I finally stopped crying

December 4, 2014

I got some good sleep last night, thank goodness.  And I stopped crying hysterically about mid-day yesterday so today already feels like a better day.  I am not sure how I stopped crying.  The supportive messages from friends and family helped, especially some notes from a good friend of mine who went through a horrible fight with cancer several years ago who described this experience like having an unwanted guest come visit your home.  You let the guest in, but almost immediately start telling him he isn’t welcome and laying out your plan to get him out, making it clear that he will never, ever return.  That resonated with me because I definitely have some feisty in me and I am really, really competitive.  When I look at this in terms of either cancer wins or I do, that puts me in a good competitive place to not even consider losing.  I keep chanting in my head, you picked the wrong host you stupid fucker.  Be prepared to get the eff out.  I also watched a bunch of You Tube clips of Aziz Ansari and Jimmy Fallon.  Thank goodness for comedy.

Unfortunately, I wake up to sheer panic.  It has only been two days, so maybe this will pass, but I start to stir and I am nice and cozy and then when I start to become conscious I am like oh jesus, I HAVE CANCER.  My heart starts beating really, really fast, I get this horrible anxious ball of nausea in my stomach, and I feel like I can’t breathe.   I try to go back to sleep so I can avoid those feelings, but am not successful.  I know its anxiety because I had similar experiences after having each girl – where I was like what the hell was the universe thinking making me a mom.  I have no idea what the hell I’ m doing!!  This morning I thought about getting up to write this all down, a couple of other friends suggested a blog, and I thought of the name Bliss Beats Cancer.  It got me out of bed.  Baby Steps, I guess.

The other thing that is really stressing me out is that I of course want to know WHY and HOW I got cancer.  That was one of my first questions to the doctor – what did I do to cause this?  I have never smoked, I drink very little, I exercise and have always exercised, including walking within a week of each daughter being born, I have some weight to lose but I’m not obese, breast cancer doesn’t run in my family, I’m young by breast cancer standards…I asked her about having my laptop too close to my chest, living too close to the Port of Los Angeles and the refinery, eating too much sugar or drinking too many Starbucks lattes.  She explained that breast cancer is one of those things that is not causal, and while human nature is that we like things to be cause and effect, it isn’t always.  I don’t know if I fully believe her, because I need there to be some reason to this so I can prevent it from happening again.  And just to be on the safe side, I moved my laptop further away on my desk, bought green tea from trader Joes, and have given up sugar.  (well for two days, we’ll see how long that lasts.) (oh and BTW, green tea tastes like ass.  Who drinks this voluntarily?)

What else is on my mind today?  Foremost is the question of how I am doing to get through the next 13 days until we get the surgical consult.  Every pain or ache I feel in my body, I’m certain it’s the cancer spreading, fast, and not doing something NOW, I’m certain that’s reducing my chances of survival.  Friends are encouraging me to enjoy the last few weeks of life being “normal”, to try and get into the holidays, and I totally appreciate the intent of those wishes, but life is already not normal. I will do my best to enjoy the holidays but it’s a challenge when in the back of mind I wonder if this is going to be my last Christmas and New Year.  Also, I am thinking a lot about the perception everyone has of me being strong.  I suppose in some ways I’m strong, but I can’t think of a single woman in my network of friends and family who isn’t strong.  Who I wouldn’t describe as amazing in some way.   And so why do some women not survive breast cancer?  Every woman who goes through this is someone’s daughter, someone’s best friend, likely a wife and mom…and every woman will have a village behind her praying and helping and researching and praying some more for that woman’s survival.  But there is not 100% survival, even just in the U.S.  Why?  Why isn’t there?  Maybe I will spend some time researching that today.  More likely I will do some work (thank goodness for work right now, what an incredible gift to have something meaningful to distract me for at least part of the day) Probably I will watch more comedy videos.  And sadly, I will probably shed some more tears.  But hopefully there will be less of those today than yesterday and each day will just get better.

I think that’s it for this morning.

Thanks for reading.

Sherri