Snippets Of Life

** drain tube #2 came out Boxing Day. So far so good. When Dearest One was helping get the tensor bandage back on again this morning I lamented that I just wanted to be done with needing help getting dressed and presentable. Tomorrow is ten weeks post mastectomy. Dearest One reminded me that some people don't get to ten weeks post mastectomy.

I feel like a two year old when they wrestle their clothes away from you because they want to do it themselves. Perhaps in a week or so I will be able to do that minus the wrestling. Simple things that can both irritate the heck out of me when I can't do them and bring me joy when I can. The rest of the time I take them completely for granted.

** I made the mistake of shopping for clothes on Boxing Day. Looking in the mirror with a lovely new top on without wearing a prosthesis brought me close to tears; the grief enveloping me from head to toe. Reminder to self to never go shopping for clothes without two breasts, a fake one will do.

** new drug for blocking estrogen is giving me morning sickness like symptoms. Twenty four hours a day. Not sure I can do this for five years. Hopefully it will lessen. So far ginger tea hasn't helped settle the tummy.

** it's also giving me mood swings which I haven't had in years. I don't miss them one bit. Neither does Dearest One. Not sure I can do five years of PMS like symptoms either. I have bitten my lip a hundred times over the past few days. I am grateful that years of practising restraint of pen and tongue means that not every single thing that I think needs to be said out loud. And that I don't believe everything I think helps too.

** am going to see Les Miserables tomorrow. I saw The Hobbit a few days ago. That's more movies in one week than I've seen in a theatre in years.

** went to a family gathering yesterday with 40+ people. First time I've participated in playing games in the 30 years I've been a part of this family. Turns out a person can change and enjoy themselves in the process. Was good to put a crack in the "But I don't (fill in the blank)" rut I can so easily stay in.

Anything Could Happen

When Y2K was coming, preparing for it was like reliving the tension of my childhood but on steroids. I knew all about needing a plan to stay safe in the face of impending doom. So I canned 600 jars of jams, pickles, fruit and vegetables until my cold room looked like a jewellery case with its row upon row of pretty coloured glass. I also had six months worth of flour, sugar, salt plus canned goods, matches and portable stove fuel. Finally there was an out of control happening where I couldn't be caught off guard.

When January 1, 2000 arrived with business as usual, part of me was disappointed. I saw it as a missed opportunity to gloat about how I had outsmarted people who were stupidly living as if they were in no imminent danger. All I had to show for my fanatical planning was a much smaller grocery bill for the next six months.

I watched the countdown to December 31st this year with detachment combined with occasional bouts of patting myself on the back that I wasn't like those doom sayers  My self- righteousness deflated like a popped balloon when I bumped up, for what felt like the zillionth time, against my fear of not being prepared for whatever might happen next, just a few days before the supposed end of the world.

As part of an ecumenical class gearing up for the coming of light we were asked to sit in complete darkness for ten minutes before lighting a candle. Once I shut off the lamp in my office and stuffed the chinks of light coming through the crevices I was left in a blackness that took me right back to childhood. I strained to make out shapes of things in the room just as I did as a child. Back then I would work myself up into such a state until I became convinced that not only had the chair across the room moved but so had the creepy person I imagined my clothes had morphed into as well. I couldn't even run for help because I believed the Beagle Boys lived under my bed and only came out of their trapdoor at night. No way was I going to risk one of them reaching out to grab my ankle as they broke free from their prison.

So when eerie images began to form as I sat in the dark a few nights ago, I asked myself why was I scared of the dark. "Because in the dark anything could happen and I won't see it coming." Not exactly what I thought the darkness would reveal to me.

The tension between who I was as a child, who I am now, and who I have yet to become feels taut in these moments as I`m catapulted back to being a 9 year old girl with a vivid imagination in the dark.

When my Zen timer (oh, the irony) made its Buddha bowl sound I lit my candle and it`s glow grew to illuminate a photo on my desk of my parents and Dearest One. I felt comforted to be among people whose faces shine with love for me. I didn't always feel that way.

My mother was the proverbial boogie man of my childhood. I never knew when she would morph into something as scary as the clothes on my chair in the dark, verbally, emotionally or physically lashing out with such randomness and without predictability. I could never figure out as a child if she loved me and I stood before her closed bedroom door on many a Sunday morning trying to get up the nerve to knock and ask timidly, "Do you love me?" I never got up the courage to go past raising my fist a hairbreadth`s away from my parents` unfinished wooden door. It was a question that hung in the air for decades.

So I find there is a tension as well between the mother I grew up with and the one I have now and the unknown one I will have as she continues to age. The woman who I today, without a doubt, know loves me. The woman who was the source of my greatest fear as a child was the one who comforted me the most in the illuminated darkness this week. 

If that isn't a sign of hope I don't know what is. 

 

Crossing The Line

This week we travelled for a second opinion about my treatment options.

It was surreal to be in a hospital solely devoted to cancer care. Everywhere we looked was a person carrying a green piece of paper which signalled they had gone through patient registration and were headed somewhere within the building for an appointment related to having cancer. I secretly wanted to stop every person and tell them that green was the symbolic colour for hope.

Asking for the second opinion was in that land between hard and easy for me. The doctor here mentioned I could go to that city far away for a second opinion but her tone and the way she phrased it let me know that it pushed her insecurity button when people did. I seriously considered sparing her any more button pushing at my expense.  Here, let me possibly keel over and die so you don't have to feel bad about my decision.  Not.

The doctor in the larger centre was refreshing. He spoke of living in the moment, being aware of what messages we internalize and listening to our hearts; on top of being passionate about oncology and treatment options and cutting edge technology.

He talked about how people feel secure because there is that yellow line  down the center of the highway as if that line alone would keep a semi truck from crossing over it and hitting us. Then he related that to how we get stuck in believing this, this or that is the thing that will keep whatever we fear from happening to us.

I looked at him rather fiercely and said, "I won't get stuck." He looked back and said, "I know you won't."

There is no clear cut treatment plan right now but there will be in the New Year. I am grateful to have a doctor I trust and who is advocating for me. So much so that he is sending my tumour to another country for further testing to aide him in his decision making.

I am healing. I am hopeful.

Cradling Her Face

This morning I brought my breakfast back to bed, added in a heated wheat bag to keep me warm, stopped and picked up a long sleeve shirt I had draped over the heat register and settled in to finish reading my book. It was -41C when I went to bed last night so extra heat was a must!

