Most people would never guess in a million years that there are scars stretching across my chest with no nipples.
I've just been struck by a thought...or
rather a string of them. This happens sometimes when 'm beading. As
my hands piece things together my head begins to do the same. The
parallels are fascinating, really. Sometimes the pattern doesn't work
out so I have to undo my work, re-plan, re-arrange, and re-string. I
suppose life can be like beading necklaces.
My mom came out of surgery doing quite
well. Since she does not have to suffer chemotherapy or radiation,
she was able to get breast implants at the same time as the
mastectomy. That gave me comfort. It doesn't completely erase the
horror but it softens the blow quite a bit.
It was in May of 2012 that I was
diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. For the past two and a half
years, breast cancer has been the major defining factor of my life.
I've been a new mother fighting breast cancer, I've been a wife
fighting breast cancer, I've been a single mom fighting breast
cancer. I've been an artist, a writer, a student, a destitute
daughter and friend...it's all been tangled up in cancer. Having done
this dance twice, I already knew that its mark was permanent.
You don't just “get cancer” and
then leave it at the side of the road abandoned or sitting by itself
in a restaurant wondering what happened. Once it grips you it is a
part of you forever. However, that leaves me to wonder at what point
it will stop being one of the first things that is used to describe
me, like having my hair dyed purple or learning Krav Maga. When I
take off my bra I see breasts with no nipples and scars screaming
across them. Cancer's mark is there in the mirror every day. It is
inside my voice when I say hello to someone, when I do my dishes,
when I pay my cell phone bill. I make jewelry for the cause, I am
writing a book. I have been shut away from the “real world” for
so long that social situations normal to most have become strange and
alien to me.
Looking back at my brother's death, I
see how losing George is a permanent part of me but not the defining
circumstance hovering over every day like it once was. I will always
be a grieving sister I suppose, but I don't start each day with “my
brother died” anymore. Will cancer be the same way? When it is no
longer one of the first things to talk about what will I have to say?
I've been walking this dreamscape for so long, I'm not so sure I will
ever be fully returned to “reality.” Maybe that's okay though.
But at some point...I'll need to find something else to talk about.
Some days I feel like I can face
anything. Even on the more difficult days, I know that whatever is
going on, whatever monsters are breathing down my neck, nothing will
stop me. Even if they slow me down or knock me over, I will get back
up because that's what I do. I get up. I deal with it.
My mom has breast cancer. I haven't
talked about it much because, well, I can't deal with it. Tomorrow
she goes in to have both breasts removed and I can't deal with it.
She won't have to do chemo or radiation like I did...but I'm still
not dealing with it. I can't. I don't know how.
When I was pregnant with my daughter
and my husband crawled into a bottle, my mom swooped in and gave me
support. We had been distant from each other for a very long time,
but in an instant, the gap was closed. I largely had to go through my
pregnancy alone, but I had my mother back. Then as breast cancer came
for me a few months later, there she was again. The mom I was always
at odds with or felt misunderstood by became my rock. She became my
connection to survival and sanity. She put herself in financial and
marital strain to help me through. She has been supportive in my
divorce and my decision to do Krav Maga because she wants me to be
happy and she wants to see me thrive.
I can't deal with this. I just can't
deal with this. It hurts too much. It scares me too much. And there's
this crazy, irrational part of my brain that wonders if the strain of
helping me through my cancer somehow lead to her cancer. It's not
uncommon to hear of a woman getting breast cancer years after it
happened to her mother but this...this is weird. This is unsettling
and I just can't process it. There is nothing I can do for her and
there is no way I can be there at the hospital so far away to wait in
agony while she undergoes the same painful surgery I had to endure.
Maybe if I was there, maybe if I could hold her hand, I could process
it. Maybe I could smile at her the way she smiles at me and tell her
that it's alright because I've been there and I know. But here I am,
in the dark, all alone, knowing that tomorrow my mother will be
butchered and there is nothing I can do.
Some things as it turns out, are beyond
my ability to deal with.
I know it's been a while since my last
post. Things have been a whirlwind and I'm just now figuring out my
new pattern, my new way of progressing. I have returned to the Reike
Path and have recently been attuned to Elemental Reike. It is doing
wonderful things for me. My new love however, my new love has taken
the fighter I am inside, and is extracting it to my exterior, piece
by piece. It is making me feel more whole and alive than I have ever
been.
