Today was an emotional up and own for me. It's like someone strapped me into the Big Cry Baby (my lame attempt at making up a roller coaster name!) and I've been looped about, dipping up and down, all day.
As much as I say that we should appreciate everyday and be so, so thankful for every little thing, I still find myself needing to hear the same advice. I guess it's in my true love for the little things and wanting to live for many, many long years that the tears and worries, ups and downs still come.
I love this boy that's growing inside of me. I love his father, too. I love them both with everything, every little drop that is my entire being. If you could possibly count and compartmentalize each drop of water in every ocean, my love would still be of a greater number.
I WANT to be able to know that I'll be here for them. That Roman won't have some sob story about how, despite his Mother's unending love for him, her time on earth was cut short... with him being just a boy, a baby even. I worry that he'll have no one to dance the Mother-Son dance with at his wedding (The logistics of me actually dancing in a wheelchair will have to be figured out at a later date. *wink*). I don't want his hurt to, to only remembers THINGS about me - my favorite food, my smell, the little bits - but I'm just not there. I don't want to be gone.
I knew that these thoughts would come when we started having children, but I didn't know what it would FEEL like. It's difficult to explain and I assume that some of you know what I'm trying to verbalize, but it's almost like trying to explain love or a sneeze or sunshine... the only possible way to understand it is to experience it.
As the summer season draws near, my worries escalate like usual. Summertime is hard for me -- I've only ever had cancer come back during the Summer months. It's funny how something that's only happened three out of twenty-six (almost twenty-seven!) of my years can taint my thoughts and plans for the future. I guess it's not funny, though. It hurts my heart and makes me cry and leads my mind into scenarios that I really don't much care for.
So, in honor of the man that loves me with all of his ounces (that's a little thing we say to each other), I choose to be alive today. Even if there's crappy little tumors in my lung - which is one of the looming fears that I will always have, and since they won't do my nice little reassuring CT scans while pregnant (for a good reason!), I won't be able to ease my fear until after Squid is born. With that aside, knowing that there's nothing I can do about any of that today, I choose to take Bubby's advice. I've got this - one day of happiness with my son in my belly and my Husband by my side is totally do-able.
I've gotten a few emails from people (mostly women) who are inspired by my fearlessness and bravery. I've also gotten emails from women who have had experiences that are similar to mine in the miscarriage and pregnancy department. Last night I got an especially lovely letter from a new reader who shared that she too had struggled with some of the things that I did after losing the baby last year.
I want to be honest with you guys.
I'm not fearless and most of the time I don't feel very brave.
I'm scared every day of my life. Scared that one day I'll wake up and find a lump on one of my ribs. Scared that I'll cough one day and just know that something is growing in my only lung. Fearful that I'll go pee one day soon and notice that I'm bleeding and I'll go into pre-term labor and Squiddy, this beautiful little boy of mine, will not make it. Scared that something will be wrong with him after he's born. I fear that after all of my hard work, all of the swollen feet and laboring and birth, that I'll get cancer again and die before I can really enjoy being a Momma to my boy. Scared that I'll leave Dustin all alone with this baby. Scared of his broken heart and a boy without his Mom. Scared that my parents will have to bury their daughter.
I'M SCARED.
Do you know what I've realized, though?
There is nothing wrong with being scared or having fear. There is nothing wrong with the tears full of fear that fall down my cheek. There is nothing wrong with holding my breath every time I have a painful twinge in my back and belly or freaking out every time I have a sore lung from coughing (dang dairy aggravated asthma).
I accept my fear. I don't hide from it. I try really hard to take it for what it is and embrace it.
Only in accepting what scares you, standing up, looking it right in the face and telling it that it's okay to be there, can you really move forward. I take my fear by the hand and keep on walking down my life's path. Hand in hand, chin up and eyes mostly forward. Just keep walking.
Thursday, I had a hard day. It was difficult for me when my baby doctor, Dr. J., told me to gain 10 pounds in two weeks. I've gained seven pounds so far, and as I'm approaching my 24th week, he feels that I should have gained more.
I have a weird relationship with food. Not in the sense that I'm afraid of the food I eat or that I'm worried that I'll get fat. It's totally nothing like that. I'm not scared to gain a little chub.
The thing is, I connect food with health. I connect eating healthy with keeping my immune system up. I connect having a good immune system with keeping the cancer from coming back. Food is my secret weapon! It's my medicine!
My Oncologist -- cancer doctor -- told me that if my cancer were to come back again, he wouldn't have me do any chemo, because after two separate regimens, ten years apart, it's obvious that it doesn't work on my cancer. My kind of cancer, Osteosarcoma, is of bone. Osteo not only likes bones, but it likes lungs. Obviously. ;) And, after losing my leg, a lung, part of the other lung and some major parts to my digestive system, I don't know what else this cancer could steal from me without taking my life, too.
I kind of like living.
So, when I'm told to eat more, eat to gain bulk, not eat to for the nutrients, it scares me.
