Laughter, Tears, Quilts, and My Crazy Roller Coaster
Yesterday's chemo day was uneventful save for the fact that I felt like I was having a manic depressive mood swing all day. I began the day manic, laughing entirely too hard at my own jokes on the way down and singing outrageously loud to U2. I then got to chemo, saw Kathy, the nurse practitioner who works with all the docs at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers, during which time she sort of had to refamiliarize herself with me. As I processed this later, I realize that something that really "offs" me is when I feel faceless, nameless, or have only a perfunctory relationship with someone with whom, for reasons of sheer necessity, I'm required to interact with on a regular basis.
Herein you get a picture to my beautiful mind: I realize that the part of my self that still functions as a child--needy and craving approval and notice--flounders and fusses when these ego-centric "needs" go unfulfilled, sometimes even by strangers from whom such attention is usually unnecessary and mostly inappropriate. The adult me reasons that doctors and nurse practitioners and their like necessarily, to maintain their own sanity, must not become entangled in personal relationships, and that this is an appropriate setup. The little girl me doesn't like it any better, for all its logic. Clark jokes with me often that I wouldn't be happy with a doctor unless he invited me over to his house for a barbecue with his family. He's right.
So once I started chemo, it was quiet--we had eschewed visitors in an attempt to carve out some down time. With the absence of people around--which both distract me and also keep me from needed times to decompress and feel my feelings, along with the inevitable low of coming back from vacation--I fell apart. We have also received, thus far, inconclusive results to the bone biopsy, and having gone through such a trauma to get what we'd hoped would be more information, I felt deflated. Also, stepping back from an idyllic, forgetful existence into the harsh world of cancer (yes, I'm being redundant--deal with it) tends to put a wee bit of a damper on one's previously sunny mood.
I didn't manage to really pull out of it until we got home and the necessary demands of motherhood imposed their blessed selves on me so as to require more attention than my rogue emotions. Last night, Kirstan dropped off a giant check and lunch and breakfast goodies--we already polished off the box of Eggos, girl, Megan waltzing around saying, "Leggo my eggo!" How will I ever thank the lot of you sneaks? I am humbled and truly amazed. What girl gets to not only pursue a business that is more like a fifth child than a business and manages to get her friends and family to partially finance it and deliver food to boot? It must seem like a scam, as Melody points out--she who comes to take such great care of my children and mops and sweeps and tells me every detail when I get home, which I so need to feel connected. She also is hanging one of her stunning quilts on my wall every time she visits--a rotating exhibit--she's so talented, and they're beautiful and life-giving art--I look at them and find home--such is the true working of great art; last nights is called "Girlfriends." How apt.
The beautiful silver lining is that Clark and I rented an absolutely hilarious movie called "The Amateurs" which I demand you all to run out and rent or set up in your queue immediately. I laughed so hard--but, fortunately, didn't pee. I did nearly snort out my licorice tea (sorry, bro--I know you said no snorting, but what's a gal to do?)
This morning, my one priority was to head to my primary caregiver's office to pick up my dad's medical records. For those of you who don't know, he died at the age of 45 (I was 20) of an aggressive sarcoma, the details of which are still fuzzy to me. I need his medical records so I can start filing the paperwork to do some genetic testing to find out if I am carrying a BRCA gene, a breast cancer gene mutation. I got there and said I needed to also see if I had a UTI, which I did. I don't know if it's because I was there, or because I have cancer or because the office was dead this morning, but they got me right in to see the doc, and I started some antibiotics. If it's because of the cancer, then I guess we can add that to the list of perks.
So I've got 38 pages of my dad's story in my hands, and I'll be spending the rest of the day reading through it, googling terms I don't understand, and invariably balling my head off. Not a day goes by, 14 years later, that I don't thoroughly, wholeheartedly, and absolutely miss my dad. He was very instrumental in a lot of people's lives, and remains someone with whom I really felt valued for who I was. Of course, at 20, I knew him less well than I wish I would have, and I miss what could have been. I'll never stop believing he was taken before his time, stupid Christian platitudes nothwithstanding. It's inexplicable to me, and I would never be who I am now had he not died, but it's still shitty and wasn't fair.
I hope to put some pieces together, since for reasons that are too sordid to go into now, my dad's story and history seem irrevocably gone from our family history. I am story, I do story, and I am lost without story. I want his story--it's so pertinent, especially now.
