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.

• 0 Comments |
• Link to This
• Back to top

"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.

• 0 Comments |
• Link to This
• Back to top

"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

• 0 Comments |
• Link to This
• Back to top

"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.

• 0 Comments |
• Link to This
• Back to top