Solace
The story of my journey through breast cancer.Archive for July, 2008
Sunday, July 6 – Moving prep, day 2
Panic Attack Level: Green
I really only have two weeks before I’m scheduled to pack up the car and go. Will I make it? If today’s progress was any indication, I think I will. And I might even fit most of the stuff I need to take into my little car.
Today I washed almost all of my clothes, including winter things that had been in storage. The stuff I want went into space bags and compressed. All that’s left are the things I’ve left out that I need to wear for the next two weeks, and things hanging in the closet. I’ll work on the closets in the morning.
Then…the books. I think I will sort into three piles: Library books that need to go back, books I need, books I don’t need. That last pile will go to the used book store. I should be able to get a couple of bucks for the novels. The anthropology books, of course, will come with me.
I’m not looking forward to sorting through the paperwork. Some of it, like taxes and legal documents, will need to come along, either in the car or mailed. The rest of it can be recycled.
Last of all will be the “stuff.” That, too, will get sorted into two piles: keep and yard sale. I have a feeling the yard sale pile is going to be pretty big.
Normally, I would figure that two weeks was more than enough time to sort through all of this, because although it looks like a lot of junk, it’s just that it’s all jammed into a very small space. However, I have an in-office procedure Tuesday afternoon and I can’t expect to do anything else after that. I don’t know how I’ll feel on Wednesday. I’ll probably be fine. The surgeon is just taking out my porta-cath. I’ll be glad to have that thing out from under my skin (literally).
I do have to go back to my faculty office here to finish taking books back to the library, and there are one or two things I need to bring home. I’m thinking that I’ll leave that old printer there and give it to some poor grad student. I have my color printer and I’ll have access to a laser printer at my new university.
I’m wondering if some of the other stuff in that office can just be given away to students…I’ll have to check. I don’t remember what was left. That would save me a big headache.
Even though it’s only 10 PM, I am exhausted (I have been going up and down the stairs from the second floor to the basement, doing laundry for most of the day). I’m going to bed so I can get up fresh and energetic, and ready to do it all again …well, except for the laundry; thank goodness I’m done with that.
Moving is such a ….joy
I’m taking this weekend to get as much stuff packed as I can. My new employer doesn’t pay moving costs so I’m only taking what I can fit in my Oldsmobile, and what I can mail. The rest is going to a yard sale. I’m taking a break now and thought I would write a few words to update those of you who are following along.
It’s packy-packy weekend. I can’t believe I can fit this much junque into such a small room — I rent a room in a house — but so far it’s going OK. I need to get some stuff washed so I can pack it. I’m using space bags for everything that will compress. I’ve also gotten rid of a lot of clothes that I never wear and probably never will wear.
Good time for purging material possessions that no longer serve a useful purpose (I don’t consider taking up space to be a useful purpose!)
I’m feeling well, too! This is Day 12 after my last (and final!) chemo June 24. I’ll get my port out this week Tuesday. That will be nice. It’s an in-office procedure (I hope my surgeon puts me in “twilight” because I’ve been on the edge of panic and having serious panic attacks for a while). Next Monday is my final blood draw; I see the oncologist for the last time on Tuesday, and at that time, she’ll release me into the wild.
The following week, I leave for my new job.
It will take me four days and three nights to get there. I’m not usually this organized when it comes to making a trip, but I’m having to consider that I probably will not be feeling 100% yet, so I have my route planned highway by highway, and even hour by hour. I don’t know how long I’ll last before I have to stop for the night, but based on my current stamina level, I’m figuring about 9 hours. So I know approximately where I’ll stop and what AAA rated motels are along the route in that general area. I already have reservations in Billings, Montana. I did that, first, so I can get the AAA discount, and second, because the next most affordable place to stop is Rapid City, South Dakota, which is several more hours out and that would put me well over my 10 hour limit. I told my Dad on the phone last night and he thought it was funny that suddenly, in my middle age, I’m planning trips down to hour and making motel reservations. That is so not like me! But I do feel more comfortable knowing the route and knowing that I won’t be pushing harder than I should.
