I was sitting in her chair. She asked me how I felt about it. I said, “I hate it but oh well.” …And no matter which chair she put me in, I sat there, resentful. And then I got in my car. And for those that don’t know, I don’t listen to anything in the car…I let the quiet of the drive speak. And it did. And I got an instant attitude adjustment. And then I texted her an apology.
Here’s the deal… I saw my hair specialist today. She’s amazing. She’s walked a really hard road with me. I’ve seen her since my hair was about ¾ of an inch long and growing back after chemo ravaged it. And my mom has so generously gifted me with 1. The introduction to her and 2. The financial support to see her every 5-6 weeks. Seriously, I am so well loved and taken care of. And that is why I’m sick-to-my-stomach apologetic of my attitude. My struggle with my hair is valid, sure, but for this woman and for my mother to continue to walk beside me, putting in time, effort, love and care to help me in one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure while I’ve so brashly said, ‘I hate my hair now,’ is astounding unconditional acceptance. I realized on my quiet car ride home how selfish I’ve been.
I look at this part of myself in the mirror now with different eyes. The eyes of Lindsey and eyes of my mom. Eyes that see my pain and acknowledge it, eyes that are linked to hearts unwavering in their love and acceptance, eyes that take a backseat to my struggle and quietly sit in the muck with me without battling for their own validation, eyes that are patient with me and eyes that unselfishly empathize with my hurt. And eyes that have worked hard to help me in ways only they can.
Consider my attitude adjusted. Thank you, God, for opening my eyes.
*Post 983
Tradition :: 12/9/17 :: Post 103
Cancer has taken a lot of things from me… and it makes everything hard…
But it didn’t take tradition… Today was the annual Prekajac Christmas Cookie Exchange and I am grateful that I felt well enough to host like I do every year. Having my family here…seeing their smiles…hearing them laugh…it did my soul good.
As we sat and crafted together, listening to my crazy aunts and their stories, laughing with my cousins, making memories, I was filled with joy and light in the midst of this really hard and often dark chapter of my story.
Cancer can be overwhelming and all-consuming but it can’t take everything.
I wish I could write more tonight but I’m just too tired. My body is talking, I need to listen.
(No post for December 9, 2018)
Living Changed Head to Toe Day 9 :: 12/9/19 :: Post 817
I had to actively remind myself today that surgery is surgery. Yes, obviously some procedures are more extensive than others and come with differing levels of complications and risks, but the common denominator is that it is still surgery. So no matter how ‘easy’ I thought last Thursday’s surgery was going to be, I need to still accept the fact that my body requires more than a couple days to bounce back. It’s been through a lot, it turns out. Silly me.
Anyways… living changed head to toe…day 9: I remember the day Chris and I sat in my oncologist’s office; the topic of discussion was chemo. She confirmed my biggest fear-that my cancer was advanced enough to require chemotherapy. Then, if that wasn’t difficult enough to process, she suggested I get a port placed as that would make my year of chemo infusions, fluid supplements and blood draws significantly easier. I remember reeling at the thought of a port. Me? Cancer? Chemotherapy? Port? My world was spinning. I didn’t even know what a port was…how it worked…what it looked like.
The day of that procedure, I remember a few things vividly – Mastectomy drains hanging out of my sides, t-rex arms and I was on one of the worst periods of my life. Seriously. Damn you, estrogen. I remember that I loved my nurse, Katarina. My doctor’s name was close to Casanova so everyone called him that. And I remember the emotions of being in the same hospital with some of the same pre-op nurses as I had just a few weeks prior for my bilateral mastectomy. Talk about a spinning world… and then Dr. Casanova-or-whatever-his-real-name-is showed me the subdermal port. “So, I’ll cut into your chest wall, into your dermal layers, place this triangular plastic device there and then thread the connected port tube into your jugular so that chemo, fluids, lab draws and whatever else will have easy access to a nice big artery. It sounds crazy, but I promise you’ll thank me later. Oh, and I’ll try and make the scar as minimal as possible.” Funny seeing as though just inches below were massive scars ripping through my body from a most barbaric surgery. I also remember him and Katarina both sharing their sadness with me that I was the one on their operating table that day.
Living changed…I’m grateful for hard days so that I know I can do hard days. I had a piece of plastic tubing directly threaded into my jugular so that poison could be directly pumped through my heart so that cancer would die and so that I might live. Some days, living changed simply means to allow the chaos to spin…