Archives for category: Breast cancer

Pay it Forward Friday

September 26, 2014 //

I had big plans for my blog today. It’s Pay it Forward Friday to honor our friend Karen Sutherland’s late husband, Hugh. Today is his birthday. I committed to honoring Pay it Forward Friday with several posts this week about acts of kindness and gratitude.

Karen writes lovingly about her husband and their relationship. What better way could I honor she and her husband than to devote todays post to my appreciation for my husband, John and our marriage.

Then it happened about 20 minutes ago. John acted in a way and said things that really pissed me off. Nothing horrible was said. It was just a disagreement. But it was a disagreement with interrupting. Between my daughter who interrupts constantly and my husband who interrupts frequently, this has been a hot button for me for many years. Actually, interruptions are not bad per se but the ones that change the subject or serve to confuse communication happen far too frequently.

But you know what? I’m going to appreciate my husband, anyway.

John, thank you for being my best friend for the past 27 years. You are a wonderful companion, have curiosity about the world, are compassionate, and are damned funny. I had long thought that any romantic, passionate relationship that I had would need a basis in friendship to last. And so far, I am right about that!

Thank you for being a wonderful father. I still remember your absolute and unbridled joy at becoming a dad. You have one of the closest relationships I’ve ever seen a father have with his teen daughter. There are times that I envy that but mostly I’m just happy for the two of you.

Thank you for being excellent at your job and for your financial contributions to our family. You work more hours than I do and make more money. You carry the health insurance for the family.

I have such gratitude to you for being so good to my extended family. They love you a great deal but I also know that there are a lot of them!

Thank you for supporting my career aspirations and education. I remember when people would say to me, “Your husband is so nice to LET you get a Ph.D.” They were right about the “nice” part but for the wrong reasons. Thank you for not acting as if I needed your permission to be a highly educated woman.

Thank you for supporting my friendships and my life outside of our family. Thanks for being such an eager host for our many social gatherings. Despite your natural introversion, you have a demeanor that puts others at ease, you are a wonderful conversationalist, and help people have a great time.

Thank you for your forgiveness, time and time again for the times I have hurt you, often unintentionally but more often than I would like to admit, I have hurt you purposely. I have acted selfishly out of fear, lashed out in times of stressed, and stayed distant at times I felt most vulnerable and hurt. You have loved me through all of this. You have always been open to working on our marriage for the health and happiness of the both of us as well as maintaining a strong foundation for our daughter.

Thank you for taking a chance on me. I know that when we met and even when we were getting married, your frame of reference was one in which people didn’t stay married for more than a few years.

Thank you for letting me expose our relationship, bumps and all, in my writing. It shows trust in the strength of our relationship as well as your kindness in hoping that sharing our lives may help others.

I had a psychotherapy appointment today. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the work I put into being a happy person. I told Rebecca that at times, I wonder if I make life too complicated since I work so hard at happiness. But I also told her that I realized that I have the CAPACITY for happiness and that is a big deal. Yes, I work hard but I know how to be a generally happy person.

She made a really interesting observation, a profound one I think. “Elizabeth, you have a lot of happiness in your life. Because you have so much, being mindful of all of it from the smallest flowers to the love in your marriage, is a lot of work.”

I said, “Oh it’s like happy money! I have to work hard because I have so much to count.”

Finally, Karen I am so sorry that you lost Hugh. I am so sorry for your cancers and your suffering. I so appreciate you. I know that in your sadness and suffering, you are growing stronger. You are a very kind and resilient person with much loving wisdom that you have shared with us. I consider not only your friendship a gift but also your relationship with your dear husband. Your love for him has always been incredibly apparent and incredibly strong. But the reality of the difficulties of living even with a soul mate, have always come through in your writing. I have felt encouraged and validated by the real, loving picture you have drawn, bumps and all.

