Letting go

[honeybera]

Well, that didn't take long. I was reading over on another forum (yeah, a breast cancer one) on how poorly some people are treated by their families for one reason or another, and how the mistreatment suddenly explodes into some serious mental health problems when combined with a cancer diagnosis. And then I ran across this statement and knew I had to share it with you:

I was still stuck in that trying to please the un-pleasable

OMG!! "PLEASE THE UNPLEASABLE"? INDEED!! What a trigger for me!! That epitomizes my plight with MD!! As I read about the problems that these people are having, considering both with their dx (getting hip to the lingo already ) and with all the work I've done on here to see the truth about what has happened to me, putting the guilt on the person or persons who happily dished it out onto unsuspecting me, I can see things more clearly. I was WISE to "run" from MD when I did! Nothing would have stopped her from finding a way to gloat over my dx to make her pitiful, fear-driven life seem "perfect" and "better than" others. A hideous statement, but a true one. There are some terrible, heartless family members, and even "friends", who can take advantage of someone finding themselves in a bad or desperate situation. Sad indeed.

I've often thought that, with my newly found positive self esteem, what retorts and defenses I could have used to possibly out-maneuver, out-talk, and totally humiliate MD, sitting in her nursing home, getting uglier by the day, her hair no longer "curly" via some permanent wave, but straight and thinning and gray (last time I saw her), wearing her Depends so the caretakers would have less work, getting fatter and fatter due to eating too much candy and other sugary things (she always loved that junk, but ended up diabetic at the end)...but then I thought, "WHY??" What would be the point? Why be more like her, FULL of hatred and cruelty? I probably could have won the argument, but better to just walk away. Let bygones be bygones. LET IT GO!! So that's exactly what I did. Best move I ever made!!! I'm glad I did not humiliate/shame/ridicule/etc. MD. She probably really did deserve it, but I now have no guilt whatsoever to drag around and lament over.

Now, with my dx of bc (SO hip w/the abbreviated lingo ), I find myself NOT depressed anymore, but GRATEFUL instead! Even I am amazed by that. I have cried a bit from time to time, but mostly I'm laughing again. I can see what it is that I need to do. It's a LOT of work ahead of me, but I'm grateful that I have the days to do it. Or at least I hope I do. Some people innocently went to the grocery store to buy groceries for themselves and possibly for their families in Buffalo NY, never to return home. Now that's tragic. Life is a risk, but I have a problem with bc, and it is treatable. VERY treatable. How lucky I am!!!!!

I made my ham hocks and collard greens tonight (in my IP) before I sat down to speak with my T on the phone. I still need to fill my hummingbird feeder and water the entire backyard. (Temps are up in the high 80s - low 90s DAILY already!!) Then I intend to begin to MOVE all the toys for donation out of the "Storage Room" (via DS) so it can become exactly that. It's mostly bedding from here on out, which can be stored on the racks in the garage in the 70 gallon clear plastic sealed bins I just got because bedding doesn't care if the garage temp is way over 100ºF nor if it's freezing out there, so out to the garage it all goes. Papers can be sorted afterwards (or at any time) as I listen to my streaming service -- which has NO COMMERCIALS I just found out last night! Yippee!!! This is still a long process, but clearing out the storage room is key to "getting ahead and getting started", and I'm on it. Even after my surgery (in about 4+ weeks?), I can still sort things probably after a day or two or three of recovery, mostly at home. I may not have to stay at the hospital at all. YAY!! Fine with me!!

Time to water. It's down to 85ºF with a nice little breeze. I can DO this! But do hang in there with me! Just knowing that you are there is all I need.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Please let me rephrase that.

Just knowing that you are there is all I need.

Well, sort of. Just knowing that you are there is all I need plus letting me write it all out. Many, MANY people are only too glad to speak of the gory details of what is to be my upcoming surgery or insisting to know "what type" of cancer I have, the details of which I am not privy to yet NOR the lists of physicians, radiologists, and so on that haven't taken the time to even look at my INVASIVE cancer. So I'm left in the dark and feel like an idiot. It's like I'm not in "the Club" yet, like I'm still an outsider until I can be more specific about "what kind" it is, and then when I don't even have ALL the info needed, it's down the rabbit hole again. This is so scary. So please forgive me if I turn to you guys again. I find comfort here.

