My List of Happinesses

The little things that I am enjoying are:

1. Putting yummy stuff that smells delicious and sexy in my hair
2. Driving down the road and feeling the wind blow through my hair
3. Getting out of the shower and running my fingers through my wet hair
4. HAIR, HAIR, Hair
5. Enjoying that my hair didn't grow back in my under arms! Yes!
6. I just got my eyebrows waxed for the first time in a year
7. painting my finger nails, they are almost all grown back
8. Feeling healthy and strong
9. Amped on my innate strength and hummingbird self coming to life
10. tasting water again
11. tasting all foods, including pepper again!
12. putting smell good senses on my body
13. caring about how my hair looks : )
14. feeling vanity in my eyes when I look at myself in the mirror
15. seeing my cheeckbones
16. seeing my stomach muscles, barely, but I see them
17. fitting into almost all my old clothes
18. shaving my legs

The list goes on and on.

Some weird things that I have noticed is that this past week only, and just twice I get this chemo taste in my mouth. Its disgusting and makes me shiver. I also saw a husband of a wife who was getting chemo at the same time as me, and I almost got sick. I shook all over, ick!

I'm off to the island to lay in the sun and visit with friends, its the Strawberry Festival. Should be good times.

Hamster & The Wheel

Learning to live life again is intense. I was "off" for so long, learning so much about myself and just fighting to live, fighting my ego in the process of surrendering actually. I think that is the biggest one I learned this past year, in every aspect, was surrender. Like a cat who is a good kittie who has no intention to suddenly scratch you, but a kittie laying in the sun, on its back with all limbs thrown every which way. That is surrender. The picture I had for myself was the open palm, with curled fingers. And I would say to myself, nope, curled won't do. You must open further, just when I didn't think I could anymore, you find it.
Boring and exciting stuff....I've been working. I've been working too much. I am finally acknowledging this. Why is it that now that I am done, all I want to do is work? Its either extreme really, work or go on a vacation...I got to find the equilibrium with those two tasks.

Since I haven't been writing in this its hard to go deep about some of the great things that have happened. I need to start writing in here regularly. Yesterday I tromped my stuff over to my new house that I am living in. No more house sitting here and there. I unpacked, and am excited to be here. To start my new life. To get into my new routines, and that will allow me to write again.

This past weekend was a lot of fun. The most fun I've had since I was diagnosed. I went to the OCF, and was united with literally 100's of friends. I have always been the kind of person that has tons of groups of friends, so I end up knowing lots of people, and the faire is a lot of fun in that way. The whole idea that we are all connected in some way, is always evident there. As I spend my days running around hugging and catching up with everyone. I loved every minute of it. I got to a place of relaxation there that I haven't felt in so so long. I was able to sleep, which was unbelievable as live music played into the wee morning hours regularly. But I went to bed, (I resisted the temptation to stay up with everyone and chose to take care of myself) and found myself waking up and doing a little dance in my tent under my covers and then going back to sleep when I was touched the music. I finally slept a real nights sleep of 7 hours, phew! And its stuck, I am sleeping normally again.

When I got back I saw a bunch of doctors. I saw my new cardiologist who IS EXACTLY WHO I SHOULD HAVE SEEN a long time ago! I got to talk to my Onc about his referrals of lame cardio's. The lame part is that these other doc's have been scaring me and just guessing. She looked at me and said, "this is not common, but its also not uncommon. You will be fine. You do not have cancer in your chest, this is simply your body having an inflammatory response to the chemo/radiation."

Phew...I was able to breath again. She said I should be better in the next 3-6 months, and that I do not need to be on all these meds. In fact she has already started my taper off the IB profuren. My heart is still hurting a tad, but its good. Next week I go in for a stress eccho. Which is where I'll run on a treadmill and they'll do an echo before and after.