Two minutes later one of the Pugs was whining to be let up on the bed to join me. So I hoisted her up - the heaviest thing I've lifted since surgery - and she settled in for a nap. Or so I thought.

Before I knew it she was pacing back and forth at the end of the bed looking over the edge and whining. She wanted to be back down on the floor but was too scared to jump. I reached to help her and she ducked away. I tried again and again she ducked. Finally she came and looked up at me, her little tail wagging like an intermittent wind-shield wiper. I cradled her face in my hands and told her that she either had to get up the courage to jump or stop her whining.

I went back to my book and she went back to her pacing. Her story having as much to teach me about life as the one I was holding in my hand.

Eventually she jumped.

The Real Thing

"Don't laugh too much when I have a needle stuck in your chest."

For a moment I have an urge to laugh even harder, in that teenage laughter that gets out of control kind of way, but common sense prevails and I settle down.

The drain came out two weeks ago and slowly the pocket of skin where my breast used to be has been filling with fluid. Another drain will be put in but for today the surgeon has a big ass syringe on the end of a needle stuck in the pocket to remove as much fluid as he can to give me some relief from the pressure and pain.

Next week we see the powers that be in a city far away for a second opinion about the chemotherapy regimen they are suggesting here for me. If chemo goes ahead as planned it will be 6 months before I can put the active part of this breast cancer journey behind me.

My goal is to get well enough to head back to work next September. I miss my job, I miss the regular daily life. I was going to write that I miss the old me but I don't other than I miss my breast. Life has brought me to this point. I am a better person for it.

But my breast, I do so miss it. It's been more disconcerting to look down and see what looks like a breast, minus a nipple, than it's been to see the road of transformation. It's helped me realize that breast reconstruction will not be for me. I want the real thing or nothing at all.

Which is my aim for life in general, too.

Sense Of Humour A Must

My temporary breast prosthesis is shaped like a little cotton filled football. I tried it out yesterday and well, between it and the increasing fluid build up in the place where my breast used to be, I couldn't wait to be rid of it the moment I walked in the door last night.  So I took my bra off right then and there, tossed that on the dishwasher and totally forgot I had been wearing a prosthesis at all.

A few hours later I walked through the kitchen and spotted my prosthesis laying on the floor, its cotton batten filling just visible through the flap in its side. I scooped it up in a hurry, so very grateful that the dogs had not discovered it. More than likely they would have snatched it up in their jaw and carried it to the living room, dropped it and then picked it up again and again searching for the squeaker that inhabits all their toys. I can only imagine.

Gatekeeper Into An Unknown Land

Dearest One and I are silent as we glance at the arrow on the "Cancer Clinic ahead" sign. We drive past it like it's a gatekeeper into an unknown land. We swoop down a ramp that curves around until we are right at the clinic's front door. It looks like we've driven up to some fancy hotel with its carport like roof over head and the sliding glass doors that part as we draw near to them.

I check in at the reception desk and hand over my paperwork. She glances at it and says, "Oh, you're new." She turns to start transcribing it into the computer and asks me to take a seat.

I sit down and watch people. A man shuffles in in slippers and sweat pants. Another man cracks a joke with a nurse. Beyond another doorway I can see a huge sign that tells everyone it's the chemotherapy treatment room. There is both a stillness and a camaraderie present in the air.

A volunteer calls my name and I follow her to get weighed and measured. Down a little more weight since before surgery. Who knew my breast weighed that much?

Within minutes we are ushered into a room and our nurse starts asking questions and filling in yet more forms. Over her shoulder I notice a watercolour painting. I answer her questions while gazing at its gently rolling hills, watery blue sky and winding road. Symbolic of the journey I am now on. The one I didn't sign up for but the one presented to me.

I'm aware that I get to choose how I look at it. It doesn't divorce me from the whole range of human feelings, it's just that after I feel what I feel there comes a 'now what' point where I get to choose my focus. It's not a one time deal but a revolving door of feeling and choosing that will last the rest of my life. The rest of yours, too.

Forms are completed. The doctor comes in. We listen to her recommendations. She is wonderfully non biased and I appreciate that. She tells us to take some time to come to a conclusion.

I leave her office convinced which way I am leaning. My heart sinks as I listen to Dearest One come to a totally different conclusion.

In the middle of the night I lay in bed, fretting about which direction to take. Convinced that the decision I make is akin to deciding between life and death. As if it is all up to me. And in the stillness of the night comes a thought, you're forgetting God in this picture. A wry grin spreads over my face and I chuckle to myself. I had forgotten. That little nugget of grace comforts me so much that I fall back asleep.

In the morning I wake up unexpectedly joyful. That grin involuntarily springs up on my face every time I think about making a decision. I make phone calls about second opinions and get details about the chemotherapy regimen they are recommending. I scribble them down on the backside of an envelope.

It's only later when I turn the envelope over and see "Limited Time Offer" stamped in capital letters that a wry grin spreads over my face once more.

Gripped

"I'm scared you're going to die."

She hugs me tight, her words filtering down through her fingertips onto my back, desperately hoping in the power of her hug to keep me here.

I understand that grip.

One time my brother-in-law caught a bald headed eagle and put it in his truck. On the floor of his truck was a paper bag full of groceries. That bird put one of its talons right through a can of tomato soup. My brother-in-law knew he didn't have the power to get the bird to loosen its grip, the bird had to do that itself.

And so does my friend. I can try to calm her fears but I can't make them disappear. I haven't seen her since my first surgery. I'd been puzzled by her silence and yet not really. I reassure her that I understand her lack of contact.

I do.

I think specifically of several people. A friend whose life I disappeared from while she had cancer. I just stopped showing up. Or the friend who used to babysit my kids when she was a teenager, who - years later - lost her own teenager in an accident. How I couldn't bring myself to ring her doorbell. Much to my shame it didn't prevent me from telling anyone who would listen to me at the funeral that I knew her when. I also think specifically of this friend. Mea Culpa.

A loved one told me she did an online search for"how to not be an asshole while trying to support someone who has cancer." I think that's the reason many people stay away. The reason I have done so, too. When I look at it that way, my lack of action is due in part to an ego driven response. Fear of not looking good, of someone thinking less of me, in the face of their pain. And then there is the desire not to add to their suffering. I'm scared of getting it wrong.

