Happy Solstice Today! This is the shortest day of the year.
I don’t have family plans for the holidays. I am having friends over and friends have had me over. In fact I feel guilty I have been ‘fed’ by everybody lately.
My friend Mary had the best ever British Tea which was full of good tea and eats and then we made ornaments. It was fun. I met some new people; and of course the crowd had another BC survivor. Amazing! We are everywhere. I am beginning to realize this disease is so vast, but that does not mean we should give up the fight to find a cure. Definitely not. I do not want my family to have to go through this. It also feels helpless to me to fix this, if not maybe we can make it better or make treatment better. I am going to write more on this after the start of the year.
At Mary’s luncheon were: two bc survivors, one woman waiting for a lung transplant and another suffering from some kind of palsy undiagnosed shaking problem. Wow, it made me feel lucky!!
And I met another woman this week, in a strange place at a strange time. I do not believe in coincidences. I believe in a divine power that puts us in the right time at the right place. I guess you could call them ‘angels’ of a sort. Maybe I was the angel in this case.
Okay, what are the chances that I would get a caseworker that has dealt with exactly what I have been struggling with this season? It is almost to weird to write about. This woman had in the past breast cancer also. I had never met her before and we just started talking about how angry all this has made us and how we survivors see it in each other; and understand it. And its nice to have other people that are not judgmental about it and telling you to stop having those feelings and be grateful. It was actually fun to talk to some one about it. And I think, I was right where I needed to be because it seemed she needed somebody to discuss this with right at that moment. She had some good advice to offer also about children and their reactions to their parents cancer. I will hereafter in this post call her C.
C said to me something I hadn’t heard before in this journey. She told me to consider how my children seen me before cancer. Who was I? She said that’s how they would see me in cancer. She asked me how I seen them before? How do I see them now? C said I need to tell them who I am now. I need to tell them how I see them now. She said I need to express my disappointment and feelings of abandonment to them. She told me it was ok to tell them how angry I was and that I needed to do that an clear all the air. She also said it was probably good they weren’t around. And I agree with that. A cancer patient don’t have the energy to lift people who cannot deal with the situation. Doing treatment is hard enough.
Each person does only what they can do. And that is enough.
So maybe I will try writing them. The problem is sometimes I write to much. I am to graphic. But maybe if I search my heart for the truth; the truth is good enough. yes that is what I will do but I will wait till after the holidays. It might take that long anyway.—————- But isn’t it odd that I would find a woman at an agency…I felt a soul connection. That is the joy of this disease….the real soul connections you make.
One of my biggest beefs has been how I have to repeat all my information every time I go into the doctor, or to the agencies or something; like social security or wherever I am getting questioned. And I mean after awhile you just give up. I am sure I forget half the stuff I am suppose to remember out of sheer going nuts having to repeat it. So I was telling her, I just quit going to the doctor for everything and just deal with it myself. Treatment sucks. It consumes your whole life, your whole day and sucks out every ounce of energy you may have been able to acquire.
Both the case worker and I agreed, that sleep was the key. So some might say that is depression; but its really just recovery.
Are all my friends sick? Well, no they are not. But most of us will get something sometime in our lives. Well we all will because nobody is getting out of here alive. That doesn’t mean we don’t have good lives though, does it? No. We need to bloom where we are planted! There is good in everything even the hardships. And the good thing that grows are the friendships.
For myself, I know I have really changed inside. I have more patience. I am not as critical. I am forgiving. I think compassionate is more the word. In reflection, it was a hard lesson to learn. Being an analyst by trade, I had to learn to shut up my analytical brain and think with my heart. And just stop analyzing and ‘live’. I don’t know if you know what I mean. But I have a very different attitude about things. So for me, that is a good thing.
and that’s where I am starting…….with me.