Tags Breast Cancer Community, gratitude, Marriage, mindfulness, Pay it Forward

Categories Breast cancer, Marriage, Mindfulness

Anxiety during gratitude week

September 24, 2014 //

I have an MRI next week. I have them once a year as a routine follow up. In six months, I’ll have my annual diagnostic mammogram. Welcome to Breast Cancer Land. When they aren’t loading you into a noisy, rattling tube, they are smashing your boobs while having you hold the rest of your body in positions reserved for the less commonly read sections of the Kama Sutra.

I actually don’t mind the actual procedures so much. It’s the worrying and waiting for results. I don’t want to do this! I have all kinds of fun things planned for October! So I find myself thinking, “Maybe I should just reschedule my MRI for AFTER I do my fun things. Then if I have a recurrence, it won’t spoil my fun.”

This is a ridiculous kind of thought. I mean I could reschedule for November but then it would be, “What if I have a recurrence? It will spoil Thanksgiving.” Then Christmas may be spoiled, etc.

The fact of the matter is that there is no good time to have cancer. Right before scans, I find myself scheduling patients with the thought, “Hmm, I wonder if I will be able to finish that report if I find out I have a recurrence?”

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I can’t say that my life came to a screeching halt, because it didn’t. But major changes and upheaval occurred in order for me to get the assessments and treatments I needed. On the day I was diagnosed, it was a work at home day and I ended up cancelling two phone consultations with other healthcare providers. I worked on my reports the next day. It was a three day weekend and we were expecting my father-in-law to come stay with us. It was actually nice to have him there. He gave us a lot of support.

My life will stop when I die. A cancer diagnosis didn’t make it stop. I can’t juggle my schedule around the possibility that I will be worried and stressed. I am a planner but this is not one of the things to plan for, at least in the short term. I mean, I do think about the long-term. That’s why I exercise regularly, try to eat well, meditate, and go to psychotherapy. I am taking care of myself for the long term. I am preparing for the possibility of a long life. And those things I do for the long term, make me feel better right now.

This is my gratitude week. I had an idea in mind when I planned this but I have not quite followed it. Instead, I have gone according to what I wanted or needed each day. Today, I feel like I want to do something different with my anxiety.

I trust myself to do what I need to do if my cancer has returned.
I appreciate and feel deep gratitude to my friends and family for holding my health in their warm wishes and prayers.
I appreciate my access to excellent cancer treatment.
I am grateful that although my breast cancer surgeon has retired, that there are a number of excellent remaining surgeons at my cancer center.
I appreciate my healthcare insurance.
I am grateful to my husband because I know he will drop everything and come to my MRI appointment next week if I ask him to do so.
I appreciate my daughter’s resilience in the face of my health problems and her tenacity in life.

I love living.
I am alive until I am not.
I will do my best to live accordingly.

Tags anxiety, fear of cancer recurrence, healthy living, mindfulness, MRI

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Doctor Who?

September 1, 2014 //

My official title is “Dr. MacKenzie”. This is because I have a doctoral degree, a Ph.D. in psychology. In formal settings, I introduce myself this way. I also introduce myself this way to groups of children, for example, when I used to supervise my daughter’s classroom so that the teacher could have a break for lunch. I didn’t see a reason to introduce myself otherwise and further, I think it is a good example to girls to know that women can get advanced degrees.

My first job after getting my Ph.D. was a post-doctoral fellowship. When my husband was doing our taxes, I felt very diminished when I saw that he had listed my profession as “student”. And then I got really mad at him when he tried to justify it by saying, “What’s the difference?” I am not an unforgiving woman but I will tell you that I get hurt quickly at these times when the response is something other than, “Oops, I’m sorry. I will fix that right away.”

A long time ago, the term “doctor” became the name of a profession rather than reflective of whether one had a doctoral degree or not. The term “doctor” became synonymous with the perfectly excellent and specific name, “physician”. I don’t know when this started but my dissertation chair claimed that the doctorate, the Ph.D., goes back to the Middle Ages and that M.D.’s stole it.

