all because I forgot a date

Happy tears, all because I forgot a date.

Disbelief, all because I forgot a date.

Relief, all because I forgot a date.

Praise to God, all because I forgot a date.

Feeling B.L.E.S.S.E.D., all because I forgot a date.

Realizing how this can’t even be described with words, all because I forgot a date.
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On December 20, 2007, I received news that I had cancer. I thought I would never pass that date without feeling a twinge, a start, an immense pain . . . but it happened. This year, only two years later, the date whizzed by, and it was just today that I was scratching my head, thinking, “when exactly . . . ,” and I actually had to look in my blog to find out the exact date.

That is progress, peeps.

That, and a second determination of NO CANCER, and I have the only Christmas presents that I really want or need.

Thank you, God.
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Cross-posted to Just Enjoy Him.

this wasn’t going to be my life (by Judy)

It was going to be easier than it is, less complicated. Maybe that’s what we all grow up thinking, believe when we’re young and have our futures before us. We’ve maybe lived with some of life’s complications (some, of course, have already had very complicated lives), but . . . the fairy tale, the husband, the child(ren), the living a long long life, the happily ever after — where does it go?

Don’t get me wrong. My heart is full as I write this — full and yet hurting at the same time. Paradoxical. Complicated. That’s what life is like for real. Full of paradoxes, full of complexities that I would have never dreamed about.

Children? Easy — get pregnant . . . or don’t. It doesn’t matter how children come to you, does it? Love is the only thing that matters. “All you need is love.” “Love conquers all.”

Only it doesn’t. It’s important, of course, but we find out that it’s much more complicated than that. Children are complicated whether they’re biological or adopted, and if they’re adopted, that adds layers of complexities that I think we continue to learn about throughout their lives.

Growing old. I know why I’m thinking of this one so much. Because my one-year remission anniversary is just around the corner — December 9. Of course I’ll make it until then; I have no tests, no lumps, no telling symptoms that would make me think that I won’t celebrate one year of remission in a few days. Still, it makes me think, once again, of what I’ve been through in the past almost two years and of my mortality, of how long I may have on this earth. I have a prognosis which says one thing. I have a belief which says that only God knows and it may be many years, that I may beat the odds. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t get scared.

The two things may seem somewhat unrelated, but of course as so much in life is, they’re not; they’re intertwined. When I was first diagnosed with Stage IV Inflammatory Breast Cancer and given a certain prognosis, the first words out of my mouth were, “but I have a (at that time) six year old son.” My first thoughts were of Energy Boy, of raising him, of wanting to be around for him. Despite any complexities, any difficulties, any losses for him with his adoption, I was heartsick to think that I might add yet another loss in his life if I were to die while he was young.

This wasn’t going to be my life. I wasn’t supposed to be worrying about how long I’d be around for EB, my health, his ability to cope with yet more loss. It just wasn’t going to be.

Things were on a good path when I was diagnosed. And then I felt like the world fell out from under me. Like the world that I had known had completely turned inside out, like there was nothing I could rely on anymore.

I got through it, of course. With God, with prayer, with medicine and wonderful doctors, I’m here today and about to celebrate one year of remission, and praying to move on to my second year . . . and third . . . and fourth . . . and so on. If I have my way, I’ll at least see EB through his formative years, through graduation from high school. Anything else will be extra, will be a wonderful bonus which I will gladly and gratefully take.

I simply don’t want my boy to experience any more loss in his young life. Not now. Not soon. Not even in five, or seven years. I don’t know that there is a “good” time for him to experience more loss, but I want to be there for him as long as I can be. God willing . . . God willing.

No, this wasn’t going to be my life . . . but it is. I’m simply trying to live it as well as I can, with what’s best for EB in mind. With God’s help, I will.

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
Isaiah 40:31

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Cross-posted to Just Enjoy Him.

when someone in your cancer support group dies

Well, it’s hard. One of our members, A., died on February 11. The support group that I’m in meets once/week and is a “mixed” group, meaning that we have people with all different kinds of cancer in it, and people who have survived for years, those who are still in treatment, and those who are just out of treatment. A. had pancreatic cancer that had spread to her colon and then had finally spread to her stomach and beyond.

