The Sound of Looniness

Craziness abounds, even over and above my daily sojourn in Crazy Land. Crazy Land continues to spin, though, and I'm definitely caught in its many manifestations of nuttiness-inspired stress. My anxiety about getting everything accomplished before my Wednesday departure is significantly diminished. Nonetheless I'm always aware of the endless shiver of anxiety burrowed under the level of my daily consciousness.

In the middle of conversations, I suddenly notice the lunacy in my voice. The more I try to tame it, the loonier I sound. Very disconcerting. I wish I could preface every interaction with an explanation that I'm soon having my fourth surgery in two years and that I'm therefore virtually unable to think clearly. As a matter of fact, I'm virtually unable to function.

Now and again, it strikes me that, since everyone around me seems to expect me to continue on as usual, I should most certainly be able to do that. Maybe I should be able to, but my mind periodically goes blank. The brain keeps track of pain and it will not be distracted from another imminent physical insult.

"How can you possibly expect me to do anything more than arrive at work and stay there for 8 hours," I think. Actually accomplishing things is simply completely out of the question.

Sometimes there's no choice. I've had the infamous "roll out" to orchestrate, a major coup considering the daunting amount of information not available. It's been a struggle to simply find out how many sites each manager services and how many employees are at each site. Is it any wonder my mind goes blank from time to time? It's a little like a cultural adaptation in this case. Everyone else is in some information-deprived haze. I'm just doing my part to fit in. Now there's a good excuse.

When it rains workers comp claims, it pours. Unfortunately, lately it's been pouring guys who've chosen to not report their work-related injuries for a week or so. The amount of paperwork alone that has to be generated and disseminated wears me out, even when reporting is prompt. When our employees wait to illuminate anyone about their hurties, my work becomes even more time-critial and positively stuffed with paper to be printed, faxed, copied, printed again and mailed to several people.

Last but certainly not least, I've been having serious issues with my dermatologist's office. When I visited, at their insistence, to discuss my diagnosis and treatment, the nurse practitioner was completely useless. No need for treatment, or maybe there is, who knows? Nonetheless, they called to make a six-week follow up visit. I also have an appointment with the doctor herself on Tuesday. To top it all off, I've been unable to have biopsy results successfully sent to Dr. Ross.

See? This is another moment when the mind goes absolutely blank. I have no idea what to do now. The nurse tells me to call the Pathology Lab and arrange it myself. They might have shared that with me when I called last week specifically to have them do that. I can't. The new hill of endless paperwork seems too big to climb at the moment.The noise you hear is my head as I beat it against the wall.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/inflammatory-breast-cancer/

Important information about inflammatory breast cancer from a woman who knows. She's amazing. Check her out.

Tears

"Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed." ~ Natalie Clifford Barney

My mom talked me into calling my psychiatrist today. We've been eliminating pills like crazy and I've been feeling psychopharmacologically triumphant. (Yes, it's a great word and yes, it was hard to type.) There's that one tiny problem of crying all of the time. My mom suggested that, since things seem to be getting worse instead of better, maybe I should clue my shrink in on how things are going.

I've been rolling along, thinking that the crying jags come with the territory. I have new cancer checks and another surgery looming. That would make anybody cry, wouldn't it? My mom pointed out that it's been getting worse. In fact, even talking about crying makes me cry. Bad sign.

So I called and we added in another 150 mgs. of one of my ongoing get-me-through-the-day drugs. My doctor said that crying just because you're talking about it doesn't, in fact, go with the territory.

Moving on. Reason number 5,000 for crying: an episode of Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil is always tricky. First of all, I live in terror that one of my relatives is going to show up on the program, although it's really more likely they'd have made an appearance on the Jerry Springer show. (Is that still happening?) Then there's the subject matter. I've had personal experience with most of the really bad stuff he addresses and it's not always a good thing to be reminded of that.

Yesterday's episode was about a grandfather who abused his five year old granddaughter. It reminded me that my own sexual abuse started sometime before the age of five. I managed to place it in time by asking my mom about the events that surrounded the first episode of abuse I remember. It had happened before then, I know, because I recall being afraid and, later, trying to hide from him in the bathroom.

I hate it when I'm reminded of just how young five years old is. It's different when you see it through the lens of your own personal experience. I forget just how tiny and defenseless I was until I see other children that age, going through a version of my own life history.

My husband was in the room when Dr. Phil was on and I told him how young I must have been when the abuse started. I'm not sure I'd ever shared that with him before. Why? It's not a thing that comes up much in conversation. It's something that makes me feel permanently wounded. I might even use the word "damaged." Consequently, not many people who know me know about this part of my life. As I think I've mentioned before, there are a lot of things people don't know about my life. It works better for me that way.

