Hard Week

This week has been a hard week for me.
Not physically, but emotionally.

A women I met a few months ago at a Pink Party, a party for those surviving with cancer, passed away.
She was 55 with 4 children. 
When we spoke at the party she told me she had been battling breast cancer for years and now it had spread - to multiple places including her brain. 
We talked on Facebook a few times, she gave me a lot of tips to help with various side effects.
Her goal was to see her youngest child graduate high school.
She passed away 5 days before his ceremony.

I have what she had.

Then on Tuesday I found out that a girl I went to high school with had passed away.
I am sad to say I didn't really know her, just knew who she was.
From reading her blog - she seemed to be an amazing mother, wife and friend.
She had been battling skin cancer for 8 years.
She has 3 young kids.

We are the same age.

This is from her blog from a few years ago.

victory
Wednesday, May 25, 2011

"You have cancer."

And just like that you are drafted into a conflict you would never sign up for.
Women and children and old men, everyone is eligible.

In the trenches we suddenly find ourselves.
The cancer hospital.
Waiting for a blood draw on a bench with worn-out people in the same boat.
Everyone has a story in their eyes.

We are a brave bunch. Even if it's because we have to be, we are.

We go into treatments the picture of health. Come out disfigured and close to death.

Everyone wants to help, the army of support, but we are the ones who have to stand up and take the blows.
Dr.s give us their best weapons and we hope they work.

The enemy is terrible.
Win or loose, we fight hard.
For the worthy cause of more time on this beautiful earth.
For every happiness we have experienced.
For everything we haven't done yet.
We fight for the things we love.
For the people we love.

My heart aches for their families.
That is why I keep fighting.
Fighting for those I love.
So hopefully my story is different.
 

I wanted to say Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful women in my life.
From my own mother to my step-mother, my mother-in-laws, sister and sisters-in-laws, and grandmas, aunts and friends.
Yes, it is after 10pm, but better late than never.

One year ago was honestly one of the best Mothers days I have ever had.  
There was no fancy breakfast in bed, no flowers, not even a hint of chocolate covered strawberries waiting.

It was because Alyssa had just been released from her 2 week stay at Primary Children's Hospital and she was doing well. 
We celebrated her homecoming, Abigail's 8th birthday and Mother’s Day all on the same day. 
It was so wonderful to be home and all together again. 
We had just come through a rough storm and were finally starting to breathe a sigh of relief. 
I was feeling great and in just over a month would be welcoming another little guy in to the family.  
Who could have imagined another storm was waiting for us. 
One that would forever change me. And my family.

I am so grateful for all my family, friends, neighbors and strangers who helped out but mostly for my mother. 
I don't know what I would have done without her. 
I could never sum up into words everything she has done for me of how grateful I am for her.
The more I look back on my childhood, I am amazing by her.
Her strength, selflessness and the sacrifices she made.
She has shown me true unconditional love.
She has taught me how to be a better person and mother.

Each Mother's Day (as well as most holidays) has a different meaning for me now.
I am grateful for each one.
I am grateful I am here to celebrate them.

Happy Mother's Day!

 

A Mother's Fight

Written by Mary Darling Montero 

(Psychotherapist, writer, mother and cancer survivor)

This Mother's Day falls just before my two-year anniversary of being diagnosed with an aggressive form of early-stage, invasive breast cancer. Anniversaries can trigger traumatic memories, and as mine approaches I catch myself reliving pieces of the day I was diagnosed. Breast cancer would permeate every layer of my identity, shifting the way I felt as a wife, daughter, sister and friend, but that day it was my sense of motherhood that rocked me to my core.

Elizabeth Stone famously said: "Making the decision to have a child -- it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." I can't think of a better way to express how having children multiplies your sense of vulnerability. When I was diagnosed, my first thoughts were about my 1- and 2 year-old children: Will I be able to take care of them during treatment? Will I survive? Will they grow up without me?

