Pain

So the last few days, I'm kinda sick to death of pain and the only explanation is "sometimes chemo causes that". So what? I'm just supposed to suck it up? My pains:

1. Right side of my neck
2. Back of my neck on the right
3. Right chest
4. Right clavicle
5. Right arm
6. Right armpit
7. Right shoulder
8. Everthing between right back of neck and right shoulder
9. Right hip

ALL THE TIME.

Chest and arm pit are probably scar tissue. Right clavicle and arm are probably due to damage from my mediport placement. Lovely.

Every day I pray that I don't have a recurrance because I know I couldn't handle the chemo again.

The Light The Night walk was a great success. Personally I wished I had tried harder to get more donations, but I love being part of something so big and important. And as much as I hate hearing the stories and see the small kids with scarves on their heads I believe it's a good reminder for me. It was cool to see a little boy that was sick last year, now in his terrible twos.

And now a little update on my mental health...still feeling very selfish. I still wish I could hang out with my favorite person in the world all the time. I'm finding myself "zoning out" a lot more lately. Before the majority of my day dreams were at bedtime when I couldn't sleep or in the car when I was alone. Now, I could be anywhere. I feel like JD from scrubs - head tilted to the side, just day-dreaming up a storm.

I haven't been very emotional the last few days tho. Quite the opposite. With the exception of the Walk, I've been feeling angry and cold again. I don't know where these feelings come from or if it's some kind of defense mechanism.

I'm also noticing that I'm pretty tired lately. That scares me. It could be the change in weather, or adjusting to the back to school routine, or that I'm actually learning again and making my brain do something out of the ordinary.

Perhaps the common fool would wonder why, oh why don't I go to the doctor. I'll tell you a little secret: I DON'T TRUST DOCTORS.

Ok. So, what makes me happy these days? My kids as always, tho they also are major stress factors in my life...and not always because of something they do. There's school, bullies, homework, sicknesses, etc. School is making me happy - I feel so good when I finish an assignment or do good on a test. Other than that, I can't really say what makes me happy...no really, I can't say.

What really, really bothers me is that I'm usually really good at working out what's in my head myself. I can usually sit down and take a long hard "look in the mirror" and figure it out. It has taken me days, even months depending on what was wrong at the time, but I've always been able to get myself through things. Now, I just don't have the time to go through my head and figure out what I'm feeling, why I'm feeling it, and what I need to get over it (or around it, or through it, etc.) All I know, is when I do actually feel something, it's absolutely NOT what I should be feeling.

And I know these last two blogs have been more like the ramblings of a crazy person, but I can't help it. This is what it's like in my brain right now. I wish I could call up the hoarders team to organize all the shit in there...that's a joke haha.

My How Time Flies...

...when you're in denial.

Well maybe not denial, exactly. For some reason, looking back on the past six months the things that stand out most to me is the downward spiral of my marriage, the birth of my niece, and the darkness looming just beneath the surface of my self.

More and more, all of the emotion I managed to avoid while being sick is creeping up on me. While I was sick I slept. I slept a lot and when I wasn't sleeping I was on the verge of sleeping. Suddenly a year later I find myself so emotional that I don't even recognize myself anymore. Built Ford tough as I was, am now constantly on the verge of tears, unable to find a moment to myself to deal with all that has happened. Wondering what it was all for. For what reason did it happen to me? It hasn't made me stronger - if anything, I'm much weaker. It didn't strengthen my marriage, my friendships, my relationships with anyone - if anything it has weakened all of those too. I find myself enjoying the company of no one. I find myself feeling so alone in the middle of a crowd of people I know and love; watching them in slow motion as they laugh and interact, knowing nothing of the pain I carry.

I think this all started to hit me when I heard about my aunt's uteran cancer returning...despite no longer having a uterus. My first instinct was to reach out to her, but I quickly realized that in doing so, I would have to face my own reality...the one I had been trying so hard to forget.