Overall, I have been feeling totally prednisoned out. Very very irritable, very irrational at moments, you got the picture. Luckily I'm getting pretty good at recognizing when I am acting like a maniac, and try to calm myself down. Now this is only possible because now I'm only on a measly 2.5 mg. I am sure this new found ability to calm myself down would go out the window if I was on 20 mg for longer than a few days. :)

I am enjoying connecting with all my friends in the city and vashon again. This is going to be a great summer, if I can slow down. OH! Which brings me back to what the new cardio said. She told me I needed to stop working so hard. She said that the stress of over-working causes my adrenals to be depleted which causes inflammation in the body. So I will try to slow down. Right now I WANT to work hard, not sure why. Maybe its just that I have been storing up for this day. I layed around for so long, I just want to LIVE.

I need to book myself a yoga retreat at Hollyhock or something. I am also going to take advantage of my mornings again. I think if I start later in the day that is better. I can chill, drink tea, go for a run, or do yoga and then work like a little hamster on its wheel. I love the wheel. I do. I just need to have the wheel jump its track sometimes and GO DO something else...regardless its doing something. We always are doing something. Why is work such a bad thing in our society? Why if I work do my adrenals get taxed? That's a silly question. I know how good it feels to do nothing and sink my toes into sand. Did I mention that my favorite secret beach in the city is just down the road from my new house? ( I do not, NOT have a huge smile across my face right now)

I'm feeling sad

You know I just want to start living my life. My old life. My old carefree fly by the seat of my pants life. I am pretending to do that now. My days are slammed with work, from morning till late at night. Forget that go slow business and take care of Heather reality I was painting to you, to me a month ago. Now, its full throttle into oblivion, and my heart's hurting again. No wonder. I'm in the beginning stages of divorcing a letter I said I would not mention here anymore, but it is before the letter E, and my heart hurts sortof because of that. But mainly before that, for years really, I'm talking on an emotional level now.

But on a physical, hurt like hell pain now, yes! I am sick of my heart or lungs, or guts, whatever it is. Today I started to panick that maybe its tiny amounts of cancer, since this is what my Old Cardio has been saying could be a cause ***what a dumb butt for saying that to me! I mean really!! What doc fills a new cancer survivor with that kind of crap!*** But really, I know that I don't have cancer in my chest, and its just inflammed, again, yes! AGAIN! I am so over it.
I have just ignored it this past week. I have just taken the steroids, and put the little bandage over the problem because I am leaving for my hippy vacation, The Oregon Country Faire, and I want to have fun, and just let go, and not think about hearts, and cancer, and aches, and steroids, and chemopause, and freakin' hot flashes.
But then yesterday, my heart started to hurt again, a little achy, and I was happy to know, not happy, I was relieved knowing that I was going to see my cardio today. Because I cancelled my appointment I had with him on Monday, a few hours before I was supposed to be there, because I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO GO! I wanted to skip school, and play hookie. I realize that I was only hurting myself, but the reality is is that he doesn't know what to do with me, and its a waste of my time.
So I skipped MOnday and rescheudled for today. He was late, he had to take on a surgery and it went late, and I didn't want to sit and wait, so I left. He called me and apologized and asked how I was. I explained and he then said, "well, lets put you on a low dose of steroids for 3 months." That didn't go over so well, and I told him so. I don't want to get fat again. I just lost 10 pounds this past month, and am so close to getting back into my old clothes, and I am almost able to see my cheekbones again, and NO! Not for 3 months. He was so easily swayed, and caved and said, "okay, a month."
Because he caved, I realized that indeed he is simply guessing, and I am sick of being his guessing project. So now, I don't feel bad at all for breaking up with him and seeing the other Cardio's tomorrow.
I will check in here afterwards. I am hopeful that they will be able to tell me what is going on.

I am sad that I am on all this crap.

I need to write about so much here. Like today, I massaged a woman that is 40, she just had her BC come back after 6 yrs. That was an experience. I need to talk about it. Will later. I am fragmented right now. Steroids are not helping with this. I feel like I am all over the map. I need to go to a yoga retreat and do nothing. I need a beach.

