Dumbfounded

Yesterday I was in the gym working out and out of the blue this guy walks up to me and asks me if I'm going to walk the 3-Day this year.  I was dumbfounded.  I don't think that I'd ever seen the guy before, but apparently he'd seen me wearing a Race for the Cure Survivor shirt.  Then he told me his wife died of breast cancer last year.  I honestly didn't know what to say.  I told him that I was sorry to hear that his wife died of the disease, and we talked about the 3-Day for a while.  I told him that when I walked it in 2006 that less than 10% of the walkers were survivors.  Most of the walkers were daughters or sisters or granddaughters.  A few were just people who were walking it for other reasons.  During the whole walk, I personally met less than 10 other survivors, and I talked to everyone around me.  It disturbed me to my core that this has become so much of what I am that others notice.  But sometimes, like with this man it seems to help people when I talk to them about it.  Today he came up to me and introduced himself.  He is Doug. 

 

Raining

It's raining again. It's raining really hard and I wonder if all those people on the TV all week who have been breaking my heart with their losses are being frustrated in their efforts to clean their already flooded out homes. Earlier this week every river and creek in the city flooded. It caused major damage everywhere. The house that I'm living in now stayed dry, but the house that I grew up in was flooded by Nancy Creek and the apartment that I lived in when I was diagnosed with cancer was completely under water. People who live in those apartments are already barely holding on to having a home, so the loss of the apartments is an overwhelming blow. One lady that I have heard of, a friend of a friend, lost her job in January. Her husband died of colon cancer in march, and now her home is a mess from being flooded by Sweetwater Creek. We were planning on having a cleaning party for her today, but it's being rained out. Officials are warning that Sweetwater Creek will flood again. I'm hoping that it doesn't reach her house. The more I hear, the more I wonder how you recover from such devastation. This poor woman has no money, no job and now no home. Where does she go?

I wish it would quit raining.

This meme is for Kerri

This meme is for Kerri Sparling, because I read all the way to the end of hers.

1. The illness I live with is: Good question because I have a list of about 16 of them. But because This is The Pink Tee Shirt blog, I guess I'll talk about Breast Cancer.
2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: 2004
3. But I had symptoms since: It's hard to tell. Having gone through a divorce and having had a son who participated in the invasion of Iraq, I'd been under mega stress for about 5 years preceding finding the lump in my breast. I attributed all the fatigue and lack of well being that I was experiencing to that.
4. The biggest adjustment I've had to make is: To come to terms with the way that my body looks now and the limitations that have been caused by the treatments I underwent
5. Most people assume: That because it doesn't run in their family they aren't at risk for breast cancer. The truth is that the biggest risk factor for breast cancer is being a woman over 40. Women younger do get breast cancer, and so do men. But the vast majority of survivors are women over 40.
6. The hardest part about mornings are: Well, I'm just not an early morning person.
7. My favorite medical TV show is: St. Elsewhere...does that date me?
8. A gadget I couldn't live without is: My port-a-cath. I don't actually have it anymore. But when I was doing chemo it was a god-send.
9. The hardest part about nights are: That I still experience a lot of fatigue and I get home from work with no energy.
11. Regarding alternative treatments: I found it a bit insulting that for the most part tradidtional medicine phoo-phoo's alternative medicine, but when it comes to cancer, all the brochures they give you advise that you take up navel gazing and basket weaving as a "complementry treatment". I felt like the hat tip to the treatments was a way of saying "you only stand a small chance of surviving this anyway, so do whatever you want." If I ever told a doctor that I wanted to treat a head cold with essiac tea, I'd probably be scoffed out of the office.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose: Kerri said "These choices suck. I'd rather not have any illness, thank you very much." and I totally agree with her. In a way breast cancer isn't really invisable when you are in the middle of treatment. It's hard not to be able to pick the pale bald lady sporting a pink ribbon bandana out of the crowd. And having it so very apparent to everyone was very hard emotionally. So I experienced the visible illness. Now that so much time has passed, my friends and co-workers forget that I have lasting limitations. So I'm experiencing invisable illness from it now. I'd much rather go back to the days when I thought that breastfeeding 3 babies would give me immunity.
13. Regarding working and career: For my situation, it makes all of the time I have to spend at doctor appointments and getting tests much easier if I just am upfront about it with the people I work with. They are much more forgiving of my absences, knowing the reason.
14. People would be surprised to know: That having cancer does not make me brave or courageous at all.
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: Accepting the way my body looks now.
16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was: Well, survive it in the first place.
17. The commercials about my illness: are way too sappy.
18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is: Bowling. It makes my arm swell, and I don't have enough strength in my arm to do it anymore.
19. It was really hard to have to give up: the self perception of being strong and healthy. 20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is: Karioke...but breast cancer really didn't have anything to do with that.
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: Some days I do feel normal, but what is normal now isn't the same as before I was diagnosed.
22. My illness has taught me: Who the people who really love me are.
23. One thing people say that gets under my skin is: "Five years! So you're cured now, right?" Breast cancer is different from other cancers in this respect. It can return, even decades later. There is no point of time that I can claim a cure.
24. But I love it when people: Fund raise for breast cancer organizations on behalf of their mothers or grandmothers. It shows me that there is a person who really loves their family
25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is: the 23rd Psalm
26. When someone is diagnosed I'd like to tell them: that this is survivable, and they won't go through it alone
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is: that people want to blame me for my disease. Like if I got breast cancer because I was too fat or because I drank more than 1 beer a day or microwaved my food in plastic, maybe they could avoid doing whatever it is and be safe.
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn't feeling well was: take me into their home and took care of me like I was family.
29. I'm involved with Invisible Illness Week because: I am late for it this year, so I guess I didn't really get involved
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: a little frightened that I've offended you by something I said, or worse by something I failed to say.

