Archives for posts with tag: Breast Cancer

Bruised

March 26, 2014 //

In some ways I am very sensitive, squeamish even. I hate scary movies so much that I just won’t see them. When I was young, it felt like I was the only one who refused to see these movies or to go on amusement park rides. I don’t like visual gore. I don’t like to watch violence.

Perhaps surprisingly, this squeamishness does not translate to physical health issues. I used to find watching surgeries on television fascinating as long as there weren’t “sound effects”. As I recall, I often turned the sound off. I used to work in a medical lab at a hospital where they did dissection. It was not my favorite thing to view, but I handled it okay and I liked the job.

I know that some people have a hard time handling their surgical drains, looking at their surgical incisions, or the aftereffects of a mastectomy. I am not one of those people. My natural curiosity about the human body as well as how surgeons work to help fight disease and sculpt the body distracted me from any revulsion I might otherwise feel.

A week ago I had a set of surgical procedures as part of my breast reconstruction. Part of it was the liposuction of small amounts of fat from my hips and thighs, which were injected into my natural breast to improve symmetry. It was something I had planned to do after my TRAM but had held off for a year because I needed a break from surgery.

As I’ve previously written, I was actually kind of looking forward to this surgery in an odd way, because it would take me off of the treadmill that was tiring me. The treadmill of responsibility to others and of expectation.

Who was I kidding? That surgery was no break. One of my friends told me recently that she was having a major surgery. Being the multiple surgery veteran that I am I said, “Surgery was not that bad until I’d done a lot of the healing and I realized how much it sucks. But by then, I felt a lot better.”

When I’ve had surgery, I’ve taken it day by day. I’ve discovered that I have a somewhat high pain tolerance.The worst pain I’ve ever had was as a teen and a young adult. It was menstrual pain and it could knock my onto the bathroom floor into the fetal position. That is probably the reason why when in labor, I asked for an epidural early and often. As it turned out, even childbirth did not replicate those years of pain that I had. I was wrong about my pain tolerance. The truth was that I had crazy painful and bad periods.

So here I am after my last surgeries, with a high pain tolerance and being low on the squeamish factor, at least when it comes to real life blood and gore. I was told that the liposuction would create bruising. There wasn’t much right afterwards but then they bloomed like creepy black lagoons on my body. They were tender but didn’t hurt as much as a bruise caused by an injury. But they were big, they grew for a couple of days, and they were just ugly and nasty.

Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s the biggest one, located on my inner right thigh. It has actually healed considerably in the last few days.

Looking at these bruises has been like being knocked upside my head. This one is like an emblem of cancer. It’s big and ugly and crept up on me. Looking at it, I know that I am done with reconstruction. So unless there is a complication that needs to be addressed or new disease, I am done.

The fact that not long ago I was in part, looking forward to these surgeries gives me great pause. I am typically very self aware and deliberate in my decisions as long as I am reasonably calm. Surgery sucks. It really does. At this point, it is not worth it to me to do more but because I had kind of forgotten this recently, I have begun asking friends to remind me of how bad surgery is in the event that I start toying with the idea of more reconstruction. I can already see that I would need at least another couple of surgeries to be fairly symmetrical. I look fine in clothes but my breasts are not only of different sizes but they are also of different shape. It is less so since the surgery last week but they still look mismatched. Today, I think that is just fine and I want to keep being satisfied with this and not do any more to my body.

I am not sorry I had these surgeries. I’m just a little shaken up because I’d forgotten what a disruption that they are to my energy, my concentration, and my ability to take care of myself, even if only feeling out of it for a few days. I have people in my life who I want to be present for. I have things I want to do and feel and say.

I have my post-surgery appointment tomorrow. I think I am healing well. I don’t expect any surprises. I am at peace with where I am going to be when these bruises heal.

I am bruised but not broken.

I am humble but not humiliated.

I am strong but not invincible.

