my sons

Before I recieved my official diagnosis there was a space of time I was I'm limbo; I knew the probability of what it would be, but I wasn't in the position to be open with my boys until I was certain.

This was, by far, the most difficult aspect of my journey.  

I share most everything with my sons and I am proud of our honesty together as a family. 

I was nervous I'd burden them, but I also needed them to understand life would change, but we'd be okay.  

I would be okay.  

I think back remembering my fears knowing I did not want my boys to feel that fear.

Four months later and I now know I handled the process as well as I could.  

My sons have been my strength in many respects.  

They are the reason I am stronger.  

They are the reason I have courage.  

They are my foundation in this journey.  

The moment I knew I had to process cancer in my life was the same moment I processed the thought of not being there for my sons.  It broke me down to pieces.  

'I would never leave them.' 

That was a concrete fundamental truth.

I began to rebuild my emotional state, my perspective and my life, piece by piece.

MY BOYS

My oldest turns 15 in two months.  He makes me laugh because he gets it, yet he can spin life into a lighthearted banter.  

He loves with his whole heart and expects nothing in return.  I never knew I would be as proud of him as I am, simply for being himself.  

We are similar in so many respects that we understand one another immensely.  

He will make cancer jokes feel so natural, coming from a place of love.  As if laughing releases all the negativity associated with the disease.  

He can talk to his friends about cancer as if it is the most normal aspect of his life.  I know he gets this from me.  I know he is handling things well.  

My oldest is an extension of myself, but so much more as young man. 

He will thrive and find peace.

In our home, cancer is one of many things in our lives.  It is not the only thing.  This is our survival and this is how we move forward.

My younger son, who is nearly 11, is different. He will joke with us, however, he will also worry and take care.  He is resilient and sensitive.  I honestly do not know the impact all this will have on him until he is older.  

My goal is to ensure he doesn't remember this being a negative time, but more of an honest and bonded time.  There are lots of Love Yous and Hugs and questions.  He will scold his brother to care for me if he knows I'm having a rough day.  

My younger son is intuitively wise and will move mountains for me one day.  He is the one I worry about at times, although I also sense his experience will alter his future in a positive way.  I want my baby boy to understand no matter what happens in life, our perspective and attitude will change our minds on how we choose to live our lives. 

My younger son is a natural born leader.  I envision him influencing many people as he gets older regardless of his chosen path.  

I pause and I smile.  

If I am 'cancer' as my boys refer to me as in jest.  

I'm fearless, without burden.  

I am light, I am free, I am life.  

living with cancer

There. I said it.  

Now, don't feel bad.

No pity please.

Don't ask me what stage.

I am not dying - Not yet anyway.  

But, we all do it. We associate cancer with dead.

Cancer kills!!!

Apprenently, motorcycles kill too.

Don't get cancer.

Don't ride a motorcycle.

Cancer chose me, and I chose to live my life differently. 

I began by being more deliberate and brave. I had to do something, otherwise I would have sat home, crawled into a dark space and felt bad for myself.

That dark space can he very inviting.  It creeps into our thoughts, it finds a comfortable place to spend time and it will stay as long as you allow it too.  

That dark space is lonely and it will spiral you deep into the depths of your mind you.did.not know.exist.  

I know this dark space and well. I already shared that I stayed there for at least a week, maybe closer to two, as I tried to decide how to move forward. 

Making a decision on how to feel about anything in life is a process.  

We all know cancer is a dirty word. I would not allow it to messy my life.

I did not know how to make it smaller.  I only knew I would find a way to be more me and less cancer. Less.sick.

This sounds ridiculous, I know, because I WAS sick and I couldn't not unthink my sickness.  This was knew to me.  This was an unchartered road, no signs, no limits, only long and windy and beautiful.

I didn't know this in the beginning, but once I embraced my life, and allowed it to unfold naturally, it captured me, and held me tight and it did not let me go.

I started to tell myself "YES!" 

There was more satisfaction.

There was more honesty and truth.

It was more beautiful.

sores and stuff

When people ask me how I'm doing or feeling, my mind swirls and I often want to ask, 'Do you really want to know?'  

I do not ever want to sound like a complainer, but there are times I need to vent and get it all out.  That is what this blog is for. It allows me to vent in the most entertaining way I know how. 

In the beginning, my stomach was not 100%.  I was super mindful of what I ate because my body was so damn particular and finicky.  

In the beginning, my mind was fuzzy and unfocused.  This still happens in spurts.  It was, as if, my body had been taken over by aliens.  I did not feel like myself.  

Of course, now there is the urge to never want to wash my hair as more and more of it falls out.  It'll get matted and when I run conditioner through it, my hair wraps it way around my fingers as if it's the most naturally thing in the world.  Not really, no, it isn't. I do wash my hair less and I refuse to shave what is left of my locks. (I did shave the sides when it started to get unmanageable) Now, I often wear my hair up in a ponytail.  

