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Saturday, June 14, 2008

Out on the Town

I had to get up, my five o'clock wake up hour visited me again this morning.  I spoke with a new young survivor yesterday.  I add the word new, to add emphasis that there are tons of us, yep..Heather you are part of a new sea of people.  D and I went out last night.  I had a great time, sortof.  If I didn't want to be present with myself and make myself "normal" I could have a lot of fun.  Luckily, D would look at me throughout the night and not let me feel bad about being real in my head.  He'd ask me, "How are you doing?  What did you do again today?"  As if I hadn't told him maybe ten times already what I did today.  He was allowing me to talk, and to talk about myself.  Fuck I have cancer.  I still cannot believe it.  Me, I have "it".  UnFreakin' unbelievable!!
As I got ready I looked myself in the mirror and looked at my hair and looked at my face and I just cannot believe this.  I put makeup on for the first time since this all happened.  My costume.  Those that know me, know how much I love to dress up in costumes, but this is a different kind.  A kind that only survivor's or newbies like myself understand.  Knowing that I am going out tonight to spruce myself up when all I feel inside is turned upside down.  We got dressed and looked great.  My husband is a terrific dresser and I love that about him.  So we walked out, and I drove down to Fremont.  I wonder if after surgery I will be able to drive?  Will I be able to lift my arm that high on the steering wheel?
Years ago I ate dinner at the restaurant called Cactus with my good friend George.  I loved it.  I told D when I meet him, and is a joke now that I thought this Mexican restaurant was Gourmet.  So whenever we go to or go to leave a Mexican restaurant either of us will say, "That was Gourmet."  Last night was no exception.  We ate at El Camino and I ate my first little free range animal inside an enchilada since this all happened.  I know that I need to start eating Raw and Veggie only for this whole process and for the rest of my life.  My indulgentcies will no longer being a connisseur of bakeries.  No more sugar, not at all.  Oh, I got side tracked, so dinner last night.  Gourmet, definetely.  
There were kids everywhere.  My attention to this was different than my longing to have of the old days.  This was  a very different one and I decided and realized that I am in a mourning stage.  I am grieving.  I am grieving many things that were taken from me twelve days ago.  I just looked and watched all these kids, but this time I also looked at all the parents.  Did they all know what a blessing there little one(s) were.  How lucky they were to have this life?  This chance to hold and squeeze their flesh and blood?  It is all too incredibly painful and I need to go there.  I cannot pretend and swipe these feelings into a corner of the room and hope that I don't have to clean it up.  I have to clean it up.  I have to be present with all of this.  It hurts, this very real 60%-50% chance that I will be needing those eggs.
D has decided to do the embryo thing. Yesterday morning I when I spoke to the new survivor she said that she never went out of menopause.  I told D that, and that is when he said that he has thought about it and he wants to do it.  I looked him straight in the eye, and thanked him.  He said, "I don't want to be responsible for making you unhappy."  At that I told him thank you, and at that I told him that I needed him to think out of respect for me hard.  If I only do an embryo with you and when this is all done and said you decide you do not want to have kids, I am SOL.  So unless you know for certain you want to do this with me, which I'd love more than anything in this world, I need you to tell me.  Because if not, I am going to also freeze my eggs.  He said it was my decision, and I told him no, it is also yours.
So dinner was great fun.  The cutest baby in the whole restaurant was about 7 inches from me and D cracked a joke.  He said he'd been thinking yesterday that if we do have a baby that way he could tell the little guy (I want twin boys super bad), " You've been costing me money before you were born."  As a joke.  I thought it was funny.  Funny too, because I think he is allowing (is this wishful thinking) himself to mourn as well.  Looking at the very real possibility that our kids will be made in a petri dish.  That is sad, but as my good friend yesterday said, Its an incredible science and that she is lucky to have the chance make her a mom, as they've started trying in this way.
At dinner I said to D that its amazing how when I talk to all these young survivor's they are filled with so much love and strength and courage towards me and fill me up in a way that I need so deeply now.  I feel like my little hummingbird in me is drinking that sugary mixture in a little red drinking dish.  I just drink it up.  I told him I had always regretted not going to college and belonging to a sorority.  And now, I do.  There is a love that is so deep and I have never seen their faces.  Amazing, because right now I really need that.  I haven't told all of you.  But this battle is huge, and I feel like do I have the strength to pull through this?  Whatever "this" will be?  My unknown "hard" journey ahead, how hard will it be?  Okay, we all "know" I have the strength, but I am talking to the shocked selves inside, and all that know me are shocked.  And for that shocked part, there is a realization.  None of us are exempt from getting cancer.  And none of us are exempt from having those same cells that went haywire, not do what they are supposed to do with all this treatment.  And so I am scared a little.  
I guess it might kindof in a horrible comparison, I know be like going off to war.  I am still at home making sure I have all my guns and such.  I have trained my whole life for this.  I know what I need to eat and I know what I need to think, and how I should be thinking.  But I don't know how my mind and body is going to react if I get blindsided my a grenade.  No one does.  So, when I talk to these survivor's I am filled with a magick potion.  A potion that I think only they and I can see.  These women give me so much added strength that I know I can and will make it.  They made it, so can I.  GGRRRR....Go woman of Cancer!  My little damn new sorority.  I love it.
Today and yesterday I am filling my time with busy stuff.  I finally attacked our 2007 taxes and got them done.  Tomorrow we are going to Chuck Close's exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum.  I can't wait to have my mind blown in a different way.

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