My husband and I hadn't even touched each other in months and rather than living "together" we just coexisted. My unhappiness growing. But rather than dealing with facing cancer, I faced him. After some counseling and talking, we're a work in progress but I can't say that I'm happy yet...whatever that means.

My family feels like I'm isolating them since I don't feel I can confinde in anyone about anything. It's not my intention, I just don't know how they could possibly understand and I don't know how to make them.

Sometimes I day dream about an island. Metaphor? Maybe.

And there lies my problem: Life's Too Short Syndrome. I can't help but asking myself "If Dr. Howard told me I only had three months to live, would I want to keep doing what I'm doing?" And the answer is a big, fat NO. So how do I balance that feeling with what I am doing now? And I'm so sick of always doing what I'm supposed to do. Always being the good girl; doing the right thing for everyone else. What the fuck about me?

This feeling has become even more present lately. I baked Skye's birthday cake and suddenly I feel like I'm surrounded by people telling me what kind of cake I'm going to make them for their birthdays. What the fuck about my birthday? Who's going to take my request? Who's going to make me a birthday cake?

I guess it boils down to my wanting to be selfish. For once in my life, I want it to be about MY life. Me.

Is that so wrong?

I did finally write my aunt a letter an admitted that the reason it took me so long, was because in writing to her about her cancer I had to face my own experience (and here comes that lump in my throat and the welling of the tears). I told her that I had nothing profound to say to her to make her feel better about what she was going thru. I told her that I just wanted her to know that I know and that if she ever needs me, I am here.

Ugh...hubby just busted me crying.

So now here I am, miss "Got it Together", is so falling apart. I feel like that game Break the Ice.

My marriage counselor sucks. I don't want to waste my precious minutes on this earth in counseling anyway, and I really don't care if that makes me a bad wife. Sadly, I fear it makes me a bad mother and so I keep working at it for them. Some days feel hopeful and others feel like I'm settling and every day I think of that island.

I have been finding much joy in just looking at my girls. Those moments between cooking breakfast and taking complaints when I can just watch them. And now I have a new niece that brings me joy. Island. What? Who said that?

Anyway, due to my latest emotional state, I've decided to start blogging again. I know that this blog is kinda out of order and all over the place, but I had to catch you up and well, quite frankly I'm all over the place. So now you're where I am. Are you catching on?

Until next blog...

It's been awhile...

It's been a long while. June was my last cancer appointment, and everything was clear. It's coming up on the one year anniversary since my last treatment and I suppose that's exciting.

Not so exciting is that my emotional state, which is now forcing me to deal with all the shit I never dealt with. I have been a super-emotional mess lately, tears always on the verge just waiting for any reason to come out. Then at marraige counseling (more about that later), I said it out load..."I never really dealt with being sick, I just kinda slept thru it all." And that's the bottom line isn't it. I need to deal with what I went thru in my own way; however I can't do that because I am NEVER EVER EVER alone. So Bryan's assignment was to find me some alone time, but so far he hasn't.

We've been going to counseling, but I have to admit that I know the problem is more me than him. I know that I need to work on myself...my mental state, my physical state, my emotional state. I also know that I can't possibly do both. So what do I do? What's more important? Who's more important? My kids are the most important thing to me - this is why I'm trying so hard to be content in my marriage. But if I don't take care of myself, what good am I going to be to them? In order to take care of myself, I'll have to neglect my marriage, and it can't really afford to be neglected any more than it already has. And so I'm at a mental impass with all of these things.

So I am a complete mess.

I've been reading the book Women, Food, and God and most pages make me cry. There are some things in there that really, really hit home for me.

Reality Check

Today I found out an old friend of mine died yesterday. We aren't close anymore, but I would see him from time to time. It's hitting me way harder than I think it should. Perhaps with everything I went thru I'm more "sensitive" to these things, or maybe it's just rubbing my own mortality in my face. Whatever it is, I'm so extremely distraught about it. I'm feeling so much sadness for his sister (who was one of my very best friend in high school) and his mother (who used to make me lunch every day). For all of his friends, for him, and for myself. He had one of the biggest hearts I've ever known.

