September 23, 2015 - Dangledorfamoly!

There is something about having breast surgery that correlates with an upcoming wedding. It's inevitable. Sally gets an imposter (my nickname for my implants) placed/replaced and within 6 weeks she will need to attend a wedding. This is the 3rd time. Mastectomy and reconstruction #1...Kristi and Jason have a wedding. Cellulitis with implant out and back in....4 weeks later Marc and Amber have a wedding. Now, scar tissue removal and implant replacement....6 weeks later Kelli and Eason have a wedding. I've really probably been to less than 10 weddings in my life, but somehow 3 of them fall where they fall. And that leaves me standing back in this closet of mine staring at it's contents undecidedly trying to figure out what will work in current state. I'm all for each of you celebrating your love, but mercy can we choose dates a little better? (I know, the real solution is for me to go longer than 8 months without having a surgery, but it is so much more freeing to blame other people. Smile).  So I'm off again to celebrate love and the clothes situation continues to flabbergast me. It's no surprise to you if you have been following along that  I always find my esteem a little dented post surgery.

It's been an undelightful week. I can't really get into the details of it other than to say some of my friends have a lot going on right now and the trickle down of that keeps me up at night. I'm rather fatigued. My soul hurts. I ache for the distress of those around me. I eluded to one of these in my last post. Tomorrow, this friend's family member has surgery. We were dialoguing this week some of the emotions of the situation. As I'm hearing her words,  I was reminded how sometimes you just need and want to be angry. You don't want to hear "everything is going to be ok". You don't want to be reminded that God's plan is purposeful. You simply want to brood and stew and cry a little tear if need be. As I was reminded of that during this exchange, I was confronting that same emotion in a situation with another friend. They were battling a very strong fight with depression and didn't see a way out. I was angry and heartbroken that they chose what they chose, and I was angry that I was paralyzed in utter helplessness in that moment. I'm a fixer and there was no fixing to be had in this moment.

Last January, when Lead Plastic Surgeon confirmed my fears of needing to have another surgery, I remember driving home from the appointment. Ron had met me at the office so we had two cars. As he drove behind me, I had no idea what was going through his mind, but as I rolled under each green light and traversed each mile post, I brewed this pot of disappointment (almost entitlement) of how in the world did it come down to me needing another surgery. Didn't God know that I was completely over this? Did he not remember that I CHOSE to have this mastectomy and therefore it should be to the point, cut and dried, take them off, put them back on, and tie it all up in a breast cancer awareness pink bow? Well as the odometer turned each mile, the disappointment soon morphed into something a little more sinister. Disappointment's cousin, Anger, had arrived with it's overnight bag in tow. I knew that I need to get that emotion under control and quickly, but I also knew that in the moment that was exactly what I need (and maybe even wanted) to feel. I didn't want to hear from you "Sally, you can do this!" I simply wanted you to sit beside me and brood with me. I needed that. If I didn't work through that anger moment first, it was going to be there underneath tainting everything that was to come next. I very easily see the blessings that can come of any situation (see last post), but that doesn't man I am not angry at the event itself. The anger was there and had to be worked through before I could get to the promises of the situation - peace, joy, blessings, it gets better in time, etc. For the drive and a few nights following, disappointment and anger were my bed mates. People say don't go to bed angry. I am not so sure I always agree.

