Embracing REAL

When I turned 40 a few years ago, a switch flipped inside of me and I suddenly stopped caring so much what people thought of me.  Oh, I'm still concerned with making a good impression and I enjoy being liked as much as the next gal, don't be fooled.  But I am blessedly free from the anxieties and pressures that motivated my actions and shaped my opinions of myself for much of my youth.  God knows I wasted a helluva lot of time giving a shit what other people thought of me, doing what all women do, "comparing my insides to other people's outsides".  Maybe I was just slow on the uptake but it took me what seems like an inordinate amount of time to realize that the only approvals I needed were mine and God's.  Since He spoke the earth into motion and made me, in His image, with my mind, my emotions AND my Teutonic psyche there must be something that He made that way on purpose.

With that in the back of my mind I've been thinking about how transparent my life has become.  One of the sequelae of living a life alongside someone with cancer is that I find it hard to make small talk.  I used to be really good at it.  "Establishing rapport" is what we call it in medicine and having spent 8 years working in family practice I got quite good at it, this art of medicine.  It came to me fairly naturally by personality and for me the way in to a person's REAL stuff was always through their small talk.   During a medical visit small talk makes transition easier for people - it is small after all and let's one build up to the BIG of what's real and serious or delicate or vulnerable or you fill in the blank.  What's difficult. Or painful.  Or taboo.  Or just plain hard.  But now, small talk just seems like what it is, small.  It no longer feels appropriate when I speak about my life.  Questions have REAL answers after all.

What this looks like then is the following: I find myself at the check-out counter and the cashier asks me what my plans are for "this beautiful day", without missing a beat I'll tell her I'm taking lunch to my husband in the hospital because the food sucks there.  Or when my uber-chippy Starbucks barista asks me how my day's going, I usually pause too long before saying something REAL like, "I'm wiped out actually".  What almost always ensues is a dynamic and intimate conversation about cancer, lymphoma, chemotherapy, the tragedy that is having a young husband dealing with all the above.  And almost always, a brief testimonial to God's grace and mercy throughout it all comes about, inevitably because they bring it up.  Nope, no small talk for me, just the unvarnished truth of what's going on in my moment.  

 I was truly glad when I turned 40.  Not, mind you, because I got to start feeling achy and aware of my diminishing returns year after year but because I was finally at home with the REAL on so many levels.  Now this cancer journey has given me new opportunities to embrace the REAL in my life and I am blessed and encouraged by each encounter, whether serious, delicate, vulnerable, difficult, painful, taboo, or just plain hard.  I'd say sorry world, it sucks to be you when you cross my path on an especially tough day and ask how I'm doing, but really, I think the world is fortunate.  Not because of me and what I'm putting out there particularly, but because the world needs authenticity, more REAL and less small.  I find it refreshing and judging from the number and depth of my encounters I'd say the world is clamoring for it.

Far from Perfect

Thank you for the comments, your texts and to those of you who called since the last post.  For the rest of you, I am feeling better today.  Although there are moments when I am completely spent and want no more part of this entire business, they are only moments and once I have expressed the pent up frustrations and emotions then I do indeed feel better for awhile.  My emotional silo becomes full and, like a pressure valve on high, needs to be purged in order for the rest of me to function properly.  Regularly bleeding off steam just has to happen and it can come in the form of acupuncture, exercise, spa treatments, crying jags or the tried and true pity party.  This last one seemed to take life down a notch, for now, and that's all I can ask for. 


I try to deal with my emotional life as it comes but it sure gets hard to name every feeling, process it in real time and find a place inside to hold it.  See, I've got this Teutonic (read German) brain and that means I am blessed/plagued with a mind that must have order dammit and must have precision dammit in order to feel at ease in the world and within myself (I know, get on the couch...been there!).  Without this essential scaffolding in place, there is room for that sneakiest of sneaks to creep in, anxiety.  If you can claim any genes from this vast Anglo-Saxon pool to which I refer then you might recognize these tendencies in yourself. I'm grossly generalizing I know, but I personally thank the marauding Germanic hordes for my psychological OCD -- you may have some indigenous lowland cow herd or metalsmith to pay homage to.  Gesundheit!