Fear has been my most faithful companion in life. I've gripped it's hand so tight through the years. It's been one of my longest standing prayers for it to stop overshadowing my every move. Now is the perfect opportunity to learn how to let go a little more. Holding on tight doesn't have the power I thought it did. Thank God.

As my friend and I hug goodbye, her grip a little looser, she whispers in my ear, "Please don't die." I whisper back, "I don't plan to anytime soon.".

Fingers In The Dark

"I know, I've touched your incision."

His answer surprises me. I have absolutely no feeling for several inches on either side of my 26 stitch mastectomy scar, which comes in handy when the surgeon is digging deep to get the sutures out, but is awkward when it comes to Dearest One's touch. Has he run his fingers in the dark over my incision and I've been oblivious? I guess so.

No one writes about this part. Regaining physical intimacy while manoeuvring around drain tubes and foot long incisions. It's hard not to feel like there is an intruder in the room with us. A permanent one.

We've slept in separate beds for the bulk of my recuperation. We've learned the hard way that restorative sleep is not in the cards when you worry about accidentally hooking the drain tube with a body part or flinging an arm right over the area above the incision that burns without touch. And we need all the sleep we can get.

Tomorrow the drain tube and remaining stitches get removed.

In 6 sleeps we meet with the oncologist to see what comes next.

It's not the first time, nor will it be the last, that numb and painful and awkward will describe my continuing road of transformation.

The Sweater

It doesn't take much to make me dissolve in tears and this certainly did it today:

(Thanks Rebekah Grace!)

Story of The Sweater

Three Weeks

I apologize for the silence. Typing increases my pain level so I've tried to cut back on it and it's helped. I've also felt conflicted that all I'm writing about is my having cancer and not about anything else. I told Dearest One today that all I really wanted was regular life again. You know, dishes and housework and commuting to work. I still have stitches and a drain tube. Both will come out by the end of the week. That will help with feeling like we're getting somewhere.

Today is three weeks post mastectomy. I still find it shocking that my breast is gone. I look in the mirror at the flatness, trying to make friends with it.  Sometimes I look down and remember what my missing breast looked like and I wonder why I didn't hold onto it all the way into the operating room. When Dearest One comes to hug me from behind and encircles my chest with his hands I feel both loved and sad.

Last night, in the middle of the night my blood pressure tanked and as a result I crashed into the wall as I made my way to the bathroom. No harm done but it sure made me feel vulnerable. I have done very little, next to no 'Googling' about my health issues. Tanking blood pressure in a cancer patient is the second time I've done it. It reminded me why I don't.

I've always been curious to the nth degree so it's surprised me that I have had little interest in research about this journey. The surgeon recommended last week, when he handed over my pathology reports, that I not Google the heck out of them. Not because he didn't want me to be informed but he didn't want me to be overwhelmed. And I don't want to be either.

What happened the first time I looked stuff up was that I came upon a site of people writing blog like posts where they defined themselves by their cancer and prognosis and it fed into the fear that comes so easily to me that I recognized it would not be a good thing for me to read.

So there have been no late night searches. No quests for more information. I see the oncologist in just over a week. We will talk about what comes next that day. It's about all I can take at the moment.

Today was about little things. The gentle fat snowflakes that fell like glitter this morning. The sun coming in the window this afternoon that made me stretch out like a cat to enjoy its rays. A peppermint foot cream to massage into my feet. Writing with an orange gel pen in my journal. Which sounds like regular life to me.

At The Top Of My List

"How are you?" Dearest One asks the waitress as we place our order for tea and toast. [lovely song about tea and toast .]

"Old and bitter," was her reply.  I looked at her and said, "Life's too short to feel that way." I'd just said goodbye to my sisters who were boarding a plane to go back home. There had been tears and hugs and much love. The waitress looked at me and at that moment the tape that holds my drain tube in place was itching and I reached to scratch it. In doing so my sweater lifted and the drain tube was visible for a second. She glanced at it as I said, "truly, it's too short." Our eyes locked for a moment then she nodded in agreement and left to put our order in.

I can't read between the lines at the best of times, nuances stump me often. It was a few minutes before Dearest One told me that the waitress had been joking when she'd said she was old and bitter. Oh.

In the pitch black darkness of the early morning we watched out the airport restaurant windows, waiting for my sisters' plane to leave. While doing so we had a very frank talk about what could come next in my cancer journey. Dearest One told me he was grateful that we didn't need to be separate and alone with our thoughts, some of them as dark as the night sky, but that we could speak them out loud to one another. Thoughts lose some of their power that way.

The waitress brought our order and said something that made us laugh; something that showed us her feisty, kind hearted side. I cut myself some slack for taking her so seriously.

Later that afternoon we sat down with the surgeon to talk about drain tube plans and pathology results.

The news unbelievably good.

No lymph node involvement, no blood stream involvement in the mastectomy tissue. Very likely that the cancer was contained in the lumpectomy.

It feels like we won the lottery.

Until the hormone receptor tests are back and I see the oncologist, I won't know for sure what comes next, but it's looking far more probable that chemotherapy and radiation will not be in my future. Words are not adequate to describe how I feel.

I lay in bed this morning before sunrise pondering not only my day but my life. Hoping that if God grants me a long one that I won't be a walking advertisement for "old and bitter" as I age. That instead I will be feisty, joyful and real. Real is at the top of my list.

The Road Of Transformation

You know the nurse I mentioned earlier? She had been a classmate of Dearest One's twenty years ago. What I remember about her is her hard as a rock countenance. The kind that says she'd seen a lot of life and it hadn't been kind to her.

When she was helping to transfer me to my bed back in my hospital room, a ladder of arms in my line of vision, I picked out hers and reached up with my good arm to grasp it. When I had her attention I thanked her for her kindness. I wanted her to know what a difference she had made in my journey.  I couldn't help but think as she left my room of her being a recovery room nurse and how she must have faced her own recovery from a hard life to have such a changed countenance that I hadn't recognized her until she and Dearest One talked. And even then I had to peer to see a faint recognition around her eyes. It made me want to sit and visit with her and ask her what had happened in the intervening twenty years.

