Recalculating

One year ago today, my doctor said, "It is cancer" and everything changed.  It has been a roller coaster of a year.  It is still so surreal that I had breast cancer.  Yes, HAD.  I asked my oncologist when my scan would be - the scan where you are deemed cancer free.  She said I would not be doing one because, when I had the lumpectomy and we found out it hadn't spread, I was cancer free.  I find out I have cancer and within 2 weeks, I didn't.  Too bad it didn't end there.  I had an operation to put my port in, 6 rounds of chemo, trips to the ER, weight gain, weight loss, heart scares, baldness, radiation, rashes, burns, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, fears, and general ickiness.  Like I said, quite a year.

But I have also had a wonderful year.  The birth of my second child, an outpouring of love and support from friends in the form of gifts, emails, texts, cards, food, childcare, prayers, and friendship.  Jason and I have cried, but have laughed much more.  There have been arguments stemming from our fears and exhaustion, but there has been much more laughter and hugs stemming from love.  There have been many runs to the bathroom, but many more runs when Jason calls me to see what cute things the boys are doing.

As crazy as it sounds, when I look back on this past year, I feel mostly happy.  First and foremost, I am alive.  I am alive to watch my boys grow.  When I look back, I think about the fun and giggles.  I have to conscientiously think about the bad.  And there was a lot.  Maybe that is annoying to some people, but that is how I am.  It has taken me a while to get that way, but it has certainly helped me these past few years.  As I said in a previous post, I was tired of feeling sad and mad.  So I stopped and surrounded myself with people who make me happy and grateful.  Maybe God had a hand in that also.  He knew it would serve me well this past year to think that way.

I am hoping it continues to help me as I struggle now with assimilating back into life.  I read a blog months ago before I started radiation.  She explained that the effects of chemo and radiation will linger on for months.  I read it thinking that wouldn't be me.  It is.

My GPS will start saying "recalculating, recalculating" when I go down a different road than the original route said to take.  Wouldn't it be nice if life had something like that?  Because this certainly is not the road I thought I was going to take.

Chemo brain is no joke.  I have stared at a friend trying to recall their name.  A name I have used hundreds of times.  I have always been forgetful, but it is ten times worse.  I am tired all the time.  And I am scared and out of sorts.

When you are first diagnosed and start your treatment, everyone is there.  The support is wonderful.  The compassion is awesome.  But then it is gone.  Before my journey, I didn't realize that just because treatment was done, the ickiness wasn't.  It is no fault of anyones, but after all the outpouring of love and support, it is hard when it abruptly stops.

I am not the same Dawn I was a year ago.  I hope I am a better one, but the jury is still out.  I am trying to figure out who I am post diagnosis and treatment.  I think friends just want to see me well and happy so that is what they see.  But I am not there yet.

I have been out and about and thought, "I am so jealous of all these people.  They aren't holding in screams and anger towards cancer and death!" It doesn't happen often, but enough.

I have panic attacks.  Events will trigger thoughts of my boys growing up without me.  I played in a softball tournament Mother's Day weekend.  It is named after two gentlemen who have passed away.  I looked at the banner with their names on it and pictured my name after theirs.  Then I freak out and wonder why that thought even was in my head.  A little while later, one of my teammates tells me his wife passed away from breast cancer.  I am on the pitcher's mound and I feel like I am going to throw up.  It took me a good minute to calm my breathing and stop the spinning.

Most of the time though it comes in happy times.  When I am bathing the boys and we are all laughing and I am so unbelieveably happy.  The next minute I am picturing them without their mother.  It is such a strong feeling that it scares me.  I feel light headed and sick.

I thought about death before my diagnosis.  Do you know that country song that goes "I hope you get the chance to live like you are dying"?  I have thought about that song often and tried to remember that.  But there is NO way you can unless it is staring you in the face.  And it stares me in the face every day and I am trying really hard not to stare back.

I hope I get to the point where I am not so scared or not so tired or not so not myself.  I am ready to live this next year laughing and enjoying my family and friends.  When you see me out and I am smiling and laughing, that is real.  But underneath that is lurking some ickiness and leftover effects from cancer.   So if I get quiet, know that something is tugging at me to go down a road I don't want to go down.   If you feel inclined, remind me of my blog.  Remind me to stand up and raise my head.  Raise my head above all this ickiness and get back to living.  But watch out, you might get some tears and a really good hug.