Group was last night, and while I thought we’d probably talk a lot about A., it didn’t turn out that way. We have two new members, one who joined last week and another who joined this week. When we have new members, we turn our attention to them, and this week’s new member had a lot to say. I’m not saying that begrudgingly at all. It often happens that way. I remember being a new member and being so relieved that I found a group where the people were interested and asked me a lot of questions and I had so very much to say. I felt like I was able to unload on people who really understood where I was coming from. So we turned our attention to the new members, as it should be.

Therefore, we didn’t get to talk much about A. In fact, A. seemed like an afterthought, when I really thought we might celebrate her life, talk about our feelings about her loss, and devote some time, tears, and laughter and smiles to A. Like I said, I don’t begrudge the time spent welcoming and getting to know the new members; it was just how the timing was.

We did, though, get a few carpools set up so that nobody would have to go alone to A.’s calling hours. So I’m going to go with about four women from the group tomorrow evening. They’ll pick me up around 5:45. The calling hours are from 6:00-8:00.

A.’s kind, positive presence will certainly be missed in our group.
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I did get a brief chance to talk to the group leader about another side effect of losing somebody from the group, or a side effect of somebody, anybody dying from cancer, and that is being thrown back to thinking about your own mortality. She assured me that it’s normal. I told her that since A.’s death, I had gone back to some former thoughts, sometimes very logically thinking about my own memorial service, what I would like in it, etc. etc. But while I might be thinking about it logically, it’s still unnerving to me. It’s still not someplace I want to be.

The group leader, H., said that is totally normal, but to fight those thoughts and try to bring myself back to the here and now. That only God knows when we’ll be taken to heaven and until then, we need to live each day to its fullest. It could be tomorrow or it could be in twenty years; it doesn’t matter what the prognoses say. Even with A.; she outlived her prognosis by nearly four years. It may not have been long enough for those of us left behind, but from what I’ve heard, I think she was ready to go and was at peace with it.

I long for that peace, with whatever happens to me in the future. As a Christian, I think that is where I need to strive to be — at peace with whatever happens. But I have to be honest and say that I’m just not there yet.

I could learn a lot from A.

Even now.

today’s post is brought to you by the letter R

I saw my oncologist today, and the appointment was all positive. It was great. I honestly thought she might do one of those, “You know, there’s a possibility of recurrence, blahblahblah . . . . ” because if you look in the medical literature, my kind of cancer does have a high percentage of recurrence. I’m just not giving that room in my brain because I’m alive and happy and I refuse to think “recurrence.” My thoughts are focused on “life” and “blessings” and good things like that. Well, except when Frank and I fight and I’m comforting my son, but even then I’m not thinking “recurrence.”

I don’t think of it as denial either. I choose to think of it as the way things will be.

Soooo, we had the appointment with Dr. Funky Glasses, and like I said it was all positive, and not only did she NOT use the word Recurrence, she used the word Remission. Just on December 9, when I was in the clinic and hoping to get the results of the CT scan before I left that day, the nurses there said that a patient isn’t considered in remission until she’s had clean scans for a year. Well, that’s not how Dr. Funky Glasses sees it. She told me I’m in Remission NOW. I said, “so I can do the Remission Dance?”

So you can do the Remission Dance,

she said smiling.

HALLELUJAH!! Time to bust a move and do the Remission Dance!

I’m Remission Grrrrl, after all.

Yay!

Only much, much louder.
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Cross-posted to Just Enjoy Him.

a cynic-survivor’s guide to life

Well, today I’m a cynic. I’m a survivor everyday, and plan to remain one everyday, but today? Or at least right this moment — I’m a big time cynic, back to being The Snarky Librarian, so be forewarned.

HONESTLY, I didn’t even realize it was our (12th) anniversary until Frank read Nate’s devotional tonight and read the date, December 28. This was after we had a huge argument, so we both snidely said “Happy Anniversary” to each other. You could sense the pauses between Happy and Anniversary, the swear words hanging in the air, unsaid, unspoken for so many reasons — because once said, they couldn’t be unsaid, but mostly because there was a 7 year old boy in the room who would be more hurt by his parents’ small cruelties to each other than they would be.

