Blogging Through the Back Door

It occurs to me that time flies, whether you are wasting it or not.

I could sit here and pontificate all day long over the definition of "wasting time" and its relative nature. I could rant about society imposing unreasonable expectations and that a bit - or two - of leisure time here and there is a healthy thing. I could wax on endlessly about how one man's castle is another man's prison, but I don't think that's the important piece of what's aching to get out tonight. The important piece is that I'm losing it. I am fairly certain I have never felt more broken, more exhausted, more... unmotivated in my life. And I'm not trying to suggest I think those issues will be rectified by writing, but I decided, as I was lying in bed for over an hour labeling my mind's frantic tail-chasing as "thinking" and desperately trying to "let it go," I thought, it certainly isn't going to set me back any if I get up and do what I should do for myself.

So now I sit here with a Melatonin preparing a lullaby - and I reread that paragraph. It reads pretty nicely, actually, especially for a first draft. A little catchy, with good rhythm, it screams "opening paragraph, chapter 3 of Stacy Kowtko's new book, 'The New, Amazing, Jaw-Dropping, Grand Adventures of the Phantom Nip' with its admission of weakness followed deftly by the correct answer. You, see, that paragraph subtly, subliminally suggests that I'm getting it right.

Now I'll describe what *actually* happened.

After lying in bed for over an hour labeling my mind's frantic tail-chasing as...

Damn. I really don't want to explain what brought me to this post. I literally typed the fifteen words above before I consciously realized I was, again, telling the embellished story. *Here's* what happened.

For an hour after I laid down to sleep, I lay awake worrying about work and family. I planned my forms I need to complete for the IRS concerning our current "interesting" relationship. I stressed about tomorrow's classes. I promised myself I would make a dentist appointment to at least see if they can save my broken tooth and if I will be able to afford the work that will need to be done. I rehearsed the talk I want to have with my doctor that I now have to leave because I messed up and left them out of my bankruptcy. I chided myself for too much gaming and not enough reading or writing. After every self-admonishment, I desperately reminded myself that I do truly believe everything happens for a reason and that this, too, shall pass. But after every reassurance, another self-admonishment would creep into my thoughts, and the cycle would start all over again.

After about an hour, I gave up and got up. When I got up, I instinctively picked up my phone from the bed and had to tell myself to put it down and pick up a book. A page an a half in, and I couldn't tell you what it said. THAT'S when I decided it couldn't hurt to blog.

Then I spent 20 minutes researching a Google "502. That's an error. The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds. That's all we know" and enjoyed a little victory jig when I figured out a way around blogger.com's MAJOR access issues they are currently experiencing. I briefly wondered if the universe was trying to tell me something, but when have I ever listened to the universe?

And even now, as I read back through this one more time before I'm done, I have to convince myself not to replace "unmotivated" with something less... damning. Like... drained. Or... empty. Or... lost. Depressed, even. *Anything* but unmotivated. But unmotivated is what I am, so in the interest of honesty and health and recovery, it stays.

And so I close, with the hopes that this gut-spillage will mix nicely with the Melatonin and lull me to sleep before 3. I close with the hope that this release, this sharing, this naming of the enemy will give me some measure of power of it. I close with the hope that this gut-spillage will end up on the screen of someone who needs to read it. I close with the hope of some decent sleep tonight.

And I can't explain it, but I do still believe in those hopes. I have named my captor, and it now has no power over me. (Rest in peace, D.B.) "Wasting time" really is a relative term, if you think about it.

Last Published...

...on Oct 17, 2015. So much for the ability, drive, motivation for consistency, and my Inner Breast Cancer B@d@ss...

I wonder if I had blogged regularly through this... whole thing, if I would have felt stronger...

...or if it would have drained me more.

I wonder if I had blogged regularly through this... whole thing, if I would have felt more sane...

...or if it would have made me crazier.

I wonder if I had blogged regularly through this... whole thing, I would have been able to avoid the current financial crises I find myself facing...

...or if I'm just *that bad* at the daily life stuff.

I wonder if I had blogged regularly through this... whole thing, reality would look more like the grand ideas in my head...

...or if I want to blame cancer because I am a dreamer, not a doer.

