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Sweet Spot

April 30, 2013 //
11

Last week, I found myself on the receiving end of a big, fat, loud “Pshaw.”

I guess Pshaw is what you call it, that’s what it sounded like at least. An exasperated sigh plus eye roll; an unspoken, “Oh brother, give me a break.”

Before I explain what prompted it, I must tell you this. I swear that I have very few frequent flyer miles on my Cancer Card, not even enough for free pink shoelaces or anything. While I will admit I have pulled the card out of my wallet on an infrequent occasion, perhaps in an effort to secure backstage passes to Taylor Swift or to explain away some bad behavior on the part of me or one of my sprouts, there is no big outstanding balance run up on it. In fact, I have a great credit rating with the cancer martyr gods because most often, I hide it behind the other cards in the wallet; you know, the divorce card, the single parent card and my AARP card. I assure you that even when the situation practically begs  and announces in flashing neon that I will likely secure something bigger and better for me or my kids simply by swiping the cancer card, I don’t. I promise, there are a lot of people I meet every day (who obviously never read this blog) who have no idea I had cancer. And mostly, I like to keep it that way, but that’s another blog altogether.

So that’s why the Pshaw really chapped my ass. I am so not an “I had cancer” whiner. I don’t feel entitled to special treatment because I had cancer, I mean I literally cringe when people look at me like it was some courageous feat to go through chemo. In sum; I don’t own pink.

So, in this rare instance I was explaining to a couple of people why it is that every day counts to me, and why every single day I have with my kids is so very important to me. I explained how after cancer, you never know when that tap will again come on your shoulder…so days, heck even minutes matter. A lot. And when they are taken from you, you kind of panic. Like the best gift ever is being stolen.

And I was met with a double Pshaw. Capped off with an out loud, “You just need to get over that.”

Yeah.

Actually, chapped doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Frankly, it spurned this woman in a “How dare you?” kind of way. How dare you, with your secure f***ing life that has never been threatened, with your life that has been lived bouncing in the sunny endless parameters outside of the shadow of the grim reaper….how dare you minimize my feelings? How dare you, with your dismissive Pshaw imply that I’m being a cancer drama queen for saying that days count more to me now and I don’t want to just give them away? How can you possibly understand that you just don’t “get over” cancer, ever?

Ugh. Okay, so maybe the response in my head was a wee bit dramatic and I didn’t act on it except for in this blog, since I knew I’d find a posse here. But my point is that the sentiment that the Pshaw was cast upon, that being the value of days to cancergirl, was realspeak for me. A dismissive sound was so not deserved. No, I don’t expect to be treated differently because I had cancer, but I sure don’t expect to be ridiculed or minimized for how I see things since those days like it’s some kind of woe is me, histrionic drama.

And I sure don’t expect to be told how I should feel from someone who doesn’t know how it does feel to have a team of docs be candid for a year that they are not so sure what will happen.

Boy, tail feathers are hard to get back down. Mine especially.

~~~~

“I wish had I spent more time working, or leaving the kids in daycare!” “Boy, I sure am glad I saved my money and didn’t take that Disney trip with the kiddos!” said no cancer survivor ever.

You know why? Because we remember how one day, just between school carpool (where we kvetched about our day’s chores) and dinner, we slipped into a routine mammogram appointment and in that sliver of midafternoon space found out how darn lucky we were to be able to cook dinner that night for our kids. We remember that moment when we found out how many of our chores were actually privileges. We remember how quickly we went from well to sick; how in a matter of days we got our first dose of chemo along with an even bigger dose of an uncertain future. We remember the warp speed of ”What’s that?” as our hands glided with soap in the shower, to “Game over.” And our hair was still dripping wet.

We live differently because we now know breast cancer’s dirty little secret; that the trick is not getting rid of it the first time, but keeping it away. And we now have to live in that liminal space.

I don’t feel, as the Pshaw (I felt) implied, that life after cancer means, “OH MY GOD I HAVE TO STUFF EVERY MINUTE FULL OF MEMORIES!” It’s not a frantic kind of thing. It’s just simple logic; after a near miss with an exit ramp, the days traveling on the road of life now get the appreciation they deserve. We look out the window more, taking more pictures instead of sleeping or asking/complaining how much longer we have to go. So while I don’t condemn other non-cancer peeps for undervaluing the gifts of their days, I don’t want them poo-pooing my perhaps mildly over-valuation of mine.

After treatment, I struggled with how to live in that in-between time, that time between the last chemo and the somewhat mythical, promised land of the five-year mark. I’d be a big fat liar if I didn’t say that a lot of that thinking had to do with how to use that time wisely with my kids; giving them enough of me to sustain their lifetimes. While I didn’t want an “Every Day is Disneyland” life, artificially jacked up in a Wonkaland splendor, I also didn’t want to put anything off.  No more, “Some day we will go see Rock City!” for me. We went. I wanted to live, not large, but at least a smidge larger; a hybrid life of bucket list crossed with a second chance.

I pestered my trusted financial advisor (Pop) about how much I should siphon off savings to do some special (previously known as frivolous) things with my kids like Disney and beach trips after cancer. I peppered him (and myself) with the question, ”How much less is it okay for me to work? Can I work just part-time for a few years so I can be there after school, and during the summers?” I would beg the speculation of whoever would uncomfortably listen, “How much of my IRA can I dip into, if there is a chance I may never need it?”

How much was too much, how much was not enough?  It seems I wanted permission to live a little larger and wider, and assurance about how large I could go; always hedging against the bet that I could in two years or perhaps four, find myself instantly again too sick to live at all. I wanted to use it up, but how do you use it up if you don’t know how long you need it to last?

I was looking for the sweet spot. Wanting to hit the sweet spot on the ball of living and doing and spending and being.

How do you hedge living and dying? I knew too, that just outside the sweet spot, is the place where performance and results would diminish. Too much or too little, and I would likely miss the sweet in between.  The sweet that felt like normal life.

Finding the sweet spot of life with my kids was and still is also fraught with worries for this lil’ psychologist mom. How do I appreciate and suck up the value of my days, without suffocating the endless freedom of theirs? How do I do the impossible and not make a big deal out of shopping for a prom dress, just because I am thinking I may not be there to shop for the wedding dress? How do I make an event that is a BIG TEARY EYED DEAL to have lived to see on my part, normal on theirs? How do I pack their backpacks full (in a way that doesn’t laden them down now) so they have it to subsist on if they find themselves motherless at 17?

Hindsight always offering me balance I now, in a calmer state suspect that the Pshaw was infused with the implication, “You can’t live your life that way.”  But I do. I suspect a whole hecka lot of us cancergirls do, especially the mama’s out there. And you know what? I wont apologize for it and I won’t “get over it.” I don’t want to get over it to be honest. It would be like going from Technicolor back to black and white. From living in the sweetness, to living in the bland.

The sweet spot was bigger just after chemo and it has narrowed as the years go on;  perhaps as I began to gauge that my pennies may indeed need to last longer, or perhaps as I gauge with deep satisfaction, that I have filled another kind of bank. But then just like that, after twelve years a friend has a recurrence. And it starts it up, the calculation of the exact inverse proportion is again at work; as the possibility that my life seems shorter, the sweet spot of living gets a little larger. It’s not a constant. And I wonder again, just how to live in this space.