Words matter but I am finding increasingly in my own professional life that it doesn’t matter so much to me. I am older now and established in my profession. I have a good reputation. I no longer live in the very sexist world of academia. In the clinical world, working with children and adolescents, being female is more desirable, generally. Lots of my patients’ parents call me by my first name. It’s not a big deal to me on a personal level. But it is a significant deal when it comes to my profession. People understand that physicians complete many years of training and education. A lot of people think that I have a master’s degree, which is a fine accomplishment, but on average involves five less years of training and education.

Similarly, words matter in the world of breast cancer. Most of us who have it are women and if we are paying attention, we have learned that sexist words matter, too. There are words and phrases in the breast cancer community that have resulted in people feeling diminished such as “survivor” or the war analogy. These words matter because they define us and impact the way others view us.

I don’t want to diminish anybody so I am careful with the words I use. But on a personal level, I don’t mind the terms “survivor” or the war analogy, even if I don’t use the latter in reference to myself. I understand why they bother people and I empathize with that. And I am a firm believer in each of us having the right to self-define.

But there’s the tricky bit, if we don’t at least a little shared language and identity, having cancer can be even more lonely. And if we have too much shared language that doesn’t resound with us at an individual level, it is that lonely feeling we have even when we are surrounded by people. And when other people who don’t even have breast cancer tell us what our identity is, that’s just hurtful and maddening!

I know I have written about this time and time again but it is no wonder that the balance between connection and distinction is a major task for adolescent identity development.

Whatever we chose to call ourselves, I am so happy to be part of this community and wish all of you the very best of health.

Tags Breast Cancer, breast cancer and identity, sexism

Categories Breast cancer

The Cancer Lens

August 29, 2014 //

One of the things I like about my camera, is that I don’t have to change lenses. It is a point-and-shoot, not a fancy camera. I find that I take the best photos when I am actually carrying a camera. This sounds silly but my little point-and-shoot fits into my purse as well as into the zippered pocket of my hiking shirt. (Yes, there is such a thing and I wear it over a t-shirt or around my waist.)

My camera has one lens and because of this it is much lighter. But I can’t see as much with it.

In my daily life, I feel that I am constantly changing lenses, the way I see the world. Sometimes, it changes so quickly that I can’t get a good view of anything, just constant changes, blurs of different colors and no definite shapes. These are very difficult days, among the most difficult. It is on these days that I feel frozen for anywhere from a few minutes to a day or two.

I added a cancer lens to my bag a couple of years back. Before the diagnosis, it was a general purpose lens, called, “bad medical stuff that is unlikely to happen but I get it checked out just in case”. And yes, I knew about the one out of eight figure for breast cancer in U.S. women. That’s still the minority and that’s a lifetime incidence, too. The percentage of cancer diagnosed at age 46 is considerably lower.

Then I found myself at age 46, diagnosed with breast cancer and having what would be revealed as four small invasive tumors, of low grade, meaning that tests estimated them to be relatively slow growing.

The cancer lens puts cancer at the center of view when it needs to be there. For me, it was the time of active treatment, which also coincided with continued assessment through scans and pathology reports, the latter occurring after each of my three cancer surgeries.

Now I am considered a “survivor” and my cancer lens keeps the possibility of cancer in the periphery. I have been told that I have excellent peripheral vision, both literally and figuratively.

My energy continues to return. There are so many legitimate reasons that reduce the energy of a breast cancer patient, chemo, oral medications, repeated surgeries, stress, working to make loved ones feel better, etc.

The cancer lens is also one of those things that can wear us down. Thinking about cancer, every day, even if only for a moment. I see many women worn down by the fatigue of cancer and I believe that this is a very real part of the burden.

The cancer lens can also bring things into finer focus, though. The preciousness of life, the motivation to treasure moments and to appreciate them. This is where people get into this whole, “cancer is a gift” thing. And yes, I agree that it is not a gift. But having a life threatening illness forced my hand to cope with my life and take care of myself better. The way I have dealt with cancer, by and large, has been a gift I have given to myself.

This week, I’ve had a hard time with anxiety, despite the fact that I am on vacation. I am somewhat disappointed with myself, to be totally truthful, but I am working toward acceptance of the fact that I am a very anxious woman at times and this is one of the times, right before the beginning of a near school year and my daughter’s birthday, when the business of my life can overwhelm me.

