Grace

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I just hugged someone who betrayed me several years ago. I thanked her for stopping by. I'm not sure whether that means I've moved farther down the road to forgiveness or that I'm not brave enough to continue on with my cold indifference. I could say having cancer makes a difference in one's ability to see past human frailty, but I'm not sure that's true.

Every day, I pray for and work towards forgiveness and the abandonment of rage and hatred. In this particular case, hugging was a manifestation of grace in my life. There's still a small part of me keeping track of the things she did. Maybe someday I'll stop remembering. I'm not quite that strong yet.

Surgery countdown: 7 days

Surgery: Clearly in Sight

M.D. Anderson is clearly in sight now. I'll be leaving Wednesday to ensure I get to an early morning sonogram. Later on, The Beloved Dr. Ross. I'm hoping on this trip, he'll ask me to move in with him so he can take care of me forever. Let's not forget that I have hair and muscle tone now. Anything could happen. (Obviously, I'm hard-pressed to contain my anxiety. Dr. Ross is the perfect antidote.) Friday, I drive back to Austin.

On Monday, I drive back to M.D. Anderson for pre-op consults and an appointment with Dr. Kronowitz early Tuesday morning. Wednesday: Surgery.

I got all new "roll out" materials to their appointed destinations and provided on-site managers with extra copies of required forms. I rock.

For all the lovers of Crazy Land tales, an encounter with Foot Lady for your pleasure. I went downstairs to her office to provide her with the extra forms to take to her supervisors. Guess what we talked about next? Yes! Yes! Her feet! She did not plop her foot on the desk for illustrative purposes, but she did flop it on a nearby chair. Some things simply will not change. Foot Lady's ongoing foot problems is one of them.

The workers' comp company is driving me to distraction. I received a new claim today for an insect bite. I recently allegedly gained the ability to submit claims online. Twice I have tried it, twice it has not worked. I called tech support today, told the guy the problem, and he says, "Well, you got me stumped. I'll have to have someone call you." Great. I've got all the time in the world.

I submitted yet another paper claim, after having wasted a fair amount of time and an enormous amount of patience trying to get the lightening-fast online reporting system to work. I got the letter to the employee printed, but that's as far as I got.

Crazy Land denizens kindly held a Team Ggirl meeting, complete with warm, homemade cookies (of many kinds) and a lovely parting gift. Let us all celebrate my upcoming surgery! My friend the Information Superhighway did lots of shopping and arrived with a whole grab bag of cookies, magazines, crossword puzzles, toiletries...all gifts that were useful and touching. I like to recount the foibles of my co-workers, but my feelings for virtually all of them are quite cordial. Clueless though they may sometimes be, frustrating in the extreme and wildly annoying though they may be, I'm very deeply touched that they care. Not to be cynical, but warm cookies is a Team Ggirl event that's a win-win for everyone and is not necessarily a reflection of how much I've endeared myself to my coworkers.

That completely halted the workers' comp paperwork fiesta, which just means I have to focus on it immediately tomorrow, along with getting my biopsy slides sent to M.D. Anderson. There will be plenty of faxing going on. I got a call on Friday from my dermatologist's office, letting me know they sent the biopsy results, instead of the slides. No one told me that's what they were sending. Nor did they tell me whom to call to arrange it for myself.

I have a late afternoon appointment with the dermatologist tomorrow. I'm sure we'll be covering all of this. That means my last day of Crazy Land will be a short one. That would be great, but my tasks require more time than I may have at my disposal.

I guess that's another antidote to anxiety. Owner asked me today how I got all of the new insurance stuff taken care of. "I worked my ass off." I will be working said ass off again tomorrow. Lots of the workout will be personal, so I don't suppose complaint is in order here.

The upshot is that I may be away for a while from my online friends and my own weblog. Rest assured that all is well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. (Bowing to Julian of Norwich.) I'll see you when it's all over, if not before.

P.S. Sorry for the wholly unimaginative title line. What can I say?

Think. Who, me?

Craziness abounds, even over and above my daily sojourn in Crazy Land. Crazy Land continues to spin, though, and I'm definitely caught in its many manifestations of nuttiness-inspired stress. My anxiety about getting everything accomplished before my Wednesday departure is significantly diminished. Nonetheless I'm always aware of the endless shiver of anxiety burrowed under the level of my daily consciousness.

In the middle of conversations, I suddenly notice the lunacy in my voice. The more I try to tame it, the loonier I sound. Very disconcerting. I wish I could preface every interaction with an explanation that I'm soon having my fourth surgery in two years and that I'm therefore virtually unable to think clearly. As a matter of fact, I'm virtually unable to function.

Now and again, it strikes me that, since everyone around me seems to expect me to continue on as usual, I should most certainly be able to do that. Maybe I should be able to, but my mind periodically goes blank. The brain keeps track of pain and it will not be distracted from another imminent physical insult.