Tags Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction, healing from surgery, life balance, mindfulness, when is breast reconstruction done

Categories Breast cancer, Mindfulness

Human Colander

March 20, 2014 //

Today’s blog is informational. In other words, no photos of the woods! I figure that some of you out there might be interested in knowing some details about the surgeries I had yesterday in case you consider them for yourselves. If one chooses breast reconstruction, there are a surprising number of subsequent choices to make.

As you know I had a TRAM a year ago to reconstruct my right breast following a mastectomy and tissue expander placement. Often but not always, women have additional procedures done following the TRAM (or implant placement) to increase symmetry between the reconstructed and natural breast.

Yesterday, Dr. Welk made a revision to the fold underneath my reconstructed breast. That was actually the biggest surgery in my view, because it required the largest incision and it is the most painful of the incisions. He also used liposuction to get fat to inject into two places on the upper half of my natural breast. (Well actually, fat is not injected into the breast tissue, it’s injected into the subcutaneous fat to reduce the likelihood that the injection will make cancer scans harder to read.) He also injected fat above the TRAM to fill the space left by my mastectomy as Dr. Beatty removed a lot of tissue all of the way up to my right clavicle, due to the location of the cancer. Consequently, I had a little hollow spot there, certainly something I could live with but when he offered to fill it in, I agreed.

Dr. Welk took the fat from two places on my abdomen (on the TRAM scar so no new scars there) and two places on my thighs. The incisions were symmetrical, one from each side of my abdomen and one from each thigh. I counted all of my bandages when I came home yesterday and there were 10 incisions. Woo hoo! A new record! Nine of them are tiny. The one under my right breast is not, which is why my right side was super achy yesterday and pretty achy today. I have been taking over the counter pain reliever since I got home yesterday afternoon and not very diligently. It’s not painful unless I stand up and I figure that pain is a good deterrent for me against exerting myself too hard. Hubby will tell you that I am not a good patient in this regard. I don’t ENTIRELY agree but I get his point.

Ah yes, there are also the needle sticks to my left arm, all three of them. I have what they call in the IV placing biz, “small, deep, and rolly veins”. The successful poke was to a vein on the back of my hand. I had an IV placed there when I was in labor with my daughter. It hurts more, I think. Good thing I was soon asleep. I am pretty bruised up in both the fat harvesting sites and in the injection sites. The bruises don’t hurt a lot. They are just purple, which is not my favorite skin color. Finally, I had difficulty getting up from the couch yesterday. I had my husband help me up the first time and then I was able to get myself out from then on, just not very quickly. This morning, I was able to get out of bed pretty easily, which is harder than getting up from the couch.

Even though I am pretty swollen, I can tell that I am also more symmetrical. Fat can be transferred in only small amounts at a time, so one has the option of subsequent procedures to shape an area. For those of you taking score at home, here’s a list of my surgeries:

1) Lumpectomy2) Lumpectomy (re-excision)
3) Right side nipple sparing mastectomy
4) & 5) Delay procedure (to my surprise, this hurt like Hell, by the way) and tissue expander placement.
6) Skin graft to repair necrotic tissue.
7) Pedicled TRAM reconstruction.
8) and 9) TRAM revision and a medley of fat transfers.

Yeah, that’s a lot of surgeries. One of my patient’s moms, who has a wild sense of humor said, “Dr. MacKenzie, don’t go all [Heidi] Montag on us. We don’t want you to get addicted to plastic surgery.”
I got a good laugh from that one. Not everyone would have and that’s just a reminder that there’s no one way to be a breast cancer patient. Your coping style may be different than mine and your treatment decisions may be different, too. Even with all of my bruises today, I am happy with my choices. Also, my husband is waiting on me during my convalescence, which is pretty darned sweet. Though I think if I asked him to feed me grape one by one, he might balk a little. 😉

Tags Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction, breast reconstruction process

Categories Breast cancer, Facts

Realignment

March 18, 2014 //

Tomorrow I am having my last planned surgery. It’s what I hope is the last step in my breast reconstruction. In my mind, and I’m not trying to be funny, I think of it as getting “realigned”.

