I know. I fell off the grid. My last post "Fear" was a trip down a dark pathway. Everytime I sat down to write, I ended up with some dark and heavy passage on life and cancer or the deep corners of hell. I decided I didn't want to read my own posts. Too depressing. I wanted to be funny and entertaining. I wanted to turn a tragic circumstance into a gut buster. Then, I tried forcing humor into my ramblings. Unfortunately, it brought "gallows humor" to a whole new level, kinda like dead baby jokes. There's just not much comedy in gastrointestinal distress or radiation burnt skin. Well, there was to ME, but I figured unless you've had the joy of transforming yourself into a french fry or have been astounded by the different colors of excrement, it was hard to relate. I decided to write a book. That way, I could provide context to my cancer ramblings and maybe then I would be funny. A close friend of mine recommended his brother's book, "Now it's Funny" By Michael Solomon.
Darn it.
My book had already been written by someone else. Michael Solomon writes his account of his battle with Lung Cancer and writes with satire and sarcasm very much like my own. I am hard pressed to improve on the experience and the title is a basic "sum up."If you would like to read my book, read his. It's awesome. I'll just take credit that I would have written the exact same thing if I'd only gotten cancer sooner.
So what have I been up to for the last six or seven months? Well, for starters, I spent 5 weeks "tanning" in San Francisco. It's exactly the same thing. You take your clothes off, get into a big machine for 5-7 minutes a day and then you are done. I spent the first few weeks, riding my bike to treatment, working out at the gym and generally feeling good. Throw in a few days of retail therapy including $100 worth of new underwear, and some killer Mission fish tacos, and my time spent in radiation did not suck. The last few weeks got tougher once my skin started to burn and burn it did. It turned dark purple and got really sore. It looked bad and didn't stop burning until a week after my last treatment which was when I lost all of my skin. Yeah, not much funny about that.
Directly after my tanning sessions in San Francisco, we took a vacation to Bali, Indonesia. Our family had been through the ringer. I had been staying in San Francisco the entire time and needed to reconnect with my husband and kids with what was left of my body and my brain. Things have been getting funnier ever since. First, there was the broken rib. Radiation weakens the bones so while I was out surfing, being bald and doing my Kelly Slater impressions (NOT), I broke one of my ribs. Oops. Really? So, I spent my tropical sunset evenings icing my chest while my skin sloughed off. You'd think that would be enough because we all know God NEVER gives us more than we can handle right? I can just see God sitting up there chuckling to Himself, "Watch this." A few days later, I was bitten by a Rhesus Monkey. A Monkey! Does that ever happen to anyone? Really? Tack on a Rabies Vax Series to a broken rib, second degree burns after five months of chemo and breast removal and I'm starting to think that maybe God has a sick sense of humor. I've had enough. "No, I'm pretty sure you can handle more...," says God. I will say that we stayed at the Hilton, got lots of free drinks and surfed everyday despite the monkey bites and broken ribs, so it kinda evened out.
What does any self-respecting, post-chemo, post-surgery, post-radiation, post-rib fracture, post monkey bite, mother of two, being thrown into chemically-induced menopause do when the going gets tough? Takes the kids to Disneyland of course!!! My husband treated me and our two, adrenaline, cracked-out kids to two days in the Magical Kingdom. Certain I would hurl, my adoring family dragged me onto California Screamin' six times but I showed them, (and God,) that I could handle it. I did not hurl. I even ate greasy food and sugar to boost my odds. BUT Nooooo! heh heh heh. I still got it. The girls were ecstatic and the joy of being there with them is indescribable. It was the reason for all the other crap I'd been through, and evidence I'd do it again if I had to.
School started in August. The hamster wheel of motherhood needed spinning and I jumped right on while my husband returned to work and the everyday grind that goes with being a father of two daughters, a husband, and King of his castle. The girls dove right in to school, soccer, martial arts, field trips, book reports and a World's Fair project. And all the magnificent people that came out of the woodwork to help my family survive a breast cancer diagnosis, disappeared into the woodwork from whence they came. I took over making dinner and suddenly, it's November. I find myself in a strange place, wondering, did that just happen? I'm well enough to re-engage into my life, taking care of my kids, doing the grocery shopping and checking the mail. I am very thankful for my faculties, but I am not done. I am still in the shadow of this monumental event. I have not reached my post-cancer potential. My recovery is not complete. Primarily, because I am still in treatment. However, life goes on pretty normally and I am happy everyday that I am able to navigate the simplest of schedules, celebrating the small victories and biding my time until my body is ready to respond to the brain that is ready to drive it. Until then, I am in a weird place. Most days, it's funny because life is generally pretty funny and lately, I plug into and out of the funny parts. My Herceptin infusion every three weeks and my new "cell phone pocket" in the left portion of my bra reinforces that yes, it really did happen and even after 14 months, it is still not over. As I transition into survivorship, I am so very grateful that I am here, grateful for Bali vacations and rollercoasters, grateful for broken ribs and monkey bites and that the lives of my husband and my kids have returned to a version of normalcy. I am trying to have patience and each day, I get a little better than I was the day before.....but I'm not there yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment