cancer

10/22/2020

Yesterday, September 28th, 2023, at 12:30 p.m., via Zoom, I attended my first ever group grief counseling meeting. We had to introduce ourselves and give one word to the way we were feeling at the moment. My word was “Okay”. (I was, in fact, feeling okay. I had just left a nice get-together with some new friends over coffee). At the end of the meeting, we were asked again for one word to describe how we were feeling in the moment, now that we had all met and shared our reasons for being there. I couldn’t find one that was truly appropriate. The closest I could come up with was “scared”.

I think that “apprehensive” might actually be a better, more nuanced, description though. Then again, it could be just a synonym for “scared”. (It is. I looked it up)

I chose it because suddenly I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open up and talk about my father’s death. Like, the nitty, gritty details of how I felt back then and how it has continued to affect me. I thought that I was ready. I know that I really need to for my mental health; in order to deal with the rest of my life. Because I do know that when you don’t address something emotional, it does not evaporate. It festers and becomes rancid, sour, turns your insides to goo which eventually leak out at inopportune times. Or, it can become hardened like an abnormally massive kidney stone, that if not removed will make your life extremely painful and difficult. It will block you.

I think that’s where I am. Where I’ve been for three years. Blocked. And I know it. And my kidney stone of grief isn’t going to be able to be removed with a nice little anesthetized surgery. No. I’m gonna have to pass it on my own. And this grief group is gonna have to hold my hand while I do it. And I’m gonna have to hold theirs. And it’s gonna hurt like a bitch. And that’s why I ended the meeting feeling, not a tad bit better as others seemed to, but a tad bit worse. Because I know that it’s going to be really painful and I’ve been avoiding it.

Like I’ve been avoiding this blog. And like I’ve avoided listening to all the recorded conversations I’d had with my dad. (Because we knew he was dying and I wanted to keep all the stories he had to tell me alive and I wanted to keep his voice nearby, I recorded some of our conversations. I knew talking to him and listening to him was going to be the thing I missed the most). And like I’ve avoided writing. Because it felt like when he died, my words died with him. And I’m still avoiding those hours of recordings.

But today, here I am. Because yesterday I was “scared”. And it’s because I’ve said I’m going to face my grief. Which has lead me this morning to this draft I’d saved, has lead me to what I was writing on October 22, 2020, at my parent’s house. I got freaked out and didn’t finish it because my dad called to me from the hospice bed where he was stationed, where he was living, where he was dying, in the front room of their house.
I’d freaked out because he had started, as a lot of dying people do, to seeing people who were not there, and to somehow be able to know about stuff going on in other parts of the house, even though he was bedridden. I suddenly wondered if he was able to see what I was trying to get out of my system and into writing. And I didn’t want him to know, because all of us were in horrid emotional turmoil.

And this is what I didn’t want him to know…

It had been three days. For three days, I had been at my parent’s house, listening to my father moan and groan and yelp out – in discomfort, not pain! he insisted. He insists it isn’t pain because he knows that then my mom and I would badger him to take pain medication.

(He has an extreme aversion to pain medication for some reason. Something that I remember my late mother-in-law also had. It makes me wonder if there’s some sort of generational thing about pills. Some sort of distrust of modern medicine. Some sort of character association with people who take pills….like, weakness or something…or a fear of getting addicted?…Though, in my dad’s case, when you’re dying, what does addiction matter anymore?)

Three days looking at his emaciated face. He’s always been a thin man in normal times. Now he looks, in his own words, correctly, like someone from a concentration camp; ravaged by this cancer that has no potential for cure. He’s already bought as much extra time as he could with the chemotherapy (something that we managed to talk him into, surprisingly…) Now it’s sheer stubbornness and orneriness and will that is keeping him going.

And, I suspect, a love of life that he wouldn’t admit to.
And, a love of my mother and myself and his grandchildren that he would.
And, perhaps, a bit of fear about what’s next.

Three days listening to him complain about various things that hurt, but refusing anything that might help – medicine, shifting him on the couch that he’d been living on for … God, feels like years now….
Three days listening to him coughing up phlegm every 10 or 15 minutes. Handing him a plastic bag to spit into and then tissue to clean up his lips and his beard (which had grown in since he quit shaving – and didn’t trust anyone to shave for him – ever the perfectionist; in his mind, if you’re going to do something right, you have to do it….well, if not your own way, then his…)
Three days of the sounds of a tortured animal coming from my dad.
Something that would distress him terribly if he were the one hearing it, whether from an animal or one of us. He wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.
“Just let me make my noise!” he kept saying, adamant that it helped him with the pain. Because damn those pain pills!
Three days of taking shifts with my mom – keeping him company and catering to his needs – she, during the day, and me, at night.
Three nights of sleep – and daytime naps, too – interrupted constantly because he’s been a night owl for as long as I can remember. Normally, I’m a night owl too, but when stressed out, I tend to want to just sleep.
But mom sleeps pretty soundly, she’s always been a morning lark, and her hearing isn’t too good, and she needs her rest.

Yes. He’s stubborn and ornery. He isn’t the best patient. We still love him, no matter how frustrating he gets.

But three days of this and it was time for me to return briefly to my own home to check on my husband and my son and our house. Our own House of Stress: Husband out of work, fighting his own depression; teenage son, also depressed, struggling in school and starting to self-harm….
This year has been the worst out of already too many years of awfulness…

I’d been calm. (Thank you, Lexapro!) Until I couldn’t find the coffee pot.

I’ve left it unfinished all this time. Because my words died with him. Because I couldn’t go back to the details of the last days. Of what I witnessed. Of what my mother and myself witnessed. Of what torture it was. For all of us.

And I know I need to deal with it. To make some sense of it. Because the stress and the grief has not let up, not one iota. I’ve always experienced existential angst. My father’s death made it a tangible, solidified, objective matter.

What happened with the coffee pot? I can’t remember now.







Now What? What Now?

It’s been 12 years since my diagnosis of Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Thanks to FaceBook for the reminder. I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of putting it in my rear-view mirror. At the time I was dealing with treatment, it invigorated a lust for life in me (cue Iggy Pop) which previously hadn’t been particularly stable. But that lust was smacked down gradually by life going back to the usual struggles that human beings are susceptible to: mental issues of one’s own, mental issues of others, money, money, money, societal expectations and pressures, parenting, finding meaning, purpose and identity in one’s existence, navigating relationships, adulting…not to mention the existential stress about the world around me.

And at long last, this confirmation of ADHD, this definitive diagnosis, has put a lot of things in perspective about my personal history. I’d been wondering the majority of my years where this depression and self-loathing came from because I have not had a tough life by any means in terms of money (never rich, but not abject poverty), or loving relationships, no instability in living situations growing up, no lack of socialization, no physical abuse, no wars endured. I’ve started to wonder what came first? Depression? It does run in the family. Or ADHD? And now that I’ve finally got medication to help me with it, I’m really starting to wonder about it all. I’ve only been on this prescription for about a week and I have noticed that it has helped in little ways that may not seem big to others, but are big to this person who has been in a depressive funk for way too long.

However, I feel a tinge of unease this morning. And I’m trying to figure out what that is.

When I started on this prescription, I almost immediately felt a difference. I had more energy. (Doh. These meds are all stimulants, of course). I was suddenly in a better mood. I haven’t been jittery per se, but definitely “bouncier”, a bit like Tigger. It’s helped with my tendency to procrastinate. It’s helped with my tendency to avoid people and doing things. It’s definitely helped me grab my tongue back from the cat….

And, I think, that’s where my uneasiness is coming from.

When depressed, I see myself as annoying, obnoxious, useless, a failure, selfish, spoiled, irresponsible, foolish, stupid, awkward, talentless, pompous, boring, inept, absolutely, positively, unimportant and unhelpful, a gigantic mistake of the Universe, a complete embarrassment and disappointment of a human being. And someone who needs to just shut up, already!

Whenever I manage to pull myself out – and it seems completely arbitrary how it happens – I feel like I’m not too shabby. Maybe worthwhile. I’m okay. Not perfect, but not terrible. Definitely not stupid. Maybe worthy of offering my two cents to a conversation.

But, I haven’t yet gotten out of my thoughts and feelings of needing to be quiet. And this medication is transforming me back to how I was as a child: pretty expressive. Like, I don’t add just two cents. I exuberantly throw in about 50 dollars.

As long as I was in a space where I felt comfortable, mind you. Teachers, bosses and other “officials” made me clam up tight in most situations. Well, in my younger days, anyway. And I can remember how others would treat me when I got too chatty or lively. My parents would admonish me to calm down. My mother, for certain, has always said I talk too much and don’t give others a chance to speak. My school friends always used the word “weird”. I’ve stayed closest to those for whom “weird” wasn’t a bad thing; they’re nicer and more interesting anyway. New acquaintances have occasionally given me some looks. And sometimes even my husband exasperatedly just wishes I would “get to the point”. I know for a fact that my teenage son would like me to keep my mouth shut (much more so than other kids typically wish that for their parents).