This type of physical realignment seems pretty straight forward really, compare to mental and emotional realignments that I’ve done throughout my experience with breast cancer. I’ve made adjustments to my expectations, my hopes, and my view of life in general. I have made adjustments in my relationships as well as the places and people to which I look for support. I have adjusted my tolerance for unnecessary drama in my life. My world has gotten both larger and smaller.

I’m hoping that this set of procedures to be no big whoop compared to what has transpired in the past. And I certainly hope it is my last surgery for a good long while.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Love,

Elizabeth

Tags Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction, coping with breast cancer

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings

One hand in Heaven, one foot on the ground

March 12, 2014 //

This morning it was clear and cold. I considered walking to the beach for my daily exercise but saw that the mountains were clouded in. So after I got my coffee, I walked to Fauntleroy Park. My neighborhood is relatively quiet for an urban area but the street that runs along the park boundary gets a fair bit of traffic. There’s a burst of street noise as I cross it and follow the path into the woods. The first thing I notice is the myriad of greens in the trees, the ferns, the mosses, and the woodland plants. Then I start hearing song birds and crows. The street noises fade as I walk further into the interior until all I can hear is the sounds of the forest and of my own footsteps on the trail.

This morning there was mist rising from the ferns. I could see my breath. I looked at the mist as it rose upwards, felt my breathing slow, and noticed that I was smiling, as I often do when I am surrounded by nature. I felt immediately transported, like ice to steam, and that my spirit was rising above the nests in the trees and above the canopy. I stayed in that blissful state as I walked along. Then I looked down and noticed something.

I was off the trail. I had meandered with my eyes on the trees and the new plants growing and had not noticed that I’d lost the trail. I knew that if I walked down hill, I’d eventually find the trail. But it did make me reflect on the way that we live in multiple worlds and both worlds are necessary.

I think this is one of the reasons I don’t like a lot of pithy inspirational sayings. They seem dreamy and overly ethereal. There’s not enough reality to provide ballast. And I also think that it may be one of the reasons that a number of people with cancer do not like to be referred to using idealistic terms like “hero”, “inspirational” or “brave”. Those terms live up in the Heavens. Cancer is isolating and I know for myself, I want to be very much seen as a real human being. I want to be able to connect with other people.

Then there are the attitudes that are all ballast. Those are the stigmatizing attitudes, the view of cancer as a death sentence, the fears that keep our friends away from us because they fear our death as well as their own.

What matters to me more right now than if I am brave, inspirational, or a hero, is that I am still carrying the sounds, sights, and smells of the forest in my heart as I go about my daily chores and consider life’s obstacles and joys in the past, the present and the future.

The trilliums are starting to bloom! This is our native trillium ovatum

The fiddlehead ferns are unfurling. They are edible at this stage.

Tags Breast Cancer, idealizing cancer survivors, mindfulness

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

Even Steven

February 23, 2014 //

My last surgery, TRAM reconstruction, was on March 11th, 2013. It was the day after my 23rd wedding anniversary. I’d had quite a number of surgeries in a small number of months, which I chronicled in my humorous salute to women who post actual photos of the stages of their surgery:

The last smiley was smiley represents healing at seven weeks post TRAM. Although the right googly eye is slightly smaller than it was, the overall effect is the same. And if you ask the reasonable question as to why a surgeon would purposely make a reconstructed breast bigger than the natural breast, my understanding is that they do that in case there is tissue necrosis and they need to remove some of the tissue. I had no difficulty with necrosis following the TRAM leaving me with the current va va VOOM effect.

I met with my plastic surgeon last Thursday. We discussed the next possible options for my reconstruction. I decided to go ahead with two procedures, to be done on the same day (March 19th) in an office visit. “VOOM” will get a little reduction and “va va” will get a 200 cc fat injection harvested from my thighs via liposuction. If, like me, you don’t think in terms of cubic centimeters, here is a beaker filled with 200 cc of milk. (Yes, I own a set of small beakers.)

200 cc’s is not a lot so I am hoping I’ll heal quickly from the surgery. But, who knows? This will be my 8th (technically 8th and 9th) surgery so I know that whatever happens will happen and I’ll deal with whatever comes my way.

