and it’s expensive. These four fillings cost over $900. That’s ridiculous.

Sure, the feeling came back to my toes. Yes, my hair grew back. I’m grateful for all of that.

And do I have to say that I’m glad to be alive? Duh.

But can the dry mouth go away now? Can I not have to have any more fillings for the foreseeable future?

Please?

A Very Brady Rant

I had to get blood drawn for labs. I went to the hospital at 9:30 one weekday morning. My thought was that it shouldn’t be all that busy at that time. I mean, people work, right?

Apparently not around here, they don’t because that hospital was crawling with people. Okay, so the people weren’t actually crawling but they were everywhere.

One dude in particular was especially antsy about the wait.

After I’d checked in with the receptionists and got my pager for registration, I sat down to wait.

This dude was sitting in a chair about ten feet from my little couch. His chair faced the registration doors. My couch faced him and the television that was mounted above and to his left.

The television was tuned to HGTV and they were showing episodes of A Very Brady Renovation. Yay! Except freaking Marcia Brady kept crying every time a new room was revealed. Chill the fuck out, Marcia!

This dude, though, damn he was irritating. He sat slumped in his chair for a few minutes, then he’d sit up straight and look at his beeper. Then he’d stand up and stretch, which always let to him clutching his right shoulder.

I was about to ask him if maybe he should be in line in the emergency room when he’d sit back down again, glance around to see if anyone was looking at him and then grumble under his breath.

I wanted to tell him to relax, watch a bit of A Very Brady Renovation and stop fidgeting. Obviously all the fidgeting was bothering his stupid right shoulder.

What was most irritating for me was that I had to look past him to watch A Very Brady Renovation, which meant that every time he looked my way, I knew it. I was never actually looking at him, because, duh, A Very Brady Renovation was on, why would I look anywhere else? But I knew he was looking and it was creepy as hell.

Thank Pete, (not Pete Brady, who used to be my favorite Brady brother until I watched Christopher Knight on his stupid reality TV show where he married America’s Next Top Model season cycle 1 winner Adrienne Curry. I think the show was called My Fair Brady, which, can we all agree is a REALLY stupid title for a REALLY stupid show? I only watched a partial episode on the Youtubes once but during that episode Chris was a raging dick to Adrienne and that made me detest him. And now, damn it, I guess I have to pick stupid Greg as my favorite Brady brother even though I can barely stand him because Bobby aka Mike Lookinland is just gross. That dude has NOT aged well at all. Oh, and by the way, Cindy Brady? The eighties called and they want their hair back.)

Ahem, where was I?

Oh yes, thank Pete that fidgety, creepy dude was called before I was and he left my line of vision. I was able to watch Marcia cry a few more times before my beeper went off and I got to go back and have a needle stuck in my arm. Good times; takes me back to my chemo days when I got stuck weekly. Ahh, memories. But wait, this time was actually different. This was the first time in all the times someone has stuck a needle in my arm that the person doing the sticking told me I have tiny veins. What? I have given blood my entire adult life, well, until I was diagnosed with cancer and had to be pumped full of chemotherapy, thank you so much. Now they don’t want my precious AB+ blood. So have my veins shrunk in the last two years? Is that even a thing?

Umm…I have no idea where I was going with any of this. Maybe there was no actual story here, except that the hospital was crazy busy and it wasn’t even because of Covid because if you suspected you had Covid-19, you weren’t even supposed to go into the hospital. There were signs all over the freaking place declaring that.

Alas, perhaps these days there is no ‘good’ time to go have blood drawn, unless you figure that anytime HGTV is airing A Very Brady Renovation is a good time to go so you have something to watch while you wait eleven hours from registration to blood draw is a good time to go. Then, well, check your local listing.

I don’t even know.

Three Years

August 21, 2017 was a Monday. The details are still so clear in my head.

This was the seventeenth anniversary of when I started my job (at the time).

Bigger still, though, it was the day I was told I had cancer. I knew it was coming. My doctor had called me the day before but I hadn’t been near my phone and so wasn’t able to answer.

Doctors do not call you on the weekends with good news.

I called my doctor’s office at 9am the next morning, Monday, August 21, 2017. I was at work because, why not? I didn’t feel sick, there was no reason not to work.

He took my call right away. Again, not a good thing.

