I figured it out

Phew! These steroids are making me hungry this time. Bizarre! Last time I was on Predisone they didn't make me hungry at all. I didn't sleep well without a pill, but I didn't wake up starving. I am not letting myself eat out of ordinary times right now. So I am just sitting with the hunger. I am sick of being heavy. Over it. Totally.
As a watchful young woman, I have witnessed all these beautiful women in my life get old. Or I have met them once they are old, and lamenting on the "good old days, of being "hot" I understand, more than ever know. But I understood before cancer. Vanity, and pride are huge ego boosters. And so not what is real, nor what matters. Before cancer, I understood this, I did, and so I always had a little less patience for it. Hearing all these grown women gawk at their arms, their wrinkles, their thighs, their whatever wasn't up to their par. As a young woman looking at these women, and hearing them, I always do and have seen their power that comes with those changes, and personally felt their beauty deeper than the peripheral they were grieving the loss of.
Basically, I wanted to say to them, " Get over it. Its not what lifes about. Love yourself, accept yourself."
I think one of the hardest parts of being a woman in America/Canada/Europe, wherever, is that we have a lack of ritual to guide us through our losses and our rites of passages. We have long ago let that go, and I think it makes it harder for, in this case, a woman to "change".
I've changed. I took down the pictures of myself two days ago. Pictures of my once beautiful, long hair, in various shades. The joy I had kills me to look at now. I am joyful, no one, not even cancer can take that away from me. I was born spastic for life, not crawling, but got up and ran at 7 months. I'm still there. But there is (oh, i'm starving, I might have to eat) no point making and pointing out to myself daily, constantly throughout the day, of the old carefree that I so long to reunite with. Those pictures of her, of me, have been helpful up to this point. And now that I am nearing the end of my battle, I don't want to see them. So I put all the pics away, all the wedding photos. Can't stand to look at them. I hope D and I make it through this. But honestly, its been incredibly hard. Words cannot express how hard. I just feel very thankful I have had him to go through this with me. To get me water when I couldn't move, to get me meds, to care for me the best he could.
Its easy to want and expect someone to love you the way you would to them. But that is not truely loving someone. I believe. I believe it is loving the person for who they are and accepting what it is they are able to give to you. At times like these, and in life, though I never could imagine it, and now I do, this is how people can grow apart. The giving, the needing, in my case, changed. It grew to an intensity, that no one wishes for. But I needed to need, and I deserved to need, and it was and is all encompassing. Its a beautiful thing to grow.
Back to me changing. Body stuff. So, its hard. The wise young woman has to say to the "chemopausal" "menopausal" 34, how fucked up is that? that its okay I have lots and lots of gray hair coming in, where before cancer I had blond/brown hair. Its okay, that I am swollen and huge. Its okay. Yesterday, since I just sold a house, I went and bought myself a new outfit, that fits. The super-sized Heather pants no longer fit, yeah! And the 1st time out of hospital pants I bought don't fit, they're too tight right now. Wearing pants that don't fit, sucks. I have never had to deal with this, and I realized waiting to fit in to the smaller ones was ridiculous and a form of not accepting myself and loving myself. I was in costant torture, or I was constantly walking around with super baggy pants. Ick!
Those are the two ways I decided to love myself more this week. Take down the old pictures that were torturing me, and get a pair of pants that fit.
Two last thoughts. One is that I spelled the therapists name wrong, for those of you that googled her. It is Janet Abrams.
And the last, is that maybe my left eye (its getting better, by the way) want to be weepy because it is reminding me to cry more often.

Sleeping, and then not

I have had to teach myself how to sleep again. Last night was my first night since the whole hospital incident that I fell asleep for almost 8 hours. I have been going to sleep around 8:30-9:30ish and waking around 5-6 am. I was so excited that I managed to do this last night, that I was hopeful this was going to continue. I was wrong. Tonight I went to bed around 8:30 again, but I just woke up in a panic, layed in bed trying to talk myself down, and finally am up haphazardly watching Saturday night live and writing here. The Jonas brothers are on SNL and I just don't get why little girls are so in to these guys.
Before cancer, I was always an excellent sleeper, my entire life. Pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow I'd fall fast asleep. I might wake up with a nightmare, but was always able to calm myself down, if I had to I'd wake up and journal about a bad dream, but I'd be able to go back to sleep. But now, what happens is I wake up from in a panic over one thing or another. Tonight it was the realization that I have come to terms, fully with the idea of "what if" my cancer comes back, and what will I do. I have not come to terms with it on such a scale that I've called and made the plans, but I at least know what I'd do and who I'd call, and what I'd say, and who I'd let in/out of my life. Because, I am not going to "fight" to live, and "kill" and "poison" myself again with chemo. But then again, the plan I have is only a plan, and hasn't been and hopefully will never be "challenged" by the actual event, that could/may/very well change all that I have and will say here. : )
But, I woke up with the realization that I have given enough energy to my "what if plan" and this was neccessary. I am a planner at the core, and I need to not be crucified by shock if "it" comes back. This very well may kill me and take me down emotionally. I can only have this happen to me once, and that day was June 2, 2008.
So...I've planned enough, thought enough, and now, NOW I need to let it go. I need to now be in the present moment again, know that that plan is in the corner, under that rug, and hopefully I never need to pull the rug back and use this plan. So, there you go little plan, little idea, there is your resting place. And now, I need to be in the present moment, and in this realization in my sleep, I woke up in a panic, or should I say the little hippie in me woke up in a panic. Because I started to worry that I have thought about this too much, and that if I don't get a grip on it, I could be creating a "situation". But the realist in me understands that the hippie is being ridiculous and that if "it" comes back, it wasn't and isn't my fault and there is nothing I could've done differently. But still, the hippie is winning out here. Basically because I don't feel its healthy for me to think about my demise. So, I am started thinking about this over and over, and the survivor in me that wants to live started to panic about this whole freakin' thing and I tried to sooth myself into going back to sleep but I couldn't.

I couldn't because of the obvious reasons. The old sleeper didn't have BIG stuff like this to mull over, and did I mention to you that since I've been done with chemo my chemopausal symptoms have been full on again? Hot flashes constantly. So, I lay in bed with hot flash after hot flash. Whipping on and off the covers. And the more I think, it seems the thoughts trigger hot flashes, and they come in waves. So....after about an hour of this ridiculous crap, I got out of bed and luckily SNL is on.