"How can you possibly expect me to do anything more than arrive at work and stay there for 8 hours," I think. Actually accomplishing things is simply completely out of the question.

Sometimes there's no choice. I've had the infamous "roll out" to orchestrate, a major coup considering the daunting amount of information not available. It's been a struggle to simply find out how many sites each manager services and how many employees are at each site. Is it any wonder my mind goes blank from time to time? It's a little like a cultural adaptation in this case. Everyone else is in some information-deprived haze. I'm just doing my part to fit in. Now there's a good excuse.

When it rains workers comp claims, it pours. Unfortunately, lately it's been pouring guys who've chosen to not report their work-related injuries for a week or so. The amount of paperwork alone that has to be generated and disseminated wears me out, even when reporting is prompt. When our employees wait to illuminate anyone about their hurties, my work becomes even more time-critical and positively stuffed with paper to be printed, faxed, copied, printed again and mailed to several people.

Last but certainly not least, I've been having serious issues with my dermatologist's office. When I visited, at their insistence, to discuss my diagnosis and treatment, the nurse practitioner was completely useless. No need for treatment, or maybe there is, who knows? Nonetheless, they called to make a six-week follow up visit. I also have an appointment with the doctor herself on Tuesday. To top it all off, I've been unable to have biopsy results successfully sent to Dr. Ross.

See? This is another moment when the mind goes absolutely blank. I have no idea what to do now. The nurse tells me to call the Pathology Lab and arrange it myself. They might have shared that with me when I called last week specifically to have them do that. I can't. The new hill of endless paperwork seems too big to climb at the moment.The noise you hear is my head as I beat it against the wall.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/inflammatory-breast-cancer/

Important information about inflammatory breast cancer from a woman who knows. She's amazing. Check her out.

Things You Can Be Sure Of

"Everything Must Change" recorded by virtually everyone, my favorite of whom is Nina Simone.

Everything must change
Nothing stays the same
Everyone must change
No one stays the same

The young become the old
And mysteries do unfold
Cause that's the way of time
Nothing and no one goes unchanged

There are not many things in life
You can be sure of
Except rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And hummingbirds do fly

Winter turns to spring
A wounded heart will heal
But never much too soon
Yes everything must change

The young become the old
And mysteries do unfold
Cause that's the way of time
Nothing and no one goes unchanged

There are not many things in life
You can be sure of
Except rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And butterflies do fly

Rain comes from the clouds
Sun lights up the sky
And music
And music
Makes me cry

"Everything Must Change," Bernard Ighner

Time is limited these days. I'm trying to clean up a workers comp mess left by Loathsome, "roll out" a new workers comp insurance program and forestall the complete rewriting of the employee manual. Patience is also limited. So is emotional stability.

I cry at least four times a day every day. Today has actually been a really good day. It's 2:00 p.m. and I've only cried once. Crying is impromptu, it's always a surprise. Just thinking about crying can make me cry. I'm loads of fun to be with.

Every once in a while, the thought breaks through, "I'm having surgery on the 29th." That's when things really start to get out of hand. Every surgery is cause for new terror, if only because every surgery still hurts. I never cry when I see it coming. I do, however, freeze for a moment or two and wish there were some way to escape this life I've been assigned. The thought of another surgery is dumbfounding.

I'm out of sorts these days. Everything seems bleak. The future seems not worth living. I wonder why I tried so hard to stay alive. What exactly did I have in mind? Did I believe things will someday improve in my life in any meaningful way? If that's what I thought, I can't imagine why I believed it.

I'm angry at the universe. I keep thinking back, wondering what it was exactly that I did to deserve my impossibly difficult life. It's not just the breast cancer. It's the years and years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. It's the rape. It's the suicide. It's the job I hate that just won't stop. No matter what, I have to be here. All of those things seem beyond the boundaries of good taste when heaped upon one small person who's made a lifetime career of not passing along the violence and pain.

I'm a good person, a gentle person, a person with enormous compassion. As if that counts for anything. I'm sure there's some purpose to all of this accumulated suffering, but lately I'll be damned if I can see what it might be. Oh. I know. I've been sent the plague of my existence to create the possibility for gentleness and compassion. It's a mighty big price tag and one that I don't feel much inclined these days to continue to pay.

Last night, I watched a program on the travel channel called "Jeff Irwin Inside Alaska," or something like that. The vast, primeval spaces reminded me of why I don't matter. As I watched bears tearing apart salmon they'd just caught in the river, I kept thinking, "Something dies so that something else may live." That seemed comforting somehow.

Over the weekend, I though a lot about the gift of seeing the end in advance. My life seems broken beyond repair, my body wounded forever, my mind diminished. The changes are irrevocable. It's the coming attractions, folks.

