by Band Back Together | Oct 12, 2010 | Brain Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Helping Someone In An Abusive Relationship, Parent Loss, Pediatric Cancer, Postpartum Depression, Single Parenting, Things That Are Bullshit |
Cancer took my Daddy not even three months ago. The rest of the year hasn’t been much better.
2010 was supposed to be a fun year. A great vacation with my little girl – she was turning 5. We were so excited. First inkling that 2010 would NOT be cool? My 5-year olds dad would not allow me to get her a passport to take her on a cruise. The bastard didn’t think I’d bring her back! Wha? Obviously he knows me even less than he did when we were married. Idiot.
So my dreams of a Mama and Gigi vacation were put on the back burner.
February 2nd, I turned 32 and I wasn’t happy about it.
Where was my life? Not where I wanted it even though I did everything the right way. I graduated high school, went straight to college, graduated college, married college sweetheart and waited the right time after the wedding to have baby. We thought that three years was a good amount of time.
Uhhh…not so much.
Marriage was not a happy thing for me. Every day, I was put-down. My self-esteem shattered. I found out I was pregnant (because, you know, that’s what happens when you have sex and don’t use protection. After, all it was “cheaper” to use condoms instead of birth control pills. Or something like that).
All my life I wanted to be a mother. My pregnancy was awful. Not because I was sick or anything but because my husband was an asshole. He called fat and crazy, I started believing him while I wondered what the fuck I was doing with this bastard? Well, I needed to work things out because we were having a baby. And not just a baby…MY daughter, the one that I been waiting my whole life to have.
She was born on a freezing cold St. Patrick’s day. Came screaming into the world and was…perfect. This child was sent to save my life, I knew that the moment I saw her. We named her Grace (I call her Gigi online for “privacy”). I promised that little girl on the first night of her life that I would never let ANYTHING hurt her. ANYTHING or anyONE.
Life went on with a colicky, very super-attached-to Mama infant. That child cried more than I thought anyone could ever cry EVER. I wore holes in the carpet walking with her jiggling her and whispering “shhhhhhh shhhhhhh” to get her to sleep. We moved to a brand-new city when she was five months old. Because it’s REALLY a good thing to uproot a mom with severe postpartum anxiety and depression from her only support system (her family) and move her with her colicky infant to a new place where she has to “bring home the bacon” while he leaves at 6:00 am every day to get a fancy-schmancy MBA. I was in a really good place in life. /sarcasm
Two months into the hell that was this move, I was on the phone with my mother while I was pumping in a dark, cold, hidden office at my work. I told her how awful The Husband had been. I told her that he’d said he would “rather me be dead than be Grace’s mom.” (Now there was more that happened but I’ve blocked most of it out. Some broken closet doors, a night spent sleeping with 911 dialed on my phone in front of my daughters crib and some other stuff)
Somehow, this didn’t concern me for ME…but for her. My mom decided that she and my father would hook up their trailer that night and make the 3 1/2 hour trek and move us home the next day.
The next morning I got up and dutifully kissed my husband goodbye. I called my parents as soon as he was out and could no longer be seen on the road. By 12:30 we were headed “home.” I called The Husband and told him that we were gone and things needed to change before we came back.
I fully believed that we WOULD be going back. But then? Then my colicky cried-all-the-time-unless-she-was-attached-to-Mama’s-boob became Super Happy Confident 7-month old. What? My child was picking up on every single source of stress in me and reacting from that. Weird. I’ve always said she is my heart and she truly was…we have been cosmically connected from the moment of her conception.
Anyway…4 years and much angst, tears, anger, hurt, hearings, court sessions, lawyers and judges later – I was declared free and divorced from The Husband. Whoopee! But yet I still had to hand over a piece of me every other weekend and every Tuesday evening. Grrr. I still hate him even though he is now The Ex.
Anyway…2010 was a year of promise. It was going to be good. I had a job that was as close to my dream job as I could get (or at least as close to my dream salary being somewhat geographically challenged). This was going to be a GOOD YEAR.
And then? It wasn’t.
February 4th. My Mama took a slip on the ice. A couple of scary moments where we thought she was bleeding in her brain. BLEEDING in her brain. That was bad. I took off work and ran to rescue my child (whom my mother took care of and didn’t know if she was at school or not because she wasn’t quite sure when or where she fell – a severe concussion will do that to you).
