Mammograms to Enneagrams

Today went great, I'll just blurt that out for all of you that are wondering.

I of coarse went armed with my blog cards, so I could hand them out to the various woman I started talking to. I met a young mother, about my age who had found her lump in the past month. I listened to her, tried to not say too much, because I didn't want to freak her out. Remembering full well, how I felt that first day. The day, I went there alone because I didn't think it was a big deal. I was just going to get my ultrasound and mammogram and be on my merry little way. That life, is gone. Or better yet, that girl was just that. A girl. I grew up pretty quick the past couple of years.
Once I got into the mammogram room, the tech started her litany of questions. I was okay to answer the first bazillion, but I snapped finally when she asked, "Does breast cancer run in your family." I refused to answer the question. Telling her look, I know your just doing your job. You don't need to know all these answers. What is this questionaire for anyways? To stick in some folder? The question, for a young woman should be is it Genetic. That is what the insurance companies should be paying for, so that you know the answer, and don't have to ask. There is no rhyme or reason for my cancer, and no..it does not run in my family, nor is it genetic. (remember, I could have been the first in my family to start producing the BRCA 1 or 2, gene)...
I told her, I didn't even want to be in there anyways. I understand that mammo's show the calcifications, great. It didn't show my cancer. I get really upset every time I have to be forced to go have one. The test isn't even FOR younger women. It is FOR older women.
She agreed with all of this. Why don't they figure out some techy savvy tool/machine that CAN detect breast cancer through dense young women's tissue? The only reason I have to be there is for insurance purposes. To run through the little rat maze as all the other women.
Ugh.
I did start to laugh and joke with her, after that. I apologized and told her how emotional this test is for me. I just have not come to a place of forgiving it. It let me down, and I see no need for it at all. At all.
At one point, I laughed with her because it seemed as if I was doing yoga to get my boob pressed into the machine (which doesn't hurt for me at all) and told her I needed to go see my chiropractor after getingt the mammo. I was serious. :)

I then went over to the MRI place. The machine is so loud that they give you ear plugs. I actually fell asleep in there...I guess I am used to it after the bazillionth time through the egg like metal clashing sounding machine.

Tonight I took for fun an enneagram test online. It said I was either a 1, 2, 3, or an 8. I read through them all, and they all fit in a few ways. None of them fit me perfectly. I realized how much I've learned and grown in the past few years. How much cancer has taught me. Issues I thought I was never going to be able to work through with various therapists, had to be worked through with cancer. All the growth stemmed down to surrender, loving myself deeper, loving others deeper, simply loving with surrender and an open palm...me, you, anyone. Seeing how fragile we all are. How fragile life is.
It didn't surprise me that I wasn't pegged as "a type" because I have not settled down into a patterned way of self yet. I hope I don't. I pray that living in the present moment does not go away, and life continues to grow and stretch, and not be One thing.
Living in the present moment does not work, if you actually LIVE in this world though. And I am starting to live once again, and I am starting to plan things now. When I was first done, making plans for that week was incredibly hard for me. Which was so foreign to the "pre-cancer, Heather". Now, I am planning for my marathon in Big Sur, at the end of April, that is as far out as I feel comfortable with.
I made reservations at the headquarters, in Monterey. I guess that's good. Its hard to think of not being in Big Sur proper, but all the racers will be staying in Monterey, the dinners will be there, the pre-race events. My friend Jenn, is planning post event stuff, and that helps. Thanks Jenn. Planning is simply too much for me right now. That far ahead at least.
I am super good with the weekly planning. I even have my weekly marathon training chalkboard up in my apartment now. Each week, each days schedule mapped out, with inspiring quotes to myself.

I took today off, and I made a promise to myself today. Until I am done with all these six month check ups, I am going to take those days off, and take a day to do whatever I want. I'm staying on my Uncles boat tonight. I sat and played on my computer all night, read, did a little yoga, he made me a yummy dinner, and now I am being lulled to a quieter place within myself by the gentle, almost unnoticeable rocking of the boat.

I'm going to send the tech a little thank you, card tomorrow. Tell her how much I appreciated her listening to me. I have some sadness to work through with that damn mammogram in my cancer therapy still. I think some tears still need to spill.

