I was diagnosed 3 years ago. Stage IIIC Invasive locally advanced ductal carcinoma with Micro and Metastatic features, Vascular Invasion and Centralized Comedonecrosis, spread to 19 lymph nodes. For those who don't speak cancer that's not a great prognosis.
I think I'm just starting to recover from it for the first time to be honest. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's taken so long to really just come to terms with it. The shock. Cancer hit when Covid hit. I was traumatized. In so many ways.
Physically I will never fully recover. It's just a fact.
I can't grow breasts back or reverse menopause or reverse radiation damage I'll never be that physical manifestation of who I was...I won't be a sexy baby. LOL.
I'm starting to recover emotionally, energetically and mentally.
I finally found one moment during which I could catch my breath. The world stopped spinning just for an instant on a random Monday night. Where a simple breath of fresh air made all the difference.
To look up at the sky and not feel so alone.
Where just for one second....or three. I felt like me again.
3 fucking years. For one breath.
I know I'm "lucky" to be alive after my diagnosis. I did everything right for a while and then a whole lot that was wrong.
It was magnificent in its complexity. I was an asteroid spinning out of control, fueled by the explosion that rocked my world and left me just hurtling into space towards anything.
Hairless, 50 lbs heavier, breast-less, moody, sad, angry, scared and no one I wanted to be.
Mother to two children who were hurtling through space with me....hanging on.
Trajectory uncertain.
Now.
I have been grounded.
Sometimes all it really takes is for someone to just laugh at you, to help you forget all your troubles for a minute or two. To just enjoy a moment for what it is and be grateful for any that come next.
Life sure hasn't been easy for me lately. My relationship is imploding. It's not news for anyone who knows anyone who has been through half of what Jason and I have. Death of parents, cancer of parents, Covid, death of pets, substance abuse, mistrust, the list goes on and on......
I guess what this post is about is me giving myself permission to get over it all and stop blaming myself for every bad thing that happened to me or anyone around me. I know I wasn't blameless but I'm not the asteroid I thought I was. I'm not an asteroid at all.
I'm a guiding light. I'm alive for a reason.
I'm guiding my children, messy or not. They know they are loved and they know they are safe. They're smart and confident and capable, sassy young women.
I help people everyday at work. In small ways and sometimes in life changing ways. It's satisfying to be thanked for helping someone heal, or for easing some suffering.
I am so much more than what I thought before...
I am hope for someone just diagnosed.
I am support for someone suffering.
I am love in so many complicated forms. I am just a small sparkle, a little bit of humanity in a big world.
It took one simple minute in time....one full of pure goodness....for me to realize that the only person I wasn't extending hope to or support or love to was me.
How did it take me so long to see this? Why when I looked in the mirror did I only see the past? Why couldn't I face the present? I don't have these answers, maybe someday they'll come.
I do know this.....now, I see there is someone looking back at me that deserves a future and is worth the effort. Yes I'm messy and I've got more work to do but isn't that life?
Cancer is a beast with a thousand legs, they wrap around you and try to pull you down, it sucks hope and love and life.....but it doesn't have to.
Look up at the stars some Monday night and know....the person most worthy of your love is you.
Nothing else matters. Like everything in time and space, the negative will fall away and what will be left is light, for our children, for our friends, for those we know.
If we radiate love and light, it will be returned. We attract what we are. We project our light into the future.
Even cancer can't take that away.
Comments