My friend, Nancy, also a psychologist and a breast cancer survivor, spent a few hours together earlier this week. We spoke of our friendship. Nancy remarked that even though I have dealt with some heavy problems as a parent and a person, she does not worry about me the way she might worry about her other friends. I actually feel the same way about her. Nancy is very smart, very kind, and very real. She is a very clear thinker. Most of the time, I think I think very clearly, too.

Clarity is a powerful tool. Clarity means seeing things head on, the possibilities and the certainties. It is at times frightening, at other times just the tool needed to dig through a very deep problem, and at other times, absolutely liberating.

I am real. Sometimes that is hard for people, including me.

Tags anxiety, Breast Cancer, clarity, fear of cancer recurrence, photography, realism

Categories Breast cancer, Mindfulness

Amen-opause

August 13, 2014 //

I had my penultimate Lupron shot. Yes, my second to last jab, on the right hip this time, with a syringe of Lupron stored in a package decorated with a photo of a smiling African American man, whom I am to assume is to represent a prostate cancer patient. Because, you know, both women and men love it when we get our hormones turned off by Lupron. It’s a party!

Lupron made me infertile by disrupting the signal between my pituitary gland and my ovaries. Yeah, I know, I talk a lot in my blog about breasts, a secondary sexual characteristic. However, the ovaries, primary sexual organs, are also commonly involved in breast cancer treatment. That’s because a lot of breast tumors, including the ones that were discovered in what was formerly my right breast, grew in response to progesterone and estrogen, two female hormones.

I could complain about the fact that a big part of my breast cancer treatment has been both a surgical and chemical warfare on my femininity. Remove my breast, then remove my lady chemicals. Go ahead, make me a man!

I’m not going to complain about this. Yes, losing a breast is a big deal. But that happens to many women, regardless of the hormone responsiveness of their tumors. Having had tumors that are progesterone or estrogen responsive is actually a positive prognostic indicator. Reducing hormonal activity is something that can be done to reduce the chance of breast cancer recurrence.

Chemically induced menopause is rough. I can tell you this first hand. Menopause symptoms, on average, are worse. I can tell you this, first hand. At the peak of my menopause symptoms misery, I had about 50 hot flashes EVERY DAY. Does that sound intensely uncomfortable? If yes, I have done an effective job in describing it. IT WAS RELENTLESS.

Currently, I experience almost no menopause symptoms. Also, I do not menstruate. And it is impossible for me to get pregnant. In other words, I am in a state of bliss.

It is likely temporary. Lupron does not permanently shut down my ovaries. In six months, my body will be adapting to the absence of Lupron. I will be 49 years old. At that time, I may become fertile again. My menopause may pause! Thanks a lot, menopause! Let me get used to you for two years and then throw a wrench into the works!

Yes, Virginia, I’m going to have to start thinking about birth control again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The last time I took a pregnancy test was at least five years ago. I knew it was unlikely that I was pregnant, but things were not as usual, and I wanted to be sure.

Based on my family history, I am likely to go back to a peri-menopausal state after I discontinue my Lupron shots. In other words, it unlikely that I will be able to conceive, but still possible. My last method of contraception was an I.U.D, which I loved, but then had to have removed, because it secreted female hormones, and I am not allowed to have those.

Yes, I know that I am solely responsible for contraception. And I have talked to my nearly 50 year old husband about perhaps, just perhaps, getting a vasectomy. The first time I raised the issue was when I was 37 years old. I did not raise it again until I was a breast cancer patient, nearly 10 years later. Neither conversation went particularly well. In my husband’s defense, I probably raised it too early the first time, and the second time, he was likely stressed by the prospect of his wife dying.

I may be a two time champion of menopause achievement. It is not a title that I particularly relish but I guess they are far worse things in life to bear, like CANCER!!!!