Can you sit with me in silence? Can you buy me a bag oranges and then stand with me in the backyard while I hurl them at the fence? Can you pump a fist in the air and utter "dangledorfamoly!" when I need to vent it all out? Too often we feel the obligation to speak the words of comfort and support up front, fast and furious. We get uncomfortable in the silence and regurgitate every "self help" word we have ever heard uttered. We are reminded that we have to be a child of God and erroneously think we have to "happy go Sally" in every moment of every day. Sometimes, the healing we need most (at least early on) is to simply be in the moment angry and frustrated. For an hour. For a day. For a whatever. Get it out of our system so that it doesn't seep into the positivity we will need in the days/weeks to come. And gosh darn it, we most certainly want our "women of the trenches" there with us brooding too! It's a true friend that can offer you this exactly when you need it. Sitting quietly and then venting when I need you to vent with me. Then, (usually about 24 hours for me) we can shift over into pulling the boot straps up and jumping in the saddle to leap through the hurdles in the field with positive outlook as our pony. Full disclosure, I'm learning that I myself am not very good at that kind of support. Cheering you on through your moment is what I do. I see the promises and want to get you there! So I am having to step back and train myself to let you be where you are initially. I am learning to sit in silence with you as you navigate those early hours. God is growing me in this and he is doing it fast motion this week as I stroll through this week with several friends in crisis.

I'm packing for a wedding. I shoving stuff in the bag that might make "this" work while wearing that. Later tonight when I zip up the bag, I will remind myself to be comfortable and confident in this body. And then even later tonight when I climb into bed, I will say a "dangledorfamoly!" in your honor before bowing my head in prayer. Sometimes prayer is the only think you need to offer.

September 11, 2015 - Even when things are falling apart

I was on my way out the door to work when she asked me at the end of our messaging dialogue “when will I stop crying?”.

Wow. I wasn’t expecting that one. That one is a big deal and a sign of just trying to get above water. I put my bag on the floor and sat down on the bed to give her my full attention.  I’m the first to admit I don’t have an answer for that. She has found herself with a new diagnosis in the family and it is really rocking the world as they know it, and she finds herself smack in the middle of the early stages of that. I reassured her that it will happen, but the when is hard to determine, certainly person-specific, but don’t be surprised if it isn’t any time soon and to trust in that fact that there is no shame in that. I am 3 years out from mastectomy, which didn’t even have a diagnosis, and I still sometimes cry when I think back on the intimate moments. I don’t have permission to speak in detail of her story, but it’s a doozy for her family in the here and now. She’s really just an acquaintance, but that didn’t stop our dialogue and her confiding in me the suckiness of the situation. I reached out a few weeks back when I heard the news and she reached back ….and then our conversations progressed into more substance.

If you have been following along you might have seen that I try to be a “silver linings” kind of gal. It’s never absolute, but it is at least frequent. I simply know and trust that God has something greater for us in store in any given situation. He is the master of making a smack-your-lips-delicious southern-living-worthy kind of casserole out of onion peels. By no achievement of my own, but most likely rather an outpouring from Christ, I just naturally get that. It doesn’t take the sting out of the moment, (life still hurts and it hurts something fierce) but it surely helps my mindset in ways I can’t capture with any kind of justice here.  And it helps ward off “worry” which can be disastrous in circumstance. Simply put for me: Chaos is a moment when God can start dishing out some of the very best blessings in life that ordinary everyday life just didn’t bring. I've written of this on several occasions but it can be said again that blessings are almost universally nestled in the aftermath of circumstance. They carry different magnitudes and frequency, but I seem to find they are almost always there. Sometimes easily found, other times only visible to the trained eye and therefore often completely overlooked. It’s not that those blessings remove the awfulness (the event has still happened), but they have a way of making the awfulness more manageable and in some times are of such magnitude that “awfulness” is all together stripped out of the adjectives used in retrospect to describe the event. While traversing the landscape that landed in your lap, you just may find something so wonderful that you refuse to give up the landscape because without it the wonderful would never exist.  I have that trained eye, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that gift, but I also know that is rare and something to be cherished. I’ve also discovered how hard it is to transfer to other people, particularly when they are right in the middle of their moment.  And in that, I find myself hurting for people who don’t have this trait. I’m determined to be a silver-linings mentor at any chance, but I must tred carefully as the cycles of heartbreak and grief can bring about much healing and therefore often need to be traveled first to make the silver-lining discovery even possible. I’m training myself to simply “be there” as a friend in their moment first, and let God bring out of that whatever may come next.