I'm not a fragile person, but last night, after a very FULL day of cancer, cancer, cancer and MORE cancer talk, it literally began to affect me physically!! Headache, cold chills, nausea, no appetite (ALL DAY), and a very real feeling of impending doom. And then I kept looking almost addictively at those horrible websites, which only made it worse. I called to speak with someone, a "trained volunteer" supposedly in the know at 3:30am to ease my fears, but she only wanted to read stuff to me re: (what else?) CANCER! I know she meant well, but wowee! I could not sleep until the sun came up at 6am. Then I slept soundly until 3pm. today. And now I feel better...somewhat.

And the coup de grace was my abrupt awakening yet again today by an office girl this time wanting to make an appointment in JULY for my freaking HAND (finger) with gout, Duyputren's contracture, Rheumatoid arthritis, and on my last office visit, a NEW diagnosis: osteoarthritis! It's so frustrating having a finger joint disintegrate painfully over years and years, but NOW they want to fix it.

My keyboard, after YEARS AND YEARS of faithful service, is crapping out on me, too. (NOT NOW, not after all of the computer fiasco and intermittent internet failure while I attempted to pay off my house via incompetent office girls that I've just gone through!) It began last night by the keys just not working when I typed, sometimes working, sometimes not. AARRGGHH!! So first thing today, I found an EXACT copy of the keyboard/mouse bundle that I have now over at ♥Best Buy♥ (PERFECT!! ) AND THEY TAKE PAY PAL so my non-working debit card, already a BIG issue, is not an issue here! This has made me happy again. I'm also getting a new flash drive so I can remove my recipes, etc. from my old laptop and shove them into my new desktop. And it will be "surface of the sun" hot out there from now until June according to the weather reports, so maybe, JUST MAYBE, I'll have something to distract me from all this cancer stuff, at least for right now.

Speaking of watering, I DID IT LAST NIGHT. (Proud of that!) My tomatoes were almost dead! Drooping and sad looking. I could not see them needing water that badly since they were behind the still-small Tree Collards on the table, so I watered them and moved them over to the side where I could see them, and today they are doing quite well.

====================(Thursday)

L-o-n-g day. Watered again. Cooked some. Dishes, too, and laundry. Totally exhausted, but not sleepy. Tomorrow I'll speak with a breast cancer survivor, but after reading and reading about all these different survivors of truly dreadful Stage 4 cancer, and getting my pathology report, I'm feeling more and more confident of a positive prognosis in my case...after the surgery.

But now to bed. I'm too pooped to pop tonight.

Honeybera

[Progress]

Lots going on honeybera. So many hard things, especially the cancer. I’m so sorry to hear about it, and what you are going through. You are handling everything with grace. I love your mindset about MD.

Progress

[honeybera]

Lots going on honeybera. So many hard things, especially the cancer.

Hey, Progress. Yes, lots and lots and lots going on, and yet nothing, too. It's like some sort of cruel roller coaster roaring along, all ups and downs, all rather coming at me really fast, so scary not knowing what the next turn or hill and valley will bring. But I'm not on isurvive.org for nothing! I'm a tough old bird! I outlasted MD and I can outlast this cancer thing, too. I'm just hanging on for dear life.

I’m so sorry to hear about it, and what you are going through.

♥Well, thank you, Progress.♥ I do appreciate that. But actually the more I learn about what I actually have, the more relieved I get. My cancer is so localized, hasn't really spread yet (but certainly has that potential if left untreated), is just in its infancy, so to speak, and "Lymphovascular invasion not identified" (is not in my lymph nodes...yet).

I have an HER2+1 biomarker which translates into "NO chemotherapy" FOR SURE (HALLELUJAH!!!!) and both positive ER/PR, which means probably hormone therapy in a pill for like 5 yrs. or so...maybe. Radiation therapy? Again, maybe, but will be determined after the lumpectomy, as will all the rest of my treatment plan. Tiny tumor, only 0.8cm while most are found at about 3cm or more. Teeny-tiny and located at 4:00 and WAY up near the front. (NOT near the lymph nodes located on the sides of the breast nor near the chest wall. WHEW!)

How they do it is to take out the offending tissue plus a little of the healthy tissue around it, even a tiny bit from one or two "sentinel" nodes (the nodes usually the first ones to be invaded by bc), just to be absolutely SURE that the lymph nodes are NOT involved (which mine are not), test in the hospital lab these tissues of mine to see if they "got it all" and to rule out other "suspicious" things, and I then get a couple of stitches, a lollipop , a gold star , and I'm on my way home soon after that.