He told me right there over the phone that the biopsy came back saying I had cancer. But he didn’t want to go into details on the phone. He asked me if I could come to his office that afternoon. He wanted my husband to be there too.

I called Tom and gave him the news. I asked him if he could meet me at the doctor’s office at 2:30.

I called my mom and asked her if she could meet the girls’ bus at 3:10 at our house. I explained the situation. She cried.

I hadn’t cried at that point. I mean…why? We didn’t know how bad things were yet. I wanted to save my tears for when they might actually be needed.

But I get it. I totally get why my mom cried. If I were told one of my children had cancer, no matter how old those children were (I was 46) I’d cry too.

I continued to work, because what else could I do?

Tom and I met at the doctor’s office. Dr. S was very kind. He explained that my cancer was invasive ductal cancer. It was triple negative. He said I’d need to meet with the surgeon but it might take weeks before I could get in.

At that point, his nurse came and told us that she’d contacted the surgeon’s office and had gotten me in to see him that same week, on Thursday, at 3pm. Dr. S was surprised that Dr. B had an opening.

I was not surprised. It felt very much like divine intervention at work. Just like those nights I’d lay awake, thinking about the pain in my left breast. There was no lump that I could feel. It was too deep. But I knew that pain wasn’t normal.

From there, things just snowballed. Meet the surgeon, get chest x-ray, get breast MRI with contract, schedule surgery (September 5). Meet the oncologist. Get port placed. Set up appointment with chemo nurse (Kyla) for chemo education. Set up appointment for first chemo. Second chemo; two days after that second chemo treatment, my hair started falling out and I was bald all the way into the 16th chemo. Meet with Parkview billing because OF COURSE my treatment was going to span two years and I’d have a whole new deductible to meet. This woman was awesome. She found me a program that would pay up to $5000 toward my Taxol chemo. Guess who much my twelve infusions of Taxol cost? That’s right, exactly $5000.

After chemo was done it’s time to get port removed, meet with radiation oncologist, feel terrible about self for a few days because while he was kind, he was the first doctor in all these doctors I’ve seen and who have seen my stupid boobs to make me feel like maybe the cancer was my fault. Get over myself, schedule appointment to get fitted for brace that I will lay in for my five minutes of radiation that will take place every week day for seven weeks, for a total of 35 treatments.

Schedule first radiation, get through all 35, ‘graduate’ from radiation.

And…done.

Except of course once you’ve been through cancer treatments, you never really feel done. Every twinge, every new ache must be the cancer coming back. It can’t possibly be that I’m getting old and I’m way too fat.

I still see my chemo oncologist every six months. This past June I was released from seeing my radiation oncologist. I see the surgeon once a year. His office schedules my mammograms. I’ve had one more breast MRI (with contrast.)

I’m doing okay. I’m here and I’m so very grateful for that. Every single day is a gift that I don’t appreciate nearly enough what with my irritability and being tired. But that’s life. We can’t be all sunshine and roses every second of every day.

But I do try and take a minute each day to be grateful. I’m grateful to God for His grace and His love. I’m grateful to the doctors and nurses and technicians and billing clerks and hematologists and receptionists who were always so kind to me. Who always treated me like a person, someone going through a traumatic experience rather than a number, someone to push through the program.

I would like for this to have all meant something but it doesn’t always have to. Sometimes, it’s just one chapter in the book of your life. And that’s okay too. But sometimes, like on days like this, I feel the need to go back and reread that chapter, if only to see how far I’ve come.

Guilt

I do still have a bit of survivor’s guilt.

I know how lucky/blessed I am to still be here, loving my family, mothering my children, wifing my husband.

I wonder why I got to stay, why I got to live and Amy didn’t.

Okay, so yes, her kids were ‘grown’ when she died. But…they aren’t that old. Her son was 22 and her daughter was 18 when she died. Her daughter had just gotten married. Amy’s first grandchild was born nine and a half months after Amy died.

Amy loved babies. She LOVED babies. She would have adored that little girl so, so much.

I know she’s still loving her from heaven. I know this. And yet…it’s so unfair that she isn’t here, living on this earth, holding that baby, kissing her, hugging her. Helping H as she figures out motherhood.

I know she wouldn’t want me to feel this way.