There are no other planned surgeries after this. I have no crystal ball but these could be my last breast surgeries. That’s kind of a nice thought.

Tags Breast Cancer, breast reconstruction

Categories Breast cancer

Environmental Encouragement

February 22, 2014 //

I know that a lot of you have experienced great hardship this winter. Some of you have lost loved ones, some of you are sick or have been sick. And then there are the terrifying weather events that are getting increasingly common, most recently the impact of the polar vortex on a substantial portion of North America.

I made all of you a little film of a portion of my walk today along with some of the thoughts I have when I am in the woods. I am hoping this is an encouraging experience and if not, you get to see some very pretty trees and hear some crows having quite a conversation in the woods.

It’s funny to me because although I am surrounded by earth forms and plants so much larger than me when I am in the woods, It’s okay to be small. We don’t need to be big. We can just be.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with illness, death, global warming, grief, life, mindfulness, natural disasters, Nature, polar vortex, spirituality

Categories Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

Walking the Camino

February 11, 2014 //

I had a weird dream last night. I went to a photography studio to get my picture taken. It was kind of a combination of high school senior photos and my wedding. Tom Colicchio a famous U.S. chef who can be seen on the show Top Chef was there. My former boss from the University of Washington was there. Once I got to the studio, I realized that I had left my shoes at home. I asked how much time there was left until it was my turn for Senior/wedding photos. I was told 30 minutes. I decided to go back home for the shoes. In an Elizabeth dream first, someone loaned me some sort of jet pack like device and I was able to fly all of the way home and most of the way back to the studio. (My daughter has lots of flying dreams. This was my first. I am growing as a person in my dreams.) Unfortunately, I ran out of fuel and had to run most of the way back. By the time I got to the studio, I realized that I’d again forgotten my shoes. I was also rather disheveled from running and had no make-up to freshen up. And for whatever reason, I was wearing a men’s sport coat over a white wedding dress. (Now that sounds more like a typical dream for me.) My old boss would be thrilled to hear that in my dream he helped me out by fixing my hair. The photographer was a sweet woman who let me borrow some shoes in my size as well as a tube of lipstick that she said was, “just my color.” Friends and strangers helped me out and put me back together again.

I think I am an imaginative person but I don’t fantasize a great deal. Well actually, I fantasize but my fantasies are usually pretty realistic. They are things that could really happen. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy documentaries so much, especially those about every day people having meaningful experiences that are in the range of possibility for many. Last night, I saw the documentary, Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago with my former Internet-only friend, Meredyth and her friend, Liz. We belong to a photography group on Facebook. The group includes a couple hundred people from all over the world. Meredyth and Liz live in nearby Vancouver, BC. They came down for the weekend and Meredyth invited me to the movie. We had the best time. There are a lot of lovely and interesting people in the world. Meredyth and Liz are both teachers and I can tell that they are very excellent teachers. It was nice to share our mutual love and commitment to children and their development. Liz, as it turns out, also belongs to the photo group but I have not seen her photos or interacted with her previously. Meredyth posted a photo to the group last night and awoke to a number of charming comments from group members about how happy they were that the three of us had met in “real” life. Most of the people in the group have never met one another in person. Meredyth and Liz were the first group members that I have encountered in the tangible world. I hope to meet more of my cyber friends in the future. It was a very special experience.

The documentary followed a group of people from all over the world, most of whom had never met previously. They were people who traveled to Spain to complete the Camino de Santiago, a long distance spiritual walk from one end of Spain to the other. Pilgrims have been making this walk for over 1000 years. The walk meant different things to each person followed for this documentary. Most of the pilgrims came alone. One set of pilgrims was a young mother, her brother, and her young son. They walked the entire trail, though the mountains, the plains, and the forests, pushing a stroller!

The pilgrims made new friends and were met with great kindness along the trail. People who fed them, housed them, and washed their feet. At one point, one of the pilgrims was so moved by the generosity of at stranger that she cried tears of joy and self-reflection. She was sure that she had never treated another person with the kindness that she had received. It was a beautiful moment because instead of beating herself up for not measuring up, she looked moved and inspired. The pilgrims also experienced ecstasy, times of great mindfulness of their surroundings, love, and lots and lots of struggle with their minds and the rest of their bodies.

