Just Writing it Out - Trying to Understand...

...the way I feel right now.  Its raining but not cold and everything is finally turning green - spring has at long last arrived and flowers are blooming, the birds are coming back and making their nests and sitting on eggs.  Life abounds all around.  The rain is washing away the dust and dirt from a very long winter and garden plans have begun, some planting and weeding and hands are covered with dirt and my fingernails never seem to get clean...wearing gloves is just not the same as being able to feel the soil - I will use them when I start to pull up the itch weed and thistles.  Today it is raining and am inside with plenty of inside work to do - spring cleaning in the middle of May yet I have no interest in doing any of it. 

I was dx'd with mets to the spine in September of 2009 after 10 1/2 years of a cancer free life.  It was pretty hard to take.  The first thoughts are horrid when looking at the med sites and the statistics then finding this place, hope comes.  With lifted spirits and medication, the journey living with stage iv cancer began.  It is a roller coaster ride like none you could ever imagine and certainly, there is nothing that can prepare you for what lies ahead - nothing you learned as a child or in school ever taught you how to cope - but you learn, somehow, you learn - some slowly, some quickly but all need support, comfort, encouragement and understanding...the one thing that the connection with other people going through in the stage iv forum section of these boards provides in spades.  As if God brought us to this place, the only other people in the world that actually can relate to the circumstances that surround all that this diagnosis comes with.

Working through the process - and it is a process - we learn to understand our disease.  We learn all about our treatment, the side effects, how to counter the side effects, what new things may be on the horizon, share in the successes of others, and mourn the loss of those that have lost the battle.  We rant, we cry, we share parts of ourselves in hopes that our experience might help another - we jump to welcome a newly diagnosed person - we know what it feels like and try so hard to save a small portion of another from having to suffer the pain and horror and aid them in getting into the groove of living with this.

We laugh at ourselves - some of the silliest things that make a day worth the pain.  We do all of this in hopes that it will make it just a little bit easier, take our minds away from what we face, to get through from scan to scan, and hope that the next thing that comes our way is a cure, a treatment that will halt the beast and even with ravaged bodies, we can live on.

We look to each other when faced with decisions - life decisions.  When is it time to stop working and live the life we have left, enjoy the moments before things get so bad that there are no moments to enjoy.  This place is filled with information to help with the financial part of things - accelerated benefits to pay things off so expenses are less, how does disability work and the process of obtaining SSDI and medical coverage so that all our treatment can continue as without it, the outcome is pretty certain. 

Making the decision is sometimes very difficult.  It is easier if you have another means of income - a spouse or significant other, a bit more difficult when it is only you.  But still, the finances can work out well.  It should be a happy moment - the decision made and the last day selected.  Life will be living instead of living to work.  Ah, all those things you can do - travel, sleep in, do things if you want or don't - the choice is yours with no more dictating what you have to do.  It is exciting and exhilirating and you so look forward to the day when you walk out the door of your employer never to return - doing the happy dance all the way to the car, paying the last parking fee and knowing that a tank of fuel will last much longer - no more rush hour traffic, fighting with the snow, the rain, the accidents, and everything you are not going to miss staying at home. 

The day comes and it isn't a happy dance.  It is bittersweet.  A job you loved for years is over - although not defined by my job, there is no fanfare, no farewell - just a almost sincere 'keep in touch' and box of stuff that you carry to the car and drive home.  There is no one waiting to welcome you home - although there never is when you live alone - this day is somehow different.  The fur child is wagging his butt but he does not know the life changing decision that has occurred - he will just be glad to have you around.  Oh, and those friends who kept nagging at you to quit working (mainly because they wish they could) and then when you decided to do so, kept asking 'well, when are you going to do it' to the point of it being so annoying, it became a topic we could no longer discuss.  I wanted to leave in my way, in my time - not someone elses and especially because I really liked my job.  To just call in one day and say I am done was not within my makeup to do. 

So, I pop over to let them know the good news and it falls like a lead balloon - only the call to my sister resulted in a very warm and loving 'good for you'.  My son will be thrilled but he is presently on assignment in an undisclosed location and has little access to communication so that will have to wait - I am not announcing it on FaceBook or in a text...I want to speak to him and I can't until he returns stateside. 

The biggest struggle is it feels like giving up.  To stop working means I can't do things I used to do anymore.  Although, throughout these almost 2 years, I have found many limitations and ways to overcome them and there are some things I truly can't do anymore and I have accepted that.  While my rational mind tells me this is a wonderful thing - this thought of giving up I cannot seem to shake.  A new part of the process, a new twist on the roller coaster ride. 

So, I allow myself to feel this way.  Give myself some time to adjust to yet another part of the 'new normal' that comes with this disease.  I have plans.  I have things to do, many things but today, it is raining and very gloomy and this is very new and I do know that with time, I will come to accept and embrace this next step in the journey of living with stage iv metastatic breast cancer.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you made it through it...going to take a little break and get adjusted and be back to my 'new normal' rah-rah self in no time!

Hugs to you all and thank you for being here - LowRider (aka Sharon)