Looking at my scar, and the place where my breast used to be, is not for the faint of heart I wrote to some friends the other day. People want me to see it through eyes that are not my own. With the beauty, the hope, and all the potential it could hold but doesn't at this point. It starts as a hollow and then rises up gently like a bunny hill at a ski slope until it curves downward again so abruptly that you'd get some air, if you truly were on skis, across a winding train track until you landed on the other side and came to a stop on my belly. It's especially brutal where the tumour was, scraped down to the bone.

[On a funny note I gasped in horror at my belly in the hospital asking Dearest One when did my belly get so big? How could it? I'd had no appetite since surgery. How unfair. I haven't thought of my journey as unfair at all except when I thought I lost a breast and it's dimensions had slid southward. It took me days to realize that all that had changed was I now had an unobstructed view of my belly. I was just seeing it from a different viewpoint now. We laughed and laughed about that one.]

There is profound sadness when I look in the mirror at my train track like wound. I named it the Road of Transformation the other day. Needing to attach some kind of significance to it, something to be hopeful about. I know it has the power to transform me if I let it. But first I must look long and hard at the reality of it. Not unlike I imagine the recovery room nurse had to do in order to change from rock hard countenance to Christ like kindness.

A few days after I posted about Jesus being a boob man, I got up the courage to sit in stillness and face him, to see what he did after cupping my breast in his hand. And startlingly, or not, he leaned down and kissed my breast and then stood back up and blessed it. And in every conversation since, when a visual has come to mind, he is making the sign of the cross in front of me. Blessing me on my journey. On the road of transformation.

The Rivulet of Tears

I wake up as my head is thrashing from side to side like wind shield wipers going full speed. Vaguely I hear a nurse call my name and the taste of anaesthetic is so thick in my throat that it's hard to breathe. It takes all the concentration I can muster to slow my thrashing from warp speed to intermittent. It's like this every time I wake up from surgery.

Eventually my head stills. And as it does the reality that my breast is gone hits me so hard that I arch my back as a sob rises from the very core of my being.  One single sob then I'm gasping for breath. Over and over again.

The nurse leans her head close to mine and says, "I can't do anything for your emotional pain but I can dry your tears." Then as gently as a lover she takes a tissue and dabs the rivulet of tears as they fall towards my ears.

Home

Am home and coping as well as can be expected. Thank you for praying. Will post more as able.

Surgery Day

Surgery is at 10 AM (mountain daylight time). Prayers appreciated!

Jesus Is A Boob Man

I know because he cupped my breast in his hand.

I was in the shower cupping it myself while trying to wrap my head around the reality that soon my breast was going to be replaced with a train track like wound running diagonally across the right side of my chest. I tried to flatten my breast and imagine what flatness would look like. I traced my fingers around the orange sized crater left by the lumpectomy. All the while I was talking to God about it, because, well, that's just what I do. And into my head came a picture of Jesus standing in front of me cradling my breast in his hand and staring into my eyes. If only I could lift my head and stare back. But I couldn't. The thought of Jesus affirming not only the whole of who I am but this part of me, too, left me feeling vulnerable to the core.

So I stood there and let my tears and the shower water mingle reminded that all my grief and gut wrenching pain is being held in hands much bigger than my own.

Reaching Through The Darkness

He reaches for my hand through the darkness, turns on his side and whispers, "Are you worried?"  "Yes."
We talk about our fears, saying them out loud to one another. Many have told us to not go there but we know that going there, especially going there together is not something to fear but to embrace.

Keeping The Tears At Bay

Warning - dark humour ahead.

Tonight I wore a brand new dress to a community function. I felt pretty. I felt fantastic. I've lost a lot of weight without trying - a bizarre experience in itself -  the doctors haven't  been able to confirm if it's a result of having cancer or not. I'll be having a chat with a specialist about that on Monday.

A friend walked in the door of the reception area where we were standing tonight, took one look at me and said, "You look fabulous." She hadn't seen me in months and the last time she saw me I was wearing clothes that didn't fit very well - they were pretty baggy which unintentionally hid my weight loss. I'd phoned her last week to tell her of my cancer diagnosis and because of that and because of our 30 year history of friendship, when we hugged I whispered in her ear, "That's what having cancer will do for you."

And then we laughed and laughed until our sides were sore.

Sometimes laughter is the only thing that keeps the tears at bay.

Comforted Down The Road Of What Ifs

Today, while pouring out my heart to God, I heard a question inside me that asked, "Can you be present to what is? That's all you need to do."  After I had a good cry I said, "Yes, I can do that." It helped bring me back from running way down the road of what ifs.

A little while later Yoga Pug started barking at something invisible in the room. I'm used to him barking at unknown things out the window but this time it was definitely something in the room. Normally I tell him to be quiet and to hush up. Out of my mouth popped the words, "It's okay. They're not an enemy."  Half an hour later my phone rings and it's a dear friend. She tells me that she had prayed earlier that Archangels Michael and Raphael would come visit me. We compared notes and she prayed and Yoga Pug barked at the same time.

I like to think that a visit was indeed what happened. Either way I was comforted.

Fear Not

It's been a really difficult day after several days of feeling happy. I caught myself thinking "how can you be happy when you have cancer?" and I know it's due in large part to the prayers of others.

Today we found out that the pathology report said the cancer has probably gone into my bloodstream. I just got off the phone with my sponsor and we talked about acceptance. Neither of us knows what that looks like at the moment. We both kind of want to run around and scream that the sky is falling.

More will be revealed with more surgery. In the meantime I am on a steep learning curve when it comes to staying in the day.

Fucking, fucking cancer.

The Big Little Things

I had my drain tube out the other day at the hospital and was visiting with the surgeon afterwards who had a surgical intern with him. He was standing with his back just slightly to her and when he realized this he moved graciously and slowly to include her fully in what was going on.

It reminded me of the time a homeless man walked into our meeting. It was a rainy, cold day outside and he paused slightly to wipe first one and then the other of his boots on the welcome mat before coming further into the room.

Those little actions in life are really big things.

The Opposite Of Fear

Beautiful post.

Waving The White Flag

I open one eye and look at the red glow of the clock - 5:39 a.m. I think to myself if I start now I can do twenty minutes of Centering Prayer before six o'clock. Always one to like round numbers I close my eyes and open up within myself to God. I watch as thoughts flit through my mind. A stray line of a song "you can let go now..." floats through and I watch it pass.

I last 10 minutes before I open my eyes again. I call it good enough and start talking to God.