~~~~

“You can’t take it with you,” they say about money. I don’t know if the same can be said about intangibles like memories and good times; I mean I don’t know if I will sit on a bench in heaven and take them out one by one from the backpack that I packed in this life and toted through the pearly gates with me. I hope I will. I do know this, it will be fuller as a result of cancer. And I also know this; what I can’t take with me, I can leave behind. I can leave so much more behind by using life up here, living in the sweet spot of every single day with my kids and family and friends and dog, however long it is.

I can get up each day and figure out how to squeeze every last drop out of that orange. Because the last drop is indeed, just as sweet as the first.

It all comes down to the old quote, “You better get busy living or get busy dying.” The only thing I know for sure is when we are busy living, the sweet is sweeter. Perhaps that is the answer; the sweet spot is crystal clear when we get busy living, but we miss the ball entirely when we get busy dying.

“listen–are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

mary oliver

 

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Categories anticipatory grief, breast cancer humor, breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Identity Change and Cancer, inspriational breast cancer story, PTSD and cancer, trauma and PTSD

Trolley Problem

January 20, 2013 //
9

I was sitting quietly in my infusion chair at chemo, surrounded by very sick, very bald people; feeling and looking very much like a weary, sick, bald person myself. Yet inside my head, I was brutally beating myself up.

“God damnit Lauren, you have got to find your A-game to kick this shit.”

See, this little two guns blazing girl had approached everything in life that way; charging in and taking care of business and living to tell the tale of many a trauma and travail as she blew the smoke from the guns. I knew as I laid there in a heap, that if I were to live to tell the cancer tale, I had to figure out how to get the strength to pull the guns from the holster and charge.

But I couldn’t.

I was so physically and mentally sick and so, so tired….so freaking weak and blurry from the meds, that charging seemed impossible. Hell, getting out of the chair to go to the bathroom was damn near impossible. I was so mentally consumed with thoughts of dying and leaving two little kids motherless, that finding my aim and focus to shoot the cancer down was blurred.

So many things tugged at my psyche and overwhelmed me at that time, making it impossible to even form a plan of attack; how bad the cancer was, swimmers in the other lanes next to me at chemo going under, the fact that the tumor was stubbornly refusing to soften and shrink as it should have those first weeks of treatment, and the unknown of just what type of body mutilating surgery was ahead of me based on genetic test results that hung out there in a lab somewhere. I remember sobbing to my dad saying, “I know I have got to get my mental shit together to focus and beat this thing, and I can’t seem to do that.”

I was also distracted by my perceived unfairness of it all, and energy sapping self-pity prevailed. Energy that needed to be spent visualizing recovery and figuring out how to shoot this bastard down; energy that should have been spent harnessing my can-do, kick ass mentality. Energy to charge, sucked up by woe.

Yet I couldn’t shake it, this sense of, “Sorry, but this little cowgirl is out of chutzpah and bullets.” A sense of final defeat took over; that in a life of impossible mishaps and terrible twists of fate, even more had gone wrong leaving only enough mental and physical fortitude to reach for the white flag.  In those very, very dark moments when negativity consumed my mind like the cancer was doing my cells, I would look back on my life. I would think about it all…the blindsides and hard stuff that had happened to me and Pity, with its cunning whisper to my fatigue, would distract me and convince me of the unfairness of it all; my mother dying two days before my wedding, not having my mom around when I had my own kids, my husband walking out on me and two little kids at Christmas, the difficulties of finding work as a single mom, the miscarriages and all the other hardships. Things that my darkness convinced me that no one else had to endure in such rapid fire.

