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.

TMI Alert: One Day in Life After C

I suppose it might depend on your definition of TMI, but whatever...

I am starting to understand more of what people mean when they say, "there will come a point where you *know* you are recovering. There will eventually be more days when you feel more like the 'old you' instead of the trainwreck of the 'new you' that seemed like it would never end."

Ok, so no one painted THAT bad of a picture. And I'm starting to understand why that it, too, but that's not my point today.

What is my point today?

My point is I started off today on a high note - a really high note. I interviewed with The Fig Tree - an interfaith newsletter - to become a volunteer staff member that would help edit, keep the office open, organized community education events, stuff like that. And the interview, it was inspiring. It gave me ideas. It made me feel like I could make a difference.

And I spoke with the Washington Community College Humanities Association today about taking a seat on their board to help further education on the Humanities across the state.

I've gotten a ton of work done, finished some form-filling-out, posted some grades, bonded with my son, and updated my GoFundMe.

And that's the stickler today, I think. A few weeks ago, I started a GoFundMe for myself and my family. This journey through breast cancer has left us on the ledge of financial ruin. After exhausting all other resources I was capable of exhausting, GoFundMe was kind of what was left. It hasn't been very successful yet, but in defense of my circles, most people I know are just as "bad off," if not worse off than my family and I. It's been commented on and shared like crazy and that is just wonderful. It makes me feel so loved.

So what is my point today?

No matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish, no matter how many volunteer positions I agree to fill, it doesn't maintenance the cars, get medical attention for my kitties, get phones and computers that actually work, or pay my bankruptcy lawyer. It keeps me busy. It keeps me from thinking about it all. But it doesn't *fix* anything for us. I can't take another job. I can't guarantee I would have the energy to commit to an entry position. Besides, it's not like I don't make enough money to live on, I just don't make enough money to catch up, pay for immediate needs, AND keep up with monthly bills.

On the downswing of days like today, that's the reality that's waiting for me, and it's hard. It's exhausting.

Most of all, it's humiliating.

I must say, GoFundMe, among many positives, at least offers the opportunity to beg without having to do it face to face or stand on a corner with a sign ~ the 1st, I have done many times ~ the 2nd, I've considered, but haven't resort to, I mean, I don't even know the rules for claiming a corner. I also don't seem to have Kanye's knack for getting people to donate just to shut me up and make me go away, unfortunately.

So boiled down to the most simple point today?

Gratitude.

Thank you, GoFundMe, for helping me and so many others save a little face.

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'.

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...

Why so serious...

Today, I am tired.  After several days of "I feel better than I have in SO long," I am flipping tired.  And I am uncomfortable.  I have *no* idea how chronic pain people do it.  This recovery hasn't so much "painful" as it has been consciously, continually, unavoidably uncomfortable.  Before I went to my first post-surgery check-up, I had started stepping myself down off of the oxycontin.  I felt like 10 mg every 3 hours was a bit much after the first couple of days.  I expected my doctor to step it down even more to Vicadin, but to my surprise, he was pretty insistent that I stay on this until he would see me again.  He wrote another script for 5-10 mg every four hours and sent me on my way.  I've never had a doctor react like that.  I didn't know what to think.  They've *always* started stepping it down by now.  Am I magically feeling less pain than everyone else?  I've always claimed a high pain tolerance, but seriously...  My surgeon is one of the best in the region; there's no way he would be careless with something as strong as oxycontin.  Then I thought...  here's this lady who just had her entire breast amputated and lymph nodes removed.  If I were a doctor, looking at what she's already gone through and what may be coming, oxycontin withdrawal might be the least of my concerns for her.  That realization was a bit sobering.

But today, I think I was just...  naive.  Or hopeful.  I am 12 days post-surgery, and today, the *only* thing that has allowed me comfort and rest is my pain medication.  I don't know why this is different from my partial hysterectomy or my tummy tuck.  I don't remember feeling like this 12 days after surgery, and both of those surgeries were WAY more invasive.  Maybe it's because of the physical location and impact of this particular procedure.  Maybe it's the fact that I am a bit older than I was for either of those.  Maybe it's the fact that I went into this surgery with weeks of stress build-up, and this surgery is just the first step of treatment over the next year and the first weeks of fear of reoccurance, which will last the rest of my life.  Maybe it's the psychology of this recovery that is the key factor.  Maybe I think too much.  Maybe I'm just tired.  It's not like it's been the most usual of months.

I do know that I feel differently today about "wake me up when it's all over."  The next line in the song is "when I'm wiser and I'm older."  That song has always grated on me.  If you sleep through "it," whatever "it" is, you won't be wiser when you wake up, just older.  I am an experience whore.  I crave new experiences, and I *love* learning from them.  I have traveled halfway around the world to find them.  I've driven thousands and thousands of miles guided by the flip of a quarter to find them.  "I am the happiest when I am in unfamiliar territory.  When everything is new and different and unknown.  When I am nervous and bit scared.  I am so *alive* then."  Welp, I got what I asked for.  And right now, I get the song a bit better.  Please.  Wake me up when it's all over.  I don't give a sh!t if I'm wiser or older, just let me sleep through this.  I am so tired.

And the worst part?  The piece of all of this that *really* sucks, but ultimately doesn't?  I got lucky.  I got *so* lucky.  Contained cancer, no radiation, no chemo, I mean, really.  Herceptin might give me the flu for a year, but I get to keep my dreadlocks and some semblance of what my life used to be.  And that is one major reality (of several) that keeps me from sleeping through this.  Who am I to waste this opportunity?  What would I do if my prognosis were worse?  I don't know.  All indications point to me never knowing...  if I'm lucky.  I have been, so far.  So I won't sleep through this.  I may b!tch and moan about it sometimes.  I may sit and cry because I miss 44-year-old-never-had-malignant-cancer Stacy.  But I won't sleep through it.  That's what I keep telling myself.  Today, I am just so tired, it's harder to form the words, that's all.