These things happen in relationships, arguments over the timer used to put him to bed, for goodness’ sakes, something of such insignificance (my point in the argument exactly) that the smallness of it expands to fill the very air of the room that you’re both in.

Frank is sick (probably upper respiratory infection), I’m tired and worn out from two days of a child who is testing me at every turn. A child who admitted last night that he doesn’t understand why I don’t have cancer anymore. *My heart breaks a little more* at everything he’s been through and last night I tried very hard and very patiently to explain to him why I don’t have cancer anymore and he seemed to understand it but his actions today belied his saying he understood it yesterday.

Today I thought maybe it would be a god idea to ask at the clinic if one of the oncology nurses could explain it to him in an age-appropriate way, but when I approached him with that idea, he shrunk back in his car booster seat, eyes huge, and said, “No, no, I don’t want that.” So of course I won’t force it on him.

I asked him today if he understood and he said, “kind of . . . maybe . . . . . not really,” and then asked if he’s glad that I don’t have cancer anymore and he said, “I don’t know.” My heart broke a little more, both for him and for me — for his confusion and for him getting so used to me having cancer that the me-with-cancer becomes more comfortable than the me-without-cancer.

All of this, and I’m sure you can see why I got more than a bit testy when Frank got weird about not being able to find the timer immediately when he wanted to. Which lead to a huge fight. Go figure. I’m sure wars have been started over smaller issues.

So we had no anniversary. We both forgot; how’s that?! Yay us! Now there’s a chill in the air that has nothing to do with the temperature outside and I think we’ll go our separate ways tonight with nothing more than a ” ‘night” — if that — and that will be fine with both of us. It’s been a difficult year+ a little and we just don’t always have to be mature about things.

Is the honeymoon period of survivorship already coming to an end? Here I never understood before what the hell people were talking about when they said survivorship had it’s own difficulties. I mean, what would be difficult about that?! You LIVE, dammit! But the thing is, you don’t know how to live without that damn grim reaper so many paces behind you even when you’re trying so hard not to be that way. You don’t know how to live life fully, not how you lived Before Cancer anyways. It’s different. It’s rich and it’s sweet and it’s lovely and you count your blessings all the time. . . . but it’s full of complications now that it never had before. Relationships, especially with those to whom you’re particularly close, don’t just fall into place. They take some fine-tuning, or a lot of fine-tuning, and you aren’t skilled in the art of fine-tuning and frankly, you just want to enjoy LIVING and why can’t they understand that you just want to rejoice in your LIFE and can’t they let go of the little things in life too and maybe they just can’t, and why can’t you understand that and accept them for that?

So maybe you’ve changed the most and how do you fit into this whole equation now? As Mom, as Wife, as whatever other relationships present a particular challenge to you right now. You don’t quite understand why you’re especially impatient with Friend A, who has always been one of your best friends, but who worries about all the small stuff, and I mean ALL the small stuff, and you don’t mean to sound . . . . imperious or above her or anything, but because of what you’ve been through, you just have a much better view of The Big Picture these days and most of the time aren’t going to worry about the small things anymore. At least not if you can help it and not when you catch yourself.

So, things change. It’s not other people that change, it’s you who are changed, forever. Again, you don’t mean to sound smug, but anyone who has been through this knows that it changes you in ways that are hard to explain and it changes you forever; you can’t go back to who you were before even if you wanted to.

I’m not saying that all the ways are positive either. Some positive, some negative, some neutral. It just happens.
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So I was wrong: he comes down and apologizes for his part in the argument, we talk a wee bit more, and I tell him about what Nate said. I say that I know that Nate is only seven years old and it’s not meant to be hurtful at all, but it feels hurtful when you ask your son if he’s glad if you don’t have cancer anymore and he answers, “I don’t know.” But I was an adult and let him own his feelings; I didn’t show how I felt about that answer. Because, really, he is only seven and he is confused. He needs to be allowed to feel whatever it is that he feels, in total.

All in all, I guess Frank and I were more mature than I thought we would be. Who knew? We’re better people than I give us credit for so many times.

Happy Anniversary to us.
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Cross-posted to Just Enjoy Him.