17 March 2012

No Bull Zone

I have finally invested in a minimal word processor app for my iPad in a valiant effort to never lose another post.  I am hoping that this will spur me to continue journaling my stepping stones as I move forward.  I know I haven't been posting much and there are a couple of reasons for this: first, I'm starting to get busy with life again, and second, I'm just not doing that much thinking about this anymore.  The limericks are harder to write as my emotion around this whole experience begins to wane and as I had mentioned before, the piss and vinegar I had at the beginning of my journey has mostly been beat out of me by recovering from treatments.
  
Having not had a serious threat of death has left me with the feeling that my general outlook is much the same as it was before I was diagnosed.  I hear what other survivors say about cherishing moments and feeling like every day is a gift and living life to the fullest and I'm just not in the same place.  The only change I've really detected is that because I had a "get out of jail free card", (you know, the cancer card,) I’ve had a pretty awesome break.  And because of this, my tolerance of bullshit has diminished significantly. Go a few months without bullshit from people and when you are re-exposed to it, it is glaringly apparent.  And you know what? It doesn't have to exist because people are perfectly capable of knocking it off when they think you can't handle it, (like when you are sick.)

So even ’though I didn't put up with much BEFORE I got sick, I'm now not going to tolerate ANY.

The kids are trying their darnedest to force things back to normal, and I'm having to explain that Before Cancer was the old normal, and now we have a new normal, one where they are more responsible for stuff around the house because frankly, I was doing WAY more chores than them by the time I was their age and I'm not going to put up with their sorry-ass whining about it anymore.  We had both of them threatening to run away and go live with some other family last week so we must be doing something right.  My other tactic is that if they don't do their job, I'm not going to do mine.  I'll make dinner for Dan and I and they can eat cereal.  I have two weeks of laundry in my bedroom - they are bound to run out of clothes soon and when they do, they will be responsible for putting them away.  I don't think I'll be folding their laundry anymore, either. If they don't clean out the lunchboxes so they are ready to pack, I get to sleep in 'cuz they will be packing their own lunch.  I like where this is going!

I am extremely fortunate that my breast cancer was a blip, a mere 6 months (so far) of disruption.  I have one more surgery to switch out my tissue expanders for my silicone implants.  I know that recovery is going to suck, but it won't suck as bad as the mastectomy.  I am much weaker now than I was going into my first surgery, but even taking that into account, this one won't be as bad.  I hate that I'm just feeling like my major mobility issues are fading and it's time to throw another four to six week recovery period in.  But like I  said, I'm lucky. So in a week or so, I'll be somewhat incapacitated for a while.  I'm not planning on pushing my luck on the recovery.  Sorry kids, I'll be needing you to step up to the plate.

Another way I'm not tolerating bullshit is I won't be taking any from myself either.  I had quite the pity party while in chemo, to the tune of gaining 15 pounds.  I'll be working pretty hard on that for the next little while.  I'm feeling pretty good, (for someone who had major surgery six months ago followed by three months of chemo for a disease that could have killed me...)  I'm walking and using the elliptical.  It's wild how out of shape I was after the chemo - worse than I'd been EVER... it's like I hadn't done any physical activity for years.  I've started back at the gym and will continue until my surgery at the end of the month.  We'll have to see what's up after that.