Letters I Meant To Send

"The jungle is dark but full of diamonds," ~ Arthur Miller 

I suspect you're just as tired hearing about my cancer travails as I am of talking about them and dealing with them.  So let's take a little break. 

News on the office front:

Loathsome:

Yesterday Loathsome dropped by my office to tell me his computer isn't working.  I am not the IT person in the office and, even though IT Boy was out, I didn't offer to take a look to see if I could help.  I get calls from co-workers regularly (when I'm here), soliciting computer help.  They still haven't figured out that I know next to nothing about it.  I experiment.

Of course, he launched into a recitation of his own physical maladies.  I'm empathetic, but at the moment, I'm busy with my own.  

Loathsome explained that his ongoing battle with pain (some back ailment and cartilage deterioration in his wrists) is taking a toll on his relationships.  I know what that means.  It means his wife (who's hated him for as long as I've known him) has resumed hating him now that they've had to share the same house for several months.  (He was Our Man in the Out of State Office for several years and she continued to live here.)  She's calling him an asshole a lot.  He is an asshole, but here's a thought:  Move out.

Foot Lady :

I ran into her on my way out of the office on Wednesday.  I was holding back tears during the conversation because I had a migraine  and the usual pain/fatigue from surgery recovery.  I kept telling her that I had to go because of my pain level.  Did that stop her?  Well, no. On the up side, she did not plop either one of her feet on nearest flat surface and make me look while she waxed whiny on herpodiatry issues.  You have to count your blessings.  A foot would have been more than I could bear.

Work, work, work

Aside from my discussions with co-workers (which I haven't done justice to, unfortunately), I've been working hard while I have the intellectual focus.  Mental clarity is in short supply these days, so I cram in a lot of work in a short period of time.

Yes, boys and girls, it's a new database.  It's breathtakingly complex or it just seems that way because the brain isn't functioning at top capacity.  Every morning, I come in at seven and wonder why there are glitches in the program.  Then I try to find a way to work around them.  Normally, I would enjoy the challenge.  Now it's just irritating.

I rolled out the workers' comp insurance just in time for somebody to get hurt yesterday.  I was filling out forms and sending letters most of the morning.  I've had issues with the insurance provider's online reporting system; it wasn't working for a while.  At all.  I called tech support (in another city).  The guy told me that there are diamond icons that light up when you've finished providing all of the necessary information.  When you've completed that section, you move onto another.  All was going well until I hit "submit."  Nothing happend.  Tech guy made me double check my icons.  You know, I can tell when I've filled in every blank...and I had.  My diamonds were fully lit.  He suggested I call a more knowledgeable tech person in their company.

She called me back during the lunch hour.  That's the oldest dodge in the world and one that I've been forced to use before when I used to have to interact regularly with The Oatmeal Lady, an employee of one of our clients.  Another story, another time.   Tech Lady wanted to know (in her voice mail message) if my diamonds were lit up.  My poor mom had to listen to me ranting and raving about her all the way to Houston the last time we were there.  Now, all I have to say is "diamonds" and my mom starts laughing.

Time is up.

I've run out of time and have to leave for therapy.  God knows I need it.  Monday, I see my psychiatrist.  I predict lots of "diamond" talk with both of them.

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"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." ~ Mark Twain

It dawned on me a couple of nights ago that things may never be the same. The swelling in the new girl had finally gone down a bit and I was able to feel a ridge running underneath it. It's like having an underwire bra under the skin. That may theoretically seem like a good thing, but it's not.

Everyone I know who's had reconstruction surgery has always told me that, in the end, no one will know that the "breast" I end up with isn't a breast at all. No one, they told me, will even know I had breast cancer unless I choose to tell them. I sort of had my heart set on it. Of course, I also had my heart set on everything being finished a year ago, but this is a lot harder to accept. I've gone through so much to make that outcome possible when it may not be, after all.