Shortly after my reconstruction began,
when I was still living with the crippling pain of tissue expanders
in my chest, slowly stretching my burnt and scarred skin, I was sent
to a physical therapist. I had lost most of the ability to lift or
reach with my left arm, due to the removal of my lymph nodes, and the
decimation of my chest muscle by radiation as well as the re-routing
of a portion of my latissimus muscle from my back to the front. In
short: the brutality of treatments lead to an equally brutal and
shockingly horrific beginning to the journey of making me as
physically whole as possible. There was so much pain...and so many
limitations to how I could function.
My physical therapist was a
delightfully boisterous woman named Joyce. Joyce was wonderful! She
loved dogs, she was a master at her profession, she had a warm
spirit, and I could talk to her. I can't remember how many sessions
we had, but it was cut short by my insurance refusing to cover all
that she had planned for me. At the beginning of one of our sessions,
I noticed that she had bruises on her forearms. I wasn't going to ask
but she said “Before you ask...” and told me about how she was in
her Krav Maga class and somebody had a weapon and she didn't. It was
her job to take said weapon from the other person...and that was her
explanation for the bruises. I could feel my eyes widen with
interest. She filled me in a little bit on the wonderful world of
Krav Maga and I had her write it down for me so I could look it up.
I never did.
The sessions ended and the piece of
paper wound up in my purse. I would find it occasionally and put it
back. Tissue expansion continued for a while. Thankfully Joyce had
helped me enough so that I wasn't in constant pain. Mornings were
still rough but I had stretches to help. Once I was expanded to the
size I wanted, it was time for permanent implants and...well...if you
read back there are entries about some of the following surgeries.
Surgeries continued (and are almost
finished), my marriage fell apart, I damn near went homeless...a few
times, I won my disability case, and I began to focus on my jewelry
business and getting better emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
I started going for walks, and then I started riding my bike six
miles a day. Finally, my life was becoming something good. Finally, I
was finding happiness.
Shortly after I won my settlement for
the two years of disability I was initially denied, despite meeting
the full qualifications...you know, having breast cancer and all...of
being disabled. I could now pay off a few bills, pay rent, take care
of my car...and take some good friends out for a well-deserved meal.
Amber and Nasir, who have taken me out
numerous times for dinner, picked me and Violet up and before we
found our destination, we happened by a little plaza-strip mall-thing
that I go by several times a week. I think I knew there was a Martial
Arts school there, but hadn't really thought much about it (other
than once in a while musing about what form of martial arts would be
good for me if I ever had the guts to pursue it). However, on this
particular passing, a sign...no literally, a sign caught my
attention. It's big red letters spelled “KRAV MAGA.”
I thought about Joyce. I thought about
how I've been poisoned, butchered, and burned. I thought about my
brother's death, the heart-wrenching end to my marriage, and how I'm
still here. I'm still standing. I'm shaking, but I'm standing. I
thought about the countless times I've been called a “warrior”
through all of this, and I realized that it was time to really become
one.
The very next day, I went into East
West Martial Arts and signed up for an introductory
“see-how-you-like-it” class. $25 and a free shirt! How could I
pass that up? I left my name to be called back for an appointment and
as events unfolded, I found myself in my first class on a Friday
afternoon, nervous as Hell, but bubbling with excitement. I was taken
to a small room with mirrors where I was given a brief one-on-one
introduction, then I was lead out into a much larger room with
mirrors...and there were other people there. I was surrounded by
strangers in a well-lit room, feeling out of my element, wondering if
I'd made a mistake but refusing to go back. I hate being “the new
kid” but new I was, and already on a journey of re-birth, as it
were. I had no idea what to expect so in that wide-eyed and terrified
kind of way, I listened for instruction and followed as best I could
with a little extra help. We started by jogging in circles...and I
tripped over a raised part of the floor mat, falling on my ass.
Great. Awesome. Get up. Keep going. You're here. Do this. I ran in
circles, I did push-ups...sort of, I did sit-ups, I learned how to
punch, how to kick. It was exhausting, but I was unfolding. I was
filling up with vitality and life. I was hungry for more. By the end
of my first class I knew I had found my new love, Krav Maga. I signed
up for the nine month program. THIS would be my rehabilitation. THIS
would be the physical therapy I need.
It's only been about a month, but
everything has changed. I am already stronger, more confident, and
happier. I am SO happy!!! I have even officially gone off
antidepressants with my doctor's full approval because this...THIS
fills a void. Even when it hurts, it brings me such joy, such
fulfillment, such purpose! I don't ever want to quit. I want to see
this thing through. I want to get good at it. I want to become what
people tell me I am. I want to be a warrior. For me it is not enough
to survive. I want to thrive. I want to fly.
I will learn. I will grow. I will
fight. I will fly.