Ten pounds on my frame -- ten pounds of fat, mind you, because he didn't mention anything about the weight coming from muscle -- is hard for me to do. I had visions of gorging myself on McDonalds, Slim-Jims and eating grocery-store pies made with white flour and hydrogenated Crisco and cups and cups of white sugar. All things that I connect with being un-healthy, that my mind then connects with getting sick again.
I eat pretty healthy. Very little wheat (it hates my belly), small amounts of dairy (I LOVE cheese, but it triggers my asthma) and as little white sugar or things that are high in empty carbs. Sugar spikes my blood-sugar and make me feel like total crap.
How will I put on 10 pounds without upsetting my touchy, Whippled tummy and compromising my food/cancer beliefs, which will then cause me to worry like a wart? I already eat like a champ - lots of healthy fats and protein and fruit sand veggies and whole grains. I don't let myself get too hungry and never deny myself when I want almost anything. I eat big meals and snack all day long. I've surprised people with how much food I can put away and how often I pack it in. (That sounds dirty, sorry folks.)
Dr. J. recommended Ensure, which I totally hate. It's milky and full of sugar and tastes like watered-down pudding crap. The top four ingredients are water, sugar (sucrose), corn syrup, maltodextrin. GROSS! I'd rather have a real milkshake and pop an extra vitamin. He said that I could also do smoothies with protein powder, which I'm leaning towards. We'll see.
I know that he is trying to look out for what's best for both me and the Squid, but it was so discouraging to be told that what I'm doing isn't good enough. I think we all can understand how that feels, right? I know I'm not alone there.
After letting myself feel blue, bumming around the house like a hobo and talking with a few close friends, I came to conclusion that I was doing good enough. I am good enough. My doctor wouldn't recommend that I gain weight to make me feel bad about myself and how I eat, and he definitely wouldn't recommend that I do anything to make my cancer come back.
This is for me. Squid is getting everything that he needs from all the good food that I already eat and I'm just getting the left-overs. I need to continue to eat healthy foods, just more of them so that I am okay. To keep my immune system up. To fight as hard as I can to keep on living.
I'm not going to shoot for any number on the scale, even if he does want to see 10 pounds. I will shoot to eat even better that I do and eat more of all that good stuff. I can do this, I know I can.
Wish me luck, loves? Think the most un-cancer filled thoughts that you can. Send my body the best vibes and most healthy wishes that you can muster up. My little heart would sure love a break from all this worrying. I swear, I'm getting more gray hairs each day. I think I'll rock the salt-and-pepper look when that time come. Please, please, let me experience that time.
Goodness.
Who knew that growing this sweet little boy would be so much work and worry?
After seeing this video through a friend on Facebook, I knew that I had to write something on here about what I was feeling.
I am not a majorly religious person.
I believe in God and respect the fact that I will never understand everything that IS God. I think that's part of what makes religion and spirituality so great - you have to have faith. You have to give up control and just go with it... there is not any concrete, 100% positive proof that any of it is true, so you just have to... let go. Dive in. Feel it. Pry your white-knuckled little fingers off of the driver's wheel, close your eyes and just... be.
When I had cancer as a child, I didn't understand. At eleven years old, you just kind of do what your parents tell you to. You get the chemo. You lose your hair. You have the leg removed. You just do it.
As an adult, having your life threatened at not only twenty-one and twenty-five is a different story.
[2005 - losing my lung.]
You think.
You lay awake, conscious and in pain - both physical and heart-ache pain. My heart was broken, mouth and mind tired of asking WHY. Why do the druggie kids down the street get to frolic about, dance in our headlights as we make our way to the E.R. because the chemo had pulverized my white-blood cells and I now had an infection?
Why do my peers get to finish college, drink, go to parties, have jobs while I worry if this my last Christmas. The last winter I'd ever share with my Husband or the last Summer that I'd ever feel the heat. Why would God punish me this way?
[2005 - sometimes smiles are fake.]
Through many nights and days of WHY, I eventually came to conclusion that my cancer was a gift. god wasn't punishing, he was putting me through the school of life. I'd accepted the hardships of cancer, taken the burden and fear, carried the big rock on my little back for a reason.
God had, through cancer and without me realizing, given me a "life" Bachelors Degree, with an emphasis on Inspiring Others and a minor in Mending Your Own Broken Heart.
I was given these trials to help others. Put through "class" to inspire other people simply by surviving. To live deeply. To not give up, even when the doctors told my family to prepare for my death (that was two and half years ago before my stomach surgery). To hold my head high even when I get odd looks while I shop for groceries in a wheel chair. To smile with the force of a thousand suns when a little kid stops dead in his track to stare at the spot where my right leg should be and asks, "What's WRONG with you?" To learn to love myself. To let others know that it's okay to be different. That birth, death, breathing, sex, peeing, walking, sleeping, falling, crying, smiling, driving , cooking are the most beautiful things ever to grace the face of the Earth.
[2009 - after we were told I was gunna die within the month.]
[2009 - the first picture I took after my stomach surgery. two months after I proved them wrong.]
[2009 - four months, learning to really love.]