When we were kids, Amy was the caregiver of all us who were younger than she was. Chet and I were only thirteen months younger than Amy and yet she was always trying to mother us.

She’d want me to embrace my life, to love my babies and celebrate every single day I’m here. She’d want me to run through sprinklers, to drink that strawberry lemonade, eat another piece of cake and laugh long and loud with my daughters.

I cried for her. I cried hard. I still have moments of grief. But I know she loved hard in her 48 years on this earth and she’s still loving hard from afar (or may not so far away, who really knows?)

When I dream of Amy, she’s always so happy. She’s healthy and beautiful and young and she’s smiling. She’s full of life and love and I know…I know she’d want me to be that way in the here and now.

So I’m going to try. I’m going to try and let go of the guilt. I’m going to try and live this one life I have to the fullest, loving as much as Amy did, laughing as much as she did, holding babies every chance I get and hugging my girls for as long as they’ll let me.

Instead of feeling guilty that I’m still here and she’s not, I’m going to try and live the way she would be living if she were here, unapologetically, unfiltered, unfettered by guilt.

Released

I had an appointment with my radiation oncologist on a Tuesday in June. It was the third Tuesday in June of 2020.

This doctor, while kind and well-meaning, usually made me feel terrible about myself.

But at this appointment, he had nothing but good things to say. He didn’t tell me to get more exercise, he didn’t tell me to start eating a plant-based diet.

No, instead, he told me that I’m showing marked improvement in my left arm, the measurements show that I’m managing my lymphedema very well with exercise and self-massage.

He listened to my concerns (there weren’t many, I never want to bother anyone) and did a thorough exam. He said everything looks good.

It all looks good enough that he’s releasing me from his care.

I did ask him the question I’ve had since I stopped seeing some sort of doctor or nurse on a weekly basis. I’ve wondered all this time, which doctor do I ‘bother’ with which concerns. I mean, I have so many specialists, who do I call if my hip hurts? Who wants to know if I feel something else, a pain, a lump, anything in my breast?

He was very helpful in answering this question. If I have any breast concerns at all, I should call the surgeon. He can actually do a biopsy right there in his office. Or he can order tests, exams, whatever to find out what’s going on.

Dr. Z, the chemo oncologist is my go-to guy for anything else.

Dr. R said that when breast cancer comes back, it often comes back in the bones. It seems to like the shoulders, the hips, the spine. So if I have unexplained pain in any of those areas that doesn’t get better in a couple of weeks, I should call Dr. Z’s office.

So…that’s all good stuff. I feel better informed at this point than I have in two plus years, which is a really good feeling.

One Down

In years past, my chemo oncologist check-ups were in late October and late April and my radiation oncologist check-ups were in June.

Thanks to Covid-19 and all the insanity that came with it, my oncologist appointment for April was postponed until June 16. That was a Tuesday.

My radiation oncologist appointment, which was scheduled a year ago, is Tuesday, June 23.

I think we can all be pretty sure that nothing is going to change in a week from one appointment to the next.

Of course there is the fact that my radiation oncologist is WAY more thorough than my chemo oncologist.

Though to be fair, this year my chemo oncology check was done by the nurse practitioner. She’s great. For a little woman she had STRONG hands. She digs in there during the physical exam. To be honest, I actually feel better after my appointments with her than I do after my appointments with Dr. Z. I have, in the past, felt like he’s just passing through, whereas she spends time with me, talks to me, treats me like an actual person.

Well. That was six paragraphs to say that my chemo oncology appointment went well. Nothing pointing that there is anything to be concerned about. She said my lungs sound perfect. Please, universe, karma, God…don’t take this to mean that I’m asking for my lungs to NOT sound good. Please, know that I am grateful, eternally, for every single day I am here and that I’d be ever so much more grateful for many, many more days, years, decades during which to life my simple little life.

I’m assuming, since the two appointments are a week apart, the next one will be fine too.

I am also going in to this next appointment with the full knowledge that Dr. R will make me feel terrible about myself. He’s kind about it but he reminds me that I’m a fatty and that my fattiness could very well be a contributing factor to my cancer. He will remind me that the Mediterranean diet, which is based on eating a mostly plant-based diet, has shown to work well for cancer survivors.

Wheee!

I know! I want to tell him that I KNOW all this. It doesn’t make it any easier to actually do all the things that might make a difference though.

