Category Archives: March 2014

On to better things

Man, it’s been a year. Not one I’d care to relive, but one that I’m thankful I experienced. I’m so relieved it seems to be wrapping up nicely, from all indications.

I saw my cardiologist recently, after having a follow-up echo to see if my heart functioning had improved at all. I wasn’t too worried, since she had said that I could live a long and normal life regardless of whether or not improvement was shown, but worried enough to want to know. It has normalized. Still not back to where it was, but within in the normal range. And there’s no reason why it won’t continue to improve. So now I can continue to take Tamoxifen, the medication that blocks my estrogen receptors (since my cancer was estrogen-receptor positive, meaning estrogen promoted its growth), have my port removed, and move on with all things unrelated to cancer. That feels pretty damn good.

When I told my mom, she asked if I was going to continue to blog. Right then, it hit me that I think I’m ready to be done. I think I’m ready to return to a life of private thoughts and feelings and events. Besides, at this point, blogging would just be me sharing my reactions/thoughts/feelings to random events, which feels a little self-important, after a year of feeling too-much-in-the-spotlight. I’m not sure why it feels self-important, since I don’t have that reaction to other blogs, and in fact I enjoy reading them. But when I think about continuing, it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I need to move on from this year? Maybe continuing to blog feels like holding onto something I’d rather move on from? I’m not sure. I’m just going with it, and reserving the right to change my mind at any time.

I probably will update for major events, like if and when I decide to do reconstruction. No, I think I can take the “if” out. I think it’s when I decide to do reconstruction. Right after my mastectomy, I thought that maybe I wouldn’t go that route. I didn’t hate my new body like I thought I would, and something appealed to me about walking the talk about body diversity. Owning my new, interesting look. But the other day it hit me: I don’t love my new body, either. It’s a pain to find clothes for. And I’m not sure I want to be the poster child for body diversity. I mean, let’s be real, it’s not like reconstruction is going to make me 5′ 9″ and a size two. I’m still going to be all scarred up. I will continue to have the world’s shortest torso and a thicker middle than clothing designers think is reasonable. So, I’ll still be supporting the sisterhood, regardless. I won’t be a total sell-out. I’ll just, you know, be able to find a swimsuit and buy a dress off of the rack. Surgery was the easiest step of this process for me, so I think I’ll just go for it. Since I refuse get implants (I don’t need anything else in my body that doesn’t belong there, thankyouverymuch), they will will reconstruct breasts using tissue (read: fat) from my abdomen. I’ve been saving up for just such an occasion! And since I’m unlikely to lose weight while on the Tamoxifen for the next 5-10 years, it appeals to me to just re-shuffle what I’ve got. It’s like a redistribution of wealth, only just within my own body. Quite progressive, if you think of it that way….

I’m not sure if this will happen in a few months or a few years — I have a few important things going on this summer that I’m not willing to budge on (unless life intervenes like it did last year). But I’m pretty sure it will happen, and I’ll let you know if it does.

Until then, though, I’m feeling content living a normal, quiet, cancer-free life, free of the turmoil and drama of last year. With a much greater appreciation for the sweet people around me.

One Year

It’s been one year today. One year since my wonderful brother lost his battle with melanoma. One year since he passed away. One year gone, and I still haven’t found the answer that feels right when people ask me how many siblings I have; saying two feels wrong, disloyal. But saying three isn’t quite right, either. So I usually just overexplain the situation in my typical way, making what was meant to be an innocuous question into an awkward interchange.

It feels impossible that a year has already passed since he has been a living, breathing member of our world. And at the same time, it seems impossible that it hasn’t been five years, or a lifetime since last March, since Before my Cancer. For me, today doesn’t just mark the anniversary of my brother’s death, but also the beginning of other unwelcome anniversaries. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of when I found my lump. This is followed shortly by the anniversaries of going to my brother’s service, seeing the doctor, having biopsy after biopsy, starting chemo, and on and on. This is significant to me because last year on all of those occasions, I would think to myself, “but my brother just died.” As if I should be spared something bad because something worse already happened. And on all of those occasions, I could also say, “last year at this time, my brother was alive.” But after today, I can’t say that anymore, and that is hitting me so hard. Because the further away I get from his death, the greater the likelihood is that the memories of him become blurrier, less refined. That I’ll have to find pictures of him to really recall the crinkles around his eyes from all of his smiling, giving him this friendly, jokey look. Or I’ll have to listen to old voicemails to fully capture the quality of his loving voice in my head, wishing I also had sarcastic, smart-ass voicemails so I could have a record of how he sounded when he was teasing me. I love remembering his teasing.

I want to say it’s unfair. It’s unfair I didn’t get to connect with him about our diagnoses, and we didn’t get to help each other through the emotional parts, although I’m not sure he ever would have been open to receiving my help, just offering his. It’s unfair he didn’t get to see our sister finally get her dream job, or our brother be happier than he’s been in I’m not sure how long. It’s unfair he won’t watch me graduate (although at my current rate of progress, it’s possible nobody will be able to watch that). It’s unfair he wasn’t able to become a grandfather, because he would have been the best kind – involved, active, and loving. It’s unfair he couldn’t watch his children grow ever more gracious and interesting each day, and his former wife (and dear friend, although that word doesn’t fully capture the depth of their relationship) lovingly and patiently walk them through their grief, as well as her own (I do get that if he had been here, there wouldn’t have been the grief to walk through, but that’s not the point). It’s unfair he and my parents were robbed of more time together to connect and to love. It’s unfair they had to watch one of their children die. 