The grandfather was just like all child abusers. It wasn't his fault, you know. It was that seductive five year old. He was the victim.

I never talked with my uncle about why he sexually assaulted me, time and time again. I don't need to talk with him. I know all of the answers he'd ever give me. It was my fault. Everything he ever said to me spoke to his belief that I was the real perpetrator. The sad thing is that all sexually abused kids (all abused kids, generally) think it's their fault. I spent a lot of my life feeling guilty and dirty and, yes, damaged.

Sometime around the age of 40, I finally figured out it wasn't my fault. I'd been in therapy for many years by then and I'd dutifully absorbed my therapists' mantra that, indeed, it wasn't my fault. I never really believed it, though. I'm not sure why. I guess that's part of the power of childhood sexual abuse, especially when it starts at such a young age. It's a poisonous root that takes hold and wraps itself around every fiber of your being.

Here's something funny. Writing about this does not make me cry. I don't think it ever has. I can cry for that little girl whose grandfather used her for his own sexual pleasure, though. Someday maybe I'll cry for myself.

Things You Can Be Sure Of

"Everything Must Change" recorded by virtually everyone, my favorite of whom is Nina Simone.

Everything must change
Nothing stays the same
Everyone must change
No one stays the same

The young become the old
And mysteries do unfold
Cause that's the way of time
Nothing and no one goes unchanged

There are not many things in life
You can be sure of
Except rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And hummingbirds do fly

Winter turns to spring
A wounded heart will heal
But never much too soon
Yes everything must change

The young become the old
And mysteries do unfold
Cause that's the way of time
Nothing and no one goes unchanged

There are not many things in life
You can be sure of
Except rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And butterflies do fly

Rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And music
And music
Makes me cry

"Everything Must Change," Bernard Ighner

Time is limited these days. I'm trying to clean up a workers comp mess left by Loathsome, "roll out" a new workers comp insurance program and forestall the complete rewriting of the employee manual. Patience is also limited. So is emotional stability.

I cry at least four times a day every day. Today has actually been a really good day. It's 2:00 p.m. and I've only cried once. Crying is impromptu, it's always a surprise. Just thinking about crying can make me cry. I'm loads of fun to be with.

Every once in a while, the thought breaks through, "I'm having surgery on the 29th." That's when things really start to get out of hand. Every surgery is cause for new terror, if only because every surgery still hurts. I never cry when I see it coming. I do, however, freeze for a moment or two and wish there were some way to escape this life I've been assigned. The thought of another surgery is dumbfounding.

I'm out of sorts these days. Everything seems bleak. The future seems not worth living. I wonder why I tried so hard to stay alive. What exactly did I have in mind? Did I believe things will someday improve in my life in any meaningful way? If that's what I thought, I can't imagine why I believed it.

I'm angry at the universe. I keep thinking back, wondering what it was exactly that I did to deserve my impossibly difficult life. It's not just the breast cancer. It's the years and years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. It's the rape. It's the suicide. It's the job I hate that just won't stop. No matter what, I have to be here. All of those things seem beyond the boundaries of good taste when heaped upon one small person who's made a lifetime career of not passing along the violence and pain.

I'm a good person, a gentle person, a person with enormous compassion. As if that counts for anything. I'm sure there's some purpose to all of this accumulated suffering, but lately I'll be damned if I can see what it might be. Oh. I know. I've been sent the plague of my existence to create the possibility for gentleness and compassion. It's a mighty big price tag and one that I don't feel much inclined these days to continue to pay.

Last night, I watched a program on the travel channel called "Jeff Irwin Inside Alaska," or something like that. The vast, primeval spaces reminded me of why I don't matter. As I watched bears tearing apart salmon they'd just caught in the river, I kept thinking, "Something dies so that something else may live." That seemed comforting somehow.

Over the weekend, I though a lot about the gift of seeing the end in advance. My life seems broken beyond repair, my body wounded forever, my mind diminished. The changes are irrevocable. It's the coming attractions, folks.

Unless we've somehow managed to find a quick end, death invites us to leave in tiny increments. We lose a little of ourselves, a little of our joy (assuming we ever had any) moment by moment. Alaskan brown bears die because they have cavities in their teeth. They suffer, dying bit by bit. We do, too. Right now it's not so much the leaving that bothers me as the slow, painful journey to get there.

Day after day. I get up and come to work. My body hurts. I "roll out" workers comp insurance. I cry about the pathos of the universe. I fill out forms reporting an injury. I rage against the injustice of the universe. I proofread invoices and wonder when my damn copies are going to be ready to be picked up at the local FedEx Kinko's.

When I look at it that way, it makes me laugh. I'm feeling dramatic today. It's nothing a good surgery won't cure, though.