Ah well, at least I know that the funk I often find myself in after my yearly appointment with him only lasts a few days and then I bounce right back to my lovely, jovial self.

Huh.

I wonder if he’ll have anything to say about my supposed lymphedema. I haven’t worn a sleeve on my left arm in, oh, six months. My arm is fine. It’s FINE! In fact, the nurse practitioner and a couple of other doctors concur that I probably do not have lymphedema. I show no signs of visible swelling. I have very little (no?) pain in my left arm.

I mean, I appreciate that he’s so proactive. I do. I also appreciate that he’s thorough. He wants me to get healthy, be healthy and stay healthy. I mean, he’s one of my doctors, I supposed I should want him to want those things. Sigh. If only it were that easy.

Anyway, I’m sure once I’ve seen him I will have lots to bitch about. But for now, I’m grateful. I’m blessed. I’m so, so lucky to be here, living this life and loving these people and skating in my driveway with my daughters. How did I get here? Please don’t let this just be a wishful dream that I wake up from.

Coming Out the Other Side

March 6…not only is this Tom’s oldest daughter’s (the girls older sister? My step-daughter? Jessica? After all these years, what’s the best way to refer to her?) birthday it’s also the anniversary of my last chemotherapy infusion. Go me.

Let’s be honest. Do I miss it?

No, I do not. I don’t miss the smell that invaded my head the moment the nurse started the infusion. I don’t miss the Benedryl grogginess or the steroid insomnia. I don’t miss the baldness.

But…I miss knowing we were actively fighting cancer. I don’t miss the appointments but I do miss knowing that if I had a concern, I’d been seeing a medical professional in a matter of days.

And this is all at a time when I’m feeling pretty good. Please, God/Universe/karma don’t take this as a challenge. I don’t want to make any statements that might come back and bite me in the ass. But I also want to celebrate these moments when I’m not actively worried about my health.

I mean, duh, I still need to lose an enormous amount of weight but my aches and pains have lessened, my fears are subsiding. Of course, those fears reserve the right to rear their ugly heads at a moment’s notice any time they want.

I recently went to the visitation for the mother of a friend from high school. This woman was lovely. She was always so kind whenever her daughter, C, had friends over. She doted on her husband, who I’m thinking was a pain in the ass kind of husband.

While she was 78 years old, these days, that doesn’t seem all that old to me. She died from lung cancer. She was diagnosed two months ago and chose not to seek treatment.

I get it.

She’d lived with a smoker her entire life. Both of her brothers died from cancer. I know one of them had stomach cancer and I’m not sure about the other.

Sigh.

Cancer sucks so much.

But here I am. Telling my tale. Actually, I’m telling the tales of so many more people than myself. I tell tales that aren’t mine to tell. I apologize in advance as well as for past transgressions of telling stories that aren’t mine to tell.

I’m an over-sharer, it’s been an established trait. The problem, I don’t just over-share about myself. You come into contact with me and I’ll probably over-share about you to someone else.

Sorry.

Seriously.

Trying to Get a Grip

need to get a grip. I’m a mess these days. I don’t even know why.

I feel so put upon, as if the world is asking more of me than I want to give.

Which is stupid, I am only being asked what I’ve already offered.

So suck it up, buttercup.

Maybe it’s the time of year. Friday, March 6 was the two year anniversary of my last chemo. Why should that get to me? I don’t even know but I also don’t pretend to understand the human brain.

I know people suffer post-traumatic stress but seriously, self? What the hell? What I went through doesn’t necessitate PTSD, for Pete’s sake (aka, Pete Sakes.)

I’m here, aren’t I? Is that enough to celebrate? Why do I have to also be so low and annoyed at everyone and everything?

My poor husband and daughters don’t know what to do. If they look at me wrong I either glare at them, snap some snarky comment or cry. What the actual hell? Maybe I need a week-long nap. Someone swaddle me, rub my back and sing me to sleep. Or, you know, maybe everyone could just leave me the hell alone and I will just put myself to bed.

Whatever.

This too shall pass and all that jazz.

But until it does, I apologize in advance for anything I say or do that might be obnoxious. I mean, seriously, just ignore me for the next week or so. And please, PLEASE forgive me if it feels like I’m ignoring you. I promise it’s not you, it’s me.