I wonder a lot of things. I would say I wonder how important my wondering even is, but I know from experience that making a difference, even to one person, it's important. It's not just important to that person, it's important to our community, our society. Not only do we "get back" what we "put out there," what we send out creates ripple, whether we witness them or not.

I want my ripples to look like smiles. I want my ripples to sound like sighs of relief. I want my ripples to feel like company.

And that can't happen sitting on my couch guzzling Candy Crush Saga. I'm not sure how it DOES happen, but it won't happen in the cocoon of a cell phone screen.

The Most Fearsome Thing

...is the enemy unseen.

I sit here at the computer wanting to write about the crazy. I feel like, if I could just describe a bit of the anxiety, put a name to the unknown, maybe that could weaken its hold on me; not a lot, just a little. Just enough to let me breathe. But, nooooo. I am frozen at the keyboard. All I want is to bleed the voices out of me - just a little - so that maybe tomorrow will be a little easier than today. But I don't know where to start.

And now, I come back to this screen  after almost 20 minutes of staring at NBA 2K14 and no new words have magically appeared. Imagine that.

So I focus on my irritation. I focus on (what I perceive to be) the obstacle that so deftly, so expertly, so intimately keeps me from writing. Calling that obstacle "voices" was just... uninspired. Complacent, if we're being honest, because I don't really have voices in my head. "Voices" is a cop-out. "Voices" is me being lazy.  The only actual voice in my head is mine. I know how many there are - one - and I know whose it is - mine.

That's not the problem.

Here's the problem.

Voices in your head, no matter how many there are or who they sound like, are not constrained by the restrictions of the physical body. Space and linear timelines are anachronisms in the realm of head-voices. Just because there is only one voice doesn't mean there aren't a million tracks of that one voice all playing at different speeds and volumes, reflecting a million different moods and voicing a million different opinions. Just because there is only one voice and it happens to be yours doesn't mean you can trust it.

Hell. Just because there is only one voice and it happens to be yours doesn't even guarantee that you can understand what it's saying. With a million different tracks playing simultaneously at different speeds and volumes while concurrently sampling a million different moods and proclaiming a million different opinions, the end result is a cacophonous clamor. A discordant drumming. A raucous racket.

My own personal Tower of Babel.

There is some kind of pseudo-intellectual, faux-philosophy connection between the biblical story of Babel and my current state of insanity, but I can't quite verbalize it, at the moment.

Oh, but if I could.

The most fearsome thing is the enemy unseen.

True dat.

Hells to tha' yeah.

Fo'sheezy.



Daaaaarn tootin'.

The Hubris of the Scholar

sen·ior·i·tis

sēnyəˈrītis/

a supposed affliction of students in their final year of high school or college, characterized by a decline in motivation or performance and can be, although not always, accompanied by an absolute certainty that there is little left to learn.

As time pushes me ever closer to, once again, being a "senior," the reminders that I do *not* know everything seem to be getting more pointed.

The most recent?...  "Oh, L@@K," she said, all triumphant and confident and smiling, "I found her!  My Inner Breast Cancer B@d@ss was with me all along!  The Schol@r inside was just biding her time until I was ready.  And ready, I am!"  [Imagine arms up and out, with palms turned up towards the sky and head thrown back as the words burst from my very being] "I LOVE AND EMBRACE MY INNER BREAST CANCER B@D@SS!"

My naivety is a never-ending source of entertainment and consternation for me.  And probably those around me.

I was so happy to be in a place of "ok."  I was so relieved to find some peace.  I was so thrilled to feel *good* more frequently than *bad,* that I believed the hype.  I swallowed it all, hook, line, and sinker.  Chemo had ended *6 months* before.  All signs pointed (and still point) to complete and utter destruction of any detectable cancer.  I was moving through the reconstruction surgeries with relative ease.  With my rose-colored glasses adding a lovely hue to the whole scene, I allowed myself a congratulatory pat on the back for coming through this hell of a cancer journey with my sanity (largely) in tact.  I just *knew* that finding my I.B.C. B@d@ss was my first major step into "life after cancer."  I treated myself with a rare bit of pride and admiration at how far I had come in a year that was at once maddeningly long and anxiety-inducing short.  I may as well have been practicing my "Pomp and Circumstance" walk and decorating the mortarboard I would soon pin to my hair.  

