As you may have read, we lost our Finnie a week ago. We knew the day was coming but I thought I was more prepared than I was. To watch the life drain from his eyes is something I will never get over. One minute he was in the house, looking around and the next minute he was gone. We had to turn our backs and leave the room without him. We just sat in the car for a second. The world felt so empty.
I had a total meltdown in the vet's office. Like sobbing and nose running and all that. Jason had to comfort me, even though it had been his dog longer. Finnie was there for me. Often he was the only one who was around when I had gone through chemo. He would sit outside the bathroom door if I was throwing up, he'd bark if I'd been in there too long. He would lay across the bedroom door if I was in bed. He'd lay by my feet if I was in my chair. He would watch out for me. He loved me.
I've had cats, but I'm not certain they ever loved me, tolerated me perhaps, but not love like Finnie did. I understand the dog thing now. I really do.
The past week has been tough. In the daytime when I'm home, it's just me. Any sound I hear....it's something and it's not him. I worry now and lock the doors when I'm home alone. I don't hear him snoring and I have no one to talk to when I'm home alone. Sometimes I still talk outloud and then wonder what the hell I'm doing.
This week completes my semi-annual process of scans. In the past few weeks I've had ultrasounds, bone scans, blood tests and today I voyaged into the CT scan for the umpteenth time. The contrast dye makes me sleepy and feel like I've been hit by a truck. I've been in my chair all day. I won't get the results until the 29th.
My CT scan will determine if the nodule in my lung has grown. If it has, I'll need a lung biopsy, and we'll go from there. Nightmare. I wait.
I saw my surgeon this past week as well. I have a red streak on my mastectomy scar line, it's sore and unusual. My surgeon saw it and said it's possibly something rare called Mondor's disease. This is the inflammation of the veins near a breast surgery line. Inflammation of veins is also called phlebitis. I have to ice and voltaren the spot 3 times a day for the next 2 weeks and if doesn't improve.....biopsy. Fucking biopsies. That's how all this started.
I realize now this is my new normal. I exist between tests. My next set of tests is scheduled for 3 months from now which concerns me. I don't know the reason for the accelerated schedule yet but I'll find out on the 29th.
We are scheduled to go to the baseball game on the 29th as well, so good news or bad...I will carry on and enjoy my life as best I can. I feel that over the past two years I've become more accustomed to uncertainty and not knowing. In the beginning it was pure torture. I couldn't go a day without having the results and over analyzing them on the internet and thinking about them and obsessing over potential outcomes, statistics and probabilities.
Now I sit with not knowing, for we never really do know....do we? It's possible the nodule in my lung is scar tissue from the aggressive radiation I received. I do have documented damage to my right lower lobe, this nodule is in my upper lobe and is new....who knows what it is, but today the pictures were taken and now...it's in God or the Universe or whatever's hands. It's possible the inflammation in my chest is just that, a result of a severe surgery that takes years to recover from....or it could be a recurrence . No one knows yet.
I can't think about it. I'd never get out of bed. I must just carry on, make plans and try to be better each day.
Monday I start a new gym. F45. I am undertaking a 6 week weight loss challenge. I've gained too much weight with the drugs and hormone blockers and general lazy lifestyle over the past year or so. When I got hit by a car and broke my arm it really derailed me emotionally and physically.... and it's time to do something about it.
Just because I can't do everything I used to doesn't mean I can't do something. I may look different but inside I'm still the same me. I'm stubborn and determined and I'm not going down without a fight. Without effort. Without comment.
So this weekend will end my year of imprisoning myself in this body of doubt and shame. I will get up Monday and take each day as it comes and work to get through that day. I won't worry about all the ones that are ahead.
I will try not to look back either....it's an easy thing to do. It doesn't help.
It doesn't bring Finnie back, it doesn't change my life and where I'm at now, it doesn't change the results of my tests. I simply have to carry on, and release the burden of yesterday and tomorrow.
Easier said than done for sure. I have a saying hanging in my home that says that:
"Tomorrow's sun will rise, either in splendour or behind a mask of clouds ---but it will rise, until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is as yet unborn. This leaves one day - today- anyone can fight the battles of just one day, it is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities - yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad -- it is the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring."
This really is so true.
We all have our own battles, how we choose to accept loss and how we forgive, ourselves and others will determine our happiness.
We may not be able to control much, in the grand scheme of things as humans....but we can control our reactions, our relations and our expectations. Keeping them all reasonable is a skill I am working on mastering.
I think it will serve me well in the changing sands of time.
Comments