Punch after punch, this little Bobo doll had bounced up again and again with a smile and optimism. But now, sitting alone and bald, a nail being punctured into my chest, this little Bobo was deflated. She had been patched and re-patched . She could not find the air, the A-game mentality to pump herself back up; to take a breath and rise again, and to blaze.

And then, someone gave me the book.

The book was game changing.

Up sick during the night, I read the book. At chemo, I read the book. Crying in my bed at my inability to run more than half a mile after a year of chemo, I read the book. And most of all, when Pity tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, let’s have a party and eat chocolates and discuss how unfair life has been to you,” I read the book. The book became my garlic against blood sucking self-defeating thought. The book gave laser clarity and a mental framework needed to talk this thing down to size and focus. The book shot my A-game out of a cannon and energized me to charge; to pull my guns out and take aim and tell cancer to fuck off.

The passage, ingrained in my mind and repeated like a mantra.

The passage, repeated as I awkwardly laid face-down for breast MRI number 15, jewelry and clothing stripped, wearing nothing but a simple rubber band on my wrist. The passage, repeated as I lay there cold and shaking and alone and frightened of the results. The passage, calming my heart as I was admonished not to breathe heavy or move. The passage, repeated as I lay there through 46 shots of radiation, stilling me. The passage, slapping me around when I cried at how hard it was to run with atrophied muscles after chemo.

The passage, game changing as I lay there thinking, “Why me?”

“That ascent triggered something in me. As I rode upward, I reflected back on my life, back to all points, my childhood, my early races, my illness, and how it changed me. Maybe it was the primitive act of climbing that made me confront the issues I’d been evading for weeks. It was time to quit stalling I realized. Move, I told myself. If you can still move you aren’t sick.

I looked again at the ground as it passed under my wheels, at the water spinning off the tires and the spokes turning around. I saw more faded painted letters, and I saw my washed out name: “Go Armstrong.”

As I continued upward, I saw my life as whole. I saw the pattern and privilege of it, and the purpose of it too. It was simply this: I was meant for a long, hard climb.”

~~~~

Once, I was talking with Colton in generalities about a particularly troubling case at work. A case where a horrific incident with a child had been overlooked legally I suspected, in exchange for obtaining drug cartel information. I was horrified and angry and he said simply, “It’s the trolley car problem, Mom.” He explained the age-old philosophical dilemma of a trolley car out of control careening down the hill, and you can throw the switch so that instead of killing ten people, it kills two. 

~~~~

I have remained quiet about my perception of the trolley problem of Lance these last weeks. The cognitive dissonance to a cancer survivor of the good juxtaposed with the evil. The internal conflict that arises especially when you were one who reaped the good part of the dichotomy, yet are a compassionate person who is sickened at the destruction caused by the recipients of the evil. The dilemma of what to do when you are forgiving person, and are faced with one who has no remorse for the evil. The question of whether a bit of good diminishes the awfulness of the bad.

I found myself wanting to compartmentalize the bad parts, almost as abused children do with their parents. I wanted to sequester it, separating his life as an athlete from his life as survivor, an organizer of a foundation, and an author of a book that had helped me talk cancer down to size and focus on what a privilege even a hard life is. “He is not the organization,” they say, but in many ways, in my mind he is. Because of the book, because he was an athlete, because he was a survivor; all these things converged to create the perfect storm, the perfect mentality of livestrong. Of how to livestrong when you are sick; and to live stronger when you are well.

I struggle now like I did with Bill Clinton, trying to reconcile what I loved about the man yet hated about the man as a cheating spouse who lied. I can remember Elizabeth Edwards trying to sort out her own personal dilemma on Larry King saying, “Is a lifetime of good, of all the good this person has done, overshadowed by this one thing?” Weighing good and evil is taxing.

I found myself as a psychologist discussing the essence of narcissism with colleagues, in that narcissism often allows people to accomplish some great and good things. Narcissists make great surgeons as they think they are infallible and great lawyers as they are righteous. Narcissists never for an instant believe in the self-doubt that cripples the rest of us at times. Narcissists can be faced with a brain and lungs and testicles filled with cancer and tell cancer to fuck off, and they can it seems, generate a mindset that convinces us to do the same.

~~~~

I have friends who are athletes, furious at the cheater in sport. I have friends who are athletes who are compassionate and forgiving. I have friends who are cancer survivors who know what the organization has done for them and others with cancer. I have friends who are cancer survivors who are pissed off. And me, a cancer survivor and minor league athlete, a huge fan of sport, am at the crossroads of where his lives intersect. See it’s not just about the organization for me and it’s not just about the bike; it’s about the book and the sweeping mentality of livestrong that covers ALL of it. I am confused…not by a hero or even a role model, but by someone who gave me a toehold and hand up in a chasm, while simultaneously he was stepping on others hands to do so and it seems, pushing others in.

And I am angry too, and most disappointed at this odd thing; like when I see someone smoking a cigarette after surviving lung cancer. How dare he put something in his body that could re-awaken the giant? What a freaking waste of a Mulligan on God’s part. Or was it…if two died instead of ten? And if maybe, just maybe, I was one of the 8 saved?

As I walk along in life and find the proverbial turtle on fencepost, I remind myself, “It didn’t get there by itself.” It goes for good and evil. Group think is dangerous and childhoods sometimes put people in places they never imagined. And I want to soften my judgement of evil.

~~~~

Today, my ponytail bounces as I run through mile three. I can move, and the rhythm of my footsteps under me reminds me that I am no longer sick. I see my cancer and life as a privilege, and know I was built for a long hard climb. I am aware of every single ounce of what it took to get me here, and how a little help with harnessing my A-game allowed me access all of it. Today I blaze, and blow the smoke off the guns and tuck them back into the holster as I step down from the treadmill after a good long climb.