I thought chemo was hard.  Well, to be fair, chemo *was* hard.  But there is a luxury in being the kind of physically ill that is painfully obvious to you and anyone around you.  No one (including yourself) expects much of you when you are getting a toxin designed to destroy human cells pumped into you every Friday.  And that, I have come to see, is something of a luxury.

The chemicals we put in me now don't make me puke, won't make me bald, and can't, technically, kill me unlike the weekly Taxol injections.  There are few visible signs of the chemical battle raging inside me.  But this, what I do now every day, this is harder.  Every day I get up, and I look in the mirror.  The way I look and the way I feel are so discordant, so opposing that cycle of physiological anxiety begins anew, just like it did the day before and just like it will tomorrow.  I look...  good.  But I feel...  indescribably terrible.  So much for my short-lived senioritis.

52 Days Later...

And I still have nothing to say?  Right.  I've taken notes on so many "wise," "insightful," "inspired," thoughts and ideas.  They are all over the house - stuffed between book pages, tucked into drawers, and ferreted away among so many other treasures.  So many personal revelations - innumerable "occurrences," and yet here I sit.  With nothing to say.  And a million things screaming to be let out.  My Inner Breast Cancer Badass - the "Invisible Scholar" - seems to be sitting down on the job.  Or scared to death.  One or the other.  But then, what other option is there?  Plenty.  Just not many I am *capable* of executing.  That is a much more positive statement then it appears.  What is it they say about talking to yourself?  As long as you don't reply?...

The Power of Cleavage

I wonder how many women have debated *not* going through with breast reconstruction after scheduling the thing.  How many women are torn over this decision?  I know there are women - many women - who choose no reconstruction, but my interpretation is that they were NOT torn; that they knew they didn't want a reconstruction at some point *before* scheduling it.  But I don't know that, for sure, I haven't looked.  Maybe I should.

(Some time later...)

So, I did.  I read for about an hour or so.  First thing I learned; it's called "going flat" when you don't reconstruct.  Another thing; most women who "go flat" are doing so after a full-on, double mastectomy.  The few single (one-sided) mastectomies I found that didn't opt for reconstruction, most wear prostheses: rather heavy gel fake breasts.  Some don't, but most are saying no to reconstruction because they are scared of more surgeries, their health won't allow it, or they worry about the complicated, long process that is reconstruction.  And the process is lengthy.  First, there is a major surgery (if you are going expanders and not trans-flap, which I am) during which we will augment the left and place a spacer under the right.  The spacer gets inflated every week for 6 weeks or so.  Once the reconstruction side is the "right size," you wait 3 months - THEN you get the mastectomy side rebuilt.  Then there comes the "do I want a nipple constructed"-type decisions, along with a myriad of other, relatively minor procedures to tweak and perfect.  All in all, at least in the path I've chosen, you are looking at a year to a year and a half of surgeries and recoveries; most small with a couple of bigger ones thrown in for good measure.

Oh yeah, and implants aren't permanent.  They have to be replaced, eventually, for almost everyone.  The "average lifespan" of implants - 10-15 years.

Do I want more breast surgery at 60?

Do I want more surgery now?

These are the times that try a woman's soul, lemme tell ya.

I could be all ragey and say things like, "breasts aren't beauty" and "women shouldn't be defined by their bodies" and "this is all trivial when compared to cancer and chemo" and...  blah, blah, blah and not get the reconstruction.

But the truth is, I've always wanted a breast augmentation.  For as long as I can remember, I've never particularly liked my chest.  And now that I'm one week and two days away from the first "perk" of breast cancer (I can't count how many times I've heard some variation of "well, at least you are getting something out of this), there's this nervous nelly inside of me saying the same thing over and over and over again...  "there's no turning back...  there's no turning back...  there's no turning back..."

And some of the scenery I expect on the next leg of this journey?

A year of procedures - and, most likely, noticeable discomfort.
The myriad of potential complications.
The celebratory well-wishes of friends and family.

There is more I could list, but there are two pieces that threaten to pick up my phone and cancel the surgery.