February 5th. I got fired from my job. FIRED FROM MY JOB. I’m a single mom who bought her very first house not even 5 months before and my jackass bosses FIRED me. I won’t get into reasons but let’s just say they aren’t exactly all “legal.”
Then my Daddy starts having health issues while we are still dealing with my Mama’s issues. Now yes, I’m 32 years old but when I say I’m close with my family – I am CLOSEWITHMYFAMILY. Multiple conversations with each of them a day. These people are not only my blood relations but my best friends.
So…winter turns to spring, I may or may not be enjoying a bit of unemployment fun and playing the “stay at home mom” gig. Never thought it would happen as I’m a single mom and well, I have no sugar daddy.
April…my fabulous Daddy is diagnosed with fucking brain cancer. BRAIN CANCER. It seriously doesn’t get much worse than that. He died not even three months after diagnosis. Motherfucking cancer and the motherfucking staph infection that came with his surgeries. I am not prepared to be half an orphan. I’m too young for this crap.
Then my sister…ahhh…my sister. There are not enough words or space on this site to even get into her. I love her, she drives me crazy and I love her 4 children as my own. She moved them 3 hours away. 3 hours away! Not the best choice given everything going on (and by everything I mean that this storyline could rival any soap opera…I’m NOT KIDDING). So my dad dies, my sister moves, my daughter-my heart-my sidekick in everything starts real life school and I have NO FUCKING JOB.
Add onto this that my nephew (0ne of the 4 that my sister has birthed) has leukemia. Yeah…unfortunately after everything we’ve been through this year that is an afterthought now. Poor kid. But he is doing well so that’s always a positive.
So…that’s my story. I have no “home.” This story could go under abuse (which I grazed with my marriage to The Ex), Divorce, Cancer, Parent Loss, Grief, Economic Struggles, Infidelity if I got into my sisters story, chronic illness if I went into all of my back story (Ulcerative Colitis), Depression, Anxiety, Postpartum Depression, Family Relationships, Pediatric Illness and it could go on and on. So I just choose to categorize it as “Things That Are Bullshit.”
So my Band friends, this is a small piece of the fucked up-person that is me.
I’m in a full scale “life sucks” moment now and just hope eventually maybe I can shit rainbows and see unicorns again. Maybe after I kick this damn strep throat that I have right now. School cooties.
by Band Back Together | Oct 7, 2010 | Coping With Losing A Friend, Friend Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hospice, Ovarian Cancer |
my friend is dying
of cancer
a friend. a cyber-friend.
we met 4 years ago on a grief site, called “beyond indigo.” there were about 5 or 6 of us who all came on at the same time, and we were a nice, tight little group. (these internet sites can be great…in the middle of the night, when you feel awful, someone may be on. even if no one is on, someone has written about feeling as awful as you…helpful. very.)
she is very spiritual. she follows the sufi path. she told us all in a post about an “ancestor ” shrine, so i made one for tom. and while it is mostly dismantled now it helped me. it was such a wonderful idea and i learned and grew from it.
anna’s loves name was ishaaq, and he led groups, and loved life, and was gorgeous. they played and sang together at their meetings (i am probably getting terminology wrong here, but it does not matter) he, and she, both seemed so wild and free to me. and that’s in a spiritual sense. there were problems. he had diabetes, and died from complications of it. she has major vision issues, which have left her disabled, and yet anna is a remarkable artist.
it just comes from within her. she is a shining spirit, to me, to many people. she dreams of ishaaq, and they are beautiful dreams. she never thought my “winks” were silly. i’m grateful to her.
here’s one of my favorite anna facts: many people in her religious tradition seem to take new names. she has a friend who posts on FB as Shaqeena Nonofyourbeeswax. (again, i may be a little off, but you get the picture). that is a cool friend. anna is cool.
she’s dying.
i guess, in reality, we all are, but she is, in reality. she has ovarian cancer. she had an operation and chemo, she was doing well, and now it’s back. and faced with a decision of more chemo and shitty quality of life, she chose hospice and pain management and, quite possibly, another lovely year…another walk around the sun.