I look down at my wrist to the yellow bracelet that I have worn since the day I was diagnosed and try to make sense of it all.

I think of how the eternal existential dilemma of the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead remains, as does the impact of all of her behavior on those around her.

As for me, I will continue to livestrong, all in part because of a man, an athlete, an organization, and a book; all of which infused the mentality of livestrong into me at a time I was not able to harness it in myself. I will keep my focus on doing good, and on passing the mentality along to others who have lost their strength and focus, because of someone who helped me find the good (when all I wanted to focus on was the bad.)

I will take the “very good indeed” part that I was given and spin it into even better, and hope that the ripple effect of the good outweighs exponentially, the horrid.

And I will remember always, the importance of focusing on the good.

And I will pray that we in turn, can help him find his A-game; he hasn’t yet you know.

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Categories breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Inspirational, inspriational breast cancer story

Waiting for Because

October 7, 2012 //
12

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Categories anticipatory grief, breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Inspirational, inspirational-humor, inspriational breast cancer story, Loss, PTSD, trauma and PTSD

The Toss

December 4, 2011 //
12

Years ago, then President Kennedy made a speech about the space program and our need to keep advancing it. He referred to the story of some little boys running through the green, green fields of Ireland and coming upon an orchard wall that seemed perhaps too high to climb. Instead of turning back the boys took their hats and threw them over the wall, and thus, then had to climb the wall to go get their hats; the toss leaving them with no choice but to go over the wall to retrieve their caps.

I have always been a throw my hat over the wall kind of girl. Sometimes it’s because I am just dying to know what’s on the other side, sometimes it’s just for the thrill of the climb. Being an eternal sunshiny optimist, I think it’s mostly because I believe that what is on the other side of the wall is not better than what I have, but something new and different and grand to experience. Mostly though, just like those little Irish boys the toss is made to force me to do something I thought I couldn’t do, to make something happen, to experience something that would not have had I not done so. Truth be told, I get a wee bit agitated when there are no walls to climb, my fingers itch and fidget with a cap in hand, and I start to actively search out walls when that happens. 

When we are making our way through our life and come across the cancer wall, I think that most of the time our oncologists and surgeons rip the cap out of our hand and toss it over the wall for us. They lay out their neat tactical plans of how we will scale the wall and give us visions of how 85 or 95 percent of the people have made it over, and how they are living life on the other side of the wall. We want to visit this magical and unbelievable land on the other side and really don’t have much choice but to go after our cap to cover our bald heads; then too, to go after it is infinitely better than staying on this side of the orchard wall, where things appear to be dying.

But after cancer, as we continue onward through the vast field that is our life, what do we do when we come upon a wall? Do we bemoan the fact that it is unfair, because we already had to climb the big wall o’ cancer? Do we even have the strength or gumption to climb anymore? I mean honestly what’s the use if we are gonna die while trying? Do we avoid walls altogether? Do we see it as a positive or negative? An adventure or labor? 

Cancer makes us hesitate. It makes us want to hold on to what we have and clutch tightly to our caps because well, we might need it to cover our bald noggin again sometime soon. Cancer makes us afraid to plan and take on new things. Throwing our hat over a wall feels like buying green bananas. Cancer eats zest. Cancer makes us afraid. Cancer makes us tentative and bit distrusting of planning for the future. Cancer makes us think the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t. In the months just after treatment is completed it is hard to believe there are better days ahead, it feels counterintuitive to trust that the ice is thick enough to skate out on and into our future.  

After five years, I prefer to look back at that time of caution and fear as a time when I was just resting and gathering my strength. I remember it now, with my sunshine spin, as a place where yes I may have taken the cap off and considered the toss but in the end held kept it in my hands as I sunk down with my back against that wall to as they say in the south, sit a spell.

But I can tell from my perch high atop of yet another wall, five years and a million walls out from cancer that once you catch your breath and no longer need that cap to cover your head, cancer becomes a catapult sailing you high over the wall and into life after. Cancer catapults both our caps, and us. Cancer makes us want to experience everything that is behind wall number one and two and three and four. Cancer in the end, makes us adept and easy hat tossers, and skilled climbers with a penchant for finding even higher walls. Cancer makes us grateful for the toil of the climb.

To move from a place of fear, from a place of clutching our caps to our chest to a place where we are making the toss we have to believe that the days ahead are better than the days behind us. We must believe we are capable of making the climb and will live to see the other side in order for us to throw. We must be willing to give up the status quo and the safety of what we know, for perhaps the devil we don’t (which may in fact, be a devil of a good time.) We must toss our hats over with glee and sense that an adventure beholds us, not a tragedy. We must be excited about the climb. But mostly we must actively find our own walls by beginning to move through life again. That is what life is all about Charlie Brown; making the run to kick over and over, even though the ball may get pulled out at the last minute.

A tad impulsive I am yes, and admittedly I have been known many a time to toss before I totally think it through. Sometimes I have created my own walls just so I can toss. But I have found that ninety-nine percent of the time the climb is worth it and that the sweat and toil of working toward a goal remind me I am alive. If I thought about it too long, I might not make the toss; cancer has given me the luxury of not having a lot of time to think about it.

Life is in the preparing to climb. Life is in the climb. Life feels like drawing the deepest of breaths when you are on top of the wall. Almost always, I find not greener pastures but my hat, and lots more life experiences to fill it with.

