Laundry part 2: Disconnected

As more feelings (laundry) unfold, I have new thoughts, as I would expect. I think I'll actually have lots of thoughts about today for a while.
It seems every time I am getting back to life, in a matter of speaking (meaning focusing on friends, plans and the wedding), I have a little setback. These setbacks come in the form of a doctor's appointment which snaps me back into breast cancer reality. Today's appointments, both with the plastic surgeon and genetic counselor, I did NOT foresee as setbacks; rather I saw the first as exciting plans in moving forward, and the second, well, I didn't really know what to expect.
The meeting with the genetic counselor, as I mentioned before, WAS thorough and informative, but it DID set me back to breast cancer reality. It reminded me I'm not exactly where I want to be, or that I'm still IN THIS.
It was this, piece of dirt, almost, in my "moving-forward, clean world." Just yesterday I had purchased some red skinny jeans, which I had been searching for forever, and spent an hour on the phone with my mom just talking about wedding stuff. I was in a different place, and now today, I feel disconnected from the life I was trying so hard to have.

Life.
After today's meeting and all this talk about genetic mutations, when I think about all the fun things that are planned in the coming weeks, and how the wedding is now less than six months away, it all seems so distant, like this new thing today is what's dominating. Not distant in far away, although that's part of it, but distant in that those things aren't really exciting me right now. And I know it won't be like that forever. I'll have a few weeks until the test results come back to let this all sink in, and then I'll do what I'll do with the information given to me. But because today's information was all new, and because there was lots of it, I feel at a very different place right now than I did earlier this morning. I feel disconnected from "my life" which seemed very different this morning.

Breast cancer.
Bizarre to think how today's events make me feel disconnected from breast cancer because that's what brought this all about in the first place, so it may be more accurate to say I feel disconnected from the breast cancer I once thought I knew. This new take on breast cancer is different to me. This breast cancer (in a new light) is IF I test positive for the gene, everything I previously believed about how I thought I got breast cancer will be irrelevant.
I read A LOT of breast cancer articles. Too many, too often. I make myself paranoid. I read about all the potential carcinogens in what we eat and what we put on our body, and I think about what I'm eating and what I'm putting on my body. I won't microwave plastic anymore with my food, and I've almost completely sworn off body products that contain parfum/fragrance, phalates and parabens. I won't drink water out of a plastic water bottle, but instead have moved onto stainless steel. I read about all these things and make myself crazy trying to avoid everything in life. But who can blame me? Studies are being done, and some of this stuff is really harmful. But if this gene is responsible for my breast cancer, all the parabens and plastic seems irrelevant because it wouldn't be environmental factors that caused the cancer, it will have been genes. So I feel disconnected from what I thought I thought I knew. Or moreso, disconnected from the stuff I was pretending to know, or pretending to explain, or making excuses about, or finding reasons and answers for. I'll still be mindful and proactive with my health and I believe I'll always watch what I eat or what I put on my body, but maybe I won't be so crazy about ingredients in shampoo or in food. Maybe I'll rest a little from the carcinogen scare. Or maybe I won't. But either way, if I have this gene, it will put this whole experience in a new light. It will put a new spin on the why-I-got-breast-cancer-puzzle.

So right now I feel a little disconnected, both from my life, and, pending the results, possibly from what I thought I thought I knew about why I got breast cancer.
And at this point, I think I'm handling things pretty well, and am pretty OK. But so much of me, pretty much all the time, doesn't want that. I don't want to have to be handling this OK. I don't want to have to be strong. I am and I will be. But I don't want to have to be. But I guess sometimes we're not given that choice.