There are countless ways that this feels unfair. But calling it unfair doesn’t feel quite right, either. Because is that saying that it would be more fair if somebody else’s brother, father, son, friend had died? Would it be more fair if he had lived, but with a poor quality of life? It’s not like we are all promised a long and healthy life, and his promise was broken. We aren’t. We are only given this moment, and for the most part (institutional inequalities and other injustices aside), it is up to us to make sure this moment is lived intentionally, whatever that means to each of us. My brother was good at that. He used to like to tell me that he worked hard and played hard, and he did. He also used to say that I didn’t play hard, often enough. In his honor, it feels like I should do something he would either consider working or playing hard. Something that represents truly living. But I don’t really feel like it today. Today, I feel like holing up, and just being with my memories of him.

things unexpected

I’ve been forming a blog post in my head for the last several weeks about various unexpected things that I learned from this tussle with cancer, but a few things have stopped me. First, if I write that post how it keeps popping into my head, it feels like an end. And there are still things I think I want to say. Some of them I don’t know how to say yet, and some of them haven’t formed, but I can feel them there, waiting to come out. In any case, I’m not quite ready for the end of blogging yet. Maybe soon, but not yet. And second, I can’t really get past the first two items that would be on my list of things unexpected that I’ve learned, or decide if they are actually  separate. So maybe I’ll just talk about them for now.

Before cancer, whenever anyone went through something difficult, I liked to comment that if I had to go through the same situation, I would melt into a pile of goo, unable to cope. Not because I needed validation from whomever I was talking to, but more because my self-deprecating nature delighted in that vision of myself, quivering in a gelatinous blob. And also, it just felt accurate.

But now, that visual doesn’t feel right. At least, not anymore. Not to describe post-cancer Lauri. And that surprises me. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t expect that I would be able to handle everything that I have. I didn’t expect that the experience of cancer would both be as difficult as it was AND manageable. One or the other, but not both. I didn’t expect that chemo would be hard in the many emotional ways that it was. That the steroids and fear would leave me so agitated and on edge, that I would, on some days, take an anti-nausea pill as much for the emotional escape that sleep gave me as for the nausea. (This topic is another post, because it is a part of cancer treatment that goes undiscussed all too often, but it also needs to be said here, so I can’t avoid it). I also didn’t expect that I would be able to recognize that when it happened, and tell myself, “No more.” And actually successfully follow through with that. I didn’t expect that the hardest part of surgery for me would be the complete reliance on others, and not the pain or the drastic change in my body. I didn’t expect that if the worst-case scenario symptoms of radiation happened to me (which they eventually did), that they wouldn’t really slow me down. And I just didn’t expect, when I got diagnosed, that the experience of cancer and its associated treatments would leave me feeling so much stronger than I ever have. I mean, to be fair, I’ve always defined myself as a wimp, so stronger than that isn’t much…. but I do feel strong now. Very strong. And as a result, very happy.

The other item on my list of things I’ve learned is that although the world can be unrelentingly cruel at times, and it can, it can also provide balance through humanity. I know I’ve blogged about this to the point of sounding like a Pollyanna, but it’s just been my experience, and I can’t talk about my experience without being brought back to the beauty and care that people have surrounded me with. People have been so incredibly selfless and loving. Some of them were expected and reliable and comforting, and others were complete surprises, in a breath-catching way. But more and more I realize that maybe this is the secret to my newfound strength. It isn’t that I can handle anything that the world throws at me (And just to be clear, Universe, I really don’t want to test that out, thanks), but that I’m surrounded by such good people, that I don’t actually have to handle much alone. And the things that I do, the physical things, well, those are made more bearable by knowing I have the support of so many lovely people. Maybe my strength isn’t about me being an island of strength like I always imagined it to be, always admired in other strong people, but about allowing myself to access the strength and help of the people around me, and in keeping that circle filled with loving, reliable people.

And maybe that’s what I want it to be. I really don’t want to walk away from this with an arrogant swagger, feeling prideful in a “keep heaping it on, World, I’ll keep going,” kind of way. That isn’t helpful to anyone else, or to me, really. I want to feel strong in my ability to lean on my people when I need. In respecting my individual limits by my ability to say, “No, I cannot take on another project/client/assessment/whatever-the-job-is,” without feeling like a failure. I want to take pride in the strength of finding balance in my life, giving as much priority to the enjoyment of the people and places around me as I do to the tasks ahead of me. And that’s unexpected for me. I thought that the feeling that came from finding myself capable would be enough. But I’m learning that it’s not. I’m learning that my version of success is embracing my inter-dependence with my circle of people as a path toward true fulfillment. I’m still working on that, but I’m getting there.