Stage 3, Step 3

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~Barbara Bloom (I'm not sure this quote goes with this post, but I like it anyway.)

It dawned on me last night that I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. Oh shit...how did I not know that? I reviewed what I know about breast cancer staging, just in case I'd jumped to a hasty conclusion. No. Stage 3. Then I called my mom this morning and told her I'd just realized I have Stage 3 cancer.

"Well, they told you that at the time," she said. "I don't think you could handle it then. There were too many things happening too fast to deal with it all."

Well, hell. I wish someone had mentioned it more than once. Seems a little silly to be terrified now. It actually seems kind of funny. Or maybe that's just the hysteria talking. Epiphanies. What a riot!

Today, I have step 3 of the new plan. I thought of it last night in between panic attacks.

What do I know about suffering?

I know that, no matter how good things are, we are never satisfied. We're filled with a restless hunger. Have the perfect job? If only we liked our kitchen more. Have the kitchen redecorated? If only the sun would come out. Sun shining? If only we were having a better hair day.... It's endless, this longing.

We want to push change away, halt time in its tracks, because with change comes loss. We don't like loss; it never feels good.

We yearn so much for feeling good (in all its possible manifestations) that we are unable to accept each changing moment as it comes. That is the solution to my suffering. I have to relearn it every so often. I thought I'd gotten it down during chemo, but no.

I am mourning the loss of my breast. The breast is gone and the new one is scarred and hardened in places. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer and now I'm afraid. Things are as they are.

I can let go and experience these truths without judgment, holding close to me in loving embrace the sorrow, anger and fear. I can stop rejecting the breast and love it. I can stop rejecting the body and love it. It is my oldest friend, it will be with me until I die. I can feel some empathy for this skin that carries me around in it.

I can remember that, as much as I don't like this moment, it's perfect, nonetheless.

Do What's In Front Of You: Remembrance Of Loss

I started writing a post about lost abilities, but the universe (or the cyber-universe, at least) took it away. As I was writing, it disappeared. I take it as a sign that, though I may examine it briefly, I should not pursue this topic at length. All things have a reason.

Maybe breast cancer has taken far more from me than I ever imagined it could. Today, I realize that's the very definition of spirituality for me. We lose everything, eventually. No matter what. No matter how many vitamins we take, how many trips to the gym, the body will deteriorate and, eventually, die. Intellect will fade and personality will alter. That's how it goes.

I just have to remember that, accept it and, ultimately, I must embrace it. That which I believe myself to be is just an illusion. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The one I truly am will not be touched by deterioration of any kind.

Chemo clarified the things I am not: not hair, not intellect, not memory, not physical health, not my emotions. These are merely things that I've stepped into, only to leave them behind when the time comes. It's a liberating and mournful clarity.

Today I remember and I see the task stretching out into the distance. Celebrate. I'm here to learn this lesson. Remain open to suffering and dissolution. Greet them as friends. Just like all friends, they can be problematic at times and hard to love.

Along the way, smaller realizations lead me to the greatest one. At every moment, I can choose to search for the lesson that invites me. Seeing the truth is strenuous work and sometimes I'm not up to the challenge. That's why I'm reminded, from time to time, in many ways, that life slips away.

There's a great Zen precept "Do what is in front of you."

That which is in front of me today is a remembrance of loss.

Ted Koppel and Living With Cancer

I just wrote a lengthy post about Ted Koppel's documentary, "Living With Cancer," that was on the Discovery channel last night. (The post went flying out to Internet Purgatory.) The documentary will be aired again tonight at 8:00 Eastern time. If you have a friend or family member who has cancer, this program can be very helpful.

Leroy Sievers is Ted Koppel's best friend. He is dying of colon cancer that metastasized to several parts of his body. He is in Stage 4. That diagnosis almost inevitably ends in death. Elizabeth Edwards (who participated in the town hall meeting shown after the documentary) has Stage 4 breast cancer. No matter where the cancer travels, it will always be colon cancer or breast cancer. Just in a different location.

I can't imagine suffering through the treatments only to postpone death. We're all going to die, but some of us have medical proof that we're going to die sooner rather than later. There will be an end to Christmas lights, an end to friendships, to all of those daily things we tend to take for granted.