If this comes off as the info the pathology reports are saying, I'm almost not severe enough to be "in the club", as they jokingly refer to it. I spoke with "CC" today on the phone, a bc survivor. She had the same thing as me, BUT with the lymph nodes involved. HUGE difference in treatment, I've come to learn. I'm probably more like a Stage 1, but there are people on those boards that are Stages 2, 3, and the dreaded 4. I want to be a NON-stage, a ZERO stage!! But even at a Stage 1, I am freaking out sometimes. What is a Stage 4 dx with small kids and a husband dealing with at this time? Or worse: NO husband! (Although, if he's too upset by all this, especially if he's uncomfortable in his new caregiving role, that can be a big problem, too.) I heard last night in my internet wanderings: "At Stage 4, you do still have a choice: 3 weeks - 3 or 5 months to live without treatment, or 3-5 years with treatment."

And I have Stage 1, GREAT prognosis for a GREAT outcome and a long and happy rest of my life. I'm not even in the same ballpark with these astounding heroes. What a thing for them to face. My troubles are just so much chopped liver compared to them. I can only feel incredibly BLESSED for my good fortune of finding my cancer so early and even at all. If I hadn't shown the mammographer my breast discharge, she would have just sent me home without the further workup (ultrasound and then ultrasound guided biopsy) which FOUND my cancer so I can get RID of it. Time to put on my big girl panties and face this next part of my "journey" head on!!

You are handling everything with grace.

I sure hope so. And a bit of good humor helps, too. And as much bc research as I can stomach every day. And exercise, which for me is gardening, housework, and maybe even some sorting out of this house, like the front room, storage room (!), the kitchen...ALL OF IT. That will always give me a mental lift, too. Today is more sorting (I have THREE huge boxes to sort out already set aside), and really deep clean my bathroom, shower stall, and throw rugs. The throw rugs are important because that's what old Spot, bless her, would crap on if allowed to, so I had to upend my life and normal routines for over a year to care for her and her UN-housebroken ways, hiding my good throw rugs and blocking off my shower stall. She meant no harm, but it really got to me after some time. Now that she's gone, I'm sure she'd want me to get back to normal. I need a nice, clean, and easily accessible shower and pristine throw rugs. Now I deserve some good self-care.

I love your mindset about MD.

Is this the one you mean?

I'm glad I did not humiliate/shame/ridicule/etc. MD. She probably really did deserve it, but I now have no guilt whatsoever to drag around and lament over.

It's really funny. The realization of cancer and therefore the reality of lurking death (just stating the facts, ma'am, which struck me a few days ago) changed my ways of looking at things. I know on this thread I've said the word "tomorrow" a lot. I always felt like life was unending. I don't know why I felt that. You get up and it's a new day. I could either tolerate it or appreciate it, depending on my mood. I often felt depressed. But that old Cancer dx and the unknown behind it really knocked that way of thinking OUT of my head!! I HAVE TODAY, not tomorrow, and not the past. Past is past. It brought my way of thinking to MD (naturally, she was my mother and a huge influencer in my life, whether for good or for bad). I was pleased that I chose to just walk away from her and not to sink to her level and attempt to "out-cruel" her. It was a good choice. It leaves me feeling clean inside now that she's gone. I hope that death is a kind thing to her (and my Dad) and wish neither of them any ill will. But thanks for the loving of my mindset. I hope that this is the mindset you meant.

I'd better get busy with my chores. I FINALLY got my new VISA card. Yes, the bank screwed that up, too. Now I have to enter my new card info every time I pay my bills. And on and on it goes. Still, I'd rather be here and alive than the alternative.

Honeybera

[Progress]

Hey honeybera,
Yes that was exactly the mindset I meant about your MD! It is very compassionate and charitable.

Guess what? I was behind schedule on my mammogram by quite a bit, and I got it done yesterday. I think checking on things sooner rather than later is a good lesson I took away from your experience. (Thank you!)

Progress

[orangeflower]

Hey honeybera,

I love it that you watered your tomatoes. I have not experienced the physical issues you're going through. (A good friend has) I think you're handling everything with grace and wisdom. (you remind me a bit of my friend.) Thank you for sharing (I'm honoured to be following along here in this thread)

I also like and respect your mindset that you chose to walk away from MD and not attempt to ''out cruel'' her and also that you wish her no ill will. (I think there is ''no winning'' with some emotional abusers. (mostly family). (I call them the Foo). I would have liked to have realised this earlier - but am grateful I realise it now I didn't try to be mean but I tried to get them to understand...or communicate (as opposed to making ''noise'') even a little.. they likely never would/will)

orangeflower

[honeybera]