I think back over the past few months, most recently to my temper tantrum about how I am sure they took out the lump that was already declared benign which made the orange sized hole in my breast totally unnecessary. I had ranted to Dearest One about it on the weekend and then, when he refused to get all wound up about it, to a friend on the phone. She pointed out that if I kept at it that I would simply be rehashing it again and again. In the midst of talking to her I got tired of hearing my own voice bitch about the same thing yet one more time. And in that moment I turned a corner emotionally.

I think about all this and say to God, "I surrender all of it to you." Then I wait as I let that surrender go from head to heart to feeling it in my very bones. I am finally tired of fighting what is.

This morning will be the first time I have been out of my pyjamas since I came home from the hospital. I carefully arrange the drain tube so that my clothes cover it as Dearest One and I talk about my appointment. He expresses regret that his schedule won't allow him to be with me. I come close to telling him it's no big deal - just an appointment to get the drain out but resist. The last time I told him something of that sort it didn't go very well.

It feels good to be doing errands, being a part of the flow of life. I stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things and go on to my next stop. When I get there I turn the key off and dig in my bag for lunch. I see my wallet on the seat but no purse. It takes me a few minutes to realize I've left it behind in the grocery store and the realization undoes me. I am not as fine as I think I am. Not as present as I'd believed. The tears rise from my core and I am immediately overwhelmed. I admit that I'd had to remind myself of basic traffic rules all morning in order to drive decently because I'd found it hard to concentrate.

By the time I get to the surgeon's office I know I've over done it. My incision is throbbing and I am worn out. I regret not taking up a friend on her offer to drive me to town and to my appointment.

I get ushered into a new to me examining room. I look at my options and quickly concede to sit in the chair right next to the doctor's desk. Today is the day I hope to get the drain out, put a bra back on, and continue the healing journey.

I have a great library book to occupy myself while waiting for the doctor to come in.

When he does comes in it's to look at my incision and then at the drain. We decide to leave it a few more days to be on the cautious side. I can live with that. I get ready to gather my purse and my book when he looks at me and says, "There is a glitch in all this."

I meet his steady gaze and know what's going to come next.

"There's some cancer in there."

I breathe in and out and then tell him of my prayer of surrender from this morning. A deep gut feeling that I will be okay however the next part of this journey goes. You know that okayness that comes not from circumstances being okay but from somewhere beyond that.

He tells me that had the pathologist not got the initial report mixed up and had not the next bits of the process played out the way they did that they wouldn't have caught this cancer for another year, possibly two. And me, who hates connecting dot conversations that other people dream up, accepts the mind boggling truth of his statement.

We make plans for what comes next. Lymph node biopsy. Radiation or mastectomy. My choice.  No chemotherapy if the node biopsy is clear.  Before all that can happen my sutures need to come out so we make an appointment for a week from today.

I drive to where Dearest One works and wait for his class to end. It's a long 45 minute wait. He emerges from his classroom with one of his students. She's someone I've wanted to meet and we smile at each other as we shake hands. Then somehow we manage to make small talk about my day. I lie about it and do the round about dance of how it was instead of how it really was. There's no charity in Dearest One finding out my diagnosis in front of a student.

We say our goodbyes to her and Dearest One and I entwine our fingers and walk towards his office. I can see by his bright face that he is unprepared for what I'm going to tell him. I stop as we walk and make a face that tells everything and his shoulders drop in recognition.

This morning I listened to this day's offering. While I am not bent towards thinking that I have been hard done by or that God is testing me - I had thought that my  hard time was behind me.

The Direction I So Want To Go

It's the morning of my surgery  and we are driving in fog so thick only the sighting of an occasional road sign helps us get our bearings.  In my head I keep searching, "Where are we? Where are we?"  Finally we inch past a familiar roadside turnout and I know. Dearest One asks where we are and I tell him what we should see next - a place with so many lights you can't miss it. We look ahead into deep darkness and he questions my answer. Moments later an eerie ghostlike glow of tall guiding lights comes into view. Our shoulders relax back down around our ears. There is relief in knowing where we are and where we are headed.

Much of the journey of the past few months has felt like driving through fog, trying to recognize road signs and find my way again.

I lay in bed yesterday morning and opened myself up in silent prayer to the One who knows. Tears streamed out the corners of my eyes and down into my ears because the vulnerability felt too much and too real. I enfolded into myself less than five minutes later because I could not handle it another moment. I will be back another day, I said to God - I will last longer than five minutes.

While in hospital this week, tubes going in and out, trying to come to terms with an orange sized hole in my breast, I asked myself what was bothering me the most. Into my head came a picture of a woman, not unlike Rapunzel, throwing open a window in a castle turret and yelling "This is what happened to me." I watched as she came to the window over and over again, as horrified the fiftieth time as she had been at the first proclamation. I watched as she aged, screaming the same story until she died.

And in that moment I came face to face with a choice.

I've kept taped to my wall this snippet from Syd's blog for several years now:

"You can complain about the same problem three times. Then you'd better be in the solution. If you have to talk to more than three people about the same problem, you don't want help, you want attention."

And because I've swung like a pendulum between wanting attention all my years and shoving down my feelings I have struggled with posting so much about this particular part of my journey, confused as to whether I am attention seeking or honouring my feelings.

I do know that I don't want to be an old woman screaming this story thirty years from now.

I do know that I want to honour the journey.

In the midst of it all, too, is the shattering of all that I thought I knew about God and how God works. The whole ego inflating certainty that came crashing down with one fell swoop. A beautiful bitter sweet moment that is both gift and grace. One that simultaneously soothes and sears one's soul.

I have craved certainty my whole life long. It has taken me down some awful paths, my searching has. Ambiguity is nice in theory but damn, I want to know where my feet are headed.

I`ve felt like I've been grieving for the old me - the one I would never get back. And I've been trying to find my way through the fog, hoping for some road sign that would get me back on track - facing the direction I so long to go.

I almost miss the sign when it appears.

"It is less precise, this living with ambiguity and nuance and paradox and poetry, but it is more alive and real, too." ~ RJ 

I read these words with my head and then read them again. They slip past the fiercely guarded filter that keeps my head and heart separated. My hands fly to my face as I start to sob. As I grasp that there will be no going back.

And inside a little voice said,

"Welcome to more real."

And I realize that's the road sign my heart's been looking for all along.

