I started not to send this out and do another "everything is fine" quick email like last time but I am going to go ahead. I've spent my whole life hiding my vulnerabilities, I think it's time I was real. And hopefully some will be encouraged even with this week's message. That has always been my goal. When I stop being an encouragement, one of y'all better write me and say "enough." I think after my last treatment I was so emotionally clogged I couldn't even verbalize.
7 chemos down, 2 to go.
The past few weeks I've felt so, irritable and overloaded. I kept blaming work, which is busy and my oncologist said the number one complaint her patients have is when they go back to work everyone expects them to do what they did before at the same pace, etc. They're back at work, they look fine, so they must be fine. And this has been a huge frustration and area causing me great mental irritability. But the one thing I have always been good at is self evaluation and honesty about who I am and how I deal with things.
In business I always ask "what's the pattern" whether it be human behavior, system performance or business procedures, patterns hold all the answers good or bad and will ultimately tell you where to make change or make something a best practice. I realized a pattern in myself last week. I've had 5-6 MRI scans since this all began. And I always cry during them. Now an MRI is the most painless thing they do to me so it doesn't make any sense that they can drive a 1 inch nail width needle call a port pic into me every other week and I take a deep breath and go with the flow but lying still for half an hour sends me into tears. The first time was the day they diagnosed me and I blew it off as "this is the first time I've been alone and it is all just hitting me." The next day they did another one and the same thing was my excuse "I've been locked in a hospital room with my family and this is my first alone time." The next one was the morning after brain surgery so I figured I was just scared of bad results. The next one was a 3 hour long MRI so I decided I cried b/c I was irritated it took so long. Then I had one after my third chemo and even though the Cat scan had already shown all the cancer gone, I still cried in the MRI chamber and I lied there asking myself "why are you crying?" Well last week I had another after chemo #6 (no matter if you are already clean protocol is still a scan after every 3 chemo treatments) and again I lied there crying for the whole 20 minutes (I'm certain the MRI techs think I have some screws loose and they always ask if I'm ok). So I opted not to go back to work but go home that day and as I drove home trying to piece my knowledge of my life together into something that would make sense it occurred to me. I attacked my cancer as I do all things in life, form a plan, establish the steps needed to execute such plan and then proceed full steam ahead toward success.
Well my key points to measurable success for all of this were
#1 prove to my family that I don't need a babysitter - this was needed for several important reasons
a) they have their own families and jobs to maintain secure which is indeed their priority
b) I cannot stand feeling like a burden to anyone/ I'm certain this has lots to do with being single as well but I can only have so many revelations a week, I'll work through the intricacies of why this bothers me so much later. I think part of it goes hand in hand with my career. Since I have nothing else to show for my life, no kids, no hubby, no Southern Living model home, I sure as blazes better be the best of the best in my career.
#2 Prove to my company that I was still a capable employee. I mean it's one thing to get cancer, but I had people scraping on my brain, they weren't sure I was going to be able to brush my own teeth much less run a corporate division when all was said and done. So I had to come back to work like gangbusters to prove I was the same me, that I could still do my job, and that I am worth my annual bonus which had better be good come June.
So what does that have to do with crying in the MRI chamber?
It's the only time when I am totally quiet and still. I am a master of the multi-task. I can have a phone conversation, an IM conversation, read a report and type stats into Excel all at the same time. I run full speed all day. I wake up at night with ideas for work and jot them down, if I am "resting" I read a book or a magazine or watch TV........I haven't just sat since December. I've been so focused on the next step and what I can do to succeed. Succeed at fighting cancer, succeed at not worrying my family, succeed at being the star employee at work. So when they lie me on that cold table and slide me all the way in so my arms can't even move and lock my head in place, I have no distraction. It's not even that I think, it's the opposite, it's like I stop working so hard and my brain gets to just rest and process and the result is big emotional stuff. And it all just kind of rolls out of me, out of my eyes down my face. I've been so focused on achieving certain things, I still really haven't processed that I had cancer. I don't know what that means even. I mean, there are days when I hurt and ache and cry and say to myself "today I feel like a cancer patient." But what do you do? I mean what are the options? So far, no one has given me any options. I guess I could have refused surgery or chemo or whatever but that would be pretty selfish to family to just give up. But I can't lie, it crosses my mind. I'm not scared to die but I am really hating the pain. 4 months of pain is too long and it will be mid-August before I'm through with this. January - August...that's a long time.
I have always had this trait of preparing for the worst case scenario. I always thought it was a good way to live life. If I am prepared for the worst and have a plan then I know I can handle whatever comes along b/c in reality the worst usually doesn't happen but if it does, I'm ready. This often actually gave me peace....once I knew what my plan was and that I had a manageable plan for the worst case scenario for any event in my life, then I could sit back and chill out knowing I was ready.