Unless we've somehow managed to find a quick end, death invites us to leave in tiny increments. We lose a little of ourselves, a little of our joy (assuming we ever had any) moment by moment. Alaskan brown bears die because they have cavities in their teeth. They suffer, dying bit by bit. We do, too. Right now it's not so much the leaving that bothers me as the slow, painful journey to get there.

Day after day. I get up and come to work. My body hurts. I "roll out" workers comp insurance. I cry about the pathos of the universe. I fill out forms reporting an injury. I rage against the injustice of the universe. I proofread invoices and wonder when my damn copies are going to be ready to be picked up at the local FedEx Kinko's.

When I look at it that way, it makes me laugh. I'm feeling dramatic today. It's nothing a good surgery won't cure, though.

What's the Diagnosis, Anyway?

There are two possibilities for what's wrong with me. Either I have morphea (a rare type of scleroderma) or I have morpheaform basal cell cancer. Obviously, I'm hoping for the latter. Unfortunately, from all of the credible sources I've found on the Web, neither of them match my symptoms. We've got a biopsy, though.

Morphea is an extremely rare type of scleroderma, occurring in approximately 25 in one million people per year. It's characterized by red or purple splotches that gradually turn whitish. I assure you that if I'd had red or purple splotches running down either side of my spine, I would definitely have noticed. Unlike generalized scleroderma, it will not kill me. That's a plus. No one knows what causes it. It's not hereditary.

I don't even want to talk about morpheaform basal cell cancer. Will that kill me? Oh yeah. You can see why I'd prefer the first diagnosis.

I've been searching for information, obsessing, being absolutely crazy about it. Everyone assures me they would be, too, given my breast cancer diagnosis. Originally, my dermatologist had scheduled an appointment for me on August 21 to discuss the diagnosis and treatment options. This is after they rather frantically tracked me down to tell me the doctor wished to see me. It's not like I didn't make myself very available. There are two numbers where I can be reached and both have voice mail options.

I'm supposed to see Dr. Ross on the 23rd of August, so I contacted him and I'm having biopsy slides sent for his review. I started to think that was a really stupid idea and that I should just cancel the message I left asking for instructions on how to do that. My mother, my therapist, my co-workers all insisted that I shouldn't have to wait that long to find out what's going on. Furthermore, if biopsy results aren't examined by a pathologist at M.D. Anderson in advance, Dr. Ross will have no ability to make a reliable diagnosis. You know how I trust this man, so even if it's totally crazy and stupid, it will at least ease my mind to have his opinion.

Meanwhile, physical therapy continues. There are numerous places on my body, both inside and outside that have scar tissue build-up that we're trying to break down. I was surprised to find out that I even have scar tissue running from my groin to my new girl from the drainage tubes I had to have after reconstruction. Obviously, my upcoming surgery will only create more scar tissue.

Breaking up scar tissue is painful. Now there's a surprise. Has anything in the past two years not been painful? Hell no. It's all relative, though, and it's far less painful than the needles-in-the-breast episode and the whole reconstruction (so far) ordeal.

I have exercises to do every night to get my lymphatic system up and running. Then I have to use a hand-held massager to work away at that scar tissue. That's in addition to the twice weekly manual manipulation with the physical therapist.

It feels like virtually every working moment is dedicated to some sort of body maintenance or bodily healing or trying to get my records sent here and there or trying to get an earlier appointment. I could go on and on.

But I won't. I spend so much time now in my weblogs cataloging the latest events that I never get around to how I'm feeling inside these days. I guess there's not much point in examining it. I'm emotionally ragged and exhausted. I'm so stressed out that I'm barely functional. Maybe tomorrow I can think about that a little more and feel it a little more.

Right now, I'm going home to eat something and work out to manage my stress level. Manage. There's a laugh. There's no managing to be done; I'm just trying to get through this. I don't think that counts as actually coming to terms with anything.

With any luck, I'll have enough time tomorrow in between resolving more medical issues to chronicle the latest emotional debacle.

Things Can Always Get Worse, Part 57

Note: I attempted to post this yesterday, but it disappeared into cyberspace.

I got back from physical therapy a few minutes ago to find a message from my dermatologist's office. You know, I'd already decided that everything was fine and I'd just have stitches from the biopsy taken out text week and be on my way. Wrong again. Something is wrong. The message said they'd been trying to get in touch with me and want to set up an appointment to discuss my "diagnosis and treatment."

You know they're not going to tell me anything over the phone. They never tell you anything over the phone. I don't think it's skin cancer because I've never heard of skin cancer manifesting that way before.

Nonetheless. Things can always get worse. Can I put that on my headstone? I'd prefer to be cremated, but maybe they could just put a headstone in some random, unfilled corner of a cemetery. It wouldn't have to be big, obviously.

If not "Things can always get worse," then I'm considering just "Fuck you."

Keep you posted on the fun new developments.