A beauty of the film was that not only does the walk serve as a metaphor for life but the film also shows individuals having the day to day experience of transformation over the course of a month or so. I found myself thinking about how different pilgrims might integrate their transformation into the rest of their lives and for how long would they feel transformed and connected to something much larger than themselves or the small worries that consume us on a daily basis. I know that the answer to that question is different for every pilgrim and the answer changes over time.

I am still fighting the treadmill right now. I’m not going to lie to you. I am still feeling the sting of disappointment that my dream of taking my own pilgrimage to see all of my dear friends back East is just not going to happen any time soon due to responsibilities and financial realities. I also told my husband last night that it is unlikely that I will be able to contribute enough to our family income for us to save up for a big trip for our 25th wedding anniversary, which is in 13 months. I know this is a trip on which his heart was set. It was actually supposed to happen last summer so it’s already been postponed once.

Life is like walking the Camino, so is breast cancer. I have experienced both struggle and transformation. I have been the recipient of great kindness and generosity from both old and new loved ones in my life. These are the realities than inspire actual dreams of being unprepared for life and receiving help! (Although I believe I will be able to do my own hair and not need help from my former boss at U.W.) I have learned the powerful and gentle gifts that come from walking outside. As one of the pilgrims in the film commented after having walked for hours through heavy rain (paraphrasing), “I saw the raindrops hanging from blades of grass. Painters paint this and I get to see it.”

I know why I like documentaries. I know why I steep myself in reality. I love life. Life is transformative, powerful, spiritual, inspiring, energizing, exhausting, loud, quiet, painful, scary, and at times very very boring. But life has everything.

Meredyth and me at the movies transforming cyber friendship to something more.

Tags Breast Cancer, coping with breast cancer, gratitude, mindfulness, the Camino, The Camino: Six Ways to Santiago

Categories Feelings, Flora and Fauna, Integrative Health, Mindfulness, Religion, Uncategorized

The Guardian

January 12, 2014 //

Today I wrote the following letter to the English newspaper, The Guardian. It was my response to an online article about whether it is appropriate or ethical for people with stage IV cancer to use social media to communicate about their illness. Lisa Bonchek Adams, a well known breast cancer blogger and communicator through other social media, was used as an example. I was angered by the article, the singling out of Lisa, and the many criticisms Lisa received in the comments section. The article can be found here. (Update: the article was removed by The Guardian who upon investigation removed it.) Lisa Bonchek Adams’ blog can be found here. Also see Nancy’s excellent essay at the Pink Underbelly. If you’d like to send your own letter it can be emailed to letters@theguardian.com.

My letter follows. I am skipping the use of block quotes because it makes the letter harder to read.

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to Emma Keller’s article, which was published by you on 1/8/2014. The author used Lisa Bonchek Adams, who uses social media to communicate about her life with stage IV breast cancer, as an example of a possible unethical use of social media. I am angry about the journalist’s position as well as how the article stimulated a number of negative comments toward someone who needs no more negativity in her life. I have many objections to this piece and I will delineate a few of them here.

First, I believe in freedom of speech. I also believe in personal and professional responsibility. With all of the corruption and violence in the world, why target a mother of three with stage IV breast cancer, just for using social media to communicate about her experience with a horrible disease? This tact makes no sense at all to me.

I object to the characterization of Ms. Adams’ communication as “TMI”. Journalists cover natural disasters all of the time. They cover earthquakes, famine, hurricanes, and more. The photos and the written stories describe the devastation that people suffer. They describe the resilience and the heroism. Although not everyone is comfortable with the sadness of these stories, the stories are sympathetic and not considered TMI. Cancer is a kind of natural disaster. It is a disease that ravages and impacts countless numbers of people. Is it TMI because Ms. Adams is reporting on herself instead of being interviewed and photographed by “proper” journalists? If a hurricane survivor decided to get support and communicate about his/her experiences in dealing with a natural disaster, would we call this TMI? Would we as fellow human beings make so many negative comments about this person? I think not.

