Maybe I'm Manic, Maybe I'm Not

It's Monday and I haven't ventured out of my office. I've sent one email to Owner and spoken with Crazy Employee over the intercom. Oh wait. Crazy Employee just spent twenty minutes in my office, telling me about Rat Cleanup Day. Just send me a memo, okay? Do not make me talk to you. It's Monday. I'm in my office. Isn't that enough?

I think my new antidepressants are finally kicking in and I have to say, last night the thought actually arose, "I'm back. Is that right? Am I really back?" I'm more animated (like I used to be). I'm funny and quick-witted (Only about funny things, though; not important things like where I put my keys.). Last night around 7;00 p.m., I started dreading having to come to Crazy Land today. Surely that's a sign of improved mental health. For a while, I actually wanted to be here. But that was during chemo. Then there was a bout of it right after that last surgery, when I wanted to be anywhere but sitting on a sofa, being despondent. I can be despondent so much better here.

I actually wrote something with paper and pen last night. I haven't done that since my beloved friend Becky died. It was something intellectual. Oh my God. The end must surely be near. I need to check that supermarket tabloid that warned me the end is imminent and find out if my name is listed under the "Who's Going to Live?" part of the article.

It could be that I'm just a tad manic today. It looks like rain outside my windows and I haven't started drifting downward into weather-induced melancholy. Yes, that's definitely a sign of tad-ish mania. So is making up words like "tad-ish."

My mom just called me to tell me she got one of those spaghetti cookers you see on tv. It's like a clear cylinder and you pour hot water over the spaghetti in it and--voila--fully, but not over cooked pasta. It was a short conversation because, as she rightly notes, she has to hurry over to my house so she can be there when Phil Spector gets going. I urged her to hang up and get on the road. Trial is due to start in about 13 minutes. See? Maybe I'm just a tiny bit manic.

There are important things I need to share with you, but I'll be damned if I can remember what they are. I've been having serious memory problems lately (that's probably the real reason I'm so chipper--has nothing to do with meds). Maybe I'm just not remembering I'm unhappy. I'm blaming the Tamoxifen. I don't always think as clearly as I once did. I have to hang onto the thought that the memory and thought processes will improve as time goes on.

Now I remember. I spent some time over the weekend thinking about breast cancer long term. I have an appointment with my oncologist later this month. We'll do the blood test that confirms there are no cancer cells. This is always an anxiety provoking event. There went that mania thing. Not feeling so frisky suddenly. It's good to face reality, but it's sobering to remember this is a disease for which we have no cure. Many things in my life will never ever be the same. I'm now severely lacking in pep.

I had "Take care of ggirl" day on Saturday and Sunday. I've never done that before (unless I was forced). I read, did some yoga (very gentle), took a bubble bath, laid down to rest for a couple of hours and just generally focused on things that would be soothing. I should probably mark my calendar because I think this is the first time I've ever devoted two days to making myself feel better. Do I feel better now? Well, no. It's Monday now, but that's not really the point.

I finished the Primo Levi biography and thought about the puzzle of why people choose to commit suicide. Thoughts on that will be available at my book site sometime soon. I started Wild Ivy, by Hakuin Ekaku. I'm taking a hiatus from depressing, intellectually demanding, concentration camp reading. Hakuin is intellectually demanding, but he also lifts my spirits and reminds me of the precious gift of this very moment.

More notes from Crazy Land tomorrow. Or maybe that tale I keep meaning to tell of the peculiar behavior by an old friend of mine. Either way, you win.

It's The Tiny Little Rooms That Get to Me

I'm worn down to a nub today. I ended up sitting in one of those little examination rooms for over an hour. Surgeons' schedules are like that, I know, but I start to feel a little claustrophobic after 30 minutes or so.

Everything is progressing nicely, except for some thickened scar tissue. I had a series of steroid injections along the incision site across my lower stomach. I had two at my belly button and two or three right around the new girl. Everyone (the nurse, 2 physician's assistants, the surgeon) was concerned about the pain involved. I'm still numb in several places. The other sites hurt, but I now laugh at pain. Hahaha. A few steroid injections doesn't even really show up on my radar screen.

I'll have another surgical event in four or five months (whenever he can fit me into his very, very busy schedule). We're going to do some liposuction and other work on both the new and old girls. I'll have to be in the hospital overnight and more drainage tubes. (Oh no!!! Anything but that!) Those really hurt. Maybe they won't extend so far into my body this time. Nothing like having sensitive inner body contact with plastic.

Still waiting for the day when I'll be able to wear normal clothes and/or everybody stops hurting me. My psychiatrist tells me I shouldn't think of it that way. It's not very "empowering," you know. She can get back with me on that when she's gone through the same things I have. I have not, for the past year and a half, chosen to be hurt.

Aside from all of that, the skies are blue, the trees outside my windows are lush again and waving in the breeze. Nesting continues and the squirrels are feeling energized. They run along the branches and make daring leaps from one to the other. Out of my other window, I have a bit of a crepe myrtle tree visible and the roof of a church. The crepe myrtle isn't in bloom yet; it's too early still.

There's plenty of action on the church roof, though. The courting going on over there is hilarious. There are a lot of pigeons in the neighborhood and they like to hang out on that church roof. Since it's mating time, there are constantly three or four male pigeons chasing after (usually) one female at a time. She keeps moving away and here come the gang of boys right after her. Generally, when the females get exasperated and leave, all the boys stand there, looking at her as she flies away, collectively baffled. That's usually about all they're willing to put into the chase, so they mill around until some other hapless female arrives.

It's so good to be back. I have another M.D. Anderson visit with my oncologist coming up next month. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Temporary Visit to The Dark Hole

There's nothing like a trip to M.D. Anderson to throw me for an emotional loop. My depression got even worse as the day wore on and there's a good chance it will return (in spades) today. That's just how it goes. I thought I'd get this post in before I take up today's temporary residence in Crazy Land.

There won't be any painful tests. There won't be any bad news. This is just a check in with my plastic surgeon to make sure the New Girl is doing okay and the tummy tuck hasn't killed me (from accidentally ripping out stitches). It's the mere fact that I have to enter that building. Everything comes back to me, even before I get there. Like yesterday. Things got very grim.

I saw Elizabeth Edwards on Larry King last night. It was really nice they made room for her after the wall-to-wall Imus coverage. There is a woman who is most definitely bucking up. More than I ever have. She's chosen not to give any more of her life to this disease. I get it. I've lost almost two years now that will never come back. Choose to live until you die. That's about all any of us (both people with or without serious illness) can do. She has my deepest respect; I am humbled by her courage.

So that's how it is. I'll be away until next Wednesday, by which time I'll probably have returned to the Land of Crazy and be back to my cranky self.