Occasionally. I throw on a wig to prepare myself for the inevitable. I bought a few wigs, but really nothing is truly me, only my own hair makes the most sense.  I look in the mirror, I check my face and remind myself, I'm looking damn good for a cancer patient and I forget my hair is leaving me one fist full at a time.

(I could write an entire blog on hair loss and will write it when my hair is totally gone) 

In between all that fun stuff are the mouth (aka canker) sores. These are the worse and the hardest to talk about. Noone wants to talk about mouth sores. (Can you blame them?) 

Expressing the pain and actually having to admit there are nasty open sores in my mouth is simply gross.  It's hard to openly  speak of these, but I need to express the drama around these nasty suckers because it is part of my reality. 

Mouth sores are something people don't always know are a side affect of chemo.

I did not know this was common until I googled chemo side effects way back when I first learned I needed treatment.  

I use to get canker sore as a kid into my young adult years. If my body was fighting something or if I was overstressed or not sleeping well, it was an indicator I needed to take care of myself.  Normally, I would not get full blown sick, but I knew I was more vulnerable to getting sick. Once I moved from New York the canker sores went away.  Hard to pin point the whys, but we can make a few educated guesses.

Once in middle school, when I had braces, a basketball hit my mouth during gym class. There was blood and a nice long mouth sore to follow for a week.  Probably the worse of the worse.  That was circumstantial, and most remembered sore of all sores, until.........

Years later, here I am manging these nasty suckers.  It's not even the fact that I get them, but the fact that they are bigger, more painful and last longer.  I really should name them.  

The first one was huge on the side of my mouth. Along with a smaller one on the other side. No eating on one side, it was a double whammy.  

Next they were on my tongue in a few different places. Not nearly as bad as the first round, but still annoying and painful.  Kissing was not an option. 

The mack daddy of all the sores was most recent and I'm still feeling the last healing bit.  The roof of my mouth towards the back. 

Holy cow, it wasn't only that it hurt like a 'mofo, but it was difficult to swallow and eat. It is bad enough I gave up drinking alcohol for cancer, (It lowers my immunity) but also food and water?  I ate what I could, but really, I was not up to doing much of anything.  I'd wake up in the night to gargle and use this thick, pink 'magic mouthwash that is prescribed, but without insurance it cost $120. It does help temporarily, but really nothing makes a huge difference.  Sore throat spray is my friend, it burns in the beginning and slowly numbs, but it probably prolonged my healing process since there is alcohol in the ingredients.

A girl does what she needs to do in order to maintain some sense of normalcy, whatever that is.

I say this, however, after not sleeping through multiple nights and days of non stop pain. I broke down and cried to the boyfriend. I was broken and couldn't bare it anymore.  I needed help he couldn't give.  

That's all I needed to do.  He was on the phone with my doctor's office pleading my case.  I would never do that and he was my voice, maybe a tad more abrasive.  

I had a treatment that week and my doctor ultimately prescribed liquid pain meds which not only got me through the long holiday weekend, but it pushed me over the recovery hump.   

I didn't get my treatment that week, instead I was given an IV of vitamins and a dose of morphine.  Somedays it's about treating the 'now' and not the cancer.   

One day at a time.  

It is all I will do to survive.  

poop

There is no subject I can't talk about at this stage of my life.

Have you seen the commercials on Hula.com with the women sitting on the toilet stating she is a women pooping on TV.  It's an ad for good smelling deodarant stuff, I think.  I can't even recall, I just found it funny that pooping has become a topic of comfortable discussion. 

Or has it?

I had a male nurse this week while going in for my treatment.  Well, he didn't actually get the chance to feed me my yummy chemo cocktail, he did however get the opportunity to ask me all those fun questions on my current status.

What's you name and Birthday?.....

Have you fallen? No.

How is you appetite? GOOD.

Have you felt tingling in your hands or feet? WHAT!? no. 

Have you felt down, depressed, suicidal, ......No. No. NO!

Have you had diarrhea? no

Constipation? YES!

 

Have you pooped? Yes! ITZ ALWAYS A GOOD DAY WHEN YA POOP 💩!

I said that to my male nurse. 

In all sincerity pooping is a beautiful danm experience. 

It's the little things in life that get me laughing.  Maybe they always did.

Poop is funny, and also very necessary when you loose your poop rythymn.

I then proceeded to tell my very cool male nurse. "When I realize I haven't pooped in a while, I remind my body, you gotta poop!!! It's time to poop."

And in an adequate amount of time, my poop pops it's dirty little head. 😀 

So, yes, finding our poop keeps our body happy! 

Everyday is worthy of being a poop day! 

Some days we gotta keep things light ✨️!!