There are a million things that cancer took from me but two million more I have because cancer, many found on the other sides of walls I would have never thrown my hat over had it not been for cancer, and many found while making the climb.

And heck, I’d rather die while climbing a wall than die while standing at the bottom, anxiously peering at it, clutching my hat, trying to screw up the courage to make the toss. As Mr. Buffet says, “I’d rather die while I’m living than live while I’m dead.”

I didn’t survive cancer to just stand there. Neither did you.

Walls don’t come to us, we must go to them. As they say, ships in the harbour are safe, but that is not what ships are made for.

The prospect of a short life has made me to run gleefully to them, and throw my hat over the wall again, building my wings on the way down the other side.

Just not angel wings…not yet at least.

“One thing about trains: It doesn’t matter where they’re going. What matters is deciding to get on”

~The Polar Express

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Categories grief and loss, Identity Change and Cancer, Inspirational, breast cancer inspiration, inspriational breast cancer story, anticipatory grief, trauma and PTSD

Perfect Ten

November 27, 2011 //
6

It was indeed a great Thanksgiving here at the ranch. The week started off with a grand gathering of all the people I love for our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and then like a wide-angle lens zooming in, became more focused as I pulled my wee ones closer and closer, ending with just me and the kiddos doing oodles of fun things these last few days. Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Inspirational, inspriational breast cancer story

Hush

November 20, 2011 //
13

Once when Amelia was just a tiny little cutie pie (as opposed to the even bigger cutie pie that she is now,) I woke up to a sticky note on my bathroom mirror. It said in little kid printing, “Thank you for protekting me.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories children dealing with mom's breast cancer, grief and loss, Identity Change and Cancer, Inspirational, inspriational breast cancer story

Pink

October 30, 2011 //
4

Pink.

Who knew such a benign and gentle hue could summon such strong emotions, and could wield such power? Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories breast cancer humor, breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Inspirational, inspirational-humor, inspriational breast cancer story, PTSD, PTSD and cancer, trauma and PTSD

After Five Ears

October 16, 2011 //
5

Yep you read that right. Five Ears. Not five Years.

Y oh Y, you might ask, did I drop the Y?

Because I’m talking mouse ears silly, that’s why; Mickey Mouse ears to be exact.

As I hit “publish” on this beautiful orange juicy sunny Florida morning, I am sitting poolside at our very favoritest hotel in the world, the Pop Century Resort in Disney World. Enjoying a big cuppa of Mickey Joe and a tummy full of Mickey waffles, I am both overshadowed and comforted by the familiarity that is a four stories tall Mowgli and Baloo next to our hotel room. I have achieved Disney nirvana here next to the Hippy Dippy Pool; yes indeedy, I have all the bare necessities for this bear to rest at ease.

This trip marks the fifth pilgrimage to the House of Mouse for us since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

As it is for everyone, cancer treatment was hell for my little family. Looooong months of the drip drip drip of chemo, surgery, weeks of radiation but the worst for a mom was the pain of lots of the fun things that kids like to do like sleepovers and other potentially germ ridden activities being put on hold. My kiddos were so little when cancer came to our house, and I promised their little faces that when the treatment was over, we were going to go to Disney.

Disneyworld became our carrot, or more correctly our cheese.

Now I had a lot of naysayers about the wisdom of me taking that first trip when I had just finished radiation and still had the drip of Herceptin going, the loudest of which was the voice of reason in my own bald noggin. I realized that I was in no physical shape to trutz two little kids through the massive undertaking of flying, touring four parks in four days, and lasting through 12 hour days in the heat. Beyond broke, I was digging into rapidly dwindling emergency savings to take the trip, but as with most things in life that I really want, when my Pop or other logical adults like my alter-ego voice in my head reminded me of the sensible thing to do, I didn’t listen.

For some reason, going to Disney represented so much more to me than a vacation. It was about being normal again and bonding with my kids in that familiar way that we had about us before cancer came. It was about giving them the tradition of joy my mom and I had there together. It was about saying that cancer was behind us and promising them that good times were just a day away.

It was mostly about too, I suspect honestly, the fear that it was the last chance to get them to Disneyworld. It was hard for me to believe in the future.

As I think back on the evolvement of our trips over these last five years, it seems that the tempo of each one has mirrored much of where my life and healing was at that point. That first year out I led my life at a frantic pace, wanting to squeeze all of life in because I was scared I’d miss something, scared there would be no tomorrow. And too, that first trip to Orlando was Disney Overdrive, a busy bee buzzing through the parks. Sometimes now, as I look back on it I feel sad when I remember the intensity of the trip, how much I crammed into it so that they would see every last thing, and do every last, and remember last thing, afraid we’d miss something; afraid it would be, well, our last thing. We got up early, and stayed up late to see every fireworks show, every parade. Exhausted, hot, tired and cranky kids racing through the parks in a way I doubt they remember much more than a blur.

Truth is, much of my life at that time is still a blur.

Cancer had made me lose trust in body, and this fear showed up on that trip. I sent my son on rides alone because as much as I LOVE rides, I worried about the trustworthiness of my Herceptin saturated heart, and did not want to poke the skunk on Expedition Everest with two little ones in tow. Cancer, despite being told to stay home, wound up coming with us anyway; refusing to be left behind and bringing with it the heavy luggage I carried through each park every day, that contained my ID, insurance card, my oncologist info, my cardiologist, the kid’s dad’s emergency contact info, and list of all current poisons being infused…just in case.

