18 November 2011

Back from the Dead

Hello everyone!  So are you getting the idea that chemo completely wipes me out? And it's more than just the physical stuff - intellectually, emotionally, physically, it's all gone for a week or so.

It also messes with my personality - just ask my husband.

But I'm finally feeling better (11 days after,) and I'm feeling like myself.

I had some interesting insights this week, in between feeling like crap and acting like a crazy person.  I had the delightful experience of meeting with a fellow 'cancer mom' who has unbeknownst to her become my mentor.  Kudos to Sara, you rock - but you probably already know that because everyone who has the blessing of knowing you tells you that.  Here's a link to her blog - much inspiration there.

She told me that she feels like cancer has given her the gift of hitting the reset button back to 'factory settings'.  That is exactly how I feel.  I'm just starting to explore the idea that perhaps my current lifestyle doesn't really reflect who I've become.  We all have so much baggage that accumulates through our lives.  There are certain things I do or have for no other reason than because I've always done it that way, or that's how my mom did it, or it's the prevalent way it's done in the community I'm in. I'm starting to see areas of my life that are no longer a perfect fit.  And by recognizing these areas, I'm able to then postulate what would be a better fit.

Simple questions are giving rise to surprising answers.  What do I truly love doing?  What do I truly value?  How do I want to spend my time on earth, and what do I want to leave behind?  What do I need to support those things?  Many times in my past I've felt my life was lacking, but I could not articulate what it was lacking.  Cancer has a way of stripping away pretense and allowing truth to surface.  

The second experience was that my husband had a birthday this week and he led by example on what 'simplify' really means.  I now understand the difference between something that tickles my fancy and something I truly love.   Intellectually I understand that 'stuff' is just 'stuff', and 'stuff' needs managing, and less 'stuff' is simpler than more 'stuff'.  But it's hard to put that into practice without emotion entering the mix and messing up good intentions.  I think I now have the tools to truly simplify.

The third thing that happened was that I was very, very irritable for a week which gave me no patience for idiots.  The problem with clueless people is that they are so clueless that not only do they not understand what's going on, but they also don't understand that they don't understand.  So not only is there a problem, but they are the problem. This led me to the thought that when I am crazy, (ie: during chemo) I don't realize I'm crazy.  So now that I know - next time when I'm crazy, I can just say to myself, "Self?  Did you have chemo this week?  If so, whatever you are thinking/feeling right now probably isn't real."  And believe it or not, it will probably help.

Just as an aside, when I was searching for pictures for this post I plugged in the word crazy and some REALLY interesting images popped up.  This one, which I call belly-button cat-butt, I just had to share.

PS - I had a post that I wrote when I was crazy, and perhaps I will edit it some and post, or maybe not, since I know now how I was crazy when I wrote it.  It was all about how the chemo was messing with me, (and I didn't even have the crazy part in there since I didn't realize it at that time.)  Or I may just use it to document some of the side effects/symptoms I have.  In any event, I'll be posting something about that later. Aaaahh, it's good to be back.