1.  I am *so tired.*  I am SO TIRED that sometimes, I just don't want to do *anything.*  I don't want to get up, I don't want to eat, I don't want to watch tv, I don't want to read.  "Doing" something always involves a decision.  I'm tired of making decisions.  The way I feel right now, I don't want to decide anything ever again.  And this surgery is a big decision.

And 2.  There are many people that don't care that I have only one breast and they have supported me and walked with me and loved me through this whole process.  When chemo ended, though, there was something of a perception that the journey was over with my last infusion, but it wasn't.  It isn't.  I felt almost...  guilty when explaining to people that I wasn't done, that the road I am on doesn't have an end in sight.  That's really hard for people to hear, though, and even harder to explain - over and over and over again.  Sometimes, though, easier is all you can really do.  I just started agreeing how great it was that I was through with the hard part.

But lying is only easier in the moment.  I don't like lying, and I don't do it very well.  Lying leaves little stains on your soul; it punches you in the gut every time you do it.  It makes me want to cry.  Lying is only easier in the moment.

And I don't want to lie about more than I already do.  I wonder how many people will want to celebrate my new boobs with me when that's the last thing I want to do, because again, it will look like I'm "through the hard part."

Maybe I'm scared it'll be "over" for everyone but me.  Maybe I'm scared there is no such thing as recovery and moving through this.  Maybe I'm scared that I'm going to be scared for the rest of my life and have to hid it behind a smile and a lie.

Maybe I would give anything to have my chest back like it was: saggy, stretch-marked from years of nursing, and a bit too small...

...if it meant never having breast cancer.

Maybe there is nothing that can make me feel "better" about all of this.

When all of this is said and done, maybe I'm scared that everyone's perception of "over" will simply leave me sitting alone in the fear that "over" doesn't exist.

I've always said that "afraid" doesn't apply to me.  Nervous?  Yes, but afraid?  Not me.  I can't say that anymore.  I have now been afraid for 278 days.  278 long, nauseating, exhausting days.  Reconstruction will make me look whole again, and yet, I'm afraid "whole" might no longer be in my vocabulary.  I am afraid the cancer will come back.  I am afraid that no matter how healed I look, I will never feel well again.  None of this makes me feel healed and well and "whole."

Maybe it's as simple as wanting to look as broken and scarred on the outside as I feel on the inside.  Looking at all of the ink on my body, it's easy to see that I wear my pain "on my sleeve" for everyone to see.  Why should this be any different?

Let's Face It...

I'm lazy.  Every time I get in this thing, it is glaringly obvious that the time between blogs keeps getting longer and longer.  And it's always some version of the same ol' bullshit.  "It's been awhile.  I feel bad about that.  I should look at that.  Some other time ~ I have more important things to write."

But, do I?  I have ideas.  Goals.  Wants.  Needs.  Desires.  Lazy doesn't do any of those things any good; it doesn't bring them any closer.  There are times to be lazy and there are times *not* to be lazy.  Lazy is easier.  It is quieter.  It is less exhausting.  Lazy is all kinds of things, but one of those things is *not* healthy.  I cut off my left breast so I could be healthy again.  I went to chemo every Friday for 12 weeks so I could be healthy again.  I "willingly" instigated full-blown menopause at the tender age of 45 while in a *brand new* relationship so I could be healthy again.  I am offended.  I am insulted.  I am disappointed by my laziness.  I deserve more respect than that.

A wise man once said, “Reality denied comes back to haunt.”  That is the truetrue.  But a different wise man also said, "A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything."  I am quite accomplished at mistake-making.  I am so excited to see what is made of more recent mis-steps.  But if the accomplishment of "making" something necessitates mistakes, (def. a act or judgement that is misguided or wrong) can you really call it wrong?

TMI - You Can't Say You Weren't Warned

I have never been so scared.  Ever.  Ever, ever.  All I can think is "please, please don't take it all."  Both nipples will be gone, eventually.  But my strength, my stamina, my.... interest.  I won't even call it what it is.  I am talking about my "libido" and the physical experience of intimacy.  My "interest" is higher than it's ever been in my life.  Intimacy has never *felt* better in my life.  I'm not ready to...  lose this, yet.  The treatment I start today, though, could take that away.  All of it.  And I don't know how to do this.  I don't know how to wait and see if my so very young relationship is going to have to try and weather *another* so very unnatural adjustment.  Not yet.  Just please, not yet.  I don't know what bargain I'm willing to make to keep this piece of me just a little bit longer, but I'm willing to talk terms.  Please?  Hair.  I'd be completely willing to lose my hair and both nipples and never complain about any of it if I can just keep this piece.  That's got to be worth something in a sentimental, "rings of Akhaten" kind of way ~ my dreads are past my waist.  Please, consider it?  It's all I feel like I have left to bargain with.