We ended our most recent dialogue with me revealing how incredible life with Ron is because of the tried and true moments that occurred during the mastectomy. I have moments with him now that everyday life just simply wouldn’t have brought. And how for that reason alone mastectomy carries so much gratitude for me. I could say the same for lymphoma. I think of a particular moment when my sister climbed in bed with me in the middle of the night (or had she gone to bed with me at the get go?). There we sat in the dark side by side (when she could have been back in her own room as she had done for every year of our life before) with me staring up at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity not really saying anything, but the action of her choosing to be beside me spoke all the silent words we would never have said out loud. -
My mom just gave me additional details of this specific night being my first night home from a two week hospital stay and they were scared to let me out of arms rech, so my sister dove right in, to ease their mind, to stay with me upstairs in my room..the baby moniotor a friend gave us babysat us both while my sister and i laughed at the awareness we could chat all night to keep mom and dad up. Or another particular moment in my parent’s room in the middle of the night with mom on one side of the bed, me on the other and my dad climbing in the floor next to me (just as Ron did 25 years later), because I was having a particularly difficult night following anesthesia. Three friends sitting in my booth in the middle of  restaurant, all of us in tears at my mastectomy announcement, and a waiter very likley not knowing how in the world he is going to get the water back to these crazy women at that table. Some people simply regurgitate the moment stating the facts - someone climbed in bed next to someone else who was having a difficult moment. Others find the hidden gems underneath. These are the silver linings that carry you past the awfulness into something that waters your soul for the future.

I don’t know what her silver linings in this particular family moment will be, and I don’t know when the tears will subside though she is desperate to know, but I do know the moment will become less intense and the blessings are going to be discovered. They are probably already there, just waiting to be seen for what they are, but for now there’s a whole lot of shock and grief and unknowns of a diagnosis that have to be traversed. 

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty", even when things seem to be falling apart.  

September 5, 2015 - Closing the divide

I had a bee in my bonnet. I was absolutely determined. She's to blame, telling me of her hour long sessions at the gym despite having had a medical event herself recently. She took off 2 weeks from the gym. I am up to 4. So on went the laces and shoes and out the door I went.  Well, I'm an idiot and the bee in my bonnet has certainly fled the coup looking for someone with a little more scruples than my bonnet had to offer. Fifteen minutes in to my humid leisurely stroll and it was quite evident my stamina had headed to the Outer Banks with the rest of the city for the holiday weekend while I was left here on the bottom on the hill with gym attire and snazzy shoes donned but no energy to go back up. I vivid recall that exact same scenario in the five surgeries before, thus proving old dogs in fact do not learn new tricks, but rather in the last step of the downhill traverse become fools for expecting a different outcome. I had worked so hard pre-surgery to maintain my stamina with regular walks, but every stinking time it sets sail without me after anesthesia. It feels a bit like "failure" while I am making my way back to the shower with a sore back and her being somewhere across town 15 minutes into her 60 minute event. Thank goodness she is a gem whom I adore, or else I would find it easy to dislike her for her exercise feats.

While I underachieved at my stroll, I gained a huge mental score by returning full time to work this past week. I had returned for a few days the previous week, but spent a few days working from home as well. So getting back in all 5 days was terrific for my "sticker chart". This was my first week back in clinic seeing patients. I knew these clinic days would prove the toughest for me (they always do on that initial return) as it requires putting on a "I've got it all together" face and moving from here to there and back again to meet with patients, compared to my office days where I can throw myself in the cubical where life can be whatever it turns out to be at whatever pace and posture my body will afford me. Clinic- postured, civilized, together, mobile, and "game face" in tow. Office - slump, drool, feet propped up, slow speed or fast speed, back in pain, it all works out. But to be out of this house and back in life again is beyond worth the challenges of the work day.