The problem is definitely radiation and possibly, to some extent, my body's tendency to create massive amounts of scar tissue. I heal quickly, but thick ridges of scars form almost immediately. Radiation caused a lot of tissue necrosis. There was a lot of radiation because of the wide-spread nature of the cancer (which wasn't a tumor) and the fact that it came so close to the chest wall and my neck. Once tissue is irradiated, it gets very hard.

When I was at M.D. Anderson a couple of weeks ago, I talked with a young woman while we waited to give blood. She had exactly the same conditions as I had and the doctors weren't enthusiastic about even trying to do reconstruction surgery on her. It was the memory of my conversation with her that clarified my own dire straits.

Dr. Kronowitz did an excellent job of cutting some of that necrotic tissue and scar tissue out, but there's still some there. Maybe there always will be. I thought about calling him last week when I had this epiphany, but then I decided that I might not be able to stand the answer. Not yet.

I was devastated last week. Today, I'm emotionally numb. I can only feel that bad for a limited period of time. Plus, I'm still exhausted and in pain from the surgery a couple of weeks ago. This is no time to obsess about visual wholeness.

Next week, a new round of medical appointments begins. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist (whom I'm probably going to try to fire because she's more than I can afford) and a blood check/medical oncologist visit. The next week is my annual physical and a trip to my dentist.

I'm not a human being anymore. I'm just a series of medical events.

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"I have traversed many kinds of health, and keep traversing them...And as far as sickness:  are we not almost tempted to ask whether we could get along without it?  Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit." ~ Nietzsche

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"Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us". ~ William James

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I'm not online much these days because I'm battling post-surgical pain and loss of stamina. Did I mention depression and despair?  They have a choke hold on my will to sit in front of a computer and do anything, from catching up on friends to reading email and comments. 

First the news.  I had an MRI on my abdomen last week and all was well.  The skin abnormality didn't worry  Dr. Ross.  The surgery (with five, count them, five incisions and liposuction) was successful.  Surprise.  Plastic surgery is painful.  Breast lift, painful.  Liposuction, painful, Correction of donor site, painful.  More surgery on my relocated navel, painful. I do not recommend plastic surgery.  My last, physically devastating surgery gave me unrealistic hope that this round would be relatively easy. It was, in fact, not in the same league as reconstruction.  Knives cutting through flesh is nonetheless not without physical consequences. Note to self:  Surgery is painful.  Now commit that to memory.

Earlier today, I read a review of a book written by a Harvard professor that purports to provide something of a blueprint for increasing personal happiness.  Self reflection was right up there at the top of the list.  In my opinion, introspection is highly overrated, especially as a strategy to increase happiness. 

Here's where introspection leads me:  I give up.  I don't know anymore whether I can find my inner phoenix and coax it into yet another rebirth.  I give up.  I don't know what to do anymore to fix anything in my life.  I'm overwhelmed and, as my therapist pointed out yesterday, it's most likely related to my pain level. Nonetheless, for right now, I give up.  The reason is almost irrelevant.

What if the best that will ever happen in life has already happened?  It's a standard mid-life crisis question, one we all face sooner or later, I think.  However, when I review the history of my life, the best of my life has been only slightly less than grim.  If that was as good as it will ever be, then what?  

The answer to the question is obvious:  Nazi death camps, Darfur, Katrina, human tragedy on a breathtaking scale.  People survive, people triumph over much worse than I've endured.  I will endure, too.  This month, this week, today, I find nothing particularly inspiring in that understanding.  I can endure.  I will endure.  Endurance isn't triumph, though.

I'm not sure I have the will or the energy anymore to push myself forward into the glorious future. Glorious futures require the vision to create them.  They require relentless will, boundless energy and an immeasurable amount of luck or grace.  I've experienced grace and luck.  I've summoned will and energy.  Were those things not true, I would not be here.  I'm not sure where they've gone, though. 

I have more surgery coming, in approximately three months.  It's classified as elective, but that's a lie.  I can't stop now.  It's like the lie of remission.  Remission means nothing to me.  I have more blood tests coming, regularly, for the next five years.  The next round will be at the end of September.