Since about halfway through chemotherapy, I've been almost certain that I would not choose to go through it again. Even if it meant dying. Of course, when I was first diagnosed, I thought I would refuse chemo and radiation. In retrospect that was profoundly naive. So maybe I would do another round of chemo, another round of radiation. I guess that's just one of those things you don't know until you get there.

All of the people at the town hall meeting were either currently being treated or had been treated for cancer. Without exception, everyone could see some positive things about having cancer. It certainly changes your perspective and clarifies priorities. It measures the level of inner strength you possess. I have attained heretofore unknown amounts of suffering. I care less now about how my hair is looking every day than to celebrate having any hair.

Cancer changes everything. It robbed me of all of the things I thought defined me. I'm trying to get some of them back. Some of them were inaccurate measures of who I am and needed to be left behind. Some of them are things that frustrate me, make me angry and cause me great sadness. Nonetheless, I'm still here. That's a lot. I know that I will live every day until I die and I will learn to love whoever replaces the person I used to be. No matter how hard that may be.

It's the Trip to the Hospital, Stupid

There's nothing like a trip to M.D. Anderson to throw me for an emotional loop. My depression got even worse as the day wore on and there's a good chance it will return (in spades) today. That's just how it goes. I thought I'd get this post in before I take up today's temporary residence in Crazy Land.

There won't be any painful tests. There won't be any bad news. This is just a check in with my plastic surgeon to make sure the New Girl is doing okay and the tummy tuck hasn't killed me (from accidentally ripping out stitches). It's the mere fact that I have to enter that building. Everything comes back to me, even before I get there. Like yesterday. Things got very grim.

I saw Elizabeth Edwards on Larry King last night. It was really nice they made room for her after the wall-to-wall Imus coverage. There is a woman who is most definitely bucking up. More than I ever have. She's chosen not to give any more of her life to this disease. I get it. I've lost almost two years now that will never come back. Choose to live until you die. That's about all any of us (both people with or without serious illness) can do. She has my deepest respect; I am humbled by her courage.

So that's how it is. I'll be away until next Wednesday, by which time I'll probably have returned to the Land of Crazy and be back to my cranky self.

A Semblance of Safety and Ease

In spite of the big brouhaha in my office, I find myself distracted by other, more mournful, things. I've been pondering the way my life has unravelled for me these 53 years. There are at least a couple of issues that keep leading my thoughts back to the past, distant and near. I'm tired and, at some point along the way, I began to get sad when I'm tired. Maybe it's the onslaught of breast cancer treatment. Maybe it's just that the years are wearing me down a bit. I'm also anxious. Whenever I have to go to Houston, I get apprehensive and a little nauseated the week before my appointment. The fact that I recognize it means it's mighty big anxiety; because of my history, anxiety and worry feel normal to me. Other people have to point out to me that my voice or body language betray my state of mind. Finally, I've been editing old entries. Many of them deal with my difficult childhood which led to my troubled youth. Looking back carefully is never easy.

Lately when someone mentions an old movie or an old song, I remember how deeply I tried to crawl into any semblance of safety and ease I could find there. One of my annual rituals was watching "The Wizard of Oz." When I was a little girl, I could block out all of the violence and terror and dread while I accompanied the Cowardly Lion (my favorite character) along the Yellow Brick Road. I could never understand why Dorothy wanted to go back. "There's no place like home" didn't have a positive meaning to me.

There were a whole collection of movies--White Christmas, Abbott and Costello movies, The Thin Man series and television programs--I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show. I wasn't particularly discriminating. I had no vision of what sanity looked like and yet I hoped to find it someday. I thought maybe those diversions could be real, that my own life could be sophisticated, carefree and gentle. I thought maybe my life could someday be a place where I could just take a deep breath and settle onto a comfy sofa without the constant stress of threats, two families living under one roof, of violence and uncertainty. How could I have imagined that which I had never really experienced myself? I dreamed as I entered those make-believe worlds.