Late to the Party

At least ten years ago, my step-daughter-in-law jumped feet first into the essential oils business. She became a representative for doTERRA oils. I don’t know if she still is a rep, I haven’t seen or spoken to her in over a year. No big drama, we just live almost 80 miles apart and she has her life and I have mine.

My husband sees and talks to his son as much as possible but…there you have it. I did communicate with her via FB until she deleted her page. That was a surprise but again, we were never close enough for her to confide as to why she deleted it.

To be honest, I kind of thought the essential oils craze was just that, crazy. Or, if not crazy, a little hokey. K insisted that the use of essential oils in a diffuser had ‘cured’ her children of asthma. I mean, come on. I don’t think it works that way. But whatever, you do you.

But anyway, when I started my current job (about a year and a half ago for anyone counting) I couldn’t stand the smell of the office. It was awful.

It smelled like old cigarette smoke. It was probably 'just' the smell of welding dust. There are a lot of welders in the production part of the building wehere I work. Whatever it was, it was nasty and most days in those first few weeks, I had to change clothes the minute I got home and sometimes, I needed to shower to get the smell off me.

So, I did what one does and got an essential oil diffuser. I didn’t get it because I’d suddenly developed asthma. I did it because my sense of smell was affected by chemo and it was incredibly sensitive. I figured if nothing else, diffusing oils would help the office smell better. It couldn’t hurt, right?

Almost immediately, the office did smell better. I got all kinds of comments on how great everything smelled. Yay!

So this past Christmas, I gave Alyssa a diffuser for her bedroom. She diffuses lavender in the evenings and orange throughout the day.

Then…her room smelled so nice that I decided to use the $40 Meijer gift card given to us from Tom’s sister and bout another diffuser, this one for the master bedroom. And now, we diffuse a lavender blend each night. It’s lovely.

And…I currently have eleventy billion (or, you know, like, 16) bottles of essential oil in one of my desk drawers at work. I mean, you never know what kind of mood I’m going to be in each morning. Some days I might want clarity. Others I might want immunity. There are days when I want a pure oil like peppermint and others when I want a blend like Joy.

I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ll rub peppermint oil on my temples rather than pop a couple of Excedrin when I have a headache but that might be right around the corner.

Or it might not. Trust me, I’m not going all crunchy on you. I have no plans to stop shaving my right arm pit.

Finally

Finally, I had a dentist appointment that did not lead to scheduling another appointment for fillings.

Ahh, the side effects of chemo that no one mentions: dry mouth and the cavities that come along as a result.

For what it’s worth, I never missed a cleaning while I was going through chemo. I mean, why would I? It wasn’t that big a deal.

But once chemo was over, I continued my regularly scheduled cleanings and all of a sudden, a year post-chemo, I started developing cavities. In the past year, I’ve had eight fillings, five of them in the backs of my top front teeth. Yikes!

I’d like to keep my teeth, please.

Then we all remember that one day I went in for two fillings and left with three. That was actually sort of traumatic, to be honest. I’m not sure why. I mean, I’m really good at telling myself that something unpleasant isn’t going to last forever but that session with the dentist reminded me of why dentists are often compared with sadists.

Alas, it did NOT last forever and I have moved on from the trauma as much as possible. How is it that I felt more traumatized by that hour in the dentist’s chair than I did by months of ultrasounds, biopsies, MRIs, x-rays, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation?

A little displaced angst, perhaps?

Fat

News Flash: I’m fat.

Shocker, right?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Everyone who can see through their actual eyeballs knows I’m fat.

And yet, medical professionals seem to feel the need to TELL me that I’m fat. Then they suggest that I ‘talk to someone’ about my fatness. As in, perhaps I should speak with a nutritionist, a personal guide, if you will, who will help me figure out why I’m so fat.

Guess what? I know why I’m fat.

I eat too much. I don’t move enough. That’s it. That’s why I’m fat.

I know HOW to freaking lose weight and yet…I am not doing the things that would make me lose weight. I’m not stopping the shoving of food into my face.

I always feel so awful when I leave these appointments.

Dr. S and Dr. R both seem to think I can’t feel the tightness of my clothes, the pain in my joints, the weakness of my muscles. Guys, I KNOW. I really do.