How we did that trip said a lot about how tenuous my life felt at the time. Even though I went to there to feel normal, I couldn’t find normal, or even the illusion of normal, not even in Fantasyland. There were no big adventures had in Adventureland and Tomorrowland well, it just made me uncomfortable, because it made me think too much about how there may not be a tomorrow.

As the years went by and I got a foothold on life, the tempo of our visits to Disney also fell in step with the cadence of my healing psyche. There was no longer this mad rush to see and do everything, to cram it all in. Adventures were found, fantasies came true, and cancer was not allowed admittance into the Magic Kingdom ever again.

And eventually, I began to trust that there would be a Tomorrowland for we three Mouseketeers.

My kids grew right along with my confidence in living. They got to where they packed and carried their own luggage and we rode all the thrill rides. Back when my pace to see and do it all was frantic, I remembering wondering why, if you came all the way to Disney you would waste a day at the water park or the hotel pool, instead of at one of the parks. And what do ya know, last year Amelia and I went to Typhoon Lagoon for the first time ever, and had THE BEST time; I have discovered the glory of sliding down Summit Plummet, unceremoniously plucking my swim suit out of my butt as I stood up, and then polishing off a giant turkey leg in its wake. I found that a lot of good conversation happens on a lazy river and during quiet afternoons at the hippy dippy pool.

The memories our family has are more than even Dumbo could carry:

Embarrassing my kids each year with the extensive diorama I create in our hotel room window, hot days where we hit the wall and formed a mini flash mob-ish hat search in the Emporium for the goofiest goofy hats we can find to wear for the rest of the day. Surprising my little ones with giant icees with Mickey feet while they were sitting and waiting for a parade to start, garnering a collective kid eye roll by standing up and clapping when Barack Obama stood up for the first time in the Hall of Presidents. Popcorn for dinner, Princess breakfasts where I asked Colton who that Aladdin looking guy was and he said, “Uh that would be Aladdin mom,” and the look on Amelia’s face when Belle hugged her told her she was pretty. Going into the animation studio to draw 5 times in a row, and sharing Pixar joy with Colton while watching  Luxo pop out and perform while waiting for the Toy Story ride. Light up ice cubes at the Sci Fi restaurant, Soarin’ in the smell of orange groves in Soarin’ and devouring French pastries in Epcot.

We girls still giggle about following a drip drip drip of chocolate ice cream along the pavement back to our hotel room one day, finding a smear of chocolate ice cream on the door frame, and then opening the door to find quite happy Colton on the bed with his chocolate ice cream cone…everywhere (finally a good kind of drip.)

How each day I gave them a souvenir allowance and watched how carefully they picked their parts for Mr. Potato head to fill the box, and how they danced when I surprised them one evening with a bonus allowance for an extra little somethin’ somethin’. Watching my princess become even more of a princess at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, seeing them laugh face to face at as they spun in the teacups together, and a tiny Amelia clapping with giant Mickey hands at Fantasmic. Finding every Hidden Mickey the park with Colton, and riding in a giant honey pot 42 times in a row with my own little Lilo and Stitch at the Halloween party. The “Paging Mr. Morrow, Mr. Tom Morrow,” announcement on the People Mover, giant clear balloons with a blue Mickey heads inside and the glee we felt when we traded for the pin we had searched high and Lilo for. Watching my kids pretend to be completely appalled at how boring they think the Carousel of Progress ride is each year when I make them ride with me, and how I make the ride even worse by singing, loudly, along with the song, “It’s A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”

We did indeed find new frontiers in Frontierland after all and normal found us in the soft white gloved hands of Mickey.

But what I most remember most aren’t the rides, or the things we saw, but the times. The times. And the very best of those times were always, always Mickey gloved hands down, the evenings back in the hotel when tired fits of giggles overtook us and we laughed until we cried. Oodles of giddy giggles launched from the deep comfort of being in this insular, happy place; a place where, as we slept in the shadow of Baloo we did indeed forget about our worries and our strife.

At home, a long narrow ledge surrounds our stairs. Lined up on that ledge, in a mini mouse like time line, you’ll see our Mickey ears from the all the years of Disney trips. Cute pink little girl pink ears, Kermit the Frog ears, Steamboat Willie ears, and Toy Story ears. Ears that look like a Pumpkin, and ears with a Sorcerer Mickey Wizard Hat perched between them. And lastly, classic Mickey and Minnie ears with “Colton” and “Amelia” and “Lauren”embroidered in gold thread on the back. And on the doorknobs to my home office hang lanyards loaded with Disney trading pins, each of strand telling a unique story; a tale of what we loved that year and what made us smile and laugh, of what calmed us and what made us find us again.

These things represent so much to me, they hold so much meaning….healing, longevity, a visual measure of a life coming to pass that I wasn’t so sure would do so, five years ago. Our own personal Disney vault of memories; the times…the times where we were overshadowed by Baloo and the simple bare necessities, instead of cancer, the times where we lived, no basked in a great big beautiful tomorrow. Cancer no doubt, takes a lot from us but sometimes, sometimes it gives us something, or just plain allows us to find something that was right in front of us all the time.

It’s hard to see, but sometimes, cancer allows us to live.

Sometimes, it takes soaring above it all on the Astro Orbiter or on an Aladdin Magic Carpet to see it, and sometimes we must climb to a perch in the Swiss Family Treehouse to spot it. Sometimes, it is found deep in the space of a mountain, but mostly, it is found right next to us in the excited breaths of those we love, and in the deep pull of our own breath as we Splash down a Mountain.