Again, thanks for reading my rantings and ravings. I met, just this morning, two women who live life out loud like I do--I met them, how else, through a get born contact--and I find I'm still, after having met so many people who embrace my level of rawness and honesty as refreshing and bracing and beautiful, stunned and shocked that there exists such a powerful sister/brotherhood of people who feel the same way. I guess it comes from having been surrounded by crazy naysayers for way too long--my default is still trying to adjust. Whatever the reasons, I'm still delighted, amazed, and have never felt more like I've found my home. To all of you who have embraced get born, and, thus, me, thank you.
Herein you get a picture to my beautiful mind: I realize that the part of my self that still functions as a child--needy and craving approval and notice--flounders and fusses when these ego-centric "needs" go unfulfilled, sometimes even by strangers from whom such attention is usually unnecessary and mostly inappropriate. The adult me reasons that doctors and nurse practitioners and their like necessarily, to maintain their own sanity, must not become entangled in personal relationships, and that this is an appropriate setup. The little girl me doesn't like it any better, for all its logic. Clark jokes with me often that I wouldn't be happy with a doctor unless he invited me over to his house for a barbecue with his family. He's right.
So once I started chemo, it was quiet--we had eschewed visitors in an attempt to carve out some down time. With the absence of people around--which both distract me and also keep me from needed times to decompress and feel my feelings, along with the inevitable low of coming back from vacation--I fell apart. We have also received, thus far, inconclusive results to the bone biopsy, and having gone through such a trauma to get what we'd hoped would be more information, I felt deflated. Also, stepping back from an idyllic, forgetful existence into the harsh world of cancer (yes, I'm being redundant--deal with it) tends to put a wee bit of a damper on one's previously sunny mood.
I didn't manage to really pull out of it until we got home and the necessary demands of motherhood imposed their blessed selves on me so as to require more attention than my rogue emotions. Last night, Kirstan dropped off a giant check and lunch and breakfast goodies--we already polished off the box of Eggos, girl, Megan waltzing around saying, "Leggo my eggo!" How will I ever thank the lot of you sneaks? I am humbled and truly amazed. What girl gets to not only pursue a business that is more like a fifth child than a business and manages to get her friends and family to partially finance it and deliver food to boot? It must seem like a scam, as Melody points out--she who comes to take such great care of my children and mops and sweeps and tells me every detail when I get home, which I so need to feel connected. She also is hanging one of her stunning quilts on my wall every time she visits--a rotating exhibit--she's so talented, and they're beautiful and life-giving art--I look at them and find home--such is the true working of great art; last nights is called "Girlfriends." How apt.
The beautiful silver lining is that Clark and I rented an absolutely hilarious movie called "The Amateurs" which I demand you all to run out and rent or set up in your queue immediately. I laughed so hard--but, fortunately, didn't pee. I did nearly snort out my licorice tea (sorry, bro--I know you said no snorting, but what's a gal to do?)
This morning, my one priority was to head to my primary caregiver's office to pick up my dad's medical records. For those of you who don't know, he died at the age of 45 (I was 20) of an aggressive sarcoma, the details of which are still fuzzy to me. I need his medical records so I can start filing the paperwork to do some genetic testing to find out if I am carrying a BRCA gene, a breast cancer gene mutation. I got there and said I needed to also see if I had a UTI, which I did. I don't know if it's because I was there, or because I have cancer or because the office was dead this morning, but they got me right in to see the doc, and I started some antibiotics. If it's because of the cancer, then I guess we can add that to the list of perks.
So I've got 38 pages of my dad's story in my hands, and I'll be spending the rest of the day reading through it, googling terms I don't understand, and invariably balling my head off. Not a day goes by, 14 years later, that I don't thoroughly, wholeheartedly, and absolutely miss my dad. He was very instrumental in a lot of people's lives, and remains someone with whom I really felt valued for who I was. Of course, at 20, I knew him less well than I wish I would have, and I miss what could have been. I'll never stop believing he was taken before his time, stupid Christian platitudes nothwithstanding. It's inexplicable to me, and I would never be who I am now had he not died, but it's still shitty and wasn't fair.
I hope to put some pieces together, since for reasons that are too sordid to go into now, my dad's story and history seem irrevocably gone from our family history. I am story, I do story, and I am lost without story. I want his story--it's so pertinent, especially now.
Again, thanks for reading my rantings and ravings. I met, just this morning, two women who live life out loud like I do--I met them, how else, through a get born contact--and I find I'm still, after having met so many people who embrace my level of rawness and honesty as refreshing and bracing and beautiful, stunned and shocked that there exists such a powerful sister/brotherhood of people who feel the same way. I guess it comes from having been surrounded by crazy naysayers for way too long--my default is still trying to adjust. Whatever the reasons, I'm still delighted, amazed, and have never felt more like I've found my home. To all of you who have embraced get born, and, thus, me, thank you.
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