Opening

I have been working and visiting with friends like a maniac. Yesterday was my first day in weeks where I did nothing, and spent most of the day alone. I was able to slow down and get tired, finally. About a week ago I hiked a nearby mountain, well..not all the way to the top, but close. My body felt great and I wasn't in pain. I am not sure if what happened yesterday is related to the hike or not, the doc's will all say no it didn't. But I think it did. But then again, I'm not a doc and maybe they are right.
But two days ago, I noticed when I was giving massages that my chest started hurting when I bent over to grab my massage oil. So, I started to put the bottle of oil on counter tops and not on the floor. This is a classic symptom of pericarditis. Bending forward and hurting. Even though I've gone through this a few times now, I still ignored that I was in pain so much that I had to change my pattern of doing things. I'm stubborn what can I say!
That night when I crawled into bed, my chest hurt to lay on my side. When I woke up, I new I was in trouble when simply walking down the stairs made my heart really hurt. I found myself holding onto my chest as I jostled my way down to the kitchen. I can't believe my good luck, but one of the top cardiologists in the city is one of my new clients and I was just so happening to give him a massage that morning (yesterday). He told me what he thought, but then again he hasn't seen my charts. I made some laughs about girly stuff like, "Crap! I don't want to go back on steroids. I am just starting to lose this weight. I don't want a moon face again!"
I left there and phoned my cardio, who was and is on-call all weekend. He put me back on steroids and it took until this morning for me to take in a deep breath with no pain, but I can now say, I am pain free again.
This sucks for many reasons. One, is that my inflammation punched through the anti-inflammatories that are non-steroidal. This is not good because for Two, inflammation around the lining of the heart can cause the lining to thicken which leads to a surgery that sounds straight out of a horror film to me. The surgeon would peel/scrap the lining away so that it is thinner. No thank you. Third, I might have to be on a low dose of steroids for a while. Four, I don't want a moon face anymore, and I was really liking the beginning of being able to see my damn cheeck bones again.

The good news, is I knew what to look for and jumped on it. And I am not going to have another full blown attack. The other news, is that I am switching to one of the top cardio's in the United States, and will be in good hands. Not that I wasn't before. But at least we can get to the bottom of this and I can relax knowing that I am in good hands. No more, "well this is where art and medicine come together." Hopefully my new cardio, can talk to other good cardio's in the US and figure it out.

Signed,

Pissed off on a sunny day in Seattle

One Year Ritual

You can tap/click on the pictures and they'll get bigger!

I am going to go back a few weeks now, almost a month actually in a few days to June 2, 2009. My sister wendy came a few days ahead and helped me get ready for the ceremony. We stayed out at the Fern Cove house on Vashon, and started the unwinding process. We took a long walk down on KVI, a beach famous for its agates and special rocks. Later that day we sat by the water's edge with kleenex in hand and went through the guest list. Asking the question of why each of these love bugs were invited and what lesson did their love for me help to guide me in this past year. It was a chance to go back and to try to call forth those memories that Ativan has tried to place in a sleepy nightmarish zone. As the gift/lesson these lovebugs was evoked I wrote with a pink pen on the rock the lesson. I chose pink, a colour that I would NEVER have used before breast cancer. But I chose it because there is a simple allowable moment even at the grocery store now of accepting myself. Accepting that I have become a breast cancer survivor, and I find myself even buying the organic olive oil with a pink ribbon on it now. Its yet another tribe I belong to.
Everyone came that was supposed to be there. Summer gets busy and many folks couldn't make it, and for those that couldn't you were there in spirit. For a few days prior I had tried to think of a vessel that I could use to tangibly be in the center of the circle and hold all the grief, all the sadness of everyones and my ickiness of the past year. Right before everyone started coming I took a walk down the beach and came across a piece of driftwood that I felt had spent its entire life for me! It was perfect. It had been worn into a cup at the top and into a sharp pointed edge at the bottom.
To speed up this story...