I wasn't ready for a brain tumor. I was ready with all my past issues for some type of female cancer so I got checked quarterly for any changes there. With my family history I was ready for diabetes, arthritis even heart disease or colon problems. But brain tumor.......was not on my list. And it all happened so fast which I still know is a blessing from God, but there were no long weeks of tests or dozens of Dr visits trying to figure out what was wrong.....just bam....here it is and here is what we have to do to you, like it or not. So when it was all over, I was so shocked and thankful to have just lived thru the surgery much less come out with not a hint of damage. It made me think of the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel. When they came out of the fire there was not even a hint of the smell of smoke on them. I don't know why that always spoke to me. I can smell a smoker from a mile away and the smell of smoke never gets out of your clothes and hair, just always really resonated with me, that was true protection. That's how protected they had been by God's hand. Now I will never compare myself to Shad, Shach and Bennie b/c there faith is, well the stuff stories in the bible are made of but I do know that only the hands of those guided by God could have done so well on me. I think I've spent a lot of my life preparing for things that never came to fruition, what a horrible waste! And at the end of the day.....the really horrible stuff comes out of nowhere and slams you like a freight train no matter how prepared you are. And you know, Shad, Shach and Bennie are never mentioned again after that story in the bible. Interesting. What did they do next? Well they were promoted...not sure to what, just lots of questions. Maybe just coming out of the fire with still your faith is enough? I wish I knew what they did next.
But I really didn't know what to do next. I feel like I should be doing something of some great purpose but I can't seem to find what it is. I feel like I should be accomplishing big things of eternal significance but most days I go in to work and spend hours upon hours in meetings planning for our company to earn the next million. Actually we really are a good company and focus on ways to serve our customers faster and safer. Don't get me wrong, when I hear what we call "actuals" which are actual emergency calls as opposed to the bazillion false alarms that go off at businesses and homes everyday, I am proud to play a part in that. To hear the eight yr old crying on the phone with our operator b/c her grandma had a heart attack and know that we got the ambulance there with the fastest response time in the industry, or our silent panic button saved a woman who was ambushed as she entered her home from being raped and murdered, I know there is value in the security business and I believe in it whole heartedly. I'm just not sure this is where I am supposed to be.
I did get loads of people to donate blood, thank you all by the way, especially the wimpy needle scaredy cats. I know who you are and love you all the more for going to give blood for me. I am certain it all went to people who didn't have a large network of family and friends to donate blood for them. I am thankful I didn't have to go through a transfusion although a couple of times I almost asked for one. The cancer circle tells me you feel so good after b/c you're not weak for at least a few days but alas, I never got low enough and didn't want to be greedy. I figured if I felt this bad and my counts were hi enough I didn't absolutely need it, then the blood should go to whomever was worse off than me.
Coincidently enough, the head nurse for my oncologist's office resigned. Callie said she couldn't take being around the fear of death all day. She would go home and cry for her patients at night. Oddly enough she and I are the same age, she said my case really hit her, she just kept saying these things shouldn't happen to young people, good people, etc. She is going to be teaching nursing starting this summer at the local college. One of the nurses on the actual chemo floor of the hospital (Racheal) said that I don't get to see how different I am from most patients. They were actually glad to see me crying this week b/c they were afraid I was staying in denial way too long. I was way too upbeat evidently for way too long. I asked her what I was supposed to be doing, crying in bed all day? She said no one gets this far without going through a really bitter phase and you haven't done that. She said that I say thank you for everything they do for me and don't have these horrific outbursts like most cancer patients do. I dunno, was good to hear I'm not the worst patient since I am the dietary diva to the guys in Nutrition. I never order anything on the menu and once when I checked in right before lunch they just sent me something which as soon as they were walking into my room I got queasy and screamed just get rid of the whole tray I'm gonna barf. (I'm having a major aversion to the smell of beef and they had chosen flank steak). So alas, the menu clerk calls me for my custom menu no matter how close to lunch time I check in now. And yes, I always thank him too.
So 5/30 is my last chemo. Then there will be about a month of them making a mold of my head, loads of scanning my body, the physicists determining how much radiation and at what angle the zap my brain. I will loose what's left of my hair. It's become more of a challenge each week but my hot rollers, teasing comb, and Aquanet have fought the good fight. They say my head will feel like it has a sunburn so I am thinking I will just increase the scarf collection during radiation b/c I probably won't want anything much touching it.
And yes, I am going to see a counselor to help me figure out what "dealing with my cancer" means.
God bless and keep you all.
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