♥Hello Progress and orangeflower!♥ (Just added you, orangeflower, to my dictionary so it didn't separate your name every time. )

May I say that nothing will send the blues and other negative thoughts out the window like a good old bc dx!! (Breast Cancer Diagnosis) LIFE IS PRECIOUS!! Each day can be savored, even those that look really crappy at first glance. Some of this experience is really, REALLY scary, but that's just the way it is. And it's going to make me better in the long run, for which I am eternally grateful in the deepest sense. I am super lucky! My dx is for IDC (the frightening sounding Invasive Ductal Carcinoma), but we've caught it so early that it's extremely treatable and the lymph nodes are not involved, either. No chemo is necessary in my case, probably no radiation, and just take the hormone blockers for a while. My treatment will be determined after the surgery.

=======================(Blue Monday)

This thing is like a wave with its highs and lows. I tried to call DB, but he didn't pick up nor did he call back. This was a couple of days ago. I don't understand that. I hope that he's ok. I'll try to call him back tomorrow. I've still not heard one word from any doctors or even my "contact person" through American Cancer Society whom I've spoken with exactly once. I did email her, but haven't heard back. I wonder if it's something that I said or did. DS is out tonight to see an old friend that just moved back from FL. She's now living only 30 minutes away. I really can't stand her, and even he calls her and her friends she's moved in with "weird". My dogs both are in heat and can't be let into the house (my room) where I could give them a pet. I am ALL ALONE. Just me and my bc pathology report. And a ton of questions. And a need to talk to someone. But if I "reach out", I either get "information" they have at hand or the bum's rush after speaking to them for a few minutes. I feel unwelcome.

Waves of tears and fears are washing over me. There is a TV show called I SURVIVED that I have recorded. It's about people who have survived horrible things, yet survived them. Maybe I'll just get a snack (sugar free, of course) , like a ham sandwich, and watch the program while grinding up old papers in the shredder until I get tired. What a sad and lonely life I have sometimes. It's the ability to cope when it gets like this that saves me. But I sort of feel like an unwelcome burden, too. And the thought of having breast cancer and yet no definitive answers nor friends to discuss it with gnaws at me.

I'm making some headway in the kitchen, like clearing the sideboards, so that I can begin to make keto treats again. What I'd give for some keto chocolate chip cookies right now, or some keto fudge or fat bombs or muffins. I'm getting close to having enough room on my sideboards to do so. But not tonight. Tonight is just a lonely night. It's hard to stay positive right now. But tomorrow the sun will shine and I'll open up my drapes on my WOW and view my garden and DO some things! Maybe I'll just call the bc surgeon and start the damnable process. Maybe. Sometimes it seems easier to just ignore it, but the thoughts just sit in the back of my mind and constantly nag at me. Like I said, "Waves."

Going to go set up my shredder and turn on I SURVIVED. At least when I wake up tomorrow, I'll know that I've accomplished that much. God, I'm so blue tonight. Thank God I always have you guys to "talk" to. I'll just send this off tonight. I know that this too shall pass...and thank heavens for that, too!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I didn't try to be mean but I tried to get them to understand...or communicate (as opposed to making ''noise'') even a little.. they likely never would/will)

That's a good bet, orangeflower. I found immense understanding and comfort through watching YouTube videos of a wonderful FREE T named Dr. Les Carter who gave me invaluable insight into true narcissism. Nice little 12-15 minute clips, very empowering and thought provoking. MD was a classic narcissist. Dear Dr. Les Carter with his soft Texas drawl, so calming, helped me unload any guilt that MD had attempted to drown me in. Again, he's FREE. Just saying...

Guess what? I was behind schedule on my mammogram by quite a bit, and I got it done yesterday. I think checking on things sooner rather than later is a good lesson I took away from your experience. (Thank you!)

Progress, I am SO proud of you! My blessing is that they are catching mine early, really early! And that's the point of the whole mammogram thing. Good on you! I mean that! Where would I be if I hadn't gotten the mammogram? Sitting here unaware that I have invasive bc. I'm one of the lucky ones, and you're one of the really smart ones! Again...proud of you!

Son is now home. BC survivor ("CC") wrote me back. Had a nice, albeit late, meal and fell asleep sitting in my chair watching I SURVIVED. Going to bed now. All is right with the world again. Sometimes those old feelings just creep up on me. Didn't want you guys to worry. I know I sounded down, but I'm so glad that I could just write it out on here.