People at work say to me, with a smile, "You're in remission now, right?"  What they do not know is that oncologists don't really like that word.  "Not medically evident" is the correct phrase.  I'm angry when comfort people comfort themselves or offer it to me in the form of the magical word, "remission."  The question isn't if, but when. 

I don't deserve this life.  I require from myself the spiritual strength to not only accept the cross, but to welcome it.  In better days, I've known how well equipped I am to carry my own burdens.  Others may not be so blessed and it's always incumbent upon me to be mindful of that fact. These days, though, the burden is too heavy for me, too.

My old friend, the fascist who live within taunts me:  Self pity and hanging onto being a victim are unacceptable.  That's where I'm living and my inability to break away from this state of mind makes me embarrassed and ashamed. 

This is my self reflection for today.  I can check that off my list of things to do.  Next step on the road to happiness requires that I enumerate the things for which I'm grateful.  There are many, but this month, this week, today, gratitude is not enough.

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http://foraysintothevoid.blogspot.com/

Just in case we're too slow at ShoutPost to read. 

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"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I just hugged someone who betrayed me several years ago. I thanked her for stopping by. I'm not sure whether that means I've moved farther down the road to forgiveness or that I'm not brave enough to continue on with my cold indifference. I could say having cancer makes a difference in one's ability to see past human frailty, but I'm not sure that's true.

Every day, I pray for and work towards forgiveness and the abandonment of rage and hatred. In this particular case, hugging was a manifestation of grace in my life. There's still a small part of me keeping track of the things she did. Maybe someday I'll stop remembering. I'm not quite that strong yet.

Surgery countdown: 7 days

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M.D. Anderson is clearly in sight now. I'll be leaving Wednesday to ensure I get to an early morning sonogram. Later on, The Beloved Dr. Ross. I'm hoping on this trip, he'll ask me to move in with him so he can take care of me forever. Let's not forget that I have hair and muscle tone now. Anything could happen. (Obviously, I'm hard-pressed to contain my anxiety. Dr. Ross is the perfect antidote.) Friday, I drive back to Austin.

On Monday, I drive back to M.D. Anderson for pre-op consults and an appointment with Dr. Kronowitz early Tuesday morning. Wednesday: Surgery.

I got all new "roll out" materials to their appointed destinations and provided on-site managers with extra copies of required forms. I rock.

For all the lovers of Crazy Land tales, an encounter with Foot Lady for your pleasure. I went downstairs to her office to provide her with the extra forms to take to her supervisors. Guess what we talked about next? Yes! Yes! Her feet! She did not plop her foot on the desk for illustrative purposes, but she did flop it on a nearby chair. Some things simply will not change. Foot Lady's ongoing foot problems is one of them.

The workers' comp company is driving me to distraction. I received a new claim today for an insect bite. I recently allegedly gained the ability to submit claims online. Twice I have tried it, twice it has not worked. I called tech support today, told the guy the problem, and he says, "Well, you got me stumped. I'll have to have someone call you." Great. I've got all the time in the world.

I submitted yet another paper claim, after having wasted a fair amount of time and an enormous amount of patience trying to get the lightening-fast online reporting system to work. I got the letter to the employee printed, but that's as far as I got.

Crazy Land denizens kindly held a Team Ggirl meeting, complete with warm, homemade cookies (of many kinds) and a lovely parting gift. Let us all celebrate my upcoming surgery! My friend the Information Superhighway did lots of shopping and arrived with a whole grab bag of cookies, magazines, crossword puzzles, toiletries...all gifts that were useful and touching. I like to recount the foibles of my co-workers, but my feelings for virtually all of them are quite cordial. Clueless though they may sometimes be, frustrating in the extreme and wildly annoying though they may be, I'm very deeply touched that they care. Not to be cynical, but warm cookies is a Team Ggirl event that's a win-win for everyone and is not necessarily a reflection of how much I've endeared myself to my coworkers.

That completely halted the workers' comp paperwork fiesta, which just means I have to focus on it immediately tomorrow, along with getting my biopsy slides sent to M.D. Anderson. There will be plenty of faxing going on. I got a call on Friday from my dermatologist's office, letting me know they sent the biopsy results, instead of the slides. No one told me that's what they were sending. Nor did they tell me whom to call to arrange it for myself.