This isn't a very Buddhist reaction.  This is what they would define as attachment, I suppose.  Except I never had this piece, really, to begin with ~ intimacy I could enjoy that wasn't tainted with one of the myriad of events in my past.  Intimacy I enjoyed that didn't make me feel like I was imposing.  It feels so *good* to be with him, and I am not ready to lose that, yet.  Please?  I *like* feeling good.  I don't think I took it for granted.  But just because you treat a thing exactly right ~ never take it for granted, always appreciate it ~ doesn't mean you won't lose it.  It just means that you did it right while you had it.  It's easier to lose something, though, when you have someone to blame - even if that someone is yourself.  Then something can be done differently "next time" so maybe when the loss present itself again, you know better what to do so as not to lose it.  That's the goal behind learning from past mistakes, so the outcome next time around is better.   This is the first time I am facing the possibility of losing something that I did everything within my power to keep alive.  Everyone involved did.  This should be an interesting piece.  Talk about new territory...

So much to learn... So little time?

Well, I didn't expect that.  Yesterday, we went to our 2nd opinion consultation.  I've never gotten a 2nd opinion for anything.  Now I'm wondering if there is more I should've gotten a 2nd opinion on.  The difference between two doctors can be stark.

But that's not what I didn't expect.  (Great syntax, eh?)  I think I had convinced myself that we had gone through the worst of this.  That we had done enough and that Tamoxifen would be it.  Ooooo.  That was a bit o' good news.  Tamoxifen only *mimics* menopausal symptoms.  It's not actual menopause, even though it limits your estrogen production and blocks those estrogen receptors.  That is good news.  It didn't outweigh the rest of the day.  The rest...  Yeah.  Not so good news.  This doctor said some of the same things.  Grey area cancer.  Recommendations for treatment are harder because my cancer doesn't squarely fall...  anywhere.  I shouldn't be surprised.  That describes my whole life, pretty much.  I've always said I didn't believe in black and white.  That there are no absolutes.  It's nice being right sometimes, I suppose.

But to hear from a second person that chemo is the traditional, accepted, really unavoidable recommendation...  That sent me into a tailspin.  That's what I've been wanting, though, a definitive answer, right?  There is a "chemo~lite" option ~ a less intensive, less toxic chemo route that would still give me the benefit of Herceptin ~ the HER2 protein blocking infusion therapy ~ while experiencing less of the usual chemo side-effects.  But everything had looked so...  promising.  So f#cking promising.  So much...  easier, finally.

All I could feel was "haven't we done enough?"  This has been so hard.  Couldn't it have been...  hard enough, already?  I couldn't even vocalize that for half the day.  I was freaking out inside, but in the middle of it, I couldn't have told you why.  Well, the chemo part, that's kind of a given.  Who wouldn't freak out about toxic poison intentionally injected into your veins, yeah?  Once a week for 12 weeks?  Yeah.  That's definitely "freak out"~able.  But it felt bigger.  Deeper.  More encompassing.

So we let ourselves break down for a little bit.  I just folded into the embrace and sobbed for a bit.  I really wanted this to be over.  All I could think was, "I don't wanna do this."  That's pretty much been my mantra since this whole thing started.  Not really a great mantra for my inner breast cancer badass, eh?  Maybe that's part of the superhero origin story that we rarely hear~or that we don't *want* to hear.  When it's hard~when it's scary~when it's exhausting.  We don't wanna do it.  And I can only assume that everyone who has gone through something hard~something scary~something exhausting, feels that same thing, if only for a little bit.  It just so happens that all the options under the heading "not doing it" are...  not options.  Not for me.  They are just whimsical thinking~whimsical, and apparently delusional, thinking.  So yeah.  "I don't wanna do this."  One step closer to looking that BC badass in the eye...