(i now wish something that anna taught me to people for their birthdays….”a wonderful walk around the sun”)
you really can just be friends online these days. we’ve never met, but we have a connection. we do talk on the phone, and i’m always glad when she calls. it breaks my heart that she has to go through this. it makes me so happy that she has the friends that she does who do, and will continue to, support her. i think that her spiritual tradition is amazing about death, about crossing over and about soul-mates and eternal life. when she called me to tell me she said “i’m going to be the first to see my soulmate”…i knew what she was saying. in that instant i felt happiness for her.
i felt jealous of her.
i know anna is facing some rough times. i know she will get help from hospice and her friends, family and religious family. when she makes her transition she will be “handed off” into the arms of her beloved ishaaq. and her friends will be sad that she’s gone, that her gentle, creative and loving spirit has left this world.
i will be too. i’m her cyber-friend.
one day we’ll meet, on another plane. maybe she’ll be there wearing one of her incredible dancing outfits and she’ll sing me into another world with her sweet voice. maybe she and ishaaq will be there and they’ll bring tom to me, having befriended him on the other side.
i wish anna peace and strength and love.
i know she’ll have all of those things as she moves through her life.
by Band Back Together | Oct 7, 2010 | Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Denial |
What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Did I first find a band of brothers that could be there for me, through life’s ups and downs, and use them to help, should shit get rough? Or, somewhere in the back of my mind, did I know that through all the denial, something was about to come up that I was going need back up for?
I have found so much respite, joy, strength, laughter, camaraderie, hope, humble…wait, is humbleness a word? (I think, “been humbled by” is more appropriate but it didn’t fit grammatically.) And I feel like what I have to say right now will betray everything I have found. I will betray what has become my family, mi familia, and they don’t even know how important they are to me.
I’m all over the place, a grammatical idiot, probably fucking up my spelling to the highest (even though I am a middle school spelling bee winner!)
I want to be irreverent and funny and take it all in stride. I want to have the strength that these women who have had horrible illness, sick babies, miscarriages, lost of loved ones, painful break-ups have. I want them to still want me as part of their band. But I know what I am doing… or not doing…is so wrong..and I don’t want to lose them. I am making every excuse, cutting every corner, and not hitting it head on.
I am so sorry if I have pretended to be someone I am not.
(Christ on crutches, I sound like an insane crazy person.)
I have developed relationships here and on The Twitter that I am so vested in. I’m afraid to tell you. Will you still want me, after you have survived, you have fought, you have won, you have lost and I finally tell you my secret?
I have a lump. A sizable lump. My left breast has hurt for about a month. I have done nothing about it.
Because what if it is something? There is NO ONE here for me.
My Chelle Belle. She would be devastated. She reminds me constantly that she doesn’t know what she would do without me. When the ache first started, we joked, “what the hell would I do if all the sudden you came to me and thought you had The Dead ? You can’t have The Dead? What would I do without you?”
So I can’t tell her. And my Bean, my beautiful Baby Bean…what would she do without me? There is NO ONE for her besides me.
Her dad? The 40-year old Roller Derby sensation, who has been on the verge of eviction for the last 5 years? The one who only makes time for her if it’s one of his championship roller derby bouts? And she can find her own transportation to it? At 17?
Or maybe my mom, who is living on my couch right now. Acts like an addict even when she isn’t using. Until this morning, I thought had been in jail for the past three days for driving with no license, in a car with bad tags. Any minute now, she’s going to find the next great thing in American health care. Which means that every morning, I hand out bus fare to my mom and my kid. And at around 3PM, everyone calls me to ask what’s for dinner. Well, at least Chelle is only calling because she knows I’ve forgotten to defrost something. She’s home and will happily do that for me.
Because, when the kid is 17 and the mom is crazy and the partner is a musician, you only worry about that ache in your boobie the third time you toss and turn. Which only happens at about 2am, when the dishes are done and the dog is walked and the clothes are pressed and the homework is done and YOUR homework is done, and work clothes are clean and school clothes are clean and your kids who AREN’T your kids are tended to and you’ve gotten a little strength from your blogs….
And you still feel like you failed because there are dishes in the sink and you didn’t exercise, no matter how much you bitch about your weight, and that paper could’ve been better and, have you seen the ant brigade making a home right next to the fridge? and the lawn needs to be done and the job is trying to kill you and the floor needs to be vacuumed and the beautiful jungle you loved when you got the house REALLY needs to be pruned before it eats one of the poor babies walking to the bus stop on your corner and there are only 3 paychecks before Thanksgiving and it’s at your house this year and…
And…
There is a lump on my left breasticle. And my boobies hurt. And whatever that means, I just don’t have time for it.