I read other people's posts and rediscover that my life resembles no one elses I've ever known. On some level, I always keep it a bit of a secret from myself that my childhood never really existed. My parents said many times that I was born an adult. My dad marvelled at the fact that I was able, at two, to answer questions like an adult. (Of course, my dad was never a very good judge of what constituted adult behavior.) My mom, to this day, comments with some puzzlement, that, even though she tried her best, she was unable to help me fit into the role of being a normal child.

It sometimes makes me a little angry that she still can't see that my survival depended on being able to successfully juggle various realities at a very young age. I had to find my way through school days without betraying just how distracting my home life was. It was imperative to perform well and fit in; it was my only escape. At home, disappearing seemed to be safest, but entirely unattainable. It was a very dangerous thing to misunderstand whose priorities came first. My dad was the child; we were there to serve him. Sometimes I'm a little jealous of my mom's reminiscences. I don't have any memories of innocence.

I continue to take some pride in the fact that no one can see what I've survived. The only hint is a small hesitation when people talk about their childhoods and ask about my own. I pause while I scramble to find the appropriate response. I don't lie, but I don't tell the truth, either. I've shared parts of my past with therapists and a couple of friends. Their responses lead me to believe the truth may be too much to bear. It may be confusing to people who have always only seen the cheerful adult they know. I don't see much good that can come of either of those possibilities.

I'm still trying to sort it out alone. I struggle to find meaning out of all of that chaos and all of the nightmares to follow, my father's suicide and my own battle with cancer. I can't find any. I may never understand why my path has been so formidable. I discourage the tendency to feel sorry for myself, but I have the courage to look back with sadness. After all, I do have the luxury of a comfy sofa and some time to take a deep breath.

What The Hell Is The Matter With Me?

What's the matter with me? At first I thought it was gray day, black mood. Now the sun's come out and I'm still stuck. I even tried a sure-fire remedy: cinnamon mints. Not any better.

Maybe it's just fatigue. I'm up to five hours at work this week, which doesn't seem like much, but it's kicking my ass in a big way. I did yoga last night for the first time in months. Gentle yoga. So gentle it didn't even feel like yoga.

It's hard to discern the difference. Is depression causing fatigue or is fatigue causing depression? I reel from my own vulnerability. I'm hardly ever vulnerable, so it's hard to tolerate, even if no one else can see it.

Furthermore, I'm vulnerable at work. I stopped being emotionally available here many years ago. After the reconstruction surgery, I had a brief bout with it. Now it's back.

Maybe it was the long conversations I've had today with various people regarding cancer. That's hardly ever a good topic. That's doubly true when we're talking about breast cancer.

The day is almost over for me. I don't even want to go home. If I could disappear for just a little while, I'm sure it would perk me right up.

Oh yeah. I forgot that feeling emotion is a good thing. It's like honoring the present moment. I need to work on that, but I'd rather not do it today.

What the hell is the matter with me?

Elizabeth Edwards, Again

"If you're going through hell, keep going," ~ Winston Churchill

Owner of Company is on a rampage. He most definitely does not approve of the Edwards' decision to continue the Presidential campaign. He's been calling me all morning on the intercom, reading his own satires of news stories about them, asking me for synonyms, wanting definitions. He just called me while I'm writing this to tell me that "satire" was, indeed, the word he was looking for, instead of "parody" or "lampoon" or whatever. When Owner of Company gets worked up about something, he can get obsessed. This is a quality we share. I'm just not obsessed about this one.

He thinks that it's really John Edwards' decision to continue the campaign, no matter what his wife wants. I don't know. I don't think that's necessarily the case. Sometimes it's helpful, when you're battling cancer, to just try to get on with daily things. For them, political campaigns are a regular part of their lives. You certainly don't need to be sitting around with nothing to do but think about your diagnosis or how the chemo is making you feel or any of the other wrenching sidetracks you mind creates. Maybe you just campaign, if that's what you do.

Owner of Company thinks John and Elizabeth Edwards should spend their time, however much that is, being with their small children. I have a stepson I first met when he was 7. I don't feel qualified to judge. Owner just told me that they plan to take their children out on the campaign trail with them. I've worked on several political campaigns and they are incredibly grueling, even if you're young and healthy. I'm not sure how much time they'll really have to spend with the kids.