Tags Breast Cancer, contraception, Fertility, Lupron, Menopause

Categories Breast cancer

Learning my ABCD’s

August 11, 2014 //

There’s a famous developmental model in clinical psychology developed by Drs. Mark Greenberg and Carol Kusche. It is rooted in the larger cognitive behavioral model. The model is called, “ABCD”. It refers to Affect (emotion), Behavior, Cognition, and the Dynamic interplay among them. Because it is a developmental model, it refers to this interplay not only in a particular moment, but across time.

Sometimes AB and C work together in cohesion. Often they work at odds with one another. Sometimes they work in cohesion but in a way that is not healthy. “I am angry with you and I’m beating the shit out of you because I believe I am entitled to beat the shit out of anyone I don’t like for any reason.”
I know that many of us strive to live more peaceful, loving, and cohesive lives. And for extra credit, we are decent and upstanding people. I have worked hard over the years to live a life that is cohesive and healthy. I have focused on this in particular in my mindfulness practices in the last couple of years.

I am pretty happy. In general, I live a pretty balanced and cohesive life that makes sense. To be perfectly honest, I sometimes watch people I love say they want to be a certain kind of person, living by certain values, and then make choices that totally contradict their stated goals without apparent knowledge of this discrepancy. I have tried to make a habit of turning inward at these times. I am getting better at it. Bit by bit.

I decided a few weeks ago to dig deeply into the parts of myself that I try to avoid. To be honest, it is a narrow part of me but it runs very deeply, and when I hit it, it is very painful.

I know I am a good person who does mostly very good things. But there are areas in which I fail. Areas in which I let fears, irrational thoughts, and habits drive behaviors that are very much out of line with my values.

I lose my temper with my husband. I respond to situations as if they are much bigger than they really are. Sometimes, I let other people’s unhealthy behavior toward me define my own sense of worth. At times, I take on a love one’s hurt not only as if it were my own but as if it were my responsibility to fix. Sometimes these misfires of affect, behavior, cognition, and their dynamic interplay are brief. Other times, they play out over the years, like increasingly gnarled tree roots underground. I can feel them. I know they are there but I can’t see them.

I know I am not alone in this. No one is perfect. But I’m tired of feeling happy and balanced so much of the time only to find myself acting grouchy, ridiculous, and sometimes outright mean, when I pass my stress tolerance. I used to live my life very near or at capacity so I stressed very easily. It’s not so easy now so I figure this is a particularly good time to work on this.

There is a concept of “radical acceptance” in mindfulness meditation. In my understanding, it means observing our own painful thoughts and feelings and allowing them to be, instead of resisting them.

This is why my blog sometimes reads like a confessional. I am, however, not seeking reassurance or absolution. I am trying to better understand myself and be a more balanced person.

I am also trying to show that it is possible to be a happy person without being a perfect person. Over the past year, I have begun to view a lot of coping statements people use as being counterproductive for me. I don’t like telling myself “beauty is only skin deep” or “fat is beautiful” when I am not feeling good about my body. Similarly, in terms of aging, I don’t want to tell myself, “I’m only as old as I feel” or “age is only a number.” I would like to keep working to a point where I say things to myself like, “I am overweight. That may not be the greatest for my health. What do I want to do?” Or, “I am getting older. I’ve had a serious illness. I’m living a pretty healthy life now, doing the best that I can. I think I will get on with my day.”

I am working to get to a point where self-examination is objective and leads to serenity or agency. I am getting there but I still have much further to go. I am trying to take apart the mechanism, bit by bit, that turns self-examination into doubts of worth.

I used to think that having a balanced life meant almost never feeling stress and shuffling through the states of joy, bliss, serenity, faith, hope, and resolve. I actually had a friend years ago who practiced mindfulness, who seemed this way. Then there was the day I tried to say something empathetic about her stress level because we were all working hard. She quickly and somewhat sharply told me that she “never” got stressed. Then I knew. She was one of the rest of us.

People are complicated. Life is complicated. We spend our whole lives at A, B, C, & D. And thank goodness. I want to live a long life and how boring would it be to have it all figured out.