But I’m gonna call my doc – the same doc who has NEVER met an ailment that a vegan yoga lifestyle wouldn’t fix, thank you Government HMO – I’m gonna call him tomorrow. And I’m gonna try to make time for an appointment to go see him before I’m due in Kansas City for 6 days. But I’m scared. And I’m sorry to all of the women who are probably cursing me out under the credo of early detection. Because I just know its bad. And I don’t know how to tell anyone. And I am surrounded by people who can’t care and listen because my job is to care and listen.
And I’m scared, terribly scared.
And I just need someone to be there.
And I am so sorry for asking.
Update: So after writing this last night I was a mess and clearly had to tell ChelleBell what was going on. And then i frantically found Aunt Becky on the Twitter and asked her PLEASE DON’T POST THAT. And because she rocks my socks off, AND has probably picked up on the fact that I have roving bouts of the Bat Shit Insane, she agreed to put the squash on it. But now I know how important all of that was to get out, and I feel like a total punk after the stories you all have shared here and my apologies for not trusting you. And I’m feeling so much lighter today.
And just called my doctor.
And I totally am having cupcakes for lunch.
by Band Back Together | Oct 7, 2010 | Anger, Breast Cancer |
I want to sue Susan G. Komen.
I want to sue Playtex gloves, Campbell’s Soup, Glad wrap, and every single corporation making money on the carnage of cancer. I want compensation for the last 7 Octobers shoved down my throat with pink ribbons and “awareness.”
How dare you. My physical rubble, my scars, my rib cage, my bones remember the day my breasts betrayed my body – I still had a baby at home to hold.
How dare you paint me pink. And to place your pink interpretation of my experience on mundane housewife products? Insult, meet injury. I hear some effed-up patriarchal focus group somewhere, dudes kicking back, women wearing men’s suits trying to live with the fact that they sold out. This is what they are saying to me with every pink ribbon: “See…I even own this; you are a woman and you mean nothing more than cleaning products—and if I can, I will whore you out to make money.”
I thought we’d come a long way, baby?
…baby?
Psyche, join hands with your old friend despair, as we walk through the aisles of life in October and are hammered by image after image of a pink ribbon and the plethora of pepto-bismol shaded products I am supposed to buy. Does a kitchen sponge really make a woman get a mammogram? Is the dog food manufacturer really giving money to breast cancer research? I want evidence. I deserve evidence. I want the lab report on the efficacy of the color pink to reduce incidence of breast cancer. I want evidence that demonstrates that just seeing a pink ribbon on a golf ball increases the chance a woman will do a self-examination.
My body was hijacked by a disease at 36 . Hacked up, hacked off. Nerves cut, nodes removed. Home in time to hold my baby and play with my toddler. Dead tissue, dead sexuality, dead eyes meet mine every time I look in the mirror. Each October, my “recovery” is held hostage by corporations who sell their products with pink ribbons on them. Another invasion. Another intrusion. More and more mocking and belittling by those in power. I have to fight to “survive” October.
Oh October, I am tired of surviving you, and the other traumas of invasion that make me qualified to use the word “Survivor”.
Susan G. Komen, Avon, Revlon–you take one good look at my daughter’s 7-year old face when she sees the wreckage of my body. See her naive disgust, confusion, and fear that it will be her fate as well. See her try to piece together why her mother has no breasts, no nipples, no evidence of being a woman. Look directly into her eyes when she asks if she will “get it,” and I dare you to hand her a pink ribbon.
I want to sue Susan G. Komen.
by Band Back Together | Oct 6, 2010 | Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Chronic Illness, Coping With Cancer, How To Help A Friend With Chronic Illness |
I met her in the Fall of 1999. I hadn’t set eyes on her until I showed up with my moving van in the Southie alleyway. The house where we would become roommates. A mutual friend put us in touch as I needed a place to stay and she needed a help on the rent.
We didn’t actually live well together. Sure, we were cordial and hung out a bit, but she wasn’t more than a roommate. I’m kind of that way with girls, to be honest. It takes me a long time to let someone “in.”
The next year I got engaged and my then fiance lived just 8 blocks away, so I moved out. This is when she and I became close friends. We exercised together, commuted to work together, met for happy hours, had sleepovers. She worked her way “in” and we’ve never looked back.