I woke up from a dream this morning that may have some involvement with this sudden, slightly dampened enthusiasm, lessened energy, and general unease I’m now feeling. Like, Tigger has been given a mild sedative and a disappointing situation. All I can remember from the dream is the image of a Facebook page and someone’s voice, maybe mine, saying “You’re gonna regret this renewed wordiness. You should have stuck to not talking. Why the hell are you reaching out again? Have you learned nothing?”

And I feel Depression and it’s favorite sibling, Shame, breathing on my neck.

What do I do now?

I’m Baaa-aaack….(or am I?)

Well, it does seem that I’m back to being “yappity”, anyway. We shall see.

Finally received an official diagnosis of ADHD and finally started medication for it. And it is making me weirdly social again. It is making me a bit like I was after surviving breast cancer. I was uncharacteristically hopeful and optimistic and forgiving and motivated and extroverted and chatty after all that….During all that, actually.

And then Life carried on… and, well, kinda took the shine off that survival high for a good 6 years or so and sent me reeling back to an old familiar state of being; as is occasionally documented in previous, cringe-y, but authentic, posts which, if I were anyone else, I would probably delete out of merited embarrassment. But I can’t deny who I am: Too honest, too earnest, too talkative, too wordy, too neurotic, too open, too sensitive, messy, emotional, curious, real, maybe shameless. Human.

Also? Probably worthy of the label of Alcoholic. Avoiding the stuff now – mainly because of my new meds.

I think that there’s more to being back though. As mentioned, it definitely has something to do with this new prescription added to my anti-depressant (which sorta broke down and was like, “Nope! Gonna need some help here!”) but I think it also has a lot to do with the unexpected death of someone, a friend, whom I considered one of my favorite people on this planet.

She and I met in college on a study abroad program. We became fast friends. We may have been opposite in so many ways, but we clicked. Mainly because she was one of those people who just hummed with brightness; she touched so many people with her warmth and kindness and energy. I was very lucky to have met her. She was in my wedding party (in fact, she was the reason I even met my husband) and I was in hers. Marriage and jobs and homes and kids came along and drew us away for periods of time, but we always circled back to touch base and check in on each other. And when we did, it was like no time had passed at all. We were the same together again as we were before. I am damn lucky to have a handful or two of friends like that. And her death has just thrown those relationships into stark focus. I’m still in disbelief and it’s been almost a month since she’s been gone. We had said we would get together soon several months ago. Another mutual friend had arranged to see her this past July. She backed out because she wasn’t feeling well – just two weeks before she passed.

I think that even more than when I had the possibility of dying in front of me roughly 11 years ago, my friend’s death has driven home to me the urgency of the time we have left for us on Earth. I know that sounds weird coming from someone who has gone through cancer treatment, from someone who has wrestled mightily with suicide-ideation for years, from someone whose husband not very long ago, attempted his own departure from this life, from someone who has lost a mother-in-law, from someone who has lost a father who was also a best friend, from deaths of other very dear ones… I’m not unfamiliar with loss.

Grief, I am discovering, is a weird thing though.

Those previous deaths, those close-calls with death….are events that I’ve managed to compartmentalize somehow. I think that I’ve put them into a room in my head, closed the door and chosen to examine them later. Every time I peek inside that room, I have to slam it shut. Especially my father’s death. ESPECIALLY that one. (Yes, I need to deal. I’ve signed up for a grief-counseling group, thank you). Probably I’ve done it because those events come with particularly tender to the touch, awful, memories. That’s not to say that my friend’s death isn’t painful. It most definitely is. But I think because of who she was and how she was and what she believed in, the suddenness of it is still so surreal, the fact that she died peacefully at least, surrounded by those she loved the most, at home and relaxing….everyone unaware of what was about to happen…. makes it somewhat gentler to reflect upon. And it makes it easier to keep her spirit with me.

And so, it is making me reflect upon the people in my life, the relationships I’ve had, human existence and its uncertainties, friendships and their impact. But most of all: Time. How to be in it and how to use it. Who to spend it with. How unpredictable it is.


I feel like I have her to thank for this awakening. Typical of her. That incredibly real positive open petite fun giggly honest caring bright earnest sweet energetic giving compassionate forgiving gracious authentic thoughtful soul. May her memory be a blessing. And may it keep me awake.