The Dream

I had a dream last night that had me waking up this morning in a foul mood to come to work with.  The problem was that it was so much like my work week that I couldn't help noticing the similarity.  I dreamed that I had rented my friends cabin in the mountains to host a retreat for a group of people.  Only the cabin that was actually in my dream bore no similarity to my friends cabin other than the fact that it was a cabin.  I also don't know who these people in my dream were or why I was organizing a retreat for them.  I would like the opportunity to organize something like that.  I think that I'd be good at it and I could make it a good experience for the people who attended, but that wasn't what the dream was about.  One of the attendee's in my dream came to me and demanded that a special diet be prepared especially for her.  Another asked about a DVD player that had to have a special doughnut in it or else his DVD wouldn't play, and was annoyed to be told that the DVD players available were regular garden variety DVD players and that if he wanted a special one he'd have to bring one himself.  Then he wanted to know about the projector and the sound system.  I looked at him and told him that this was a retreat, to relax, eat and have fun in; not a business presentation.  He wasn't happy.  Another wanted to be sure that they wouldn't have to share a bathroom with anyone and that there was a refridgerator in her room.  I told her to book a room at the Holiday Inn, and that was when I woke up filled with frustration. 

 

My job is like this a lot.  I do what I understand my part of the job is and then there is always someone who wants special treatment.  If I move someone into a better cube, I'm sure to be asked to customize the cube to suit them.  If I book a conference room for a meeting, I'm sure to be asked to have the catering staff prepare something special that isn't on the regular menu "We want hot and cold beverages, but half of it has to be bottled water. Another fourth of the order needs to be diet soda's, but not Diet Mountain Dew.  And make sure that there are at least two Pepsi's".  Some of the demands are so over the edge that I find it rude that the person would even ask.  "Can we take two feet out of that person's cube so that my cube is bigger."  Really now, why'd they even think that was a good idea?

 

Even my home life can be a bit like this, though the people that I live with are so much less like this than anyone else that I deal with that I almost didn't bring it up.  But there are times.

I offer to make my daughter muffins out of the waning bananas and she requests that they be whole wheat and made with soy milk. Mild, but still a request for special treatment when I was only trying to do something nice.

 

I think the dream was sparked by an incident that happened at church earlier in the day.  I was working hard at trying to get the presentation materials up for the service when everyone was asking for special treatment for everything.  If left me feeling rushed and resentful.  

 

It wasn't hard to figure out what the dream was about, but I wonder why I had to dream about it.  It isn't that I'm not acknowledging the feelings.  I do, but there is rarely so little I can do other than jump through hoops trying to make the requestor happy.  I know that we're told to set boundaries and say no, but that is someone else's job description.  If I tried it, I'd be eaten alive.

 

Anyway, the dream is still lingering and has fouled my mood all day.  Hopefully now it will dissipate into the fog like a good little dream.

 

 

 

 

Thought for the Day

"Happiness is the experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude"  Dove Chocolates