That last question took my breath away and woke me up in the middle of the night with a racing heart. It sent me into my closet where I sat on the floor and cried, and into my kids' rooms while they slept, where I curled up beside them and fervently prayed.
It was fear with the power to paralyze me, yet my instinct to fight for my kids was stronger than that fear. For me, "fighting cancer" meant keeping my role in my kids' daily lives as steady as possible. It meant using my last reserves of energy to attend an event at my son's school or play with my daughter at the park.

When I was in treatment, our babysitter sent me a cartoon of a bald woman wearing a headscarf and walking with purpose while clutching the hand of a small child and carrying both a crying baby and a grocery bag. "This reminds me of you!" she said.
Of course, I wasn't that woman all the time. Anybody going through cancer treatment and surgeries feels defeated at times, and even those of us who have a relatively easy time with side effects succumb to sick days spent entirely in bed. But I could relate to the woman in that cartoon. She was busy with endless appointments, tired from chemo, and afraid of the future, but she shook off feeling sorry for herself, pulled herself up, and took care of her kids.

She was a woman who would forever be part of a sisterhood of women who live with a new sense of wonder for the small bodies housing pieces of their hearts -- women who watch their children grow with a new reverence for the passage of time.
I wish a Happy Mother's Day to every mother who fights for her kids in the face of unimaginable challenges.
May our fight always be stronger than our fear.

Mourning, Denial and One Year

Mourning and Denial - these two words seem to contradict each other.
How can you deny something, yet mourn it too?
Somehow, I feel both.

As I was sitting waiting at Instacare on Saturday for over two hours, I started thinking.
Even as I get "better" my life (and my body) will never be the same as it was.
I am mourning a life I will never get back.
I cry and long for my BC (before cancer) me.
My "better" will always consist of doctors, blood tests, scans and the continual fear that
each new symptom could be the cancer returning.

This is hard for me to come to terms with.
I am not sure how anyone can truly come to terms with the cancer world.
Just this has been hard for me to live with.
Most days I just try to keep myself busy with the kids and school and
getting caught up on the things I had to put on hold for the past year.
I find sitting and reflecting is too hard and I can't deal with it right now.
It is easier to somewhat live in denial, pretend for a few moments that everything is how it used to be.
Everything is fine.
I am fine.

Not quite sure how anyone could truly deny everything that has happened.
Honestly my first thought looking back over the last year is Holy Hell - did all that really happen?
A team of doctors, nurses, and specialist have been working over the last year to save my life and rid my body of this cancer. 
To get me to this point.
But now that I am there, now what?

They told me what to do, what not to do.  What to eat, what not to eat.  Use, not use, take, not take.
And sometimes they even told me how and what to feel.
But now... I don't see them as often, every 3-6 months, some even longer.
I don't know what I am supposed to be feeling.

I have heard from others that this time is often more difficult emotionally than when actually going through the treatments.
I still have a hard time believing it all.
So am I in denial?
It is the only way I am coping.
Of course seeing certain things bring the feelings and fears right back to the surface.
My scars, short hair and the numerous medications I have to take daily.

Maybe why my emotions are so raw right now is because I am coming up on a lot of one year marks...
The day I found my tumor and fear set in,
the day I got my diagnosis and life was forever changed,
the first day of chemo that I am still trying to recover from its side effects.

But the one I am trying to focus on most, that brings much need excitement is Gage's First Birthday!
My little baby is turning one.
He has helped me get thought some of my darkest times with his sweet smile, a quick little snuggle and his always on-the-go personality.

I know in time things will get less scary and overwhelming.

Things will get better!

(Why was I at Instacare?  I got a small rash a got a few days ago.  Just thinking it might be a delayed allergic reaction to a new medication, I wasn't too worried.  Then it started to spread and got very painful with lots of small blisters.  A call to my oncologist, who urged me to get it looked at, rather than wait to see him on Monday.  Well... I have shingles.  So, now more medications but hopefully it was caught soon enough and it will only last for a few weeks.)