Nothing Works As Advertised

You know you’ve seen this scenario millions of times.  You’ve seen it in movies, advertisements, TV shows, magazine interviews, books.  It tends to inspire a nebulous, un-nameable hope in us for whatever reason. Sometimes you even see it in the news…. It’s the ever popular scenario of a person who hits rock-bottom or is in some crisis of one sort or another and whatever travail that it is changes that characters life, changes them forever more, and now they are on a completely new and exciting and positive path, never to go back.  I believe Oprah even had a column devoted to the term she coined for this phenomena, for this awakening of positive possibilities.  What was it?

Oh, yeah.
The “AH-HA!” moment.

I see a plethora of “life-changing opportunities” floating about on the web lately.  They all sound lovely. They all sound so simple.

Some “AH-HA” turning points can be positive.  For instance, especially in works of fiction, be they on screen or on page, the saving grace for some is when they find the love of their life.  And I’m not here to crap on that notion.  It’s always a miraculous thing, a joyous thing, to find someone willing to put up with you for the rest of your lives and love you despite your weirdness, whatever that may be.  Someone who supports you being you.  When that person commits to you in a ceremony, in front of everyone you hold near and dear, it’s fabulous.  We all get (a bit too ) caught up in planning that particular event.  Especially these days, I think.  Everything has to be planned and thought out down to the most minute detail.  The adrenaline runs very, very high during all that time.  Now you can gallop off into the sunset of Happy-Ever-After, right? The possibilities for the two of you are just infinite.  Anyone else had this feeling the day after your marriage, that things should be all sparkly and gleaming and exciting and new? You almost had that feeling that now your life was going to be TRANSFORMED.

Or when you had your first child.  Or when you had your second child… or more.  Yes, the day was incredibly happy.  A new adventure beginning.  The love the two of you were feeling couldn’t be described.  Oh, wanna talk about future possibilities!!! Your life would, indeed, be TRANSFORMED!
(AND, GIRL, WAS IT!).

But mostly, in movies and TV shows, the character has some looming bit of doom on the horizon that seems like it will be the end of the world for them (usually some important, future-determining deadline or some god-awful mess that they’ve gotten themselves into) but at the last minute they manage to find the solution after staying up for five days straight and running around or working or cleaning or studying or painting or practicing their asses off.  And success!!!  Lessons learned! Mistakes never to be made again! Their lives have been TRANSFORMED!   (I tried this sort of tactic with writing papers in my high school and college years. I don’t recommend it. And, no, I was not transformed).

Or characters will be faced with losing everything, or with divorce, or with infidelity, or with disease or injury.  Then they find their meaning in life through their struggles and go on to have their lives TRANSFORMED!

What inevitably happens after these sorts of things in real life is the “And now?” moment.

I think the term for this, for what actually happens…or, rather, at least, what happened for me, for what I’ve always felt is….”anti-climatic”.  (Surely, I can’t be the only one who experiences this?)
It’s that somewhat deflated feeling that makes you look around and think, “Well, back to the usual. Hi-ho, hi-ho”.

(Don’t get me wrong, though.  I am thoroughly happy to be married to whom I’m married, and to have brought two wonderful people into being).

And life indeed goes on, for the better or the worse, or back and forth between the two. Your house still gets trashy and you still get into arguments and you are no wiser or wealthier or particularly healthier or fitter than before despite actually striving and working towards the positive things.  A magical flying unicorn does not show up in your backyard.

I blame some of that rather numb, underwhelmed, anti-climatic feeling on the way we get programmed by these stories and by advertising and movies and TV and so many other ways of communication.  So many ideas that we cling to in our little foolish human ways; so many messages that we are sold:  that dreams can come true and that life will be what you – and ONLY you – make of it.  That somehow, if something happens to you, shakes you up and makes you realize it – you are in control of your life! And you need to seize it and run with it and make the absolute MOST of it! And cherish it EVERY DAY and be grateful for it EVERY DAY and never, ever, ever, EVER give up and be the BEST YOU THAT YOU CAN BE! EVERY DAY!! If you have that “AH-HA!” moment, you and your life will be TRANSFORMED!!

Um. Okay.

