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January 23, 2014, 3:50 AM
I managed to sleep five hours last night which is not too
bad. I expected to not sleep at all, but
I went down no problem and even woke up once and was able to get back to
sleep. Woke up again at 3:00 and the
stomach churn and heart palpitations started with a vengeance and so here I am. I don’t have much to share really, but enough
of you have messaged me about the surgery details that I wanted to put them in
the blog and just give a general update on things.
The peaceful serenity I was experiencing during my waiting
period had been officially replaced by panic starting Sunday when I came home
from my birthday trip to Buellton. So
this past week I had almost constant and very physical anxiety about having my
boobs chopped off. Which is literally
how I envision it in my head. Like some
satanic ritual in a cult, very violent and dirty and gross and dangerous and
NEGATIVE. In my mind I keep reliving one
of the execution scenes from The Tudors, I think it’s when Anne Boleyn’s lady
in waiting is making her way to the platform and she is just shaking all over
and barely coherent and just sort of a shell of a person on the outside. I remember crying so hard during that
scene. And that is how I feel on the
inside. Scared. Terrified really. And like I am being led to
the guillotine. My rational mind tries to outweigh that by
calling it “getting the cancer out”, “removing the cancer”, or whatever version
of that phrase you want, but the fear is winning. When I compound thoughts of the surgery with
thoughts of chemotherapy, well it’s unbearable.
I am trying to stay present, so just get through today and then worry
about everything else later. That does
not come naturally to me and this week in particular I am really struggling. It’s also weird because I feel really good
and healthy. I ran this week and had an
awesome workout with my trainer on Wednesday and have been living totally sugar
and alcohol free (well, I did have a piece of birthday cake and alcohol free
just means I gave up my one-two glasses of wine a week) and so I feel
incredible. But the path to ridding my
body of cancer is basically going to make me weak and sick and I really hate
that. If only I could workout and/or
veggie out the cancer instead of having to cut it out and poison it with chemo. That would be so much better. I guess that’s why it’s called a fight. But still.
It sucks.
So I check in today at 5:15 AM and my surgery is scheduled
for 7:30 which means I should be out by 12:30-1:30, which is a great schedule because
it means Chris can still help the kids get ready for school and help our sister
in law Adela and my mom with the kid stuff.
In the afternoon, hopefully he can also help with pick-up and dinner
prep. All the talk about a care log and
plans, well, I have a couple versions of excel spreadsheets, the one my friend,
the worksheet queen at work designed, and one I designed but I have not
populated a single cell. I look at it
and it is totally overwhelming. I don’t have
a clue who is taking the girls to school next week or making their
lunches. I am sort of torn between
thinking I should’ve taken more time off of work before the surgery to get
organized, and being thankful I didn’t bc the panic could have been way
worse. I don’t know. I had all these master plans for being
organized while being debilitated – stock up on funny cards, thank yous and
bday cards so I don’t miss anything while I can’t drive or shop. Get the girls Valentines Day gifts in
orders. Make a bunch of frozen meals and
whole wheat muffins for the girls. Get
new tires for the car. CLEAN AND
ORGANIZE my house. How many of those do
you think I did? Um, none. Well, to be fair, I did make two turkey pot
pies with our leftover Christmas turkey but that was actually before I knew my
surgery date, so that was just luck. I
also did stuff that I didn’t even know I needed to do until pretty recently. I found
some cheap button-up shirts to wear while I can’t lift my arms and pull stuff
over my head. I ordered a meal service for the week after I
get out of the hospital, after our family is gone. I ordered scar cream. And over the time since my diagnosis I have
bought seriously like 8 books about breast cancer which I haven’t actually read
because I have had no time and some of them just make me cry but which I hope
to read at some point during my recovery.
Oh I also bought some stuff that is supposed to help you not lose your
eyebrows and eyelashes during chemo. So
I managed all the very basic, selfish and vain activities, but I did not get as
organized as I had hoped, especially about the kids. And that is causing me additional anxiety.
Being sick with kids is also just really weird. I feel incredibly guilty for getting sick at
all because of the impact it is having and is going to have on Tash and Baby K. This week has been another difficult Natasha
week. She is obviously totally connected
to my moods, and so when my anxiety spikes she becomes a holy terror. And then I become more anxious and frustrated
and impatient and we get into this negative spiral of one upping each other
with our ability to be horrible monsters. I need to try to get through this with more
grace so my poor child doesn’t suffer the consequences of my fear and
anxiety. How I do that, I don’t know. I also just yesterday was thinking about how
much my kids like to rest and snuggle against my chest and it seriously pisses me
off that they aren’t going to be able to do that for a long while, and even
when they do, my chest is going to feel very different and not as soft or
cozy. Last night I rocked Karina to
sleep and she was so content, and I thought fuck, this is the last time this
will ever be like this. So cancer is
taking that away from me and I want to punch it in the face – hard – and maybe
never stop.
On the flip side, having kids means I don’t really have a
choice about how aggressively to fight this or how quickly to heal or how to
try and have a positive attitude (or at least fake it when I can.) Sitting in a ball in the corner of the room
crying isn’t an option, even when I want to.
And when I explain to Tash what’s going on with me, it actually does
make me feel better because I explain it in a simple way and with a tone of
just going through the steps of getting it out of my body and moving on. Which is how I hope this whole journey
goes. So the having kids thing – there are
major stressors to that, but also some benefits. I think having kids is going to help me be a
better patient and survivor. I hope so
at least.
What else? Well, I
feel like I sound like a broken record, but I got probably 30 text messages
yesterday and even more Facebook messages, as well as calls from many of you
wishing me well today. The fact that so
many of you remembered the date of my surgery is astonishing, and then that you
took a moment to send me some love…well, it’s really incredible. It makes a difference to me every day knowing
that all this love and support and positive energy is coming my way. I tried to respond to each of you, but as I explained
to some of you, the more I talk or even write about the actual process of
surgery the more upset I get and so my responses were short and probably didn’t
fully convey my gratefulness. Please
know that I am grateful beyond what words could even convey. I feel much less alone…and that is a big
deal.
I’ll end with a quick request for the husband. Chris has been on baby duty for probably a
month now – Karina stopped sleeping through the night a couple months back and
it is exhausting, but Chris took on her overnight wakeups knowing that I wouldn’t
be able to lift her after surgery anyway, and really, I have been so incredibly
tired I think bc of the stress so he wanted to help with that. Natasha has also been having major night
terrors, so no one in our house is sleeping well, but Chris in particular is
not getting much sleep and is probably not getting all the love and attention
that I am. So, for those of you who are
close to Chris, if you haven’t already, can you send him some love and maybe
plan some time to take him out of the house for short periods of time to get In
N Out or run or hike or play basketball of whatever. A couple of my friends who are breast cancer
survivors say they thought that their husbands had the hardest role to play in
the whole process because they had so much responsibility but no one really
pays them much attention or checks in on how they are doing. I know I haven’t. I have been totally fixated on myself and
the kids. So he is probably going to
kill me for putting this out there, but he probably could use some small sanity
breaks, even for just phone calls with friends or whatever.
That’s it. It’s time
for me to brush my teeth and pack my hospital bag anyway (yes, last minute, I
know.) We will keep you all informed
after surgery.
Thanks for reading.
Love, Sherri
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