These are very early decisions, though. Those decisions may change as treatment and illness progress. I didn't have stage 4 breast cancer that metastasized to the bone, but early on in treatment, I thought I could maintain my regular schedule. That vision of my future was incorrect. That may be so with Elizabeth Edwards. As I said before, you deal with it however you can.

Everyone has their own way of coping with cancer and with death, I think. I'm reluctant to seem judgmental or be judgmental. It's a tough journey to even get through treatment. I know that when I was first diagnosed, I didn't know where I would find all of the mental, physical and emotional resources I'd have to call upon to endure.

Throughout my own treatment, people felt comfortable suggesting how I might deal with it. Many friends pushed me to confront my feelings about everything that was happening to me. I wasn't hurt or irritated by those suggestions; I didn't have the physical or emotional luxury of being offended. I just plowed through, hanging on until it was over. I know everyone has to find their own way. The path isn't always easy to see.

Owner will be working on emails about this all day. He calls me up and asks me how I feel, as a cancer survivor, about what he has to say. I'm not really the person to ask. I have a predilection for dark humor. I can be very sardonic. What he's saying is fine with me.

But then I don't have Stage 4 breast cancer that's metastasized to my bones. He might need to check back with me should that come to pass. (I'm superstitious about this. I'm knocking on my fiberboard desk.)

Obligatory Elizabeth Edwards Post

On the Elizabeth Edwards front, I saw the Sixty Minutes interview and I'd be lying if I didn't say it made me uneasy. I don't like to think about metastasis or recurrence. Unfortunately, people tend to bring it up fairly regularly, so I don't get to completely put it out of my mind. Watching that interview was a gesture of solidarity; I thought it might be uplifting. It wasn't uplifting.

As for the continuation of the Presidential campaign, we all deal with this however we can. She can deal with it by campaigning and continuing on with her normal life as much as is possible. It seems likely to me that there will be some days (maybe many) when treatment will completely exhaust her ability to cope.

Would I do the same thing? Probably not, simply because I'm not strong enough to push myself forward while undergoing chemotherapy. I wasn't before and there's no reason to believe that I've changed in that regard.

I got an email on Friday from owner of Crazy Land railing against the decision. As for me, judging her or her husband is really none of my business. We deal with cancer (as with all life trauma) however we can, we get through treatment however we can. Sometimes you don't know how you'll cope, but eventually you just do it. Elizabeth Edwards is going to cope by getting on with life.

Speaking of Crazy Land, no need to bring a gun. I win. We have not discussed the database, neither with Crazy Employee nor Crazy Employee's Crazy Supervisors. We're not going to ever discuss it. Because I decided.

Blindness Descends

The news story of the little boy who was killed by a convicted sex offender and his family reminded me of a day in my own life. Luckily, no one was murdered in my case. (My therapist would disagree with that conclusion.) I've mentioned before that my parents were sexually abusive, but the abuse was psychological, not physical. The events of that day fill me with such shame that I'm unable to even revisit it except in a fleeting, looking at the scary monster way. The shame has nothing to do with me other than that knowledge of my parents' amorality. Or at least my dad's amorality. I can't really speak to my mom's motivations.

I wrote a post several days ago in which I said that I always believe that people are doing the best they can. One of my friends commented,

"Nobody you know, nobody you don't know, in all the world, has ever done less than their very best, at any time? All around you is perfection and excellence?!"

The answer is that things have been so far from perfect and excellent in my life that hanging on to that belief is the only way to see around the dark center at the heart of my childhood. Do I believe my father was doing the best he could? I have no idea. Most people would say he wasn't. It just all gets very confusing to me, so I choose to believe that which is, in some ways, easiest.

What I do know is that I've been judged and found lacking based on people's inability to see what motivates me. That was one of the great things about Mrs. N. She understood that I was, as a human being (not a student), trying to do the best I could when there really hadn't been any model of moral and ethical conduct I could attempt to emulate. In fact, that's one of the things she gave me: a moral compass beyond that which a 15 year old could formulate in a vacuum.

