Picking up the leaves

Today was a big day, and this will be a long post. Where to start?

I was on the island today and during the massage I was giving I felt my athlete in me. Doing massage, I always have felt her. As, occasionally I (unbeknownst to my clients~now you guys know) I put myself into a yoga posture to stretch as I am doing massage moves. What happened to me when I got diagnosed was that my life imploded. I let go of everything as everything, and I mean everything fell apart and to the side. All that I had ever thought I'd known, disintegrated. Even my athlete. Although I have called on her during my treatment, I haven't connected with her yet.

I think I have to start with yesterday before I go further. Yesterday, as I watched Ellen Degeneres ( I am now a TV holic that loves, and I mean loves all these TV shows, so funny to me) so as I watched her, I got up as I was feeling well enough to do exercises for the first time since I was diagnosed, in a serious way. Every commercial I did lunges, squats, calf raises, tricep dips, and crunches. I felt great doing it and but I didn't say hi to my athlete. I just did the exercises.

Fast forward to today, my calf's were a little sore and I felt supported by my body, by my athlete. Back again, during the massage, I looked in the mirror as I was doing a massage stroke, and said hi to her. And in that moment, I realized how far from her I was. I checked in with myself, and there was the base emotion of anger. But when I looked closer, I was angry that she, the athlete had forsaken me. I mean hell, I have exercised religiously my whole life. She let me down. She let me have cancer. She, oh, the tears started. Not heavy, as I was working, and this all happened in a matter of probably two minutes. But it was deep. I realized that I had to forgive her. I had to forgive my athlete/my body for giving up. For not fighting off that fucking cancer. And in this forgiveness, of really myself, I had to recognize on a deep level that she wasn't at fault. But that I had been pissed and disappointed in her efforts. I had been let down and that we needed to come back together. I needed to forgive her. So, during that massage I welcomed myself back to my athlete/my body.

I told her that I am ready to do those yoga postures again, and to feel my body again, and to risk loving my body again. Risk, thinking and ultimately believing that if I love my body by exercising I will live a longer healthier life.

I was ready to feel again. So, through the few eyelashes I have the tears got heavy, and I wiped them away and I was whole. I went for a three mile walk today around the Burton Loop. There is a flat stretch along the way, and my athlete in me said, "Why don't you run that half mile, Heather." So I did. I felt my lungs rise and fill with air, and felt my body get warm again. I was in touch with my breath. I was and am, alive. I caught the cancer as early as I could. My life is in the hands of what I agreed to as I entered this body. I am learning from all of this. I am growing and learning to love myself in a deeper way. And that is all I can say.

I am ready to start doing yoga again, and start feeling my body again. I am no longer afraid of her. I am no longer angry with her. And I am no longer disappointed in her.

Where have the hummingbirds gone?

My hair is cut and I'm not okay with it.  Please don't tell me its okay.  It is not.  It isn't about the hair and it is not about how people will perceive me.  I could careless if I am beautiful or not.  My body is what it is.  End of story on that.  I am pissed because this isn't the hair cut I wanted. I didn't want to have short hair.  I wanted to have long hair.  This may seem ridiculous to some. D hit the nail on the head when he said, "It just isn't the hair cut you wanted."  For me the sadness is because I have so many things being taken from me right now.  I do not have a choice.  

The west seattle street fair is this weekend.  Walking around up there is horrible.  I remember last year, how I felt at this little street fair.  I know that my usual little hummingbird self is happy and cheerful.  I just don't feel that way.  I feel like my spirit was crushed.  And THIS is what I am sad about.  I feel broken.  I don't feel sorry for myself.  I don't wish something was different.  I don't wish anything.  That is the problem.  I don't feel empowered.  I just feel blah.  I feel like my eternal fountain of happiness and cheer and ability to see the bright side of any situation as stopped flowing.  I worry that it won't come back.  I worry that D can feel this gloominess and I wonder if he will stop being attracted to me.  Not because of my hair, but because the spirit of the woman he married has changed. Has it changed forever, who knows.  I am scared of the depths of sadness and shock I am in.  

It could be a torrential downpour outside and that would be fine.  Even that is horrible.  I used to love summer.  I need to pull my head out of the self-deprecating, but its hard.  Because there is no normal to go back to.  Normal doesn't exist anymore.  Normal life is gone.  I am in a transition, but one that just realized I am in transition.  My little car light just flashed, need oil.  I still need to go to the store and get the oil (chemo) and then put it in and then hopefully that is all the car needed and I can start racing around town again.  

Not a pocket full of posies

I am pissed this morning.  As I lay in bed under my fuzzy flannel sheets, I started thinking about breast feeding.  I have to.  Just incase you guys didn't get this earlier, I have wanted to be a mom badly, I mean badly my whole life.  When I was a little girl I babysat for anyone in my neighborhood.  My doll collection that I still have were my little babies and I often would pretend I was breast feeding them right along my mother's side, as she fed my brother. 

Thoughts came to my head as I was under the sheets and I started getting so mad.  I understand that anger is a base emotion, and I understand that it is my sadness that is fueling it right now.  But if that gene comes back positive and I choose out of sheer statistics to remove my breasts (which is the no brainer choice for MY body, maybe not yours but for mine) and  I don't get a chance to nurture a young one in this way, oh.  Watch out.  I am going to loose my mind.  I mean it, loose it.  All the things that I have read for years will no longer be possible for me.

I won't be able to give birth and put my baby to my breast and feed the little tiger.  I won't be able to feel the benefits of oxytocin being released through my body and getting the baby high from nursing.  I won't be able to walk around with a pad in my bra because of the "let down" reaction.  I won't feel a "let down".  I won't be in the kitchen making muffins and hear my baby cry and have my breast start pumping that milk.  I won't have the accidental let down in public if I hear another baby cry.  Do you wonder if I really meant it now when I say, " All I've thought about is having a baby."  I could be crying over nothing, maybe I won't have that gene.  I hope the Genetic Counselor is right this time around, and the other Doc's are wrong.  That would be nice.  I wonder if I will be able to breast feed with the breast that has cancer in it if I just do the lumpectomy?  That sounds like from my ignorance a bad thing.  Like a dirty thing that I wouldn't want my precious little one to be near.  My breast that had cancer in it.  Would there be a transfer of any little particles in the tiniest amount at all??  Not that this is shrouding in the tiniest amount my decision to either do or not do a mastectomy.  Because right now I haven't been faced with the genetic answers yet.  

As I take in a deep breath, I am breathing in the sun's rays deep into my body and breathing out all this sadness and I am going to go through my day staying in the present moment.  All of these fears can stay here.  In Wonka Land, up in the " TV Mikey" room of space in the sky.  For those of you that haven't watched Willy Wonka as obsessively as I have in my life (maybe 200 times) you have a fun movie to watch tonight!