She is my son’s Godmother. She is my husband’s confidante in all things, “WTF is up with my wife?” She is my girl. She holds my secrets and my heart.
And she is sick.
Yesterday, my girl found out her biopsy results. She has cancer. The Big C. It’s in her breast and her lymph nodes. This is all she knows. She’s scheduled to see the oncologist tomorrow and on Saturday, Team A will get together with her for her self proclaimed “pity-party.” We’re going to figure out where to go from here.
I’m trying very very hard to not make this about me. But I’m scared. And I’m pissed. I’m fucking irate. I’ve cried a lot of tears and I’m sure more will be shed.
But on Saturday and every day that I’m with her, I will be her strength, no matter what it takes. Hell, if it comes to it, and she’s in throes of chemo and she loses her hair, I’ll shave my head with her. I’m in. I’m so in and will fight with her.
She’s my girl.
And she’s sick.
*********************
originally written on thursday, 9/23.
An update. Initially, A’s MRI and CT scans showed that she had no more cancer. She was due to have her lumpectomy tomorrow, her 37th birthday. Instead, she had another biopsy on Wednesday last week and found out the cancer is spreading. So instead of the lumpectomy, she’s going for the double mastectomy. Losing both ladies. In16 days. And chemo right after. Fucking sucks, to be honest. I’m pissed off all over again. Her one positive note – she said “at least I’ll never again have breast cancer.” How’s that for a positive spin. She’s goddamn amazing.
by Band Back Together | Oct 4, 2010 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Family, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Parent Loss, Sadness, Trauma |
On April 23, 2010 at 4:10 pm, I learned that my Daddy had a brain tumor. He had been having some trouble with the right side of his body and that had led him to the doctor. Many tests later, the doctors discovered the tumor. At that time we were very optimistic that the tumor was benign and that it could be removed surgically. The next week, on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 he went into surgery.
And our whole world changed.
After his brain surgery there were words thrown around like “oncologist,” “chemotherapy” and “radiation.” Phase III-IV Glioblastoma. Ugly words. He was in the ICU for a few days but after he weaned off the vent from surgery he was ready to “Get ‘R Done.”
And get ‘r done he did. He moved from the ICU, to the Neuro Acute floor to the rehab floor. He was told by his physical and occupational therapists that he was the hardest worker they had ever seen. Medically, he shouldn’t have gained his ability to walk and use his right arm again after his surgery. We were told with a glioblastoma tumor that the longest he had was 5 years.
Everyone grabbed on to the *5 years* part. 5 years? That’s plenty of time to get bucket list things done. Plenty of time to play with the grandkids, time to finish up projects and plenty of time to say goodbye.
Little did we know how fast things would go.
July 4, 2010 – my Mama called me and told me to “get to the hospital.”
“Are you for real? Like this is a for-real get to the hospital thing?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
He had been admitted a week before with odd swelling in his head. Staph infection. Brain surgery on June 29th AND June 30th. TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Of brain surgery. On July 2nd they talked about him going home and how his infusion antibiotics would work. On July 4th he was no longer going home but Home with a capital H. Wait…what?
His heart rate was high and his blood pressure was very very low. His kidneys were no longer functioning.
And then? We waited. And we prayed. We prayed for no more pain. But no more pain? Meant no more Daddy.
He held on until the early morning hours of July 13th. I received a phone call at 1:45 am and was at the hospital by 1:55. My sister looked at me simply and said, “he’s gone.”
He’s GONE. My rock. My strong Daddy. Gone.
It’s been not even three months since that day. Most days I would say I’m okay. Some days I’m simply not. The physical pain of grief sneaks up on me and overtakes my body. The anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds don’t seem to work at all.
I miss him terribly. I have no motivation. I rearranged my bedroom yesterday and had to sit down and sob. I’m 32-years old with a daughter of my own and a house. But moving furniture in a house that my Daddy was so entrenched in crushes me. He is NOT HERE. He is not going to complete my “Daddy Do” list. He will not see my little girl grow up. He will not see *me* grow up.
You see…my wonderful Mama and Daddy saved me from a bad marriage. They let us live with them for four years. I got to live with my parents as an adult – I got to know them as my friends. My Daddy was my rock through my divorce, through losing my job in early 2010 AND through his illness. He was our family rock when my nephew was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 7. He gave me advice on everything from what to wear to an interview to how to paint my kitchen. And now? He’s just gone.
I miss him.