Without cancer, I don’t think this Disney thing would have ever gotten started in the first place. It would have been just another one of those things put off indefinitely, to when the kids were older, to when there was enough money to do it, till I was totally healthy…. till tomorrow.

Walt used to say, “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”

Yes Walt; a mouse, a single cancer cell and a woman who didn’t lose the sight of one thing-living to see her kids in mouse ears, spinning with glee in teacups and flying high above it all in Dumbo.

One pair of ears at a time, I lived my way into Tomorrowland. And it is for sure, A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.

“Paging Mr. Morrow, Mr. Tom Morrow,” Lauren is looking for you.

There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
And tomorrow’s just a dream away

Man has a dream and that’s the start
He follows his dream with mind and heart
And when it becomes a reality
It’s a dream come true for you and me

So there’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow
Just a dream away

~The Sherman Brothers

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Categories breast cancer humor, breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Inspirational, inspirational-humor, inspriational breast cancer story

LMNOP

September 25, 2011 //
9

I am a woman of extremes. 

In Lauren’s world, there is very little middle ground; to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, no nix that, extreme reaction. I frequently find myself either somersaulting into a dead of black night chasm or leap frogging into dazzling Clorox white. Little Miss A or Z, I am. Like in Wonkaland, my emotional elevator doesn’t just go to the top floor; it explodes through the ceiling and into the stratosphere. Conversely there is no end to the rabbit hole into which I can tumble, plunging into the earth to depths unknown.

“Grayness,” I insist to those trying to reason with me, “lacks luster.” Middle ground is bland and ho-hum; unemotional and flat, passionless people perplex me at times, I mean, how could you exist in that way? Extremes feel passionate and remind me I am alive; stretching the rubber band as far as it can go, I say, go big or go home.

Oh I know, I know, it’s a little worrisome. Even the psychologist in me points out to the anxious me that the edges of the bell curve are often not good places to be. Grandmother Willow reminds me on a quite regular basis, as she reels me in like the expert fisherwoman that while I go back and forth, I always come to the middle and will every time.

“Pshaw…” I say.

Now before you start thinking bipolar nutcase here, I will assure you it is simply not so. In fact to observe a day in the life of me, you’d think, “boring old middle-aged woman.” Nope, no drama queen here, no erratic borderline-ish, histrionic-ish crazy cat lady stuff. My polarity is mostly covert, just a little seesaw endlessly seeing and sawing in my lil’ noggin.

I give 200% or nothing. I don’t just feel hurt, I feel crushed. I give and give and rarely take. I let people either kinda suck me dry or surprise them when I completely buck up and tell them to knock it off. I am in or out, on or off, too good or not good enough. I am either working full steam or being avoidant. This dichotomy is what makes me either a whole lotta fun depending on the circumstance, or a whole lotta exasperation and exhaustion.

Maybe it’s because I really have had an all or nothing adult life. Many, many really, really good things have happened to me, and many, many really, really bad things have happened to me. Little of my life has been just status quo and middle of the road. Perhaps because I know better what to do with extremes, I tend to jack things up or down a bit. Perhaps as is with my life, the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Perhaps status quo is just uncomfortable and foreign to me. Perhaps…I dunno.

Ok so maybe I experience things a tad bit more extremely than others, but it just feels wholehearted to me is all. I feel life and passion in Technicolor; where the rest of the world has a box of 8 Crayola’s to feel and describe their world, I have the jumbo box of 64 and perhaps a box of the Metallics in my holster as well. Raw Umber and Maize just can’t do what Green With Twinkling Turquoise Glitter can do for me and I said good riddance when they were retired. And boy do I love to color.

In the Disney movie Tangled, Rapunzel runs free on the ground after living her whole life in the tower. We watch as she goes through the day; her feet feeling the tickle of the Aquamarine water and the Granny Smith Apple grass, yet she is continually voicing the tick and the tock of her internal tug of war between the guilt of leaving her mother yet the joy of experiencing her freedom. In a scene I just love, she teeter totters between the elation and guilt shouting, “This is the best day ever!” and then, “I am a despicable person!” 

I so get that, that tangle of stuff.

For me, if it’s not the best day ever, it’s what a client of mine cleverly and accurately coined, “The Catastrophic Death Spiral.” When you are in The Catastrophic Death Spiral, it’s never just gonna turn out bad, it’s gonna turn out very bad. It’s not going to be just an unfortunate outcome, it’s going to be the worst possible outcome ever and everyone is gonna die likely involving thumbtacks in your skin, weepy lesions and a horrible burning sensations in unfortunate places as well.

Here is how the spiral goes. Last week, Scout the Wonderdog had a back injury and I was in tears on the phone with a friend, explaining to him just how very very very bad it was. He calmly said, “Now stop. Don’t be putting him in the ground just yet,” and he added a bit snarkily, “Because we know that would be so unlike you to go there already.” He suggested perhaps a good idea would be to go to the vet for an opinion before I decided on a time for afternoon euthanasia. A wise man indeed; accurately assessing my parachute-less run toward the rim of the catastrophic death spiral, and lasso-ing me just before the jump. And voila! By that afternoon, a vet visit and couple of tranqs and pain killers later (for Scout, not me silly) there I was considering what Santa was going to bring Scout for Christmas this year. That is how it goes.

So it follows that when I got cancer, I was gonna die.  Not only was I gonna die, but die quickly and likely painfully. I didn’t just have breast cancer; I had bone cancer and mets in my brain and lungs for sure. I had body cancer.