Fog

Yesterday I remembered suddenly, that I was supposed to take the twins to see their teacher on Friday...last Friday. I could use excuses like River being sick or Raine having a reaction to her shot; but when I'm really honest with myself I know that when I woke up Friday morning I had absolutely no idea that I was supposed to take them.

I've been trying to write things down on my calendar and I'm doing pretty good with that, but not very good with checking it every morning. I told Bryan I wanted sticky notes for Valentine's Day.

On Facebook, people have been posting a pic of them with their "sweetheart" and stating how long they've been together. In the spirit of Valentine's Day (which is a crock to me, but whatever), I posted a pic of Bryan and I and put how long we've been together. It's easy to figure out the numbers by dates. A friend posted that she can't believe it's been that long already. To be honest, I don't feel that way at all. When I think back to my wedding it seems like a different lifetime. It's like there's a river of fog between "now" and "then", but I can't figure out when exactly in time the fog lifts.

And even more honestly, I feel as tho Skye has fallen into that fog...or at least the early years when I built our strong bond. I find myself grasping at it, but it's just out of my reach. It's breaking my heart. I look at her and can't remember when she was a baby. I mean, I can remember it, but it seems so long ago and only key moments stick out in my head - ironically the same key moments that are caught on photograph.

The two ways I can explain my mind is this:

1-when I'm just looking back to the past: a river of fog - like a line separating "then" and "now", without knowing when exactly "then" ends and "now" begins.

2-trying to remember something specific: swimming downward in mud toward the memory.

I don't know at what point I should bring this up to my doctor. Everything I've read says that if you have problems after 6 months, some say a year. I'm definately going to bring it up at my March appointment...if I remember.

New Worries

The other night, around 8pm my cell phone rang. It was a familiar number, but I couldn't place it so I answered it. It was my OB. He told me not to panic, that he just wanted to call me because there was a "question" on my pap test and that because of all the chemo I was on this year he wants to take a look at my cervix thru a microscope.

Half of me doesn't think it's a big deal. I just had a PET scan two weeks before that and it didn't show anything...or did it? I mean, they did miss my big green lung when they looked at my very first PET scan, why not miss a little ol' cervix? This leads me to the other half of me who is worried and pissed off and sick of this shit. I just started relaxing and not being such a paranoid android. I just started feeling more positive about my prospects on living for awhile. And of coarse, there's the matter of this happening pretty much around the same time as I found the mass in my neck next last year.

So I looked up my test results online. They said that I tested positive for high risk of HPV, but that no actual HPV was detected. This "question" could just be due to chemo causing cells to be abnormal or it could be more. At this point I'm trying to not even think about it. I mean, why bother? I'm going on February 1st to be violated some more.

After having two pregnancies, three kids, and cancer I think that pretty much everyone has seen my ass. I do believe that if someone offered to pay me to run around naked I would. Why not?

Epic Fail

Today was the K4 open house; the last day of the "Dinosaur Days" in the classroom. We got a note home on Monday about it. The twins came home yesterday with stickers advertising the event. I wrote it in my planner. It was very important to them and I told them we'd stop in after we picked up Skye from school today.

We went to pick up Skye, and she ended up going to her friend's house after school. Bryan picked her up at 5:00 and when they came home, she told me she wanted to go to the open house...

As if I hadn't known about it in the first place, I completely forgot about it.

I scrambled thru their dirty laundry basket, loathing myself for being so defective and found the sticker. So very lucky for me, it went until 6pm but that didn't make me feel any better.

We all walked up to the school together, me in tears the whole time at the knowledge that something so important to them could just slip into the black hole in my mind. I've always thought that being a mom was something I was really good at, but not today. Of course I was glad that no one noticed I'd been completely blank about it, not so much that no one noticed my tears.