Strength and Power

My sister decided that after her first body building show, she was going to do a photo shoot.  She was going to do this for herself.  She wanted pictures to show the hard work and sacrifices that she made to get where she was today.  Then she got an idea and emailed the photographer to see if he would be willing to do it.  I will let the video speak for itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Yob1eEWrc

Isn't my sister amazing?

A Letter to My Mother

Mom and Jack

Me, Mom, and Charlie

My mother just left after a wonderful visit.  As I watched her with my boys, I wondered if being with them made her think of my brother....

When I was little, I thought a lot about my brother who passed away.  He was 3 months old when he died from SIDS.  I am not sure why I thought about him so often, but I did.  He would have been 14 months older than me.  Maybe that is why.  I felt a bond with him, even though I never met him.  But I talked to him and prayed to God to watch over him.  I would think about what it would have been like if he was alive.  I liked to think that we would have been best buds and that I would have followed him around everywhere.

As I have mentioned before, when something makes me sad or scares me, I roll it around in my head until I figure it out.  Until I figured out why my stomach is going and how to make it stop.  My 11-year-old self knew enough that having your baby die was bad.  But that 11-year-old couldn't comprehend the depth of that pain.  I couldn't articulate what I was trying to figure out.  So I internalized it and "figured" that when a baby is that little, you didn't have enough time to bond and love it so maybe it wouldn't hurt that bad.  I significantly remember being in my bedroom and coming up with this.  That is what my little brain came up with so I wouldn't have to think about my parents and big sisters in pain. That scared me and kept me up at night so my defense mechanism kicked in and came up with something that made sense to me at the time.

Fast forward to the birth of my son.  Oh, how that 11-year-old Dawn was wrong.  The love I felt for that little guy the moment I saw him was bigger than I could have imagined.  The weeks that followed were filled with happiness and love, but also tons of worry.  Was he breathing?  Was he growing?  Was he okay?  I remember being in my kitchen and realizing that he was 3 months old.  The age my brother died.  And I just broke down and cried.  I loved that boy beyond measure and our bond was strong after only three months.  How did my mother get over losing her baby boy?  How did she not wake up every morning aching to hold that sweet boy?  How did she not break down when she thought of his face and his adorable laughter?

I don't know how she kept going, but she did.  She had my 2 older sisters to take care of and, 2 months later, I was starting to grow in her stomach.  I have never asked my mother about that time.  I have talked to my older sister.  She said she still remembers the sound my mother made when she went in to wake up my brother from his nap and found him.  I cannot even imagine.  When talking about this with friends, I cannot even finish the sentence "And she went in to wake him up...." without crying.  And crying hard.  How do you get past that?

As I have gotten older, I think about that and I realize that how I had "figured" it out in my head was wrong. So-far-from-the-truth wrong.

Despite that horrible loss, my mother kept going.  She was silly with us.  She let us do her hair and makeup.  She let us use pens on her and draw on every inch of her body.  She had 2 more babies.  She gave each of us 4 girls great Christmases.  One of my favorite memories growing up was cuddling with my mother.  It always seemed to be just me and her.  Maybe my sisters were with us, but all I remember is my mother's soft hand rubbing my cheek.  My point is that she gave us all extra love and attention. She gave us a wonderful childhood.  Who wouldn't have blamed her for only doing what she had to do to take care of us? No one. But she chose to keep going.  And keep going positively.

You hear stories about people who are never the same.  They stop living and laughing and loving.  I can understand that now.  Losing someone you love is horrible.  Losing a baby is doubly horrible.

          So, thank you, Mom, for getting up every day even though you must have wanted to stay under the covers and hide.  Thank you for filling my childhood with laughter and fun.  Thank you for never once turning your hurt on us.  Thank you for raising your head and showing us that life goes on.  Thank you for doing things with us that I now do with my sons because they were so great.  Thank you for fighting the feelings and memories that had to be there every day and choosing to love on us instead of succumbing to the hurt. I love you.

Now that I am a mother, I do understand.  This 41-year-old can imagine the awfulness that follows the death of a child.  I can imagine what it took to keep going every day.  I can imagine that the pain never goes away.  That pain becomes who you are.  You wake up and it takes your breath away when you remember.  That doesn't ever go away.  But you have a choice: stop living or grow from the experience.  My mother chose the latter.

So although my 11-year-old self couldn't articulate what I was feeling, I hope this 41-year-old has...