Cancer has gifted me the understanding that EVERYTHING is a gift. Not to take anything for granted. To enjoy each meal, because I've experienced a time when a tumor blocked my stomach off and it was physically impossible for me to eat. To enjoy each time I can get up to pee by myself, no catheter, no chemo-scented urine. To roll around in MY bed in MY pajamas with not a hint of "hospital laundry" smell anywhere. That Husbands, Mothers, Fathers, siblings, In-Laws, Aunts & Uncles, friends and pets that love you, even when you're puking in their living-room or begging them for answer as to WHY you're dying... that is a gift. The best gift. To be happy with the small things. To pick them out, hug them and hold them up for all to see. To be thankful (SO THANKFUL) that my body is healthy now, even if it doesn't stay this way forever.
[People who've held me up when I've fallen down and have helped learn how to love my whole self. They were hand-picked by God to help me and for each I am forever grateful.]
The most important lesson that cancer has gifted me is to love. To love HARD. To kiss the man that I love with every cell in my body. To wrap my arms around him even if he smells like "work" and B.O. To let my soul seep out of my pores and blanket him with love, even if he's sleeping. That everything good that has ever happened on Earth was because of love, in someway. To let my heart feel love for people even if we're not getting along, because deep down, after pride and anger and jealousy and resentment, I still honestly love everyone more than I love the sun, sleep and In-N-out burger combined. Even if I don't know you, I still love you.
[Yeah, my kid sticks his tongue out at the camera even while in the womb. He's AWESOME!]
And this Baby, this beautiful little creatures who lives inside my body and grows a little each moment, is the biggest miracle I've ever witnessed in my whole life. There isn't a big enough number to express how thankful and happy and full of pure love I am. Everything I've been taught by cancer has opened my eyes, prepared me for this time in my life, this baby, this adventure, this love. Cancer has shown me how amazing it is to be human, just a random girl sitting in a wheel chair, stuck to the floor by gravity on planet Earth that's floating in space around a star called the Sun. There isn't an ocean full of enough water to match the the amount of joy that swims in my heart in this moment as I type this to you.
Cancer was a gift. Cancer made me thankful. Cancer helped me to inspire. Cancer taught me humility and how be humble. Cancer taught me to get excited about the teeny little things. Cancer taught me to love deeply and fully. Cancer has brought me to God.
Cancer was the greatest gift I've ever been given.
Eleven years old, missing my dear leg and sick from chemo treatments. I had dark circles under my eyes & sallow skin, but you couldn't keep the Christmas out of me!
Mom lined us, my Sister (middle), my (brother far right) and I, all up in front of the fireplace for a picture and we insisted on bringing our festive stuffed animals with us. Mackie (the one I'm holding face down) was my bear. THE bear. We had different costumes for each Holiday: a turkey suit, a santa suit (with hat and beard!), heart covered bear-boxers and a green clover sweat shirt (I think?). I still have him, he's in our room. Poor Mackie has had his head sewn on twice (once crooked by my Mom, once by Linda, my Mother -in-Law), his legs patched up (my dog liked to chew on them -- gross), his eyes chipped and his fur is SUPER matted, but he was and is still loved.
How thankful I am to be alive fifteen years later with hair and a Husband and my own Christmas decorations. And Mackie, too. He's the man.
p.s. -Did you notice the little dog in the bottom right hand corner? That was Dink (full name Ink-Spot A-Chihuahua), he was Dustin's favorite dog. Yep, Dustin met Dink five years after this picture was taken. :)
Dustin and I are laying here on the couch at him Mom's house after celebrating her birthday at a local pasta house. We, Dustin and I, his parents and younger brother, came home and devoured a splendid cheese cake that his Dad made (A-mazing) and I realized that I forgot to blog today! I was out most of the day helping Lori at The Nova Studio and then I came home, packed for the evening, wrapped a gift and then crashed out until Dustin got home. I have excuses. ;)
So, back to sitting on the couch. We're browsing through my old photos, looking for inspiration and we came across this jem. Dustin promptly it named "Donk." I don't know why. He said that it had some thing to do with the door handle, wide eyes, him hiding behind my head and the massive cold sore on my lip. Well, I brought up the cold sore part.. I like to think he didn't see it. ;)
This photo was taken on New Years Eve of 2005 in a little Bed and Breakfast in Carmel, California. I was still getting chemo because of the whole "tumor filled lung" thing and New Years Eve just happened to fall on the time in my chemo cycle when I was out of the hospital and was feeling really good, the precious 1/2 of a week where I felt almost "normal." Here, I was putting my makeup on: eyeshadow, liner, mascara on the few eyelashes that hadn't fallen out yet. Puffy face from steroidsI tried to cover up the lip sore that happened to grace my face (my immune system, like almost every person who is going through chemo, was terribly shot). Blue, cozy knit beanie for my baldie-bald head.
We decided to take a few pictures and, after going though the whole batch, this little gem was the one that Dustin chose for this week's post to commemorate that weekend in our life where we almost felt "normal."
Now, every week feels "normal" and that is something that's worth all of the door knobs, cold-sores, eyelashes and "creepy Husbands who lurk in photos" in the world.
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