Hula Hoop

And now for some levity . . . May I present . . .

Annabelle, Daisy, and The Hula Hoop

In Michael's Words

It's completely coincidental that Michael and I both decided to write about this today - we didn't at all collaborate on this. I guess it says a lot about what we are currently experiencing. He posted the following on Facebook, and in a rare instance of disclosure, he has given his consent for me to share it here:

***

My wife usually does these types of posts, these "Michael" updates, but I'm going to do one instead. I don't like to disclose, or whine, or complain, but I need to let my friends know where I'm at. A few weeks ago I posted the following on Facebook:

"From my aunt's kitchen: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." It starts now. I am told I don't have cancer. My body's damaged; I've changed, but I will not let the fear of what may lurk grip me and my family for one more day. Fuck that. You get no more of my time. I've given you your due. If you show up again, that's fine, we'll deal. But until that day--which may never come--I'm letting go. I'm free."

I still don't have cancer, which is great, and after I posted that I felt so empowered. And now, in a rare moment of disclosure hopefully worthy of one of my wife's posts, and hopefully somewhat cathartic, I have to say that being on the other side of cancer treatment is somewhat more difficult than the treatment itself. I need to disclose this because everybody thinks you just beat cancer and move on. It's fucking hard. The whole world has moved on and I haven't yet. And my wife is doing her best to move on, but can really only move as fast as I can, and that's pretty slow.

So many things change for you during treatment and recovery. One that's had a huge impact for me is this: I learned that for some people, even though my family and I were going through what I hope will turn out to have been the roughest time in our lives, some people are unable to subordinate their own needs, and whatever drives them, for yours, even when they are clothed in the disguise of support. Not that they don't start out with the intent to be helpful. It just turns into something else, about them. Because of this, my relationships with the only two people I've known my entire life are nearly non-existent, and superficial with one of them at best, and I don't know that they'll ever be the same. And I don't even know that I want those relationships to revert to what they were--that's what ultimately led to their downfall anyway. I can't operate like that anymore.

So, here I am struggling to move on and while my wife has been wonderful, dealing with my own issues and her own issues, and sacrificing herself to a large degree, I otherwise do not have the support of who were the two most important people to help me through, and to help us through, and to ease and share the burden. And because they have not been part of the support system, and have distanced themselves (although it has become mutual) they are unaware of the after-cancer struggle, and the demise of these relationships, and the fact they're not around, have added to the fall out.

Then, I landed in the hospital a few weeks ago for something probably related to the surgery I had for cancer. That was a reminder, and it took two trips to the emergency room and an appointment with a specialist, all in one day, before somebody fucking realized I needed to be in a hospital. Thankfully, I am now OK, but it just sent me into a tailspin and I just realized this morning that it was a setback that was affecting me.

While this experience and even the past few months and weeks have brought my wife and I very close together, I have also been inexplicably more emotional, somewhat afraid of losing everything I have, and working very hard to keep it together. And trying to raise 6 children and hold down a very demanding job that requires a lot of concentration.

Yeah, we still laugh a lot, and love, and have wonderful times, but I'm here to tell you that the letting go part, and the being free part, has been work for me and my family. I haven't let go yet. I'm not free yet. And because of that neither is my family. But I hope to mostly be one day soon.

Fallout

Back in 2009, I spent a great deal of time wishing the year away. It was the year Michael was diagnosed with cancer, very early in the year, and he spent the entire year going through cancer treatment, and our family was put through the wringer. Michael dealt with the awful effects of chemo and radiation and surgery, while still holding down a job to support his family. I watched my husband's spirit erode and his body diminish, and was utterly helpless to bear any of it for him or to lessen the impact for any of us, all the while still having a house to maintain and six children to care for. Over time, the kids began to respond to Daddy being sick and Mommy being depressed with their own high emotions. It was a very, very difficult time, and I wanted nothing more than to put the year behind us so we could get back to life as we knew it before we had a relationship with cancer.

The truth is, though, that there is no going back. Life does not return to "normal" after cancer. Yes, life goes on, and we engage in most of the same activities that we used to, and our day-to-day routine is the same as before. But we are changed. Forever.

Some of the changes are good, and some unsettling. I remember when Michael was going through treatment, one day I ran into a mom at the kids' school whom I was acquainted with. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked about her husband, who I knew was in the military. She told me that he had been deployed to Iraq. And I remember thinking, "Yes, that's what it feels like. It feels like my husband is off to war." And like the men and women who come back from war with physical and emotional scars, so, too, do people who fight cancer.