I’ve managed to survive one suicide attempt in my life at a fairly young age.  I got help. Life didn’t change much.  I almost attempted two more times, but recognized that I needed help again.  Life went on. Up and down and up and down.  College was a disaster for me.  I had jobs.  Jobs I hated.  I fell in love, got married, had kids.  That was good. That was nice. Life went on. Up and down and up and down.  And then down and down.

And then, right as it was going back up, I got breast cancer.  My Triple Negative Breast Cancer is a long enough story in itself, but the gist of it is that I no longer wanted to commit suicide! Oh the irony!

I slogged my way through my treatment, my husband by my side the entire time, the two of us saying that if it looked like I wouldn’t make it, we were going to toss everything (except the kids, of course), say “fuck it” to money and possessions, and travel to all the places that we wanted to go.

Happily, luckily, I have survived.  I’ve even survived past the critical 5 year mark.  And for a while after treatment, I did feel like a slightly different person.  I no longer cared what others thought about me, I felt pretty strong, I felt more self-assured, I felt a little bad-ass actually.  I was more patient (for a wee bit) about some things, like traffic jams and people in stores and other minor daily irritations. I was far more impatient about other things though, like getting on with everything I’ve ever wanted to do; like not wanting to waste a single second on things that were not important to me.  I was more positive and optimistic than I’ve ever been in my life.  I actually developed an appreciation for cheerleaders! (If you knew me, this would be shocking).

When you’ve narrowly escaped dying, every single second seems to matter infinitely more.  To the point it almost becomes an unbearable pressure. You want to put your fears aside, you even feel like you’ve shed all your fears, and CARPE DIEM, BABY! GO FOR THE GUSTO! Get ON with it!  I was happy and grateful to be alive and be here with my family; unbelievably happy even to the extent that I was thrilled to be able to do utterly boring and mundane things by myself, like vacuum and wash dishes. HA! Yup. Go for the gusto! right?

And it’s been roughly 7 years that I’ve been cancer-free.  And I’m still grateful that I’m alive.  I’ve faced the possibility of dying, of not having any more time here in this world. I’d say that’s pretty dire.  I’d say that’s an “AH-HA!” experience if there ever was one.  But, I’m at a point now where it feels as if that energy that it gave me, that momentum, has slowly died its own natural death amongst the petty and mundane details of daily human existence.  It’s pretty fucking hard, for myself anyway, to pull up that optimistic, passion-for-living, grateful for EVERYTHING, lucky-to-be-alive, unchecked positivity, limitless energy, day after day and second after second, forever and ever, amen.

Haven’t read “Eat, Pray, Love”, but I’ve heard enough about it to get the idea.  Someone tell me that this does NOT come to your mind with the whole “AH-HA” thing.

It’s actually pretty fucking hard to seize your life and control it when you don’t have enough money.  Those things you’ve always dreamt of doing? In one way or another, they probably all involve a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time; and if you work and have debt and have dependents and need health insurance, or if you have anything else going on in your life that requires attention….Well, you aren’t going to be tossing your hair around in the wind on a sailboat cruise around some Greek islands anytime soon.  You’re not going to be freely and finally riding off with your loved ones on horseback into the Happy-Ever-After Sunset with a heart and mind full of wisdom and peace and contentment with simply being alive, joyously crying out “Fuck it all! I’m gonna live how I WANT!!!!”

Having your back up against the wall and facing death? Those “Moments of Truth”? Those “AH-HA!” opportunities you read about in articles and magazines? The “Life-Changing Events!” you watch in movies and on TV and read about almost everywhere?  They don’t come with a beautiful new change of scenery.  Things aren’t awash in glittery sparkles.  They certainly don’t turn your pumpkins into carriages. They don’t even spruce the place up a little. They don’t come with a new bank account or a new fulfilling career.  They don’t really come with even the chances or opportunities for those things. They have a very limited shelf life and a lot of teensy-tiny print, with several symbols denoting itty-bitty footnotes, and nobody is necessarily going to gain the life they’ve always wanted after a major upset or scare,  even by running around and working and cleaning and painting and practicing and studying and being grateful as all hell and not sleeping and paying attention to every fucking second of the day.  You can do all those things, but just because you’ve somehow faced dying, those things don’t guarantee you any reward of any extra special power or any special insight or any unadulterated contentment or any extra energy for attaining anything you’ve ever hoped for.  You get to be alive. That’s it.

And it’s back to the usual; not for want of actually striving and trying and working for something new…..just the up and down and up and down and down…..

Even the somewhat newly gained self-confidence and assertiveness and optimism is fading.

Nothing has really changed. Not even me.