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? Again, You Can't Say You Weren't Warned...

THIS is a crazy side-rant in the middle of what, I am quickly becoming convinced, is a minor nervous breakdown. But it is a really positive crazy side-rant, and I *really* need the positive right now, so don't say you weren't warned about the upcoming crazy-laced TMI rant.

Women under the age of menopause (and any many in or hoping to be in a long-term relation with a woman) might secretly fear "the Change" more than any other biophysical event outside of dying. Let me demonstrate my point. Set a timer for 45 seconds, then close your eyes and think about the ways menopause has or is impacting your life. What might the future hold for you when you finally stare the Change in the eyes for the first time.

How could it not send icy cold shivers down the spine?  Considering Hollywood's portrayal of older women, (women of any age, really) pharmaceutical advertising's constant reminders about the heat, moods, and moisture (or lack thereof) associated with the Change, and the ever-present stoic, matronly mother/aunt/grandmother/friend's mother/church pew neighbor/sweet little lady next door archetype, what else are we supposed to think?  I've always imagined a grim Transformation (I'll stop speaking for the majority of women now) resulting in a shell of a woman, a ghostly shadow of her former self. Every joke, ad, and movie reinforces the idea that menopause is PMS-on-steroids.

I see things a bit differently now.

I would like to point out a few things 1) in no conceivable way did my 3-month, chemically-induced, stress-drenched menopause experience resemble what I understand to be the "average," "natural" menopause reality, information admittedly gleaned mainly through furtive, short conversations and late night Google obsessions.  2) In no universe do I think it's possible that my "Change" is complete.  3) In no realm of the imagination would I EVER be so vain ~ or disrespectful ~ as to superimpose my experience onto others.  What I write next is my experience, thus far, and I must assume that it is mine, alone.

But I dearly, truly hope not.  :-)

I look back now at the barely-contained angst that consumed me during the months after my diagnosis, but before...  well, today, and my first instinct is to stoically smile, just like I've seen a million other white-haired matron smile.  For months that seemed like *centuries,* I could not, in my relative innocence, imagine me without my "Drive."  And that's the big deal about menopause, right? You lose your "Drive," and then you go crazy. "Drive" has played a heavy hand in my Universe for almost 40 years.  The thought of it simply disappearing (because that's what happens, right?) was so inconceivable, so... unspeakable that I spent many nights/early mornings alone on the couch, trying desperately to not-disturb my 16 year old son or my boyfriend ~ of *7 very short months* ~ as I immersed myself in imagining who that woman would be.  There is *nothing* to prescribe, no exercise to overdo, no proven remedy for the loss of...  desire. How... boring that must be, I thought. So empty. Dead. And anyone who knows me intimately understands that boredom is my kryptonite. I was scared to death. How in the HELL was my already-stressed-to-the-max-7-month-old relationship going to handle THAT?!?!?!?  It was already juggling work, children, grandchildren, family, bills, daily life, blah, blah, blah.  Oh, yeah.  And breast cancer.  Put menopause in the mix?  You could say I was scared. To death.

Fast-forward several months later to now...  I am emerging into the next phase of this.  I am coming to understand that Drive and Desire are two often-very separate things. The absence of "Drive" is not a vacuum.  To be left empty, the core quality of the human spirit would have to be "Drive." Somehow, in my pre-menopausal way of assuming the worst (something I have NEVER done before), I had decided that "desire" equated the "Drive," that they were one and the same. It is a Need, a Necessity, ultimately, a biological imperative. It is Sex Drive that has allowed the human race to procreate and survive. Drive is produced largely by estrogen and in the hormone's absence, Drive all but disappears. This would be a terrible tragedy if Drive and Desire were the same thing. I am coming to see they definitely are not.

Desire involves interest. It involves enticement. Desire equates *want,* instead of need. Yes. The stripping of estrogen from my body would leave me bereft of Need. But Desire, I can now see, has nothing to do with estrogen. In fact, it's had an almost inverse affect on me. The death of Drive has left all kinds of room to filled in with Desire. (That is about the cheesiest-ass thing I have *ever* written.) Being able to let go of "have to" and embrace "want to" has been amazing. Enlightening, really. I look back at my menopausophobia, and I can't help but laugh at my irrational fears. Interestingly, I think I'm glad I was given a healthy fear the Change. In some ways, the looming threat of <<<menopause>>> kept me on my toes. It never let me forget for too long that nothing is permanent. The zombie-esque future I face as an aging woman often inspired(s) me to acts of great fun and foolishness. Desire, unfettered by "Drive," is trans-formative. When sex sheds the weight of "must have," "want to have" all but takes over.

Remember that 45 seconds of imagining menopause? Close your eyes, again, but this time imagine what wanting feels like without the pressure of "must." Wanting the one you love, not because a gland in your brain is flipping internal switches your body can't ignore, but simply because... you want them. You don't have to have them. <close your eyes!>

You *WANT* them.

;~*

And that, my friends, is *hot.*

So when half-joking, side-stepping inquiries about the HELL of menopause come my way, I think a calm, reserved smile is probably the way to go, don't you?  

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.

To Be Or Not To Be...

It kind of really is the question.  Should I be "this thing" or this OTHER thing?  Should I watch a show or play Diablo?  Should I start planning classes or start writing a book?  Should I get out of the house today or...?

Or stay inside like I have for months now?  I remember having energy...  I remember looking forward to *do things.*  Anything.  EVERYthing.  Everything takes so much *energy.*  There's a quote I included in my ScholarRevelationEntry that was supposed to inaugurate the "new" blog and  it goes...

"I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young.  That's what sitting on your ass does to your face." ~Leonard Cohen

It's a nice sentiment.  I don't think he's right.  Not when I look in the mirror.  Sitting on my ass is probably just...  flattening my ass.  The Invisible Scholar is just sitting here on her ass, stewing in a lack of motivation and often overwhelming lethargy.  Just last night, all of the amazing, strong women of Spokane's 2015 "Listen to Your Mother" got together again to celebrate our experience this year.  I didn't go.  I spent all day holding myself and everything together and just...  had no happy left to share at the end of the day.  Little desire to celebrate something that now feels like a lifetime ago.  I've lived a lifetime in less than a month, it seems.

That statement is rather self-pitying.  And false.  And self-indulgent.  I could only be so lucky as to live *my* lifetime of experiences in less than a month.  I've had some pretty damn awesome experiences.

Some of them even occurred on this couch that is currently hosting my ever-more-flattening ass.  So the answer, then, is "to be."  To be what?  My Inner Breast Cancer Badass asks a most important question.  "Does it really matter," she whispers.

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?...