As a psychologist, I understand that distancing ourselves from an illness that can strike anyone, especially a young mother of three children, is a way we deal with the realities we don’t want to consider. They are too close. We can’t think about potential personal disaster every second of every day and function as healthy people. But it is also true that we can’t constantly deny the possibility of disaster and be healthy people. We have to incorporate potential malady into our lives. Understanding and accepting that bad things happen to good people is a building block of compassion. Without it, we let our own fear lead to unfairly assigning negative qualities to people, who are ill through no fault of their own, and doing their very best to manage under truly difficult circumstances.

As a breast cancer survivor, I understand how cancer has changed my life and my relationship with the outside world. I don’t know why I got breast cancer. I am a responsible person, a loving wife and mother, and a professional dedicated to improving the lives of children. I don’t know that I will have a recurrence. I am doing my best to live a healthy life but there is no guarantee that cancer, some other disease, violence, or an accident will end my life. I could say that it’s not fair that I got breast cancer and have had to endure its treatment, which even in this day and age, is brutal. Breast cancer, like a hurricane, is not fair. It is a natural disaster. People afflicted deserve compassion. We live with cancer and its threats in one way or another, every day.

I am also an active blogger about my own breast cancer experience. In doing so, I have enriched my life immeasurably in having made connections with wonderful people such as Ms. Adams. Having cancer is very isolating. It creates a juxtaposition of grief with a deep appreciation of the gift of life, which many people don’t understand. And there are aspects of breast cancer that make it particularly isolating. The breast cancer social media community is a very powerful network of women and men. I have drawn strength through the true friendships that I have made as well as the support of an amazing group of people, who live all over the world.

We will all die. Most of us do not know precisely when or how this will occur. People with stage IV cancer know that they are likely relatively near the end of their lives and that further they are likely to die from cancer. So many people with terminal disease spend their last years in isolation, even if when they are still able to work and carry out many daily responsibilities. Many of them don’t even “look sick” until much later in their disease progression. But their lives can be lonely and arduous. Social media can serve as a way for people to connect with others who understand. I have friends with stage IV breast cancer. I don’t know how much longer they will live or how much longer I will live. But I know that I will stay with them even through the cybersphere until our dying days. I so appreciate learning how to be a better friend to someone who is losing abilities while respecting their humanity and resilience. It is scary to know that I will likely lose more friends than I would have as a function of being part of the breast cancer community. But it is worse to think of us not having each other; there is real joy, love, and shared grief over the Internet. I consider it an honor to be trusted as a friend and to be relied upon to be there during the darkest times.

There are a lot of problems with our electronic age. Many products aimed at children, in particular, are harmful. There is nothing “virtual” about the breast cancer community. It is very real. Lisa Bonchek Adams is a real woman with real connections. This community is one of the very best and real things about our virtual age.

Thank you for your kind attention to my concerns.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth P. MacKenzie, Ph.D.

Tags Breast Cancer, compassion, fear of cancer, fear of death, Lisa B. Adams, social media, The Guardian

Categories Breast cancer

Rewinding and Reconnecting

December 31, 2013 //

Yesterday, I was reading through my posts for 2013 as a review. I’d had a good and productive day. I was happy all day. And then I came to my post from August when I was hit with grief over the anniversaries of my mastectomy as well as the death of my friend, Gina. I remember that day in August. I cried for hours, which is something I have done less than a handful of times in my life outside of the two times I had clinical depression.

Yesterday I cried for about 20 minutes and then I actually felt good again. I’m not one of those people who usually feels better after crying. I mean I know that it is necessary to express grief but I still usually feel exhausted and cotton headed after I cry. The grief startled me because I found instantly found myself loudly and sloppily crying. The intensity of my grief felt like the day Gina died. And my worries about my own mortality, especially the prospect of dying before my daughter is grown, only intensified it.