♥♥{{{{{{{ALL OF YOU!!!}}}}}}}}}}♥♥

Honeybera

[Oceantide]

thinking of you with all you're dealing with and hoping you get good rest and feel some relief...{{{{{{{honeybera}}}}}}}}}}

[honeybera]

WHEW! I finally got the call from the surgeon's office to come in for my first consultation! Talk about mixed emotions!! I feel terrified and relieved and yet sort of anxious to get this ball rolling. I know that I have to walk down this terrible path, but I feel confident in those who are trying to help me. I can sit like this in limbo, questioning everything and knowing nothing, but what good will that do me? No, as frightening as that initial phone call to come in this next Friday was (OMG! That's day after tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!) [Down, girl...just take a deep breath.] - as I was saying, <gulp> I'm to go meet my surgeon on Friday afternoon. DS will be coming with me. I need to bring the usual: lists of drugs taking, questions, etc. but whatever she wants or needs, she's got it!

The surgeon, Dr. E, has also requested my entire family's hx of cancer, so I called my DB, our family historian. I was greatly surprised at what I heard. I knew that my father had had Mohs surgery on his nose to remove skin cancer, which disfigured that very vain man for life, but I was NEVER EVER told that MD had had a biopsy for skin cancer on her face while she was living at the nursing home. She also had another skin cancer dx while there, but opted to not do anything about it NOR to even tell me about it. It was strokes that took each of them, but cancer was lurking back there, too. I was always treated as the odd man out, held at arm's length, and told very little about our family's hx, but good old DB was not only there, he was treated as a confidante. And yep! he had all the answers, including the fact that if my predecessors made it past the cancers and strokes, they lived a long, long time past their expiration dates, like one great-aunt til 98 and the other until 104! Even my dad lived to be 88 and MD until 91.

MD never dreamed that DB and I would get close again. She literally gave him everything (like the entire $700,000 estate) and only gave me a hard time and short shrift to make SURE that I'd be so pissed off that I'd never speak to DB again. But I'm now seeing just how much he paid for that "privilege". He loved her (as did I), but he didn't respect her, and our comparing notes about things said to him have him sharing with me just how much MD lied, even to him. So I guess the familial lack of respect went both ways. And she lied about the dumbest things, like when and how he got chicken pox. She had ME giving him chicken pox, but I told him that I had chicken pox when we lived behind my Grandma's house (the little cottage in the back). That would make me somewhere between 1½ to barely 5 yrs. old. (1948-1952) and he was BORN in 1956. <LOUD BUZZER SOUNDING!!> Wrong answer, MD! Caught in another lie. No wonder she tried so hard to keep me on the outskirts of family life. Easier to BS everyone that way. What a mean, conniving, underhanded, sneaky narcissist she was! And it's funny: those are the names that she called me, when it was her all along...

Ah, nuts to that! On to something much more important! Today it hit 102ºF for the first time this year! Surface of the sun time at the old homestead again! I did not water yesterday and I'm not too sure about the day before.

============================(Thursday wee hours again)

I can't sleep. But I did go out to water in the horrible heat yesterday...and it wasn't that bad. I watered everything. I need to fertilize everything today. Everything needs it desperately! I also need to trim up quite a few things. Maybe plant my poor SunGold tomato plants in a big 30 gallon smart pot. Then when it gets hot out there again, I'll just come in and do my transplanting into pots, also desperately needed. I need to get out of this computer chair and get more active for a number of reasons. I'm more successful in doing that every day.

=========================(Thursday afternoon)

Just now rolling out of bed again. Facing and thinking about the cancer meeting tomorrow. This is even tough for me and I consider myself rather centered and "strong", whatever that means. It's tough getting to sleep, but staying asleep is an easy blessing. And waking up to face "C-A-N-C-E-R" again, day after day, is truly difficult. Perhaps meeting my surgeon tomorrow will help. The survivors say that this waiting is the hardest part of this entire thing. Let's hope so.

=======================(Friday wee hours)

I can't sleep again! I'm so scared that just sitting here I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and hear it in my ears! In about 12 hours I go to meet my surgeon, Dr. E. I was browsing the internet when I ran across a quote from John Wayne: "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." And this is just the consultation that I'm fussing about!! She'll probably give me a date for surgery. I don't know what tomorrow holds. I've cried several times tonight. It really does come in waves. I sure do hope that she has reassuring words to say to me and has a calm demeanor.

I read about anesthesia tonight, too. Not too bad. They just had the worst time waking me up 35 yrs. ago from my C-section with DS.

Honeybera