Cancer, it never goes away. Even when the scan is clear and the blood work looks great, it's there, with its hooks in you, holding on, trying to take your peace of mind and your sense of safety and your ability to believe that there is still a whole life ahead.

I won't attempt to speak for Michael, as the experience of being the one who actually has cancer and goes through treatment is a unique experience in itself, and one I am not arrogant enough to think I understand. But speaking for myself, as the spouse of someone who fought cancer, I know the experience has wrought changes in me and my whole family.

I am filled with gratitude for all that I have . . . and an ever-present fear of losing it all. In some ways, everything about life feels more vivid . . . the highs are higher, and the lows are lower. I now live with the conviction that I will one day have cancer, that there is no escaping it - cancer is everywhere, lurking, silent, waiting to take everything away. Often I feel sapped from being swallowed by other people's needs, without having a proper, conventional safety net of support for myself.

I am angry - very angry - that the people who should have been saying, "What can we do to help you guys through this?" - if only by virtue of the obligation that is born out of the love, commitment, and loyalty they profess - have all along been unable and/or unwilling to put their own feelings and needs aside, leaving us adrift without proper support. That those people think they can speak for me and my kids in telling the world that we are all so very happy that Michael's recent scan was clear, when in truth, they have no fucking idea what we are feeling or what we have gone through, or what we continue to go through, because they can't seem to see beyond themselves. I am angry and bitter that I have stood by my husband through thick and thin, through the joys of good times and the ugliness and horrors of bad times - purely out of my love for and commitment to him and our kids - and yet I am still barely acknowledged as anything more than an incidental nuisance by the people who profess love and loyalty to him. I am angry that we are still trying to heal, after all this time, and those people don't have a clue.

I am scared that we are never going to heal completely. I am scared that cancer, in the end, has won, and has stolen something from us permanently.

Life goes on, and for the most part I purposefully go with that and am grateful for it. But every once in a while, the fallout is brought sharply into focus.

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

Can you believe that we just said goodbye to not just another year, but another decade? How can it be 2011? Wasn't everyone just freaking out about Y2K?

Last night, for the first time in all the years Michael and I have been together, we actually had big plans for New Year's Eve. It was quite exciting! We and two other couples who are very good friends of ours got all dolled up, piled into a limo ( a limo!) and went to dinner at one of Michael's and my favorite restaurants, Orange Hill Restaurant.









The restaurant sits high on a hill, and the view is amazing. We started out having cocktails on the patio, sitting around one of the fire pits. It was chilly!



Sitting down to dinner -


A lemon drop for me, of course.


Dessert. Isn't that clever?


Back on the patio, where we toasted, kissed, etc., etc. at the stroke of midnight.


On the way home, back in the limo (those are Michael's and my tootsies).


It was a super fun night!

I have to say, I have not been as eager to see the end of 2010 like I was 2009. This past year was a wonderful year for our family, and I am filled with gratitude for our health and happiness, among other things.

But there's no stopping the march of time. Here we are, and already the first day of 2011 is fading into night. I'm not super big on making New Years' resolutions . . . but I do have hopes for the coming year, and things I'd like to strive for:

. . . to be healthy by whatever means necessary
. . . to reflect and be grateful regularly
. . . patience
. . . to nurture the relationships in my life, including those with my husband, my kids, and my friends
. . . to live more frugally (now that we sent 2010 out with a big, expensive bang!)

Happy New Year!

Let's Discuss Gifts From Spouses and Body Image

A few days ago, right before Christmas, I wrote a post here about Christmas gifts from Michael - about how once, several years ago, he gave me sweats for Christmas a few months after Joey was born, and how that made me feel, and about how I knew that he had gotten me something from Victoria's Secret this Christmas because I stumbled upon the charge when I was doing our online banking, and that I was not happy to know that there would be something under the tree for me from Victoria's Secret. I took the post down because Michael was understandably hurt by it - mostly by my criticism of a gift from him that I hadn't even received yet. The sweats he gave me that long-ago Christmas have become something of a joke - I know he meant well; after all, I do like to wear sweats! But his giving them to me for Christmas just made me feel frumpy and unattractive. What was he thinking?!