If I need to take longer, I can; I’ve given myself several days of “wiggle room.” I don’t really have to be in Kentucky until the 15th, although the department would like me to be there on August 1, if I can make it. I’m leaving here July 20, so I figure I can probably get there in plenty of time.
On the personal front, I think my SO is mad at me because my instant messaging system went down yesterday, signed me off, and I was off line all day — and didn’t know it. He’s not around, himself, today.
I think that depression has finally lifted. If I knew that all it would take was a bottle of Hogue Late Harvest White Riesling, I would have bought some sooner. As it is, I might go get another bottle tonight after I’ve done all the packing I can for the night.
To be honest, I think that conversation with my Dad on Friday didn’t hurt, either!
I’ve been in denial
Cancer doesn’t equal Death any more
OK, so it’s true that I’ve faced the fact that I have cancer, I had a mastecomy and four months of intensive chemotherapy. I’ve had to face the fact every day when I look in the mirror that my long, long hair is gone. And I only have one breast.
But it seems that today was the first day —now that my ordeal is mostly over — that I have fully accepted the fact that I have had cancer. CANCER. The “C” word.
When I was a child (60s-70s), receiving a cancer diagnosis was the equivalent of a death sentence. Surviving cancer was very rare.
CANCER = DEATH.
I think that only at a very intellectual level have I acknowledged that I had CANCER. Cancer, the dread disease that kills. And, for most of my life, the dread disease that kills everyone who gets it.
Why, then, am I still alive?
Shouldn’t I be dead?
Cancer is a death sentence: that phrase was drilled into me for years and years. You get cancer, you might as well step on a land mine. You’re just as dead.
CANCER = DEATH.
The doctors will put you through all kinds of radiation and pump terrible toxic poisons into your arteries that will be just bad enough to kill the cancer but not quite bad enough to kill you. But you will feel really dead. Or the side effects might make you wish you were dead.
Well, that last part was true enough; there were days when the pain was that bad, believe me.
CANCER = DEATH.
Why, then, am I still alive?
Cancer and its treatment are not like you see on TV
There is a poster in my oncologist’s office –I’ve posted it elsewhere on this site — “What Cancer Cannot Do.” There are a few things, however, that cancer — and its treatment and resulting side effects — can do.
It can make you lose friends.
From the Breast Cancer Forum, one woman posted:
“[There's] Nothing like cancer to weed out the riff raff in our lives I always say.”
Indeed. From reading what others have posted, it’s clear that there are those who can’t take the changes that the cancer, the chemo and the side effects make to you. It’s not like you have chosen these changes, at least not directly. By choosing to live and to reduce your chances of recurrence, you have indirectly accepted these changes to your body, mind and spirit.
Not everyone around you can handle it.
“You’re irrational,” your mother in law might say.
Yes, damn it, I’m irrational. I just had poison pumped into my arteries for five hours and in the next several days to a week, all the fast growing cells in my body are going to die. That includes the lining of my stomach and my intestines. I will either be constipated as hell, or I will sh!t my pants several times a day and be unable to keep any food in my body. If you can’t deal with that, go home.
I am going to sh!t my pants. Get used to it.
I’m going to be nauseous. I might even throw up. I might throw up several times. Cancer is hell. If you think it’s like a Hollywood movie where Dr. House comes in and finds the perfect cure, and within an hour I’m walking away like nothing ever happened, you’re head is f*cked up. Really. I’m going to be sick as all fucking hell for months, even after my last infusion. That’s the reality version.
I will NEVER BE THE SAME again. Get it? NEVER.
CANCER=DEATH
I SHOULD BE DEAD. BUT I AM ALIVE!
So why do you care if I’m irrational, if I shit my pants, or if I lose my hair? I’ve beaten the odds: I’M ALIVE, DAMN IT.
I HAVE BEEN ON DEATH ROW, AND WALKED AWAY A CANCER-FREE WOMAN.