I have a late afternoon appointment with the dermatologist tomorrow. I'm sure we'll be covering all of this. That means my last day of Crazy Land will be a short one. That would be great, but my tasks require more time than I may have at my disposal.

I guess that's another antidote to anxiety. Owner asked me today how I got all of the new insurance stuff taken care of. "I worked my ass off." I will be working said ass off again tomorrow. Lots of the workout will be personal, so I don't suppose complaint is order here.

The upshot is that I may be away for a while from my online friends and my own weblog. Rest assured that all is well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. (Bowing to Julian of Norwich.) I'll see you when it's all over, if not before.

P.S. Sorry for the wholly unimaginative title line. What can I say?

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Craziness abounds, even over and above my daily sojourn in Crazy Land.  Crazy Land continues to spin, though, and I'm definitely caught in its many manifestations of nuttiness-inspired stress.  My anxiety about getting everything accomplished before my Wednesday departure is significantly diminished.  Nonetheless I'm always aware of the endless shiver of anxiety burrowed under the level of my daily consciousness.

In the middle of conversations, I suddenly notice the lunacy in my voice.  The more I try to tame it, the loonier I sound.  Very disconcerting.  I wish I could preface every interaction with an explanation that I'm soon having my fourth surgery in two years and that I'm therefore virtually unable to think clearly.  As a matter of fact, I'm virtually unable to function.

Now and again, it strikes me that, since everyone around me seems to expect me to continue on as usual, I should most certainly be able to do that.  Maybe I should be able to, but my mind periodically goes blank.  The brain keeps track of pain and it will not be distracted from  another imminent  physical insult.

"How can you possibly expect me to do anything more than arrive at work and stay there for 8 hours," I think. Actually accomplishing things is simply completely out of the question.

Sometimes there's no choice.  I've had the infamous "roll out" to orchestrate, a major coup considering the daunting amount of information not available. It's been a struggle to simply find out how many sites each manager services and how many employees are at each site.  Is it any wonder my mind goes blank from time to time?  It's a little like a cultural adaptation in this case.  Everyone else is in some information-deprived haze.  I'm just doing my part to fit in.  Now there's a good excuse.

When it rains workers comp claims, it pours.  Unfortunately, lately it's been pouring guys who've chosen to not report their work-related injuries for a week or so.  The amount of paperwork alone that has to be generated and disseminated  wears me out, even when reporting is prompt.  When our employees wait to illuminate anyone about their hurties, my work becomes even more time-critial and positively stuffed with paper to be printed, faxed, copied, printed again and mailed to several people.

Last but certainly not least, I've been having serious issues with my dermatologist's office.  When I visited, at their insistence, to discuss my diagnosis and treatment, the nurse practitioner was completely useless.  No need for treatment, or maybe there is, who knows?  Nonetheless, they called to make a six-week follow up visit.  I also have an appointment with the doctor herself on Tuesday.  To top it all off, I've been unable to have biopsy results successfully sent to Dr. Ross.

See?  This is another moment when the mind goes absolutely blank.  I have no idea what to do now.  The nurse tells me to call the Pathology Lab and arrange it myself.  They might have shared that with me when I called last week specifically to have them do that.  I  can't.  The new hill of endless paperwork seems too big to climb at the moment.The noise you hear is my head as I beat it against the wall. 

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"Everything Must Change" recorded by virtually everyone, my favorite of whom is Nina Simone.

Everything must change
Nothing stays the same
Everyone must change
No one stays the same

The young become the old
And mysteries do unfold
Cause that's the way of time
Nothing and no one goes unchanged

There are not many things in life
You can be sure of
Except rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And hummingbirds do fly

Winter turns to spring
A wounded heart will heal
But never much too soon
Yes everything must change

The young become the old
And mysteries do unfold
Cause that's the way of time
Nothing and no one goes unchanged

There are not many things in life
You can be sure of
Except rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And butterflies do fly

Rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And music
And music
Makes me cry

"Everything Must Change," Bernard Ighner

Time is limited these days. I'm trying to clean up a workers comp mess left by Loathsome, "roll out" a new workers comp insurance program and forestall the complete rewriting of the employee manual. Patience is also limited. So is emotional stability.