I just…can’t seem to fix it.

It makes me feel so bad about myself. I leave these appointments near tears, feeling so low and so bad that I just want to go eat a package of Most Stuf Oreos. In an effort to save calories, though, I’ll just eat the stuf, chucking the actually cookies out the window of my car to poison the area wildlife.

Sigh.

Feeling bad about this makes me feel like I’m being a whiny ass baby. I mean, I’m here, right? I’m alive. I get to bitch at my husband and kids on a daily basis. I’m not dead, ashes in an urn on the mantel.

I’m also not suffering from debilitating pain as a result of my lymphedema. My scar doesn’t hurt all the time. My hair came back.

I have so much to be grateful for and here I am, bitching about a couple of doctors making me feel bad about my stupid weight.

Just stop eating junk, you idiot! Go for a walk, so something other than sit on your giant ass every single night watching American Housewife on Hulu.

Oh, if only it were that simple.

I know it actually IS that simple but actually doing that isn’t simple at all. Not for me.

And look at that, I managed to feel sorry for myself AGAIN.

Ugh!

Flooded

Hey, remember back when I didn’t post for weeks at a time?

Yeah, I didn’t have much to say or, rather, I was saying stuff but not posting it. And one day of not posting would stretch into a week and suddenly, I’d feel paralyzed by my lack of posting and blah blah blah.

I’d wonder if I should acknowledge my lack of posting or if I should just jump right back in there with posts, pretending I never paused in my posts.

What to do? What to do?

This last time, I just sat down at the computer, opened my email and started scheduling posts using things I’d written over the past few weeks.

Since you’re here reading, you can see that I didn’t bother to say anything about the pause in posts. I just jumped right in and it felt good.

It still feels good. Even if no one reads here much anymore, I still want to write.

I want to bitch about being tired, record my angst about cancer coming back, talk about how amazing (and sometimes, amazingly frustrating) my kids are.

Even if no one cares but me, I’m putting it out there, polluting cyber space, if you will.

Support

There’s something about talking to a fellow ‘survivor.’

Wait, let me back up.

I got a card in the mail a couple of weeks ago reminding me that my annual physical with my gynecologist is due.

I called the office to schedule the appointment.

The person who answered was a woman I’d met two years previously when I was going in for an appointment. Her hair was so cute, super short and curly. I was bald.

I complimented her hair that day and she said that it was post-chemo growth.

I was impressed with how adorable it was and shared that I hoped mine looked that good when it grew back it. *Spoiler* It never looked that cute.

She shared some of her story that day and I think I cried a little because she was so kind of me and she’d been through so much more than I had. She had a double mastectomy, 49 lymph nodes removed, stage 3 cancer…all that. I had it so much easier and yet there she was, comforting me. I felt like such an ingrate even though I knew she wouldn’t want that.

Anyway!

When I called for my appointment, this woman answered. And, because she’s awesome, she asked me how I was doing. I told her that according to my mammogram back in November, I’m doing well.

We talked for several minutes. She shared that her lymphedema is pretty bad, considering how many nodes she had removed.

Yikes. Poor kid.

But can I just tell you how good it felt to actually TALK to someone who’d been through something even similar to what I’ve been through?

I shared that I worry that every twinge, every single pain is a sign that the cancer is back. I told her that I worry about which doctor I’m supposed to ‘bother’ with my latest worries.

And she got it. She understood my worries, my fears, my stress because she’s right there too. She feels the same worries, fears and stress.

We shared opinions on the surgeon who did both of our surgeries (we like him and his staff very much) and how great it is to have a doctor who doesn’t make you feel like you’re bothering him even if you probably are (again, that’s me thinking that, no him and not her.)

This is probably just one more indication that I should find a support group beyond the one I recently joined on FB. FB is good for what it does but talking to someone directly, truly connecting on a personal level is important.

When I was going through treatments, I didn’t feel the need to connect. I suppose seeing doctors and nurses every single week, knowing we were actively fighting the cancer went a long way in settling my fears but these days…I’m not doing anything to actively fight cancer.

Not that we even know if there is cancer to fight. I mean, according to my surgeon, I was cancer-free after surgery back in September of 2017. The chemo and radiation were just precautions because my cancer was triple-negative. I can’t take medicines to keep it at bay.