Anyway, so you would think that in light of that - of complaining about getting sweats for Christmas and feeling unattractive because of it - I would be happy to receive something from my husband from Victoria's Secret. After all, shouldn't it elicit the opposite response from the sweats? You would think so, huh?

But, sadly, that is not the case. As soon as I discovered that charge to VS and realized that he had gotten me something potentially sexy, I was bothered. Upset. Why? Because I know I'm not built for anything from Victoria's Secret anymore. Michael clearly disagrees. I should just run with that, shouldn't I? It bothered me, though, that even knowing full well the body image issues I have, he would get me something that he should know I'd never feel comfortable wearing.



(And this brings up a question: when giving a gift to someone, is it better to give them something you know they would like to have, or to give them something you, the giver, want them to have?)

About a year ago, I wrote this post: A Mother's Body. I wrote about the changes my own body has gone through in the course of having six kids, and just in getting older. I vowed to make peace with what my body has become, and let go of the self-loathing I've developed.

I've failed. Utterly and completely.

It's funny, because in some ways, I like myself better than I ever have before in my life. I like the person I am; I know I have good qualities, that I am worthy of the people who care about me (it's taken me almost a lifetime to get to this point), that I do good things and make other people feel good. I also recognize my shortcomings and try very hard to be honest with myself about them.

So in that sense, I'm good, I'm square with myself. But this whole body image thing? Eh. I don't like the way I look. I don't like that I have such a hard time finding clothes that fit and sufficiently camouflage my flaws - most notably my tummy. I am at an ideal weight for my build, so it's not the weight. It's just the fact that five pregnancies have pretty much ruined my belly. It sticks out and sags and I hate it. Despise it. It's become a habit of mine to check out other moms' figures - does her tummy stick out like mine? How does she carry herself? Does she seem as self-conscious as I feel? And how does that bitch have such a flat stomach when I know she's got four kids? I have become more and more fixated on the idea of getting a tummy tuck - well, really, a "mommy job" - a tummy tuck and a boob lift, because these boobs are in pretty sad shape as well.

I try to analyze this whole thing with a rational mind. Where do these feelings come from? Is it fed by our culture and the ever present quest for perfection? Is it just me having a hard time watching my youth fade?
And then there's the guilt. Why the hell am I so preoccupied with this? What place does such silly vanity have in my life when considered in the context of real medical issues that have become a part of reality for our family? And it's not like we have several grand laying around just waiting to be spent, nor is it realistic to think that what I understand would be quite a grueling recovery from such a surgery would be something our family could deal with.

So, I'm stuck. Obviously the most practical option is to just find a way to be okay with myself as I am. So far, I haven't discovered the key to doing that.

And I hate this post. Because it sounds whiny and shallow. But there you have it. One of the many topics that resides in my head.

Blood Pressure

One of my commenters left this link on my post yesterday about my blood pressure: http://www.highbloodpressureinfo.org/benefit-of-celery.html

I am very intrigued. It's worth a try! After all, what do I have to lose?

I forgot to mention that in the doctor's office yesterday, my bp was 155/95. Insert frownie face.

Off to buy celery! Will report back in a few days . . .

Update on My Scary Blood Pressure

Following up on that doctor appointment from a few weeks back, I went this morning and met my real doctor for the first time. He was nice. Patient. Thorough. Came across as competent. We talked about my family history, my health history, my current lifestyle. He deduced that it's most likely got very little to do with lifestyle (so I don't have to curb my drinking - yay!) and very much to do with heredity.

I've resigned myself to going on medication - probably permanently - for this. I'm not thrilled about it, but I realize that stubbornly hanging onto my little aversion to medication is not going to preserve my health. So it's time to suck it up, put on my big girl panties, and do what I gotta do. People are counting on me, damnit!

So I explained to him that I am currently (still) breast feeding, and that I need a medication that is safe to take whilst suckling the little one. He did not balk at this (score one point for the doctor!). He confidently wrote me a prescription for Norvasc.

. . . and I came home, looked it up, and saw that it is specifically contraindicated for breast feeding women! Hello!?!? Is anybody out there listening to me??

So, apparently, I am back at square one. Or maybe square two. I just sent a fax to his office explaining my quandary to him and asking him to please prescribe a different medication for me after confirming that said medication is safe for me to take.

Meanwhile, here I sit, with visions of my heart sweating its little heart out, and my arteries stressed to their limits.

Maybe a drink would help.