My therapist and I have had many conversations about people doing the best they can. She's pointed out to me many times that my Inner Fascist was born, in part, out of that struggle to transcend my family's moral sickness. IF cracks the psychological whip much too hard so that I could ensure that I never even approached the road to moral decadence. Children who parent themselves invariably create their own Inner Fascists; it's a survival skill.

However, my therapist, like everyone else I've ever spoken to about it, strenuously disagrees with my theory of human behavior. I understand that position. For me, the things that motivate other people are mysterious and unfathomable. If a parent you love regularly engages in conduct that is terrifyingly abusive, a kind of blindness descends that prevents you from seeing their motivations. If the motivation is simply to enjoy hurting someone else, that blindness is kind.

I've had many sessions with therapists over the years trying to come to grips with my father's sadism. The longer away I am from his suicide, the harder it becomes to understand how I can continue to love him. Obviously, he's the only father I'll ever have. Equally obviously, the best he could ever do was destructive beyond measure.

I don't know. I do the best I can based on where I am at any given moment and I choose to believe that everyone else does, too. As in the case of the six-year old boy, though, sometimes what arises from that "best" is horrifying and maybe even inhuman. The darkness at the center of my life was built around that horror. I've spent the rest of my life trying to see around it.

Paul Shanley

i've spent the majority of the day listening to the trial of the former roman catholic priest paul shanley's criminal sexual assulat trial. i've been working on a database on my computer, where the trial is being broadcast. i haven't watched much of the video, but whenever i do and see the former priest, sitting there as if he hadn't ruined people's lives, i just want to ask him if he really believes in god.

i'm not of the mindset that god punishes us for our sins. i'm not even completely sure that all of the bad things that happen to us in our lives aren't supposed to happen. i can't pretend to know what is in god's mind. however, i do know that sexually abusing little children causes enormous harm for the rest of their lives.

it's difficult to determine whether this man is really sorry in the slightest bit. i'm certain that he's sorry he got caught. i wonder, as he watches his victim testify, does he harden his heart against the victim? i know that most abusers blame the child. the child was too provacative. he couldn't help himself, the child was too flirtatious and took advantage of the adult. it's so much easier than having to admit that you have sentenced someone to live a life significantly devoid of trust in other human beings. if mr. shanley was abused himself, he must already know the consequences of abuse. how, then, could he harm another little child in that way?

last night i was watching an episode of law and order in which there was a murder related to a whole series of sexual assaults against several children. there was one scene where the father of a child was sitting on a sofa, the child on the floor beside him, playing with a toy. the father suggests to the boy that he sit on the sofa where he'll be more comfortable. at that moment, it was like being five again for me. i wanted to go get a knife, find my uncle, and rip him to shreds. i want him to suffer every single moment of every day of his life. i'd be surprised if he does.

i really believe that people who can hurt children that way don't have much empathy for anyone. they are, of course, pretty sorry for themselves. shortly after that program ended, there was a local newscast which has been doing a series of segments about depression. last night's topic was electroshock therapy. i was talking on the phone with my mom, but i managed to hear just a bit of it. that bit was about how tragic the lives are of people who are unable to escape depression any other way. it was one of those moments in which i was forced to look at the truth again. i wouldn't say my life has been tragic, but when i think about it in the context of how other people have grown up, i can't really find a word to describe my life. unhappy is an understatement. i'm reluctant to latch onto tragic, though. i guess that's too reminiscent of the mindset of all of my abusers. they all had tragic lives. that's why it was okay that they hurt other people. it was even okay to hurt defenseless children. i know that accepting the truth of severe abuse doesn't make me like them.

but now i can't think of anything else to say. i just had one of those dissociative moments when i cease to feel and can't really even maintain my train of thought. i guess i might as well find a quote.

quote of the day;
"The cosmos is neither moral or immoral; only people are. He who would move the world must first move himself." ~Edward Ericson

america held hostage day 1844
bushism of the day:
"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."

website of the day: Disgruntled Housewife
http://www.disgruntledhousewife.com/

Change Your Mind

i suffered through an allergy meltdown all weekend and lost a fair amount of sleep because of some creature gnawing away somewhere in or adjacent to my bedroom. this morning, as i pushed myself forward into the day, taking care of my responsibilities to huskies and hubby, i was aware of a low-level dissatisfaction. it's times like this that i remember that the reality we all share can be dramatically altered or restructured. we have only to change our minds.

