Meandering Thoughts

A little meandering in my thoughts today.  A bit of drifting and sorting and trying to pull all the threads together of what I'm thinking, where I'm headed, what's on my mind, what is in my heart, what I can do, what I cannot do and remembering to keep the balance in everything.  I'm wonderful about extending myself here and there, often to the point that I neglect to do some of the things that matter most to me.  I've been spending too much time in one area and not enough in another.  I've been taking in more information than I need, more information than I can use and not putting enough time into being creative.  I've become overwhelmed and all circuits are firing at once. Whenever that happens I feel unbalanced and needy...I need to have something and I end up looking in the wrong places for what that "need" is.  I read Connie's blog post today and felt the balance return and the shift begin.  My thoughts may still be wandering and meandering but I think I've found the harbour.

♥

Last night I was put in touch with someone who is feeling fragile and more than a little frightened as she steps forward after her breast cancer treatment.  As this woman said, she thought it would be "all over and better after the cancer was killed."  That idea, sadly, is a myth.  It isn't "better" in the sense that we can say as we do to a child who has fallen and needs a band aid "there you go, all better now", and I don't believe it is ever "over".  The initial cancer may be eradicated but that feeling of "will it return" and life being just the way it was before?  That remains like the scars from the surgery.  The best we can do is to keep a lid on the panic, to keep that fear small, so small that we don't even know it is there anymore, until the next text or scan or follow up.

Moving forward into life after having been suspended in time and living in the bubble of hospitals, tests, doctors, surgery, and treatment is very difficult.  There is no easy segue or transition to "I'm back".  Life moved forward, and you did not.  You were hanging on to your sanity while trying to keep your health and more importantly, your life from slipping away.  You were still trying to be the loving wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister, colleague and all the while trying to make sense of how on earth you could manage all of that and knowing that some unseen monster was trying to steal it all away from you.

Treatment ends and you are back to your day by day life, only you really feel like Dorothy after the house has landed and you step out into the land of the Munchkins.  It all looks lovely but where is the path? Nothing looks right...it is familiar but different.  What are you to do and where are you to go?  There are no signs and no directional signals that say "this way after cancer".  You flail about trying to pick up the pieces, to return to what was, but you can't because you are no longer who you were.  Too much has happened, not just physically but mentally and emotionally.  You see life differently and there really aren't others that you know in your every day life who "get that".  As you've walked along the yellow brick road, you've met others, like the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion (realizing all the while that you in fact are all 3 yourself) and you know that they "get" this but they aren't part of your everyday world.

Some of us are lucky enough to have additional treatment that lasts post chemotherapy and radiation.  I had herceptin for a year.  Some women whose cancers are hormone induced are given Tamoxifen for 5 years, or one of the newer hormone inhibitors.  Then there are the women we call "Triple Negative".  That means their cancer is not hormone induced (er/pr-) and not her2 driven.  There is nothing for them to take after standard treatment is over.  Those of us with the extra lifeline feel we've had that little magic something that acts like an amulet against cancer's return.  Those who have no extra lifeline live in limbo and hope.

All we can do, any of us, no matter the adverse experience we have gone through, is think positively.  Think strong thoughts of empowerment and grace.  We need to remind ourselves that we are bigger than whatever it was that set us back.  That worrying into the future about "what if" is wasting precious valuable time that is better spent living and enjoying.  Smiling and laughing.  Loving.  Experiencing.  Expressing. 

We can't control the outcome.  We can only control the pleasure and the joy.