I cry at least four times a day every day. Today has actually been a really good day. It's 2:00 p.m. and I've only cried once. Crying is impromptu, it's always a surprise. Just thinking about crying can make me cry. I'm loads of fun to be with.

Every once in a while, the thought breaks through, "I'm having surgery on the 29th." That's when things really start to get out of hand. Every surgery is cause for new terror, if only because every surgery still hurts. I never cry when I see it coming. I do, however, freeze for a moment or two and wish there were some way to escape this life I've been assigned. The thought of another surgery is dumbfounding.

I'm out of sorts these days. Everything seems bleak. The future seems not worth living. I wonder why I tried so hard to stay alive. What exactly did I have in mind? Did I believe things will someday improve in my life in any meaningful way? If that's what I thought, I can't imagine why I believed it.

I'm angry at the universe. I keep thinking back, wondering what it was exactly that I did to deserve my impossibly difficult life. It's not just the breast cancer. It's the years and years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. It's the rape. It's the suicide. It's the job I hate that just won't stop. No matter what, I have to be here. All of those things seem beyond the boundaries of good taste when heaped upon one small person who's made a lifetime career of not passing along the violence and pain.

I'm a good person, a gentle person, a person with enormous compassion. As if that counts for anything. I'm sure there's some purpose to all of this accumulated suffering, but lately I'll be damned if I can see what it might be. Oh. I know. I've been sent the plague of my existence to create the possibility for gentleness and compassion. It's a mighty big price tag and one that I don't feel much inclined these days to continue to pay.

Last night, I watched a program on the travel channel called "Jeff Irwin Inside Alaska," or something like that. The vast, primeval spaces reminded me of why I don't matter. As I watched bears tearing apart salmon they'd just caught in the river, I kept thinking, "Something dies so that something else may live." That seemed comforting somehow.

Over the weekend, I though a lot about the gift of seeing the end in advance. My life seems broken beyond repair, my body wounded forever, my mind diminished. The changes are irrevocable. It's the coming attractions, folks.

Unless we've somehow managed to find a quick end, death invites us to leave in tiny increments. We lose a little of ourselves, a little of our joy (assuming we ever had any) moment by moment. Alaskan brown bears die because they have cavities in their teeth. They suffer, dying bit by bit. We do, too. Right now it's not so much the leaving that bothers me as the slow, painful journey to get there.

Day after day. I get up and come to work. My body hurts. I "roll out" workers comp insurance. I cry about the pathos of the universe. I fill out forms reporting an injury. I rage against the injustice of the universe. I proofread invoices and wonder when my damn copies are going to be ready to be picked up at the local FedEx Kinko's.

When I look at it that way, it makes me laugh. I'm feeling dramatic today. It's nothing a good surgery won't cure, though.

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<table width=350 align=center border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2><tr><td bgcolor="#CCCCCC" align=center><font face="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" style='color:black; font-size: 14pt;'><b>You Are The Lovers</b></font></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><center><img src="http://images.blogthings.com/whattarotcardareyouquiz/lovers.jpg" height="100" width="100"></center><font color="#000000">
You represent ideal love: innocence, trust, exhilaration and joy.
You demonstrate the harmony of opposites, two sides coming together.
At times, you also represent the struggle between what is right and what is tempting.
Control is an issue for you, especially when you don't know your reasons for choosing something.

Your fortune:

You have an important choice you need to make about love, and it will be a difficult choice to make.
You are likely struggling between the love you crave and the love that is right.
In the end, you will choose what you crave, even if it's bad for you.
Because without what you crave, you will feel empty and incomplete.</font></td></tr></table><div align="center"><a href="http://www.blogthings.com/whattarotcardareyouquiz/">What Tarot Card Are You?</a></div>

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