7.20.12 ... in search of milkshakes.

Two years ago today I got the approval from Scripps' long-term disability to go on leave. I had started radiation, had another complication with my temporary implant, and was about ready to plot something heinous against the passive-aggressive frantic narcissist manager who made my life unbearable -- even though she was a breast cancer survivor and should have been kinder. As I left the building I had the urge to run back in and smack her upside her fat little head...but since she has no nerve endings, nor any heart, I refrained. I still dream about it. LOL

I could have been kinder, too.  She's an irregular person. I could have been kinder.

A week ago today I was in recovery from a clean-up surgery for tissue that didn't survive the BigDeal.

Spent the weekend in an empty hospital, wandering around usually busy places on the 2nd floor, feeling as though Rod Serling had thrown me into a Twilight Zone, for real. Third time to go through surgery by myself. Never get used to it...

A month ago today my care team fought against all odds to get my blood pressure up, from 84/32, and get my kidneys back online after a twelve hour-renovation of the front side of my torso. I drifted in and out of a few days where I looked green, and felt it. 14 days in hospital trying to deal with pain beyond pain, and getting through it, by the grace of God. 

I've spent 33 days up here at the Cancer Center this summer, getting the reconstruction procedures completed that radiation, infection, and infection have precluded all this time. Not complaining. NOT.

If you have to have cancer, CTCA is the place to do it. Limo transportation, three full meals everyday, a care team that goes above and beyond to help you heal. One shuttle driver calls it the Magic Kingdom. :-) You are Loved here, cancer, recovering from, or dealing with after-effects. Absolutely Loved. 

I've spent time keeping myself from sinking into a depression, time pulling myself out, time with Jonathan via Skype with him holding the rope for me, his mom vigilantly praying for me, as my own. 

Valiant efforts included taking myself out to the shores of Lake Michigan, going to a Farmers market, pushing myself on walks when I wanted to lie down and cry, lying down and crying when I needed to.

It's hard for me to be alone, hard for me to continue to keep my strength up and my chin up and my spirits up these days, even though my cancer is at bay. Like my nurse said this morning, " You've been through hell." 

I remember a Spirit Day back in 1979, freshman year at Poly High school. I was a geekling-groupie to the lofty famed Seniors of the Theater Group, feeling lucky to sit near them at lunch and gaze on their glorious beings. This was Hippie Day, and true to their intellectual and artistic nature, the group of gorgeous actors came to school as The Establishment, setting up a conference table and wearing suits and ties while the rest of us ran around like rejects from an audition for "Hair". I got increasingly uncomfortable at their refusal to break character. Somewhere deep in the depths of me a panic arose that I'd lost my new tribe. I had some sort of a meltdown, and it was weeks before the Beautiful Ones made contact with me on the steps again. 

My life, since high school: same pattern, with brief successful events and the ultimate victory : raising three boys on my own who turned out exceptionally well. I suppose I could have been medicated and lived a quieter life, but i love the bumper sticker that says, ' Well-behaved women seldom make history'.  HA 

Quiet lives don't help other people struggling with the same issues, though, and I know that the suffering has helped more than a few know they are not alone. 

Being peeled and resealed has been an excruciating process. Perhaps more painful than the physical renovation was the abrupt rejection from a person I had known and respected for many years. Given a laundry list of all of my faults, a request to not communicate anymore, and a recommendation for mental health services was staggering to say the least.

It hit on all the triggers that have been just under the surface, for years, from family members doing the same thing. " You have been weighed, measured, and found wanting..." Daniel 5:27. Still I doggedly tried to keep up connections with people who really wanted nothing to do with me, in clumsy and ineffective ways... like that Spirit day back at Poly High, 33 years ago...except with a modicum of maturity. A very slight modicum, and not so much maturity as weariness.

 It's time to give all that up. Who are they to measure me??? Mere mortals who haven't got anymore sense than I. 

I like the approach one of my high school pals is taking. Live Life. Drink Milkshakes. Eat Crackers on Saturday. Plan to do Nothing, and Like It. To a small small group of us, he's encouraging us to Simply Live. 

God weighs, measures me, and finds me wanting in substance every single second. Yet He loves me anyway. Love survives all. 

Love survives all. Love causes one to laugh, to live, to giggle, in spite of excruciating pain. 

Off to find a strawberry milkshake, and consume it with gusto. Cheers.