Tags ABCD model in clinical psychology, mindfulness, radical acceptance, self-examination

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Marriage, Mindfulness

Twinge

August 8, 2014 //

About five minutes ago, I was trying to remember why this date is important. “Is today someone’s birthday?” I looked at the calendar. August 8th. The memory came to me accompanied by a small visceral twinge. Two years ago today, I had a right side mastectomy. Last year, the date took me by surprise, too. But when I remembered, I sobbed uncontrollably, on and off, for three days.

The sensation in my pectoral muscles has returned somewhat. I can feel pressure beneath my reconstructed breast. My kittens reminded me of this yesterday when they were chasing each other around the house, tearing through the living room. They both used me as part of their race track and kept running across my chest.

My abdomen is still numb, though this continues to dissipate. The plastic surgery nurse, who had the same reconstructive surgery as me, a TRAM, told me that the numbness lasted about three years for her. I also noticed that although my body doesn’t feel the same way it did before, it feels like mine.

I’ve noticed other physical changes. Last night, my husband went out for a late dinner and a walk along Alki Point, a beautiful seaside area. Along the walk, we were able to see the downtown skyline, the water, and two mountain ranges. We walked about two miles to a restaurant on the other side of the point, ate on a balcony overlooking the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, and then we walked back two miles to where our car was parked. John had to pick up our daughter from band practice, so we were in a bit of a hurry walking back.

As usual, I had my camera with me and as usual, there were interesting photo opportunities along the way. We agreed that John would just keep walking, at his normal pace and I would stop to take photos whenever I wanted as long as I could run and catch up with him. That way, he wouldn’t be late. I have a long hate-hate relationship with running. Actually, it is just strong dislike. But I thought I could probably do it.

There was one spot that was particularly photogenic, so I took several shots. Then I needed to run to catch up with my long-legged man. It took me awhile to catch up. When I did, I noted to John, “Hey, I’m not breathing hard.” After complimenting me, he said, “What’s it been, about five years since you’ve run that far?” I laughed. “John, it’s been about twenty years since I ran that far!”

Breast cancer is awful, there’s no doubt. Cancer is powerful and destructive. It is nice, however, that healing and resilience are also powerful.

The “flower houses” at Alki Beach.

Our view at dinner. Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.

Seattle skyline across Elliot Bay.

Tags Breast Cancer, exercise, Mastectomy, mindfulness, physical recovery from breast cancer

Categories Breast cancer, Mindfulness

Getting a head

July 23, 2014 //

Last week I dreamed about my kittens. (Yes, I know, despite my formative years as a “dog person”, I have become a “cat lady” in my middle age.) My kittens are litter mates, brother and sister, both with pure black coats.

In my dream, they were conjoined twins. People looked at them and remarked, “Oh, look at the cute kitties!” Then the heads of the kitties started looking in different directions and the front right and left feet did the same. The kitties looked distressed. They were not working as a team.

When I awoke from the dream, I thought, “I need to use this image in a blog post.” Yes, really I did. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am not someone who makes fancy dream interpretations. But I do think about my dreams, especially when I think they signal distress. At the time I was having the dream, I was concerned that John and I were not parenting as a team as well as usual and that we were having trouble communicating about the logistics of our lives. I think that is probably what the dream was about.

I have been pretty stressed during the last couple of weeks. I am an energetic extrovert. Nonetheless, I don’t function well if I am pulled in a hundred directions, living a fragmented life. I am not good at perpetually switching gears. That’s one of the reasons I was attracted to pursuing a research career rather than a career as a clinician. Clinical work means switching gears between people, situations, and goals, quite frequently. When I did research, I worked on one or two projects for years at a time. But I ended up being a clinician and thank goodness, I learned how to switch gears much better than I did previously.

Right now my workdays consist of switching constantly among work, driving my daughter around, getting to my healthcare appointments. My daughter has needed to be driven to one to three locations all around Seattle, every day, starting in the middle of the day. She takes the bus when she can but there are logistics to be worked there there, too.

