There's a lot on my plate, yet I'm hungry for more

These past few weeks have been interesting: busy, good and hard. All rolled into one.

I began tapering off the Zoloft a few weeks ago, and took my last dosage the morning of the first day of Passover, March 25. Since then I’ve been agitated, crying a lot, having mood swings, and feeling just plain annoyed/mad, yet at the same time energized and happy.

Since my last post, a lot has happened. We celebrated Passover with our families, celebrated our first wedding anniversary March 31, I got asked to do another speaking engagement, I signed up for more races (28-mile bike ride + another 5K), and ran my fifth 5K on March 30 in my best time yet, in 27:52, coming in fifth in my age group! I also joined the committee for the second Pink Zone Little Black Dress Goes Pink event. (If you remember I helped promote, and then modeled as a breast cancer survivor in the first event last October.)

Passover 2013!

And, to date, I’ve raised $3,389 for my Tour de Pink ride! I’m holding strong in second place for fundraising for the entire East Coast ride. Phenomenal. And I’ve connected to some of the other riders through Facebook.

And, just to remind you, I’m doing the Dirty Girl Mud Run June 8 in Pittsburgh, and we’ve got a team of 11 amazing ladies so far! I’m on T-shirt duty, which I love.

So, needless to say, I’ve been busy. I’ve been taking on a lot. I’ve put a lot on my plate. I think I’ve been continuously putting more on my plate since my last surgery in September.

With Julie, Passover 2013 :)

The event I’m speaking at this month is Penn State’s Smeal College Women in Business “Powerful Women Paving the Way” conference April 19. I am one of five keynote speakers, and I couldn’t be more excited and honored. I will be sharing my experiences of dealing with breast cancer while planning my wedding; Pink and Pearls and where it has taken me; and my work in the community of speaking out and sharing my story.

My bio is posted here, taken from the event website, http://www.smeal.psu.edu/powerfulwomen:

Marjorie Stromberg Miller

On April 19, 2013 the Powerful Women Paving the Way Conference PINK Lunch Benefitting the American Cancer Society will feature keynote speaker Marjorie Stromberg Miller.

Marjorie Stromberg Miller is a staff writer for The Centre County Gazette, and is a two-year breast cancer survivor. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2011 at the age of 26, she had gotten engaged only two months earlier. She started a blog, Pink and Pearls, to document her journey of planning a wedding while coping with breast cancer.

Pink and Pearls got Marjorie recognition with the Lifetime Movie Network for its promotion of the movie “Five” for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in fall 2011, as well as with the PA Breast Cancer Coalition, in which she was featured in a “survivor spotlight” story. Since her diagnosis Marjorie has volunteered with and spoke at events for numerous breast cancer organizations, including the PA Breast Cancer Coalition and the Pennsylvania Pink Zone.

In June 2012 Marjorie told her story, along with two other breast cancer survivors, at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. as part of The Moth and Phillips Ultrasound’s “Getting it off our chests: stories from breast cancer survivors.” This past winter she spoke at the Penn State Men and Women’s gymnastics “Paint it Pink” meet, as well as at the Pennsylvania Pink Zone Lady Lions Basketball game. This September, she plans to ride her bike 200 miles for the Young Survival Coalition’s Tour de Pink, a three-day trek from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.

Marjorie graduated from West Virginia University in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in news-editorial journalism. Prior to working for The Centre County Gazette, she was a health, business and social services reporter for The Lewistown Sentinel from 2008 to 2012, and while attending West Virginia University, she was a freelance reporter for various newspapers, magazines and other publications.

Marjorie and her husband Sean live in State College.

There’s no doubt I’ve been doing a lot of reshuffling since the final surgery. I’ve been finding my new normal, my place in the world. I started, and am currently in my “organic” phase (which may or may not end up being a phase, but rather a way of life), of eating algae and seaweed and hempseeds, bathing in honey and apple cider vinegar, using coconut oil on my skin and hair instead of lotion and conditioner, avoiding GMOs when possible, etc.

I had been finding something else, someplace else to put all of my energy. So I turned to researching natural remedies, herbs, vitamins/minerals, etc. My eating changed. Not dramatically, but I think twice about a lot of things I put in my mouth now.

3rd annual April Fool's 5K on March 30!

However, I think that really has settled down over the past few months. I don’t feel I need an “outlet” for my energy now. Yes, it’s true I do focus a lot of my time and, I guess, energy, on finding healthy/organic products and solutions, exercising (running and yoga), and now more events, speaking engagements and athletic events. And on top of that, selling our house, building a new one, keeping up with our social plans and family life, taking care of Campbell, and working 35 hours a week. But the thing is, I’m not tired. Not only do I love it, I thrive off of it. I feel I am healthy and capable now, so I’m going to do this now.

I will admit, there’s always the LFS in the back of my head, kind of pushing me towards doing the things I want to do NOW, (in very miniscule words) in case I get cancer again. But like I’ve said in previous posts, if I live like I’m going to get cancer again, I’m not really living.

Eating the top of our wedding cake a year later! Surprsingly, it was AMAZING!

So maybe part of the reason I’m taking on so much is because of the simple, blatant, obvious reason: I had another life-threatening experience and now I want to live life to the fullest.