Home Again

After an extra day in hospital, reactions to multiple drugs, I am home. Of course I have no end of thoughts about the experience but writing some of those thoughts down will have to happen another day. Thank you for praying.

Waiting

Surgery is this morning. I will be offline for a few days. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long for biopsy results. Prayers appreciated.

A Burlap Bag Of A Shirt

"I don't know what God's got planned but I do know this new venture was God's idea so I just have to trust Him."

I hadn't seen her in a few years when I ran into her at the checkout counter of a local store last week. We embraced and smiled big smiles at seeing each other again. Years ago we used to talk on the phone several times a day.  She will always hold a special place in my heart for her stable friendship through some of the toughest years of parenthood.

We took a step away from the counter and as I listened to her talk about God this and God that, I felt like an alien. Like I once knew her language only to realize it had slipped off my shoulders like a silk nightshirt. Well, more like it got yanked off, a burlap bag of a shirt that left scratches and bruises in its wake.

I have no desire to put it back on again.

I hear people talk with such certainty of how God is working or not working or will work - what lesson God is teaching them and I can't wrap my head around a concept that was once solid in my life. A concept that made me think I had a strong, unshakeable faith.

Yesterday I said to my priest that I meant it when I prayed "Thy will be done" although I had no idea what God's will was for me. He nodded his head vigorously and said, "that's true."  And I relaxed, knowing that he knew I meant that I did not know, would not know, what God was doing in any particular circumstance - whatever that happened to be at any given moment.

I  can't find it within me to think I will ever know again. I look with curiosity at people who do. I feel a little sad, judgemental, and tempted to shake them by the shoulders, point to their own burlap and tell them that all that certainty can get yanked away in a nanosecond.

It's incredibly confusing.

Sweet Relief

Sitting in a rocking chair this morning, purring kitten in my lap, I looked up at the crisp fall sky and felt joy.

I told the surgeon, when he suggested medication if I kept feeling as bereft as I did, that I wouldn't stay stuck.

That while where I was at the moment was not fun, it wasn't the end of the story. I told him I didn't believe in wasting the pain . Nor do I believe in feeding it. But I do believe in feeling it.

Mostly I've felt like I've had a scream stuck in my throat.

Rising To The Surface

I'm looking at a reflection of myself in the change room mirror when I hear the click of a change room door across the way.

"Mom, how do I lock the door?"

Her mom tells her and then the little girl wonders aloud how to open the door when she's done. After being reassured that she'll be able to unlock the door the little girl gets on with the business of trying on clothes.

I twirl a bit in the royal blue dress I've tried on as I'm transported back to being six years old. A nurse ushers me into a change room to get into a gown before they take x rays of my broken arm. It's  broken high up on my arm and I'm still in pain from having to change into an appropriate going-to-the-hospital shirt before getting into the car to make the journey. A red shirt. I still remember the pain and confusion as to how I was going to change without help and without it hurting even more. I wanted an adult to help me but no one offered and I was scared to ask.

The nurse tells me to come out when I'm ready except that I can't figure out how to get out of the cubicle. It takes little for me to think I've done something wrong, am in trouble for not finding my way. When the nurse eventually comes back to check on me, she opens the door and laughs at the fear etched in my face.  The x ray table is cold and shiny. Soon my arm is wrapped in a sling, broken too high up for a cast.

Put me in a hospital change room today and a little of that fear rises to the surface even though there are no doors, just curtains, now.

All this goes through my mind as I listen to the mom and daughter talk about separating out the armful of  hopeful clothes into piles of yes, no and maybe. They chit chat back and forth as I change back into my clothes.

I gather all my tried on clothes into a no pile and open the door to my change room. I come face to face with the little girl's mom. I want to thank her for being such a safe mom that her daughter can ask such an innocent question without fear. How overhearing their conversation reminds me that my story is not everyone's story. I know there would be no quick way to explain my comment so instead we smile at each other and go our separate ways.

Taking Off The Blind Fold

Last day of work today for six weeks. I am so, so relieved. I work with an incredible group of people who are very supportive. I know that in order to heal and rest I need to let work stay there and not think twice about it. That feels doable which is a far cry from when I truly thought I was indispensable.

Surgery is just less than two weeks away. Sometimes I feel like life is like playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey. I'm hoping after surgery I'll feel less like I'm spinning and more like the blind fold is off.

Back Below My Ears

This was in my email today, from this site:

Day 11:

What are your predictions for 2012?

Your Answer:
I may have mixed feelings about turning 50 but mostly I'm going to be happy to be alive.
***
I must have answered this a year ago as it's nearly time for this year's questions to arrive in my mail. I can say that I am grateful to be 50 and definitely happy to be alive.

Today I contacted my family doctor and requested time off until after I recuperate from surgery. It was no problem to get a medical leave note for up to six weeks off. Last week the surgeon commented that my nerves were raw. Yep, they are.

I need to allow myself to be off work, which is hard to do. I take such pride in doing my job but reality is the world will not collapse if I'm not at my desk. There was a time when I thought it would. My sister laughed the other day when I told her it made no logical sense to take time off. She said that was so typical of me - to need to find the logic in order to make sense of something.

I knew I had my answer to whether or not I needed to take time off when I felt incredible relief at the thought of being home. My shoulders dropped back to below my ears when I had the doctor's note in my hand this morning.

At Great Price

"I can either run from this experience in fear or I can let it transform me. We are called to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ. How else can it happen?"

Those are my words, spoken several times through this experience to different people in my life. Once to the surgeon between heaving sobs. If you've ever been laid bare by life's circumstances you know the bitter sweet place of utter pain and potential beauty residing within you simultaneously.

I have not cried in several weeks. I haven't liked the hardness that has seemed to be settling within me. This morning, listening to  this weekend's offering reduced me to tears. Good and healing tears that feel wrenched from me at great price.

A God I Can't Figure Out

I see her number pop up on my phone while I'm talking to youngest son. I wonder why she is calling and decide to call her back later. She is an acquaintance - someone I see only when we are both involved in the same retreat like weekend. I haven't spoken to her on the phone for years.

I finish my conversation with youngest son and dial her number. Her rich slow voice greets me. She asks how I am and I try to tell her about my summer. She is quiet and thoughtful in response. She tells me that she must have been meant to call me so that she can pray for me and that the original reason she'd called would be best left for another time.

