You know that feeling when you've had a long, hard day and you come in and the first thing you want to do is take off that gosh-forsaken bra? Well that's what it feels like after a mastectomy but you can't take it off. Because it's not a bra, it's your skin. I've had that feeling since Aug. 10. And it sucks. And it makes me very grumpy. Yesterday I was cleaning the dog's water bowl and Colby knocked his head up and it busted my lip and I cried. I mean I came inside and I bawled. And not because it really hurt that much. I mean, I'm not a total wuss but just because some days that's all it takes for me to lose my shit. I can't feel the backs of my arms from the shoulder to the elbow. I feel like I have a sunburn all the time and I get hot and cold like I have a sunburn. My balance is all out of whack (totally fell down walking into the football game Friday night,) neuropathy is still messing with my feet.
I went for my first boob fill last week and my breasts are starting to fill out into a somewhat lopsided round shape. They are swollen in all the wrong places and they're just weird and ugly. They have scars all the way across each of them. Ugly scars. Like a boob through a meat grinder. People have been congratulating me on being cancer free and I smile and I AM happy. I am completely happy. Nothing is any more important that knowing that cancer has been served its eviction notice and it's crap is laying out on the front lawn for the garbage man. But this is hard. This is very freaking hard. And the kids are all back to school so it is so quiet and lonely. I have a lot going on in my head right now and the wheels seem to turn and turn and never stay still.
The pieces of me look to be all coming back together from the outside--my hair is growing back, my eyelashes and my eybrows are back--I even have to shave my legs these days--but I feel completely opposite inside. I feel like my pieces are falling apart on the inside. I know this is all a part of the process and I'm human and I'm allowed to have emotions and blah blah. Yeah, yeah. I know that. But I'm the kind of human who likes the good emotions. I like smiles and laughter. I don't like sad and lonely. I looked at Kevin the other day and said, "All these years I have thought I was a free spirit but I like a plan I think I may even be OCD. I am a total fraud." And I do like a plan. And I don't have a plan right now. I have tried to go back to my regular work schedule (which is a very modest part time) and that wears me down and I can't focus like I used to be able to do.
When I put my deodorant on, I can't even feel where it's going. I feel nothing under my arm. I feel like I'm not "enough" right now. I so want to be complete and back to me. I wasn't any superwoman to begin with but I was me. I worked a little and I came home and did my home thing and I carted kids all over creation and I entertained and I had a pretty great life. And now life is not normal. And I feel guilty for EVERYTHING. I feel guilty that I can't be and do everything that I used to do. I know it will come back but I'm impatient. I'm telling myself that I'm not going down to visit my dad this evening because I am physically and emotionally drained, but I will. The guilt will get to me and I will go. My dad even said to me last night, "Honey, you don't have to come down here every day." But I do. He has always been there for me and I will always be there for him. That's how family works. And that's what I will do.
I know my boobs will look and feel better over time. I'm just impatient right now. I know my energy level will increase over time. I know life will go back to normal before too long. For right now though, I am sad. And Ecclesiastes 3 tells me that it's ok for me to be sad right now.
There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens:2 a time for giving birth and a time for dying, a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted,3 a time for killing and a time for healing, a time for tearing down and a time for building up,4 a time for crying and a time for laughing, a time for mourning and a time for dancing,5 a time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, a time for embracing and a time for avoiding embraces,6 a time for searching and a time for losing, a time for keeping and a time for throwing away,7 a time for tearing and a time for repairing, a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking,8 a time for loving and a time for hating, a time for war and a time for peace.A time for laughing and being silly and a time for sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a pillow pulled to your chest crying until breathing becomes laborous and then going upstairs and making a cup of coffee and getting your shit together because normal people don't sit at the bottom of the stairs and cry into pillows.
Have you ever bought something and took it out of the package and then it NEVER would go back in the package? When I was visiting my aunt in Florida, we took the rollaway bed out of the package and it was SO TIGHT getting that thing out that we knew it would never go back in the package. Well that's kind of how I feel right now. My old life was my package and the cancer made me come out of my packaging and I don't think I will ever fit back into my old packaging. I'm just going to have to figure out life outside of my packaging. And that's really scary to me. It's a very vulnerable and terrifying place. And here lately it feels a lot like taking a ride on the coo-coo caboose.
-lightningbug
No comments:
Post a Comment