Or maybe it’s just my personality. Yes, I am easily stressed. Easily tired. But also easily excited and energized. (my dosha IS a Vata, after all).

As I was out running this morning before work, it kind of occurred to me that I don’t really fully understand the breast cancer. I know that may sound silly coming from someone who writes about it, talks about it, and now, more than anything, is trying to make a better life after it and because of it.

The sun setting behind our new house

Enter, another phase of life after breast cancer.

I start my “life after breast cancer” phases after my final surgery which was in September, because although the breast cancer was gone before then, it wasn’t until my six surgeries were over that I felt I could really gather myself and move on.

First there was the “reshuffling” phase. I was always looking for something. I felt caught between my “before” life of easy answers (Ativan, Vicodin) and my “now” life of getting back to work and social plans and LIFE without the burden, pain and agony of surgeries. My body was fixed (as best it could be, with my new boobs), my scars had healed. I didn’t need pain medication. I could exercise. Lift weights. No more drains and waiting and steri-strips and surgery prep and pre-op and post-op. DONE. Then: where did I fit in? What did this all mean? I was done, and supposed to get back to my life? How? I wanted to be delicate again, yet I wanted to become stronger. I didn’t want the weight of the surgeries dictating how I was going to feel or what I was going to do, or not do, and when. I wanted my freedom back. I didn’t want to live in pain anymore. And I didn’t want to wait anymore. Reshuffle. What do I do now? I felt anxious, and I looked and looked. And finally … I settled into my new me and my new life.

Anniversary flowers from Sean: red roses and tulips!

I filled it with things I love: family, friends, organic products, running, yoga, taking on speaking engagements and challenging myself to once-in-a-lifetime athletic opportunities.

The next phase I don’t have a name for, but I feel I may be in it now. You’ve probably heard of “survivors’ guilt.” There are many phases to cancer survivorship. This one is when the person who has survived cancer feels guilty that he/she survived, but others didn’t. This can also be found in people who survive terrible accidents, like plane or car crashes, yet others with them did not.

I’m not sure if I have survivors’ guilt, but I may have something close to it. I have met a lot, and I mean A LOT of breast cancer fighters and survivors through my volunteer and advocacy work. Heck, I’ll be riding my bike 200 miles with hundreds of them this fall. I’ve met a lot of women, learned of their stories, connected with them. I also read a lot of breast cancer stories online, through both regular news sites and the sites I regularly visit: the Young Survival Coalition, the PA Breast Cancer Coalition, the Pink Zone, Kay Yow, Breast Cancer Research Fund, etc. Lately, whenever learning about or reading about or even communicating with another breast cancer patient or survivor, I burst into tears. Every time. Like, I want to cry now.

I know, and I’ve said this, time and time again, that NO two cancer stories are alike. Like a snowflake. Each one is unique. Each one has its own challenges. So I never compare. But lately I feel so terrible. That my heart is breaking, more than it has in the past when meeting or hearing about other patients. There are no words that go as deep as I feel, so take the next sentence I write, and multiply it by infinity: I FEEL SO BAD FOR THEM.

I ask, for them, the same thing I asked myself in the beginning: why them? Why now? Especially the younger women, and I’ve met a lot of them. A lot. Women under 30. With young babies. WHY THEM? They don’t deserve this.

My heart feels heavy. There’s nothing else to it. I just feel bad, and I just feel sad. Not for me, anymore. For them.

But, I don’t feel guilty. My experience is a separate one. But I do feel I have conquered this, as I’m coming up on the two-year mark April 18. But I also know that doesn’t mean much. Cancer can and does come back, 1 month later, 20 years later. You’re never “in the clear.” You can be cured, but you’re on alert, literally the rest of your life. I’ll never let that go. I’ll never stop being terrified.

But I am living and TODAY I am healthy. And these women aren’t. And I don’t know if they ever will be.

They’re not reshuffling. They’re still in it. And it breaks my heart.

So maybe that means I AM finding my place, after all. That I really am living this life after breast cancer, a life I didn’t know how to navigate until now. I think I’ve figured it out. It’s not so much what I’m doing; it’s that I’m no longer searching. That’s how I know.

It terrifies me to build a house, just like it terrified me to set a wedding date a year away. It also terrifies me that I’ve committed to a 200-mile bike ride in six months. Future plans terrify me. Not because I don’t think I’ll be here, but because I don’t know if I’ll get cancer again. Because I don’t know if I’ll be ABLE. Capable. I don’t know what crazy force out there is going to stop me from doing what I want.

I don’t know if there will be another cancer forming inside me, despite the running and the lifting and the organic, healthy lifestyle. With LFS none of that matters. LFS doesn’t care. Cancer doesn’t care. It just starts and doesn’t ask you first. It doesn’t ask you if you’re planning a wedding. It doesn’t ask you: “is this a bad time, should I come back later?”

That’s what’s terrifying. The future. I feel confident I’ll BE HERE. I just don’t know HOW.

But I decided, and I think it’s pretty obvious by now, I don’t live like that. I DON’T LIVE THAT WAY. I live MY way.

And all the while my heart is breaking.