Her comment makes me grit my teeth. I envy her certainty about knowing how God is working and yet I don't want any part of it. I so thought I knew how God was working through this process and when my world came to a standstill I was humbled with how much I didn't know. It's left me feeling like I don't know anything at all. A God I can figure out is a God I don't want to serve. A God I can't figure out leaves me feeling vulnerable and raw.

The other day, when we were in the surgeon's office waiting room, we visited with a couple we hadn't seen in nearly 20 years. The last time we saw each other we were both busy chasing after toddlers. They sat across from us and shared about dealing with his colon cancer. He's facing a further 6 months of chemo after having gone through chemo, radiation and surgery. They were there that day to get the post op report from the same surgeon I was seeing. I watched as phrases flitted through my mind to say to him and discarded each one unsaid. I didn't want to inflict harm. I knew there was nothing I could say that would make any of it better.

It sounds like I have it all figured out, doesn't it? I pray I don't turn my new awareness into a different kind of ego grab. I continually fight that temptation.

I think of this when I am talking to the woman with the rich slow voice. It helps me let her comment stand instead of challenging her about it. There's a fine line between speaking my truth and inflicting harm. Later, as I lay in bed and mull over her certainty about why she figures she was meant to call me, I think about my own thirst for connecting the dots in life. I see it in my mind as a pencil on paper using a ruler to draw straight lines from one point to another. I think it must drive me batty when others do it because my hankering for it has been so strong.

When I used to work in a fast food restaurant and the owner wanted adverts hung in the windows, the rest of the staff would volunteer me. They knew his demand for perfection and mine were well matched. I happily measured the distance so that the signs in the windows were placed perfectly between its edges just like the owner wanted.

I'd like to believe that my desire for having my ducks all lined up in a row, literally or figuratively has diminished this summer. The thing about it is that my quest for answers, for drawing lines between life's circumstances and God has helped me feel in control. It feels futile now. I do know though, that sometimes life happens and we feel changed and then those feelings fade. I don't want to forget where I've been.

Last night Dearest One and I shampooed the living room carpet. We could write a script about how it will go. He doesn't do it quite the way I would and I point that out with every pass over the carpet he makes. Eventually he hands me the shampoo-er and I take over. When it happened that way last night we laughed at the repeat of a pattern that dates back over a quarter of a century when we first tried wallpapering a room together.

As I emptied out the containers of dirty water I realized that it really didn't matter how the room got cleaned. It was obvious from the brown swirl disappearing down the drain that the carpet would be cleaner when we were finished and after all, wasn't that the point?

I carried a clean container of water to the living room, dumped its contents into the shampoo-er, and handed control of the machine back to him. My way is just that. My way. Not the way.

Part of not forgetting where I've been is acknowledging I'm just as human as the lady with the rich slow voice.

A Road Map Out Of Here

I'm standing at the window looking down on traffic and at the office buildings surrounding us. If I press the side of my face to the glass I can see my car parked on the street over to my right. It's a different perspective  from the one at my previous appointment.

I'm looking out the window trying to occupy my mind while I wait for the surgeon to come in. I can only do it for so long before I turn around and sit back down on my chair. Dearest One's early morning commute has caught up to him and he's fallen asleep in his chair. I study the room and get up to look at a chart on the back of the door. It's hard to pace in a ten by ten room but I'm trying. I've been vibrating with anger since I walked into his office and I'm trying to shake it out of my body.

Eventually I give up and go sit back down. I shake my head a little, as if to clear my vision, because I notice for the first time, a chair right beside the doctor's desk. I gauge the distance from where I am to it and then from it over to the doctor's chair. I decide it's too close to him and with how angry I'm feeling today I'd rather keep my distance. The best I can concede is to uncross my legs when he enters the room. It's a trick I've been doing for years when I am uptight. Doing so reminds me to breathe deeply and relax.

I no sooner decide this when I hear the doctor just outside the door. I place both feet flat on the floor in anticipation, hoping that a more open body language will translate into a more open attitude. I swear anger is coming off me like heat waves. I don't even know why I'm angry, I just know that I am. I have felt this way in nearly every conversation with a doctor in the past few weeks. I feel it every time I go for blood work or enter a hospital.

I pray for my defensiveness to lessen. I pray the serenity prayer. As I pray it I realize that accepting what I cannot change means accepting that what has happened has happened and there's not a darn thing I can do about it. I stick that nugget in the back of my mind to think on later.

The doctor comes in and extends his hand to me. I shake it firmly. I've always liked how taken aback a man can get when they feel the strong grip of my hand. Dearest One wakes up just as the doctor motions to the chair next to his desk and says to me, "Come sit over here." I get up and go sit in the chair and cross my legs. Body language be damned.

He doesn't need me to open my mouth to know I'm angry. We talk about the anger, the numbness, the tears. He reassures me it's normal under the circumstances. I want a road map out of here, out of this part of the process. I want to be through it already. Not around it. But through it. I'm not sure I can handle being in this space mentally much longer. Not that I have a choice. Wishing has never helped further myself down the path.

When I try to explain to him where I've been emotionally in the past month both my hands claw at the air as if I'm trying to gather oxygen. As my hands come together I feel myself wanting to bring my legs up onto the chair, hug my knees and curl up in a ball. Shit. No hope for both feet on the floor now.

Dearest One asks me to tell the doctor about this day. I start to and then I clap my hands over my face because the tears rise up from deep within and I can't talk. I don't want to be this vulnerable. Not here. Not now. I take a few breaths and finish my story. And he gets it. He gets that I was triggered in that moment. That I keep getting triggered. I uncurl my legs and put both feet on the floor.

We move on to the options in front of me. I  have very definite ideas about what I want to come next medically in the whole scheme of things. I have a hard time listening to him lay out my options. I keep interrupting him and then remembering my manners. I had my mind made up before he ever came in the room and am determined to not let anyone change it. He initially wants me to make the decision another day.

I don't need another day.

In short order he sees that. I just want the breast lump gone. I don't ever want it to show up on another mammogram again. He takes a paper out of his desk drawer and fills it out. I sign it and then fill out the pre-op paperwork. The waiting time before surgery is longer than I'd like but it is going to happen.

As I stand to leave his office he asks me to call him if anything comes up between now and surgery. I reassure him that I won't; that after all this is done I don't give a shit if I ever see another doctor. Spouting off knee jerk reactionary statements like that makes me feel like I'm a two year old having a temper tantrum. I can't excuse my behaviour and I can't make sense of it.