I had gotten these cute butterfly cards with lots of sparkles on them. Before the ceremony started I asked for everyone to write on their cards what lesson they learned about themselves this past year, that was evoked through their journey of being witness to my journey. I told them they could share it or not later in the ceremony. Many people chose not to share, but many people chose to take part in writing their thoughts down. I did this because I feel that in life we do not get enough chances to think about what we learn and how it is that we grow and then rarely do we have an opportunity to share our growth.
My friend Jacqui formed the circle with a beautiful invocation to all the directions and at this point I called forth my Nana as she is living on the Oregon coast and is too feeble to make it out of bed now.
After the circle was formed I invoked the driftwood to be a chalice of pain, and pierced the earth with it. I asked everyone to put the initial shock of hearing my news, the sadness, the grief, every icky feeling to just channel that energy into it through the ceremony. This was one of the biggest things for me, as I wanted to let go and not carry all these fears any longer and I wanted everyone else to do the same.
I went around the circle, stepping to be inches away from everyone's faces and spoke to each and every body there, about what they did for me. And in their doing how I had to learn to open, to surrender, to receiving. This was such a huge part of my metamorphosis this past year. In receiving there is surrender, opening, letting go, ect. I recalled a lesson a past therapist and I spoke of years before. And how I was not sure how I was actually going to learn how to receive. I recalled that when you are busy giving and doing you cannot receive. Well, cancer forced me to. I had to stop doing, stop everything, absolutely everything and lay in bed and just be. Just be and receive. To ask, to be brave enough to ask, to risk, to be okay with the no's the sorry's, letting go of expectations, letting go of the disappointments, accepting, sometimes going to doc's by myself, people have lives, just because cancer didn't stop didn't mean that peoples lives stopped. I learned to be by myself. This one was the hardest. One person in particular taught me this. To be by myself. To make it through the toughest parts of my entire life thus far, with someone, but really absolutely alone. This was the hardest part.
Luckily I have such a network of love around me, that I was able to draw on. But really, that little saying, "you come into this world alone, and you go out the same way..or however it goes" is true. It is true. No one could be there with me, well except my sis and my best girls. They got it. But when you're sick, you're just sick, and all you need is someones love and someones hand on your back on your hand, being there.
Okay, back to the ceremony. So handing out everyones rocks was huge for me. For so many reasons. I wanted to thank everyone, and help them understand what it was that they did for me. How I took their deed(s) and used them to grow. To expand.
After that, my friend Gen spoke and a few other brave souls. There were many wet eyes, and kleenex being passed around. Then I went to the center of the circle and relived my initial phone call, my initial doc visits, my surgery, all the sadness, all the sickness, all the future fears, ect. and put it all into the driftwood chalice. Then I asked everyone to form a tunnel by standing infront of one another, in pairs, and they made an tunnel with their arms and I walked holding onto the chalice and walked to the waters edge and threw it into the water. Letting go of it all. As I walked through the tunnel again, I was being born again, letting go and moving forward. My friend Gen had made a crown of beautiful flowers for me, and placed it on my head. Then we ate and visited.
Very simple. Very moving. Very necessary.


Immediately after the ceremony I noticed as I slept how much extra space around me. And I was sad and happy at the same time to recognize how much extra space around me there was now. Realizing how much space HAD been used to worry, to be sad, to feel all the ickiness. I let go of it all. I don't have to carry it any longer.

So what am I waiting for?