I’m of the opinion that life is complex and there’s usually not one reason why something happens. But I will say that viewing a series of black and white photos of a husband and wife over the course of the wife’s treatment and later death from breast cancer, likely was a catalyst for this latest crying jag. One of the photos is a head shot of the pair in bed, holding each other, each with a look of utter bliss. It’s a beautiful and happy image. And it reminds me of my husband and I. John is a very affectionate man. He hugs me in his sleep and if I awaken in the middle of the night and put my arm around him, he makes a sigh of contentment and holds my hand. And I don’t mean that he sometimes does this. He always reaches for my hand, every time over the past 23 years. So I looked at that photo and immediately inserted myself into the image. And this woman who was born in the 70’s died. And you can see the progression of her illness in the photos with each photo showing loves and losses in the most poignant way. I found myself thinking, “That could have been me. That still could be me.” I didn’t dwell on the thoughts but I had them nonetheless.

I had nightmares that night. (People, when you wonder why I am careful about watching intense, violent, and/or scary films. This is why. They have given me nightmares since I was about 6 years old.) In one, I was at a parade that included some past beauty queens, women who were now middle-aged. They were beautifully dressed but instead of being on a parade float, they were lying in open caskets on wheels! Even in the dream I thought, “What on Earth? What is this supposed to symbolize about women, beauty, and aging?” And then later in the dream, I was at the funeral of a relative. I don’t remember anything except she was a woman in my family. I remember having grief during the dream about missing my grandmother who died in 1993. In the final part of the dream, my daughter was acting completely and utterly out of control. As rebellious and angry as she could be. It was terrifying.

I am a genuinely happy person. One who has been through a lot. And lots of people have been through a lot in their lives with different impacts and different ways of coping. I am a person who feels things deeply but I am also a deep thinker. And I feel both positive and negative emotions as well as having positive and negative thoughts. I feel happy and calm most of the time. I think part of these intense moments I have of sadness and fear come from the enormity of what I have to lose, my family, my friends, my independence, my capacity to help others as a psychologist.

Today’s New Year’s Eve resolution is to remind myself of the strength of my connections, my connections to myself through my own self-awareness and the purposeful way in which I try to lead my life. My connection to my daughter who is doing so well and so happy right now. My connection to my husband who loves me so dearly that he reaches out to me even when he is fast asleep. Who trusts me so deeply that he allows me to be very open about the ups and downs of our relationship as well as our own personal shortcomings. My connection to my parents; I can’t imagine how hard it must be as older people, to worry about your child’s health and mortality. When my friend, Preben got cancer over five years ago, while still in his 30’s, I noticed that his parents started visiting him much more frequently. I told him half jokingly, “That’s what you get for getting cancer and scaring your parents.” My connections with my extended family have also strengthened. I have some wonderful cousins and sister-in-laws and my brothers have actually nudged themselves out of their comfort zone a little to be a bit more affectionate with their sister.

My friendship connections over the past year and a half have seen the most change. I have made a number of new friends who have startled me with their intense and generous kindness. I know that some of them will come and go but I think that a good number of them will be lifelong friends. I have had old friendships that have evolved into something much deeper than they were in the past. But I have also experienced some lost friendships and some that have been made weaker by my cancer. This mixture of bitter and sweet, of gains and losses, is somewhat dizzying to a person like me who craves consistency and solidity. But I have learned to cope with chaos in my life. I want to be happy and I know chaos happens no matter what I do. So what is my choice other than to try to make peace with it, live along side of it, and accept that I sometimes lose my footing.

Finally, today I remind myself of my reconnection with nature. I spend time outside every day. I have been able to travel to the mountains and to the sea. I am outdoors during good weather and in bad. Even in the most exposed and vulnerable parts of nature, there is beauty. I feel a strong spiritual connection to everything when I walk. It is both intensely personal and beautifully communal.

That is today’s resolution. Tomorrow is a new day and a new year. I wish all of you good things in 2014: moments of joy, moments of peace, and fortitude among the suffering and chaos. Thank you for your connection and support. Xoxoxoxo.