In this Spiral O’ Tragedy the future was Granite Grey bleak, my motherless kids would be dressed in rags, chronically starved for home-made chocolate chip cookies…emotional orphans crying out in their sleep for their mommy for the rest of their lives. They would have no one to guard them from the Copper Penny evils in the world, and all types of peril would befall them from bad manners, to not having clean underwear, and chronically unsigned homework. They would have no more fantastic Christmases making cookies and finding wonderful gifts under a beautiful Green with Glittering Turquoise tree, and they would have to subsist on junk food. They would have eternally dirty Licorice Black fingernails and the worst part of all of it was that they would have to have store-bought Halloween costumes! They would go to proms where their Tumbleweed stained suits and Burnished Brown dresses were wrinkled, and of course, they would be forever scarred by losing their momma at a young age and would likely be unable to ever function as adults.

And poor Scout! He wouldn’t have a home either! He’d be wandering the streets with his matted dirty coat, (instead of his current Baby Powder White fur) an empty dog food bowl in his mouth, begging for milkbones with hungry children trailing behind him eating milkbone crumbs and…. OH MY GOD, it would was all gonna be just awful because I didn’t just have cancer, I had BBBAAAADDDD cancer. This scenario of course, unfolded before any diagnostic testing was done. In fact this was all worked out and settled in my head before the phone was back in the cradle after the call where I was told that unfortunately, I had cancer.

The catastrophic death spiral makes us think a lump in our thigh is thigh cancer, a headache is brain cancer, and shortness of breath after running is surely announcing lung cancer.

The catastrophic death spiral is the vortex that is cancer.

Is there any value or good in extremes? Do extremes serve any function? Sometimes. Without them life doesn’t break loose and move like it should. I once heard a story of the Sequoia and the forest ranger’s efforts to save and protect them. For years, they did all they could to keep forest fires away from the giants, guarding them from being burned like a human firewall. But one day they realized that no little baby Sequoia trees were sprouting anywhere, as it seemed no fertile seeds were being launched from the way up yonder cones in the Jungle Green canopy. It was then they realized it takes extreme heat to cause the pinecones to launch and release fertile seeds, and without the heat, nothing happened. So the next fire they let burn as nature intended, and what do ya know, the trees lived, able to withstand heat they never thought possible. And soon, new baby Sequoia sprouted; new Sheen Green leaves, and Illuminated Emerald shoots and tiny Blast Off Bronze trunks emerging from the Milky Way black charred ground where once it seemed, all was lost.

Yes, sometimes a good old butt burning makes us grow and move and release what is needed and yes, sometimes we all deserve and thrive with wide open fantastic Technicolor joy. Sometimes yes, extremes serve us well, sometimes.  Not all the time.

Life is rarely A or Z . I must fight myself to stay in LMNOP, and trust that LMNOP  is how life most often is, and that despite the initial blast off or leap into, LMNOP will find me, if I just wait.

If it sounds too good to be true it likely is, and nothing is as bad as it seems. LMNOP. This will be on my tombstone.

This old Sequoia has learned a lot in life, through some wicked Wild Blue Yonder storms and trials by Burnt Orange fire, and by living through many joyful Laser Lemon days. The tonic of time simply passing finds balance. Stretching the band of that extreme reaction, I ride it out like a wave, and it passes. Middle ground and balance always finds me in a day or two. I arrive at LMNOP just like that, perhaps a day late, perhaps a dollar short, but better late than never.

Things always do look better in the morning, maybe not an Atomic Tangerine, Metallic Sunburst morning, but good old Yellow sunrise for sure. And who could ask for more than that?

There is inherent mental comfort and calming in the rubber band snapping back.

Taking pause before selecting the color of the crayon with which to color my life may not yield the most stunning and exciting picture, but likely it will produce the most accurate one. And it’s infinitely easier to stay within the lines that way.

I don’t think that even after five years I have reached the opposite extreme of the “I’m gonna die” vortex-like Catastrophic Death Spiral that is cancer; I have not gotten to where I am blasting into the stratosphere of “I am gonna live a long and happy life.” Truth is, the reality of what will unfold in my life is likely somewhere in between, somewhere in the LMNOP range, simply because that is life.

Still, some days Red Violet With Glitzy Gold Glitter, Inchworm Green and Deep Space Sparkle remind me I am alive and that life is better than good, and some days life is still just a reckless back and forth aggressive scribble of Onyx Black. But most often, the box of 8 is really all I need to get by. To crack open the tiny box and breathe in their fresh smell, and see the optimistic faces of the ordinary colors of life all lined up expectantly waiting, that is LMNOP. 

Everything in moderation. Walls and lines keep us safe inside, but wow it’s a big world when we let our hair down and go over them…once in a while….once…in a great while.

Stay in center and embrace peace, simplicity, patience and compassion. 

Embrace the possibility of death and you will endure. 

Embrace the possibility of life and you will endure.

~tao te ching~

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Categories breast cancer inspiration, grief and loss, Identity Change and Cancer, Inspirational, inspirational-humor, inspriational breast cancer story, PTSD and cancer

Fingerprint

September 11, 2011 //
15

I don’t want to talk about 9/11. Not here, not now. Sometimes intense emotional experiences are so private, so personal, and when people around us launch into their own personal narrative of how it unfolded for them, it flavors it for us. And that is not what I want to do. It is not fair to you. Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories anticipatory grief, grief and loss, Inspirational, inspriational breast cancer story, PTSD, PTSD and cancer, trauma and PTSD
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