I just have to pray and have faith that we did all we could to get rid of it and keep it from coming back.

But all the praying and faith in the world doesn’t actually keep the worries at bay.

So yeah, having others who understand, who get these fears, who have been there or who are there, maybe that’s what I need.

Sounds like a good step toward self-care in 2020, huh?

Positive

You know you’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.

Except, when you’re tired, the negatives glow like neon signs and the positives fade into the shadows.

But, let’s try this.

Here’s a moment of gratitude:

I have a full-time job and I am able to do every single day. There are women on the support group I recently joined who are years out from treatment and who still don’t have the energy to work full time.

So hey, look at me going to work every day.

I mean, hell, someone’s got to insure this family.

Wait, that wasn’t very nice, was it. Yikes, where did my fucking gratitude go?

Let’s try this again.

I can walk up a flight of stairs without gasping for air and having aching joints. That’s a positive.

I almost said I can run after Olivia but that made me stop and think about the last time I ran after her.

That would be like never. I read these women who say that they stay in shape by running after their little kids.

Whatever! How often do moms REALLY run after their kids? I mean, you corral those little suckers in a room, toss snacks at them and lounge on the couch with a book and some chocolate covered cherries. Who the hell is out there chasing their damn kids?

I can feel my fingers and toes. Which means I can walk without pain and braid Liv’s hair on a daily basis. This is truly something for which I am grateful, all sarcasm aside. There were times during my treatment that my toes were numb and it was hard to hold something as small as a bobby pin between my finger and thumb. I had a hard time putting earrings in O’s ears because I couldn’t hold on to the earring or the back.

So yeah, having the feeling back in my fingers and toes is freaking awesome.

The metallic taste in my mouth is mostly gone. I do sometimes still feel like my tongue is on fire or rubbed raw, which is gross and annoying but it’s not something that interrupts my day to day life. On the bright side, I can drink Coke now, so…yay?

Speaking of Coke, it seems like caffeine affects me much more these days than it did before. I can’t drink anything with caffeine in it after 4pm or my sleep is definitely going to be affected. That’s not fun at all.

Elective

On a Thursday in January, I took Olivia to an oral surgeon. The plan was for him to go in and expose a tooth (number 11 for those in the know) and attached a tiny chain to is so that her orthodontist can tug on that chain every few weeks to encourage that tooth to come down and join the rest of her teeth in her mouth.

Right now, there is a giant space between teeth 10 and 12, just waiting for 11 to make it’s appearance.

For the past several months I’ve called that tooth Ruthie. You know, as in Ruthie the Toothie. Cute, huh?

Yeah.

So Ruthie was all snug up there in Olivia’s head. She had no desire to join her toothie pals down in the tropics of Liv’s mouth. (eww)

But we’re resourceful around here. There are lots of people willing to take my money for elective procedures.

I mean, if we’re going to spend almost seven grand to straighten Liv’s teeth, why wouldn’t we spend another couple of thousand to make sure all her teeth are present and accounted for?

Right?

Right!

So we went in for the $100 (a drop in the proverbial bucket) consult and then went back for the actual procedure.

Wonder how that went?

Notes to Self

You don’t have to tell every single person you come into contact with that you’ve had cancer and been through chemo.

You don’t have to bring up the lymphedema every chance you get.

No one really cares.

So yes, they make all the right noises when you bring it up but you could just…not.

Practice a little introspection and figure out why you feel the need to share that stuff with everyone.

Do you want them to feel sorry for you?

Is it because you want them to appreciate all your glorious post-chemo hair?

Is it because you feel like a freaking hero for all that you’ve been through?

Well, guess what? Everyone has been through their own hell. They don’t necessarily need to know about yours.

Maybe you’re hoping to make yourself approachable. Is it working?

Are you looking for a common bond among your fellow humans?

I’ll be honest, that’s annoying as hell. So maybe just stop. Stop telling people about the dry mouth that comes from chemo. Stop making a circle around your face and saying something along the lines of, “This is nineteen months of growth.”

Stop mentioning the lymphedema, stop drawing attention to the compression sleeve. Stop talking about cancer altogether.

If people want to talk to you about it, they’ll bring it up.



Is it obvious that I’m annoying the shit out of myself these days? Time to breathe and stop being so hard on myself I guess.