Yesterday, I reminded her of what time she needed to be home from school (she is volunteering each morning to help with a band program for younger kids) so that I could take her to an activity at 2:00 pm in northeast Seattle. (We live in southwest Seattle.) The original plan had been for her to take the bus downtown and then take a transfer to get to the office. However, we’d tried that the day before and she missed the bus. Since it was mid-day, there was not another bus for an hour. I cancelled my annual physical so that I could come home from work and drive her. Seattle is not an easy city in which to get around. It is long, narrow, surrounded by water, and hilly, for starters. This means that there are a rather limited number of highways and streets available to get from one place to another.

As I complain frequently, I find driving to be taxing and stressful. I am a good driver and it is not that I feel really anxious when I am driving. It’s mostly that I have to think so hard. And it’s not that figuring out bus schedules and directions is that hard, especially with the Internet. It’s hard to remember to do it and to make sure my daughter has the information she needs and understands where she is supposed to be at what time and how to get there. (This is one time when I kind of wish we’d allow her to have a smartphone, but I digress.) Riding the bus involves a surprising number of steps and also, some background knowledge that a non-driver doesn’t necessarily know. Consequently, I need to break it down in my mind and then make sure she knows things I would otherwise take for granted. For example, “You have a parade after your appointment. It is north of where you will be. Do you know what side of the street to be on to take a northbound bus?” The answer is “no”. And she does not yet know north, south, east, and west. When I was her age, I didn’t either. Then there are the fragmented questions I throw out, “Remember your bus pass!” “Remember to pack a lunch!” “Remember your phone!” “Remember your band uniform. You’re not going to have a chance to come back home before the parade!”

If you are a long reader of this blog, you will know that I live with some rather forgetful people who actually need frequent reminders, even if they are not always happy to receive them, in the moment. And by the way, it is not enabling if your child is actually getting better at remembering these things on her own, which is the case for her. But she is only up to remembering these things about 50% of the time. Think about what your daily life would be like if you were not where you were supposed to be with the what you needed, half of the time. Also, you carry your bus pass in an old eyeglass case and your money in a ring box. And this is a major improvement in organization from years past. Finally, you don’t drive. See, having a nagging mom would be annoying but handy.

About two paragraphs, I was telling you about one example day. Then I veered off course. What you don’t know if that while I’ve been writing this post, I’ve stopped and started it many times. I actually wanted to write it last week when I had the dream. Right at this moment, I am fighting the impulse to walk out and investigate the bird sounds I am hearing.

When I am switching gears too much, coordinating multiple goals, I find that it is hard to stop switching gears. I find even more goals and they aren’t priority either. Instead of being a two-headed cat, I turn into a creature with an ever changing number of heads, all on one body. There is effort to do things but none of the cohesion required to get things done in an efficient way.

The first thing that happens to me is that I start getting forgetful. Then I start making mistakes. Then I start getting anxious that I am making a lot of mistakes and I am so distracted that my level of self-awareness waxes and wanes. Then I make more mistakes. Then I start a flurry of unecessary reassurance seeking. “Are you sure you have the bus pass?” “Hey, friend, did I just treat you badly?”

There is an expression that people use referring to feeling “centered”. It is a positive thing but honestly I can’t exactly articulate what it is. But what I can tell you that at this time, I don’t feel centered or “grounded”, another common description that people use to refer to a state of balance.

I don’t feel centered. I don’t feel grounded. I feel like I have an infinite number of heads and none of them contain good working brains. Now, these are subjective feelings. In reality, I am functioning. I am carrying out my life with competence. But I feel icky in the process.

My natural inclination is to think of the happy, balanced, reasonable, bright, organized, empathetic, and energetic version of myself as “the real me” and the other times are aberrant.

I am becoming increasingly, aware, however of how unreasonable this belief really is. I am always me. Who else would I be? The person who gets irritable with her husband because she is overwhelmed and fragmented? That’s me. The person who asked her husband to take care of a responsibility this morning because she was exhausted, even though she’s been irritable with him? That’s me. The real me is not that perfect and it is unhealthy for me to maintain a vision of myself as needing to meet that standard in order to be “real”.