Tags Breast Cancer, death, dying, Family, Friendship, grief, love, Marriage, New Year

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

It’s hard to stop crying

December 30, 2013 //

I often read my old posts as a way to process my life experience. Today I was reflecting on the past year and I re-read my post, “No Words”. I can’t stop crying. I had a good day. But I read this post about the death my friend, Gina, and the tears just keep rolling. And I’m doing the “boo hoo hoo” loud kind of crying. John kept asking me what he could do for me and he finally just came into my office and gave me a big and welcome hug. I am not despondent. I am just sad that such a wonderful woman died suddenly and was not able to be there for the rest of her life or for the life of her son who was still an infant when she died.

I am not totally unselfish. I want to be there for my daughter. When I wrote this post, I was afraid that I would not be able to be there for her. This will always be a worry. At most times it will be so much more manageable. It will not elicit “boo hoo hoo” crying. But it will always be a worry. I am a strong woman with lots of support. How do people who are less strong and who have less support deal with this? How? Cancer sucks! People out there who have not dealt with this, you can tell me that I am a drama queen all you want. But I can tell you, as a strong and healthy person, having had a life threatening illness, one that can come back, and thinking about taking care of your child, WOW, CANCER SUCKS!.

You’d think that Gina had died of cancer. She didn’t. She had a brain aneurism and died in her 30s. I could go on about how unfair this was. But we are part of the natural world. It is not governed by justice or fairness. It is nature and some chaos is to be expected. But it still hurts and it hurts A LOT.

Every August, for the past several years, I get an unexpected wave of sadness. Then I remember that my friend, Gina died in the month of August. I can’t even remember how long ago; it must have been at least 15 years. Gina was just a beautiful person and friend. I met her in graduate school. I was in the clinical psychology program and she was in the counseling psychology program, which was housed in Education rather than in Arts & Sciences. We met through our mutual friends, Annette and Ellen, who are also now counseling psychologists. Gina had just returned from her clinical internship to finish her dissertation, her remaining Ph.D. requirement. She was also recently divorced.

Gina was so fun and such a kind-hearted person. After she graduated, she ended up taking a job at Duke University in onco-psychology. Yes, she worked with cancer patients. Gina used to talk about how happy John and I were together. “Elizabeth laughs when John tells stories you know that she’s heard a hundred times.” She and Annette were quite taken with John and referred to him as being the “most marriageable man” that they knew. Not that they thought he was available; they just thought he was well suited to marriage and were looking for someone like him. (And believe me, this is not the first time my girlfriends have talked about my husband this way to the point when my friend, Cheryl would even say, “I’ve got to get myself a computer nerd.” It was just fine.)

I suspect even more than being re-married, Gina wanted to be a mother. She eventually did marry her husband, Bob. We flew back to North Carolina for the wedding reception and John was the official photographer at the small family-only service at Coker Arboretum on the UNC campus. He took some really beautiful shots.

Gina did have a baby, a beautiful boy. We were so happy for her. A few months later, Annette called and I answered. “Gina died.” She’d had an brain aneurism and died while her husband was driving her to the hospital. There’s a boy in North Carolina who only knows the mother who waited for and wanted him so much through a video that Annette made. When she found out that Bob and Gina didn’t have a camcorder, she borrowed one and took footage.

I was wondering today why I was feeling her death again like the day Annette called. I looked down at my calendar. In fact I feel sadder than I have felt in many years. Today is August 8th. Today is the anniversary of my mastectomy. Today is a reminder of what I have lost and the greatest losses were not of my breast or my femininity, or my sense of self.

The loss I feel today is the loss of the ability to take for granted that I will be able to be alive for as long as my daughter needs me.

I have learned to be happy, to be appreciative, to have abundant and overwhelming joy in my life. But some days are just sad and that’s as it should be. In our sympathy card, I wrote to Bob, “So many words describe what Gina meant to us. No words describe our grief in losing her.”

Tomorrow is a new day. But today is the one I have right now.

There are no words.

Tags Breast Cancer, grief, Parenting

Categories Facts, Family, Feelings, Parenting