I have not been sleeping well the past week or so. I've been staying up really late and then waking in the wee hours and then every hour until I just get out of bed. I think the waking early part is due to the wonderful fact that it is now summer and light and bright and the birds are chirping by 5:15.
I told a friend the other day a story that I don't know if yet I believe, but seems that it is true at least right now, this second it is. And I do not yet know how I feel about it. Wether it is a good or a bad thing. It might just be one of those things that can sit in a place of "just is" and not have judgement from the various girls running around in my head.
Its that I am finding that the trust or the assuredness I once had is gone. The trust that anything is going to be there forever is gone, the trust that at any moment my life could change and never be the same is my reality now. If I told my Dad this I think he would be sad, and might even cry about it. So I won't tell him. I think he would be sad that I have had to let go of possibly one of the last youthful ways of being in this world. Mmm..I just read what I wrote and its not encompassing how deeply changed I feel. The reason I question and should explore this w/ my cancer therapist is that its coming from a place of rawness. The moment that my life was shattered and brokenness. I need to think about this more and get back to you. To me about this.
I trust inherently in everything, I just can't count on anything anymore. Maybe My Planner is having a hard time with this and that is what is feeling wrong.
This trust thing is also still coming up in my body. Like trusting that my body can carry me on a run. If the doc's are all saying go for it, why don't I? It is because I am finally getting healthy, I don't hurt, I've lost almost all my weight (now 141.5~ just 6 more to go to be back to pre-cancer) , and I am petrified of going back words. I am afraid I will have another flare up, and be back on tons of steroids and that whole nightmarish sequence of happenings. I think the older woman in me has learned to take it slow and the younger woman in my is saying, "what? What's slow?" The older woman is winning out and I would like to start trusting in my body again. This is the root of the whole trusting thing up above here, in the above paragraph. It the fact that my body failed me, it didn't fight off the cancer, and I got "IT" and that sucked.
Yes, Yes, I know that my body did really good at getting me through the treatment, but it didn't really. It behaved like a child, it went kicking and screaming and threw a fit at every bend. I had a rough go during treatment, so tough that I do not recommend newbies to read my blog before they start their journey because I don't want them to get freaked out.
I have a lot of grieving to do with this. And most importantly I don't know what to do about it. It reminds me of a lesson my Dad taught us kids over and over about trust when we were young. Whenever we did something that was bad and wrong when we were little my Dad would say, "I still love you, nothing can take my love away from you. But I don't trust you as much as I did, and you have to earn my trust back. (this would be met with huge tears from either of us kids) and then he would say again how much he loved us."
Well, that is what I feel like I am saying to my body. Yes, I sure would love to trust that I can start exercising like a feigned but I am scared. My body has built up a level of trust that it is now healthy again, but in the back of my mind, the pain of pericarditis is screaming very loudly, beeeeeeeee caaaarrreeeefuuuulllllll!!!!! Go slow!
So I leave tonight for Eugene and I am bringing my running shoes. I am hosting my sis's baby shower on Saturday. Friday is going to be spent cleaning, decorating, and cooking. I'll go for a run, and then see how I feel for a few days. That is safe. That is smart.
Trust. Its in everything right now. Opening to it, and trusting that, well you can fill in the blank. Its everything. What cancer taught me is to let go of expectations, in everything as well. So how do trust and expectations dance together? I don't know. How can one fully trust without expecting a certain behaviour or act. The tree expects that in the spring its branches will bud, in the summer that it will have leaves, in the fall that the leaves will fall to the ground, and in the winter that the leaves will decompose and nourish the trees roots. This is okay. If we saw a tree in summer lose all its leaves we would say that that tree is sick. There is something wrong. Its okay to expect that there will be leaves on trees in the summer. Its okay to have expectations, I guess it boils down to accepting. And this is the other lesson cancer taught me. Is that you have to accept that there are going to be lots of deviations in life, and that is okay. Accept things for what they are, even if I did plan to have a picnic under that tree in the middle of summer and I was expecting..you get the idea.
It all boils down to this. Very simple simple fact. I am scared. I am scared to be in pain again, I am scared to trust my body again, but I am hopeful and all the doc's are saying go for it. So, what am I waiting for?

D Day

This is the last that you'll hear of D. He and I are divorcing (another D) and he has asked that I not talk about him here. I am thankful that he allowed/compromised his private life as long as he did to allow me to write about "our" journey together. At times using his inital. Big ol' nutshell. He realized after our marriage that he rightfully does not want to have kids, I have never changed my mind.
And even if I do not get out of this chemopause, I will use my solo eggs I have (I was not strong enough to listen to reason, and begged and begged for us to make embryo's and waisted 3 of my precious 6) and hopefully that does the trick. But if not, there are lots of wonderful incredible babies in this world that are just waiting to be loved with all the love I have to give and more in this world.
Yes, this is too soon. But we have pushed it to a point, that home has been not home for years and its easier to get all the hurt, all the stress out now, than to wait and get the stress and hurt out later. Life is difficult, and beautiful, and there is never a good time to as my friend says, cleave. So, off to cleaving, and crying, and sobbing, and mourning this inevitable loss.
Lesson learned, many. Will I make this same mistake again, no way.
Its easy in life to over look what you don't want to see. Love is a coyote. Our job is to be present and not live in the future when we fall in love, but to be present and witness what is really there. The maiden, that did this has gratefully blossomed into a woman because of the past few years, and the woman in me will live in the present from here on out. So mote it be.