Sheer Delight

Bundled in my robe, fuzzy blanket, and slippers, I sit drinking Lap Sang Souchang (my favorite smoky tea). It is absolutely freezing this morning here in Seattle, a whopping 18 degrees. When i was a little girl, I kept journals. I still have years and years of journals. On rainy Seaside, Oregon stormy weather days, I would go back and read, what I had done the year before on that particular frigid day. Maybe this is why I am doing so much thinking of last year, so much comparing. One thing for sure, the little type A in me has to be okay with my inability to spell. Chemo clouded this part of my brain. I am getting way better, but still it is very hard. Like yesterday I could not figure out if I should use the word "than" or "then". I have NEVER in my life not been able to figure this out. It totally makes me jump out of my skin seeing misspelled words, and all my bad grammar. I am trying to embrace this here in this blog. Free style writing....
So, yes! It is freezing. Yesterday, and many days I feel deep inside me an inner raging of delight, that is new to me. Before cancer, I was a very happy joyful person, don't get me wrong. But now, there is a waterfall of gushing energy that is at my core. Billowing from my stomach, and I am not sure its healthy. When I was on vacation, I did not notice it. I was relaxed, calm, focused on the sun, the ocean, and I slept very well.
Now that I am home, the waterfall is gently raging once again. I notice that I get stressed very easily, overwhelmed at a drop of a hat, and toss and turn all night long. I feel like I am walking on eggshells around myself. haha. But seriously. It all makes sense right? It is obvious what needs to be done, right? Like someone that has come and gone through what I just did, should in a perfect world sit on a warm sunny beach, drinking Green smoothies with an IV drip of golden cleansing whatevers, and not have any "life" stuff to deal with. I would not get bored of this in a the slightest. But, that is not life. And I am back, and at a running start of coarse. Still my style, some things do not change.
I have learned through cancer to allow people to help me, and that is what i am starting now. The little control girl in me, the girl that believes she can do everything herself, is now entering a partnership with my Real Estate and that will lessen the load.
Okay, back to real stuff. My body is awesome. A few months ago, I started running. I ran everyday, and for the first time in my life, I hurt myself. Being what my doc's refer to as "deconditioned" I had to stop running, and let my knees heal. They did. Now i am running every other day, and yoga and lifting weights on the alternate ones. I am feeling strong.
I have a core sense of self, that i had pre-cancer, but its stronger. She is stronger. I am really excited for the integration that this cold weather is going to bestow upon me. Off to do some yoga. Loving that today, I am healthy, I am smiling, I am sitting with tea and joy, and a gushing waterfall of love pouring forth on to all of you.

Yoga

I jumped over a hurdle yesterday, one that I've been scared to do, but I did it. I went to my first yoga class that cancerlifeline(.org) offers. It was in West Seattle at the 8 limbs studio. I was scared to feel my pain, my sadness, to be silent and listen to my heart, my feelings, my spirit. My spirit that doesn't change, that hasn't changed, that no one or nothing can change, my resilient self, and be with her. And I knew there was a lot of grieving in this place. Before I went I spoke with my friend Gen, and I said something about me being changed, a different person. And she said tentatively, not really, you're still the same. And I am. And I am not. There is the new normal, or the new me, that Survivors speak of. And I agree. And yesterday in yoga, I got to disagree too. I'll get to that moment in a second..But first
I had to walk in to the class. Up three flights of stairs, I was tired by the time I got up there. I was the only one there for a few minutes and was worried the class was not going to happen. But then the teacher came. As I introduced myself and she asked questions about my journey, I told her that I hadn't wanted to be in touch with myself since I was diagnosed. And I was going to probably cry a lot through the class. She told me that was totally fine, and to do whatever I needed to do. Some people even sleep, she said.
Sure enough, as I layed on my mat (my own mat that was being newly christened) in a room of other women that all had had cancer or were care-givers. We have all been affected by cancer. And I just bawled. I sobbed. I breathed, and sobbed. I dabbed my tears, and sobbed some more. "Heather, there you are." There you are sweet one. I was so sad. I have gone through so much, in such a little amount of time. So, we did a relaxation technique and the gentle yoga made my muscles quiver and shake as they remembered that they are supposed to be long and lean, not taught and bound. Opening, my muscles, my heart, my soul, my child in me, my scared adult, my fear, my love, my future, my present.
The one thing that drove me a little crazy was that the teacher through the entire class spoke, and she spoke of being present, and not thinking in the future. And this probably was helpful for the care givers in the class. But to me, I thought, how could a Survivor get through what we have to get through if she isn't living in the present. My yoga class was a world of difference for this one reason. I think I have really learned and gotten closer to reaching the idea of being in the present. I wanted to tell the teacher this. To tell her that she was putting fear in the room by talking about not being in the future and not worrying about the future. But I didn't. Her words got me out of the present, and so I was able to stop crying, and I just pretended that I was in a room with someone that was trying to brain wash me and I wasn't listening to her anymore. I just sank deeper into my own breath and my own stretching.
As my little body moved with the ebb and flow of my breath, I found that the fear that resided in the idea that I've heard over and over, that I will be a different person, I decided that was a bunch of balony. I am not a different person. I am still Heather, just a Heather that has grown into a deeper place of spiritual deepness. One that has had to learn to open when I didn't think I could open anymore, and be still when I didn't think I could ever be that still, and I got to grab tightly to Heathers hand yesterday. Soon, before I know it, I will be up and running again.