No, you say?  Perhaps you're more of a nurture vs nature person.  No matter, there's evidence of dysfunction all around.  Walk into any Barnes and Noble and you'll find an extensive self-help section on the subject.  If books aren't your thing I'm sure there's an app for it for your smart phone or iPad.  My point is that I'm far from perfect.  What I knew from experience as I threw my little pity party was that after the party was over I'd still be dealing with my hard wired issues.  So, now I'm back at it, shoulder to the wheel to learn new ways of being, responding, receiving my life, albeit amidst a bit of a maelstrom at times.  This emotional OCD business doesn't work for me, it never has, in fact it beats the crap outta me.  Life doesn't fit neatly into a box because life isn't neat -- at least mine isn't.  And I hate to point out the obvious, but future neatness doesn't look promising either.  


As Phil heads into part 2B of chemo again next week, right on the heels of surgery and all the crap complications from chemo 2A, I know he'd love to hear that all is right in my world but hey, I distinctly remember part of our marriage vows saying something about promising to disappoint each other.  I'm claiming that one right here and now and taking it all the way to the bank.  But I also vowed to be there in sickness.  It is true, we are both depleted, and none more profoundly and completely than Phil.  This is hard territory -- trying to have our needs met while finding that balance between being the spouse, raising children and seeing to the self without losing compassion, grace and identity.  A tall order which requires everything of us.  There are children watching.  There are characters being formed.  There are lives at stake.  

It is What It Is

We're home now, having been discharged on Wednesday after receiving Dr. Mansfield's blessing that Phil had been given a sufficient amount of IV antibiotics and Dr. Kossman felt his blood counts were returning to normal levels.  He left on oral antibiotics and a host of other medications to tame the sinus infection while his immune system comes back online and finally conquers it once and for all (knocking on wood would be appropriate right now if you are at all superstitious). 

Normally, coming home would mean a wonderful rest from the hustle and bustle of hospital life where someone or another is always coming into Phil's room to measure, administer, deliver, or clean something.  But no.  Cancer, being the tenacious SOB that it is, has continued to flex it's muscle and is alternately pissing Phil off or exhausting him with profound nausea.  In addition to these bouts he has also been taken to the mat with sleeplessness and a ferocious fatigue that compounds with each passing day.  There has truly been no rest for the weary.  And by weary I mean: chemotherapy for 4 days followed by 9 days of the bottom totally dropping out followed by admission for pancytopenia and sepsis including sinus surgery and a 6 day stay at "Club Med".   Makes most anything I am dealing with alongside of him much more tolerable.  Not easy, but tolerable.  

I just began reading The Emperor of all Maladies: a Biography of Cancer.  It is absolutely fascinating so far and I know I will be riveted by it.  I know because it is the story of a "relentless and insidious enemy" and because it is the story I am living every day.  You might wonder why I would choose to read such a book right now.  You might wonder if I'll find it too depressing, or too difficult to handle.  On the contrary.  In taking a hard look in the mirror of reality I find nothing more affirming than seeing things exactly as they are and leaning into them.  It is what it is - and yes it SUCKS!, yes it is a RIP OFF! of epic proportions that my husband, my children's father has this most aggressive and "relentless and insidious enemy", cancer.  But to pretend otherwise or to distance myself from this process or reality would be to deny Phil and myself the opportunity and privilege of growing in intimacy with each other, our children and with God in this most heinous, desperate and yet profound situation.


Through relationships with the doctors, my close friends and family and mostly with Phil and my kids I am reaping many harvests of joy amidst this trial.  I definitely have to keep my eyes open for them sometimes but they are there.  People and relationships are an endless wellspring of love and discovery.  And when all that cancer is serving up is nausea, hair loss, fatigue and sleeplessness, well, give me the wellspring, thank you very much!   (Take me to the river, drop me in the water...)  So even though there is suffering and that is what it is a lot of the time lately, that's OK.  We signed up for the package deal with each other, with our friendships, and with God.

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. -- St. Augustine