The person who is feeling a little more grounded and centered after having sorted through her thoughts and feelings while writing this post?

That’s me, too.

I have goals in my life. Some day, my life will end. But my life, itself, is not a goal or an end point.

My life is an experience, with lines of continuity as well as flux.

What else would it be?

Tags identity, Marriage, mindfulness, Parenting, stress management

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

The pay off

July 21, 2014 //

It has been two years and three months since my cancer diagnosis. Cancer treatment is expensive. Fortunately, I have very good insurance. However, the biggest financial cost for me was missing time from work. As a self-employed person, I have no sick leave, no disability leave, no vacation leave, and no holiday pay. Also as a self-employed person, I am not eligible for unemployment benefits. In other words, when I don’t work, I don’t earn money. The end.

I accrued a significant amount of debt. As a person who had paid off credit card balances in full every month, for decades, this was disconcerting. My husband and I work hard to have our house mortgage be the only debt that we have. And even our mortgage was refinanced a few years ago so that we could change from a 30 year to a 15 year pay off time. When I bought a new car in 2010, I put down half of the total price and then paid off the rest within 14 months, on a 36 month long loan. Again, we don’t like to be in debt.

Today I paid off my credit card, in full, for the first time in at least a year.

I think I will go celebrate by buying something expensive! (I kid, I kid, I kid.)

Seriously, health care costs are out of control in our country. I am in a much better financial situation than most people. I don’t know how other people do it.

Tags debt, financial impacts of breast cancer, health care costs, self-employment, U.S. Healthcare system

Categories Breast cancer

Thinking tall

July 18, 2014 //

My husband is out of town this weekend. He left this morning. I came home from driving my daughter around town this evening. The kitties were hungry. I couldn’t find their food. It wasn’t where I had left it earlier today when I last fed them.

They were pestering me for food. I knew that we were not out of kitten food, having bought a large bag of it just last weekend. I spent about ten minutes looking all around my kitchen, in the cupboards, on the counter, and on the small tables that are there. Then I thought, “John must have moved it. John is a very tall person.”

I lifted my head up to the plane of my husband’s vision, where he sees and where he can easily reach in our kitchen. There it was, the kitten food. It was set on a high cupboard above the microwave. I got out a stool to stand on so I could reach it to take it down.

Perspective taking is an important part of marriage. It is not just putting oneself in the life situation of another. Perspective taking requires thinking and feeling like another, as if you were that other person, with that other person’s life view, attitudes, capabilities, likes, wishes, strengths, weaknesses, and feelings.

My husband is a very tall person. I am tall for a woman but much shorter than he. My experience of our kitchen, what I can see and what I can reach, is much different than his, just because of a basic difference between the two of us. It doesn’t matter that the kitchen is the same. We are NOT the same.

That’s just a simple example of a difference in physical stature and how that impacts our perception of the kitchen in our home, as well as what consequences that has on our kitten food storing behaviors.

Intimate relationships can be extremely complex. There are many differences between people in a relationship and mind reading is not yet possible. And honestly, I think that mind-reading abilities would make healthy relationships even less possible. I have some pretty dumb thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. I don’t want people knowing about them! Further, sometimes, my thoughts and feelings are not completely expressed, they are disorganized and incomplete. I don’t want to communicate them until I have time to process them.

John and I are currently working extra hard to communicate better with each other. We are also trying to understand one another better. This is a time of transition for us. My level of functioning has been in flux for over two years now due to my cancer, it’s treatment, and my physical and emotional recovery. My husband is dealing with his own issues, some of it related to my cancer. We both navigate the shifting tides that are our teen daughter’s unpredictable ups and downs.

The logistics of our lives in the past two weeks have been particularly challenging. We are getting better at working things out. Right now, I no longer feel like I’m jugging water, as I was a few days ago. We are talking and listening. I am working hard to focus on what I can do as a wife and my own responsibilities instead of focusing so much on how I think my husband should be behaving differently.

I am working on thinking tall.

Tags Breast Cancer, empathy, marital conflict, marital roles, Marriage, Parenting, perspective taking

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Marriage