what exactly is it that causes us to believe that we must get up every day and go to jobs which we may or may not find intellectually compelling or unsuitable for any number of reasons? because that's the way it's been done in recent history? because that's the way it's been done in our specific culture? all we have to do is change our minds. change our minds about what's valuable in life. change our minds about how we will treat one another. we can eliminate the staggering debt loads of "third-world" countries simply by deciding that the debt no longer exists. the debts of all nations could be eliminated by deciding it should be so. we could conceivably find far more meaningful ways than our current jobs to spend our brief time here. we just need to change our minds.

of course, once we get into the realm of religion, it gets very difficult to advocate changing one's mind. one of the primary jobs of religion is to provide us with some clearcut guidelines for individual behavior. having bought into those guidelines, we find it unbearably difficult to see things in a new way. many times, we're unable to recognize that which is holy in one another because the other isn't adhering to our specific (and sometimes nit-picky) guidelines. we could see it another way, if we wished. we could choose to search for commonality instead of focusing on our differences. just takes a change of heart and a change of mind.

here's the quote of the day:
"The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it."~Marcus Aurelius

america held hostage day 1841
bushism of the day:
"This administration is doing everything we can to end the stalemate in an efficient way. We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end."

website of the day:
The Butterfly Websitehttp://butterflywebsite.com/organicgardening.cfm

Spinning the Wheel

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."~Helen Keller

I'm very disgruntled today. The sky is gray and another cold front is moving in. It's been in the low 70's here for the past couple of weeks and, even though I look forward to wearing my warm clothes, I hate the gloominess. I must have sun. I finally managed to deliver the last of the xmas presents today. I brought The Foot Lady's gift to her, since she left on vacation before it even dawned on me that she should be on my gift list. Well no big deal, but I just had to go through that awful gift-giving thing again. Jesus. I love giving gifts, but I never wish to be there when they're opened. It makes me profoundly uncomfortable, though not as uncomfortable as receiving them.

Hubby just called to say he's going to submit a resume tomorrow for a writing job. It would be great if he could get it, but I don't have my hopes up. Unfortunately, he's never learned that interviewing skills must be practiced. It's really the only way to be ready with an answer for any question interviewers might pose. It's the difference between seeming professional versus looking unprepared. I refuse to meddle. I'm going to have to go with whatever fate brings in this arena.

Relying on The One (aka "God" aka "Higher Power, etc.) is highly valued in the workaholics anonymous group. They operate out of the belief that we workaholics need to figure out that we are not in control. Further, that attempting to impose our will on The One's plans for us is a big part of our problem. I get it. I believe that I've spent the past 7 years waiting for The One to give me some idea of what I'm supposed to be doing other than just taking up space on the planet. I try not to ask for things, even though I might really wish for them. This is not because I'm so spiritually advanced. it's just a very solid understanding that I should be open and accepting of whatever comes, because whatever The One wishes for me is exactly what I should be doing at any given time. Every once in a while, though, I start to wonder if The One is speaking and I'm just not hearing. Or if I'm supposed to be actively trying new things in the hope that I'll hit upon whatever it is that I need to be doing in my life.

I could, and generally do, see the past seven years as an enormous waste of time. spinning my wheels while I'm waiting for the universe to lead me someplace else. I don't know. Yesterday I was thinking that maybe there is a reason for me being stuck in this place (mentally, physically and emotionally) that I'm just not seeing. I started to try once again to resign myself to enduring until things improve (or get worse--that's always a possibility).

In the meantime I've been conscientiously working on relaxing and resting. That's pretty funny. I make myself rest regularly. I try not to work out too much. I've been doing much better at it and I take some pride in the fact that I'm developing this discipline. Well, pride is probably not the right word. I'm giving myself a pat on the head.

Lethargy overtakes me. I guess I'll try to wade through some more email that's been piling up while I was on vacation. Sometimes I even bore myself.

america held hostage day 1822

bushism of the day:
"One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected."

website of the day: Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/