I was discussing with a friend this week about the mindset you can find yourself in when you are in your "moments" of life. It's as if every aspect of what is normal to you comes to a screeching halt while every waking ounce of effort is zoomed in with 200% laser focus on every nuance of the event itself, but every single person outside of the event is going about their every day life totally unaffected by your moment. You can't see through the tears of making plans for a memorial service, but your coworker is at work planning a cookout before the game.  You are trying to tie your shoe to make your way to the GYN office after the miscarriage, your next door neighbor is barreling through the bucket of popcorn at new blockbuster released the night before. You are trying to help your husband hold the drain while he tries to get the stupid cap back in place without spilling on the floor, your girl's group is at a play date at the local park discussing the next cupcake recipe. It's exactly as it should be, but it can be so unsettling finding yourself "left behind" as life continues at break neck speed around you. You are where you are and they are where they should be, but your chaos and their normalcy falls under the microscope creating this unintended lonely divide.  It seems the more intense the moment, the more vast the divide it creates. She paraphrased to me "it's hard to be in emotional pain" when it seems the rest of the planet is moving on in their normal mode of life having ice cream at the local custard shop. Nail on the head! Every surgery this divide reforms in some degree and fashion (though much less than with the initial surgery) as you become isolated form everyday life with one hand on the house at all times. So the day you hit "start" and are able maintain a few days in a row back at work, it's as if you rejoin the world again thus slowly closing that divide. And seeing that divide fade into nothingness becomes one of the most reassuring aspects of this portion of the journey.

One of my coworkers saw me this week and said "hey, how was your vacation??? Are you missing the beach and the waves? It seems like you have been gone a while." She's right, the whole world seemed to be on summer vacations and it was only natural for her to think I joined those ranks. I then burst the bubble and spilled out the whole spill of no beach, no waves, but rather stitches and drains and reconstruction (similar interactions happened throughout the week from people I don't see very often). In this one in particular, we sat down for one to deliver and the other to hear the now overdone saga. Seeing her reactions as the story unfolded was evidence of how absurd this whole story sort of sounds start to finish. You had breast cancer she asks? (eyes get wide) No breast cancer but a double mastectomy? (eyes get even wider)  (A glance at the chest.) Six surgeries/three years later? These interactions are rare as I've lived this story rather publicly o these pages, but when they happen, it's a great reminder of all the story entails. Their questions take you places you may not have been before and their expressions, both verbal and not, give you a glimpse of the outside looking in. I don't get that glimpse very often as the words fall across this screen read in the privacy of your home. So in those very rare occasions when it is told in person to someone without knowledge it becomes an abundance of newness for me. It's profound and under-whelming at the same time. The parts you feel may be small can be enormous in the mind of another. Or the parts you find so intense, may be nothing more than a spilled drink to the person on the other side of the table. It can bring you into balance and out of your bubble of acute emotion. Another dot on the timeline instead of another massive event encompassing 3 years. It brings about perspective of how this won't always be your everything and soon enough it's just another story you tell to story collectors.

The calendar tells me it's been 4 weeks. My boob tells me the same. The steri-strips are removed, the glue is sporadic across the incision as some refuses to let go. The pain is now only a strain discovered when reaching for this or that or when you absent mindedly wake up finding yourself on the "wrong" side. The bras are still flimsy minus the usual under-wire. The drain sight is closed and less evident. I'm released to a fully submerged bath or dip in the pool as of today (though I will delay those events for a bit as cellulitis is my enemy to be avoided at all costs!). Lifting restrictions remain for 2-4 (?) more weeks, and I am hopeful my stamina will come back to the city along with the rest of the world sometime very soon after the holiday weekend. Meanwhile, I promise myself to keep lacing up my shoes for my daily super-slow-speed-10 minute turtle-stroll down the hill and hopefully back up again. You have to start somewhere, and before you know it you will be fully back into "normal life" along with everyone else and find the divide fully closed.  And that moment, those of you who find yourself there, is one of the very best!