Every year at this time, without fail, I go into what I call my “seasonal slump.” (I just came up with that name like two hours ago, and up until now never really had a name for it.)
It happens right after daylight savings time, right around the transition from November to December, or, when it really becomes winter. Less daylight, more wind, more cold, more snow. It happens to me every year. It usually lasts a week or two. I know it’s coming, I know when it’s here, and I just kind of deal with it. Mix that into my “reshuffling” phase, which I’m still going through, and you’ve got quite a slump. A seasonal slump.
I’m still reshuffling, still trying to find my place, my control in a new life. A life without cancer. A life without worries and anxiety every second of every day. A life I waited for and prayed for, and now that it’s here, I’m having trouble finding what to do with it. It’s not that living is hard. Living is great. I have no trouble with the daily: work, dog, exercise, etc. I am in so much less pain (though I’m still getting used to my “heavy” C-cup chest). And so I’m still reshuffling. It’s funny because I KNOW I’m reshuffling, but I still don’t know exactly what that means, or what it will mean, and Dr. Kelly says that’s fine and that’s to be expected.
When my life seemed (or WAS) out of control (in the midst of wedding planning, LFS, breast cancer and six surgeries), I found areas I COULD control (such as eating, or eating very little), and what helped control those areas was medication. For nearly two years I had prescriptions to Ativan (muscle spasms, anxiety), Ambien and narcotic pain medication. And I needed all of it. It helped. It significantly improved my quality of life. Not that I should ever need to explain or defend myself, but it was IMPOSSIBLE to sleep without Ambien. I had expanders, surgery, pain, anxiety. I was planning a wedding with rocks under my chest wall. I had just found out I carry a genetic mutation that makes me prone to cancer, and helps explain the two cancers I had already. It’s exhausting even halfway through trying to explain what all of those medications did for me. But you know it all. I couldn’t lift my arms or get into my car without ripping, tearing pain. I couldn’t sleep on my side, stretch my back. My neck and shoulders were in knots. I used to cry driving in the car from Lewistown home from work because the pain was so bad. With every breath my chest went into convulsions. And here I was, trying to get married, trying to plan a wedding, trying to be beautiful in the face of a cancer that took so much from me. It is exhausting to even try to explain all that, so I won’t. It’s all here – in Pink and Pearls. But my point is this: I don’t have those medications anymore. Sure, I’m on Zoloft for anxiety, and it is helping. But I don’t have my “quick fix.” I know it makes me sound like a drug addict when I say that, but when things got really rough or the pain was really bad I popped a pill and was on my way to the next thing. That medication helped me move on, move forward.
Nobody talks about the “after.”
It’s true, I don’t have that debilitating pain anymore. I can sleep on my sides (working on getting to my stomach), can drive without crying, can breathe without muscle spasms. The wedding is over. My life is moving forward. I have those six words. (The breast cancer is behind me.) So why would I need that medication? Why would I need that “quick fix” when life isn’t so unbearable anymore? I don’t. I don’t need it. But I do need to regroup. Enter the reshuffling. I need to find my control (without pills). I have my drive, my motivation, my will to live. I am lucky and blessed. I am the luckiest and most blessed woman in the world. I truly believe that. But I’m in the “after” and I’m not sure what all of this means.
I know this all sounds pretty confusing, and trust me, it is to me too, even as I type it. But so much of Pink and Pearls has been figuring out stuff about myself AS I type it out. Coming to conclusions, even if not every day or all at once.
Maybe the “after” that nobody talks about, after the cancer is gone and you don’t need those pills anymore, is that you’re a changed person. You’re a new person. And even if you feel better, stronger, luckier, you’re still new. You’re still different. And you are trying to live the way you were before the breast cancer. But you don’t know how.
I don’t know the answer or solution to any of this. I’m still trying to figure it out, and I guess it may take a long time. But I do know how to lift myself up from my seasonal slump, which was the purpose of this post in the first place.
All it takes for me is some purple high heels, dramatic mascara, a grande coffee from Starbucks, and a trip to the gym.
Try to find little things to cheer yourself up, even if they are things nobody else knows about. It won’t “cure” your slump but it helps. And never, ever take anything that helps, even a little, for granted.
This morning as I was getting dressed I found myself “in the mood” for high heels. I found myself “in the mood” for a little more makeup than usual. And suddenly I found myself “in the mood” for the gym tonight.
I truly believe the time will come when I’m no longer reshuffling. It’s so funny to think, that for someone who is so confident in herself and so set in her life, that I’m having trouble remembering how to live. Or how it was to live before all this. Or how it will be to live AFTER all this. Everyone keeps talking about life AFTER cancer. Guess what, I’ve done that before. I am a 15 year Leukemia survivor.
I saw my doctor a few days ago to go over the results of my abdominal ultrasound (regular screening for LFS). Everything came back normal, like I thought it would. The doctor, who is filling in for my regular oncologist while the office re-staffs, was learning all about LFS, and had been doing some research before our appointment. He greeted me by saying “hello trouble,” in a joking way, referring to all the “trouble” LFS has caused in my life. He shared with me that he learned there are a few main cancers LFS is responsible for, including Leukemia and breast cancer, and said I’ve already had two of the main cancers. Then he said: “what’s next?”
And I said “nothing.”
I think if I believed my cancer journey wasn’t over, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to find a new way to live after cancer. I don’t ever know what my future brings, especially my health. But I have no intention of living like I’ll get cancer again. In my heart and mind that is profoundly clear.
So I really, truly am working on the “after.” And maybe it’s so hard because before I didn’t ever really believe there would be an “after.” Sure, I believed I would be healthy again and I believed I would live. But I never believed my mind would move BEYOND the breast cancer. I never believed my mind would accept not having cancer. I never believed I would be able to put it out of my mind the way that I have now. Maybe I always said there would be an after, but I didn’t have any practice living that way until now.
That’s got to be the biggest and best conclusion of all. I’ve gotten to the “after” so much faster than I imagined, which means I’m stronger than I imagined.
Surprising, exhausting. It’s never a dull moment. At least I’ve got great shoes and hot coffee.
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