Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Every Photo Has a Story

December 20, 2017





Annual Thanksgiving time family photo, two years ago. The story behind the picture: Nobody was happy, everyone was cold and grumpy--especially me--, it was way too dark already to take the photos. But Bree was getting ready to head back home, and I was desperate to get it done. Not just because I'm a maniac about pictures, but because this was just a little after my diagnosis, just before my first surgery. At the least, I'd never exactly look like this again. Even more than that, even though it was caught early, even though I was one of the lucky ones, the future was still a question mark. A tiny little irrational voice, persistent but quiet, kept whispering, "But what if this is the last time we get to take a family photo? What if this is the last time the kids take a picture with me? I want the kids to at least have this." Irrational, but I wouldn't let it go until we got a few shots. See how dark it is in the photo? It's so much brighter now on the other side of the shot. In this photo, I see gratefulness.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Cancer Free Anniversary

December 4, 2017

Today’s an anniversary for me—a celebration.  Today I am two years cancer free, having undergone a mastectomy to rid my body of the cancer lurking there on December 4th, 2015.  It was probably the scariest day I’ve ever experienced, because of the unknown. 
The biggest unknown--would they find it had spread to my lymph nodes?  When Mom went in for surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her kidneys years before, they found one of the kidneys 90% consumed and the other 40% consumed with tumors.  Worse?  The cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and she’d need chemotherapy and radiation.  Less than 9 months later, she was gone.  Now, I had been assured that my cancer was caught early and it was highly unlikely that it had spread, but still they said they wouldn’t know positively until they got in there and tested the nodes.  Of course the other looming unknown was what would it feel like to wake up from surgery and be literally missing a piece of myself?  It’s a surreal notion to contemplate.  I mean, there are certainly people in this world who lose limbs to disease or accident, and the impact on their lives is immeasurably more than it is for one who loses, in essence, a large area of fairly non-utilitarian fat (post-child-bearing years) from the body.  Nonetheless, it was a piece of ME, and a part of me I’d been accustomed to living with for a great many years.  When the landscape was thus altered, would I awaken to still look like me? Would I still feel like me? Would I recoil at the scars left behind and feel less whole?  Finally, there was the unknown of how all of this would affect the people I loved.  I know my husband, my kids, my sisters and brother, and my friends were worried.  Would my husband still look at me the same way?  Would my kids be in constant fear of a recurrence?  I found that as I was reassuring them all that this was just a blip on life’s radar and that it would be an inconsequential bump in the road, I was really just reassuring myself.  Everything was going to be alright, because it simply had to be.
It turns out I was one of the lucky ones.  The cancer was caught early enough, and it hadn’t made its way into the lymph system.  There was no radiation or chemotherapy, and my team of doctors has been wonderful as I have navigated the path toward reconstruction.  To be honest, I am sometimes sheepish about even calling myself a “cancer survivor”, because I didn’t have to endure the grueling and often brutal effects of the aftercare that many of my counterparts have braved.  I got the easy way out.  The scars are there, a permanent mark from the past, but I am otherwise unscathed from the attack.  With an incredible husband who never left my side and has cared for me after each of the five surgeries I had, and with an amazing network of family and friends who have cheered me on and supported me in innumerable ways, I look ahead to celebrating this milestone for many, many years to come.  This day will always be a quiet marking of “Before” and “After” for me, but it isn’t the day that defines my Life Story.  It’s just a milestone along the way.

Read more of the story in these links:

Friday, December 1, 2017

Friday Morning Stream of Consciousness

December 1, 2017


I need to finish grading this stack of papers what day should I book a train for D to come home from school gotta finish my posts for my last grad class what am I going to wear to the concert tonight I hope my students remembered to bring in books for the book drive oh I need to send off finals to the print shop I wonder if there’s anything else I need to do to process my degree thank god it’s payday I need to get a new bed for the guest room that has a trundle so that both girls can sleep there when they come home to visit I need to clean out N’s room so that we can get a smaller bed in there and give him more room man, I hope his job actually pays him this week we need to get him registered for classes next semester I hope he’s doing okay I’m excited to shop for all the kids for Christmas I still want to make some gifts for a few people, too Paint Nite with the girlfriends was a lot of fun we should do that again, but I’m not sure they all loved painting D and I should do some painting and photography during the Christmas break I need to order some prints of the family shots I took at Thanksgiving I’m sad that B doesn’t love how she looks because she’s beautiful, but then I think how critical I am of how I look and I get it we don’t look at ourselves in love like the people who love us do I wish I didn’t weigh so much not loving what I look like right now (ever) the most charitable thing I can muster on some days is well, I’m not awful, but some days I don’t even get there sometimes I worry that D will look at me and wonder why he’s with someone whose weight is out of control but I can’t really ever express that out loud because insecurity is unattractive, so that’s a bit of a catch-22 and it only sounds like you’re fishing for compliments anyway okay, enough of that self-destructive nonsense, because who needs that on a Friday morning speaking of nonsense that world news has spiraled out of control of course it’s been spiraling since the last presidential election, but it’s kind of unbelievable to think how strange it is to wake up every single morning wondering are we at war who has been charged with sexual harassment today what new indictments or resignations of top government officials have been announced and why in God’s name are we not going after the one who needs to be dethroned before more damage is done, because it’s already going to take years to right the ship as it is how much more damage can the ship sustain before sinking altogether my goodness I’m in a dark frame of mind today which is not normal for me gotta reset my perspective before my class comes in I need to fine-tune my planning for the rest of the semester, write a couple of letters of recommendation, prepare for an observation next week, finalize business with my student teacher I need to get Christmas decorations out of storage to decorate the house oh gosh I need to clean the house we need to get rid of some stuff the house is in desperate need of new carpets or flooring holy cow, what are we going to do about the leak and the mess in the back bathroom we still need to replace the lighting in the dressing room and I don’t even have the first clue how to go about doing it and I think D got frustrated with the project so it’ll just get left as is I need to take care of some bills and paperwork too and I need to get to the post office to mail some packages I really want to do some holiday baking, but it is ridiculous to even think about it because then I’d want to eat some of it, and refer back to the earlier train of thought where I said I weighed too much already so much to do, so why sit here writing all this down because maybe, just maybe if I can get it all out here, I can get it out of my mind and start working on some of those things that are floating around in my brain like snow flurries that make it hard to focus on any one thing at a time