I wonder to myself what I will make of it when I review my day.

Seasons

Geese flock overhead as I type. Their wings move in a graceful tip of the hat kind of way as they honk. I pretend it's their way of letting me know they're leaving. A friend told me recently that Fall is the season of surrender and letting go. How appropriate.

No Shortcuts

I somewhere along this journey found a backbone. I am saying things to people I used to just think in my head. I feel more authentically myself. You know, that way of being that needs no apology and you know the other person recognizes you're speaking your truth? It doesn't even feel scary. And I don't feel like a bitch, either. Or unkind. Just speaking from my heart. Who knew it was possible?

And at the same time I am quieter than I was before.

What a paradox.

Then there's the angrier, weepier bit, too. That feels shitty. I told someone this week that I am trying to honour my journey through this instead of skirting around it. It's much harder to do. Short cuts will come back to bite me in the butt so I won't go there as much as I sometimes wish I didn't know that there are no lasting short cuts on the journey.

The One I Will Never Get Back

I'm almost to the entrance to the store when I hear someone call out my name. I turn to see a mini van pulled right up to the curb beside me. She smiles as I lean in her window to say hi. She has warmth in her eyes and a bright, bright spirit.

She is the oncologist I was assigned to before the mix up was discovered. We know one another from time spent volunteering together in a community organization plus she was my doctor many years ago when she practised in a different Specialty. I'd been comforted knowing she was going to help me through my cancer journey because she is an incredible listener and advocate for her patients.

She talks about how she felt when my name came across her desk and how glad she is that I don't have to see her now. As I talk about how the experience has impacted me I am unprepared for the emotions that rise up within me, making talking difficult. The grief feels like it's radiating up from my bones and seeping out of my pores. "What's the matter with me?" I think to myself.

Tears well up as I tell her that I am changed because of the experience - for the better.  I can't talk for the tears. Later, when I'm mulling our conversation over, so confused by the grief, I realize what I feel like I'm grieving for is the old me. The one I will never get back.

A Good Mother

"I'm surprised you're not cleaning the house."

I look up at youngest son, who has poked his head in my office, as I have this artis's music blaring from my phone.

I turn the sound down and look at him quizzically. He then reminds me that I used to listen to that artist's music as I cleaned house. He tells me to ask his sister, he bets she'd remember it, too.

We don't have a stereo in our house any more and I can't remember the last time I listened to music as I cleaned. I dimly remember that I ever did.

He's goes back to sorting and cleaning out his room, getting ready to go back to university. Tomorrow - containers of childhood things are on his list of things to sort through. He's ready to let go of things from his past.

I sit there and think back. I know it says in the promises that we will not regret the past but there are memories that haunt me still about my behaviour in this lad's childhood. Probably the hardest is that I believe that the bulk of the hard inner work is ahead of him, yet.  Damn, that's painful work. Several years ago I committed out loud to my adult kids that I would do whatever they needed from me when that time came for them.

There was a time when only daughter cut off all communication with me and she told me recently that had I not changed, that phone call letting me know not to call or email her, would have been the last one she made to me.

Someone I deeply respect in the program has talked again lately of how the program is one of suggestions but that there are over 50 instances in the Big Book of the word 'must'. I've had a note stuck in my book for a long time to try and find them. I spent some time this weekend doing that. I haven't found them all yet but the first one I found is on page 14 and it says

"I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all."

It's a god good reminder especially as this is the song I was listening to:

Our Separate Ways

I'm sliding on a black wool coat on and shrugging it up over my shoulders when I notice her across the store flicking through a sale rack of blouses. I haven't seen her in years and while we were not much more than acquaintances when we were neighbours, I still feel the urge to cross the floor and say "hi". Most of the time I duck out when I see people I know in stores as I find making small talk difficult. It's that time of year when people ask, "How was your summer?" and I've been avoiding people lately, not wanting to talk about the life changing events that have filled my own.

I take my time deciding what to do next. I turn this way and that as I look at my reflection in the mirror.  The coat hangs beautifully and fits like a glove. But I didn't really come in here to buy a coat, I only came in to browse, so I take off the coat and hang it back up.

I call her name and she looks up. When she recognizes me she has a warm smile that stretches to her eyes. There's an awkward moment after she makes a move to hug me and I don't catch her body language in time. Ever gracious, she starts the conversation with asking about my summer. I skirt around reality and make small talk.

I ask about her kids. As she tells me about their lives I remember a promise I'd made to myself several years ago. A promise of what I'd tell her, this long ago neighbour of mine, if I ever saw her again.

It seems like a lifetime ago that Only Daughter babysat for her when she had one child and one on the way. It was a lifetime ago as her kids - three in total - are all teenagers now. She was a busy career woman with a world view vastly different than my own back then. Or at least held opinions that I didn't share.

We were neighbours during a lengthy time (my whole parenting journey - to be exact) when I failed to see my children as separate from me. I was so sure that my way was the only way to view the world and that they would follow along behind me like ducks in a row. I really couldn't conceive of anything else nor did I give them room to. No wonder I felt threatened by her. No wonder my kids eventually pushed back in ways that stunned me. They had to. For their own survival. Thank God they did.

The memory flits through my mind and I steady myself with a hand on the clothes rack. What I'm going to tell her is no longer hard for me to admit although it was a  painful birthing process to get here. I don't know who needs to hear it most. Me. Or her. I just know I need to say it out loud.

"Thank you for what you did to affirm my daughter in who she was as a person. That it was possible for her to have hopes and dreams of her own, separate from me. That she didn't have to feel guilty for that. I couldn't appreciate it back then. I didn't know how. But now I realize the gift you gave her. Thank you."

What I don't say is that I imagine that lone conversation we had one night as the three of us - me, my daughter and her - stood on her front step, was most likely a lifeline for my daughter. Or maybe it was for me. One of those moments when someone says something and a little crack appears in long held, rigidly gripped beliefs and something shifts inside and there's no going back. Her words haunted me for years. Initially I felt so angry. Like she was polluting my daughter and our relationship. It made me tighten my parenting grip.

She looks a little startled at my words. But we talk then. Really talk. When it's time to go she thanks me for calling her name. Before we turn to go our separate ways I reach towards her and we embrace.