love is health
Living fast while going slow.10/20/2013 Life is too short. The ephemeral nature of living has never been so obvious. One minute, you are a healthy, active 30 year old athlete. The next minute, you are a cancer patient. This persistent thought is working its way into everything I do. In a time when I should be slowing down and doing less, I find myself needing to do more, and feeling kind of crazy for it.
I clearly love roller derby, to the point that I would risk putting myself in a mentally and physically precarious situation just to stay involved. I feel so healthy it's deceptive. I don't feel delicate or sick, but the swift departure of my energy after a full day is a reminder that my body - every organ, lymph node, blood cell, and system - is working overtime to keep me feeling like this. I am surprised at how much recovery I need from just a night of reffing, or dilly dallying on my skates. Meanwhile, the simple act of being in the practice facility gives me great guilt and worry - concerned about the risk of infection in my immuno-compromised state, worried that I am pushing my body too hard after a full day of work, then a full practice. I am fighting the desire to do every exercise off skates with my friends, minding my heart rate, controlling my breathing, cautious not to increase my cardio. My body says "normal", but my mind knows better. That leads me to this nagging need to justify every absence for every practice, game, and event I cannot attend. For a healthy person it borders on too much to ask for, let alone someone in my situation. Sometimes, I just need someone else to say "you have permission to not be here. Go take care of yourself." All the while, I am struggling to be a good partner to my most amazing spouse. He's had to take on so much throughout this process that I feel indebted to him. I want to give back something in return, and I struggle to give him something, anything. I try and show my appreciate and love in chores and tasks - a means of lightening his load so he doesn't feel like he has to manage our life alone. You can imagine the guilt that comes with choosing to be with my team in San Diego for a weekend, while a myriad of home projects await my participation. This is a struggle for "healthy" Maria. It has intensified during treatment. Meanwhile, I am compelled to be better participant in my family, and have offered my home to my 16 year old niece who is going through a hard time right now. Crazy timing? Perhaps, but Luke and I know it's the right thing to do. And that business that I always wanted to start? Apparently right now is the time to start planning it. Because I clearly am not managing enough - I need to (re)start a business at the same time. Looking at all this made me wonder why I hate having free time. However, this isn't about avoiding luxury. This is about realizing the precious and absurd nature of being alive, and squeezing every bit of juice out of it.
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Ch ch ch ch CHANGES10/14/2013 I shaved my head 2 weekends ago, but beforehand celebrated my hair with a lovely hair dragon I named Samara. It was a lovely reminder of the temporary nature of everything. We constantly construct and deconstruct, and resurrect, and dilapidate. Such a remind forces me to have to stay present, unpermitted to look back at what was, and prevented from looking forward to what will be. Shaving my head was a lovely exercise in unattachment. It was a way of saying "whether or not I have this hair 3 weeks from now does not matter. I do not need it. It does not need me." That said, I was rather annoyed by any commentary that I "should have waited until it started falling out." That misses the point. For the women in my family who have gone through cancer, its a ritual of sorts. Shave your head before you lose your hair. This isn't about vanity - this is about understanding that everything is temporary. That is never more obvious than right now. Looking at my body - how much it has changed, feeling my tight, hot, dry skin, curling my swollen tongue - all serve to remind me of this. I'm surprisingly calm about it. I have been desperately needing a wake up call to be more present and focused on the moment. I tend to live in constant distraction and fantasy - always planning something, chasing a new idea. Now I am forced to be present in my body as it reminds me that it is managing a lot. Frankly, the side effects of chemo have been, so far, very manageable. I expected feeling worse, having read horror stories of throwing up constantly, overwhelming nausea, and incapacitating bodyaches. I have been lucky that I have only missed 1 day of work, and it was due to excessive fatigue. I think the worst that I felt was 4 days after chemo, in the evening, when I felt like I had the flu. And while I do have other bizarre side effects (I am pretty sure I am turning into a lizard), they have all been tolerable. As I am only at the beginning of this process, I am sure other ephemeral symptoms will come and go. However, until then, in the present, I am extremely grateful that I feel about 95% myself, only a little more "here", now. ... pay no mind to the fact that I get cleared for full contact and return to activity in 17 more days. Not that I am counting, or anything... Going to war10/3/2013 As many of you know, I elected to proceed with chemotherapy. This decision was tough, involving a lot of research, consultation, and introspection before arriving to this conclusion. Recognizing all the risks, and taking in as much information as possible, I see nothing is going to guarantee I will not have a recurrence or metastasis. However, there is a lot that I can do to prevent it. Prevention comes through acute and long term care. I have been reading a fantastic book that provided me insight to help me make this decision. The author, while visiting Tibet, asks the Tibetans he encounters if they would seek out Western or Eastern medicine. "I wondered what I would have done if I had been Tibetan and had fallen ill. Given the two parallel health systems, which one would I choose? While in Dharamsala, I put this question to everyone I worked with or had occasion to meet. I asked the minister of health, who had invited me there, and the Dalai Lama's brother, at whose home I stayed, and I asked the great lama physicians I was introduced to. I talked about it with ordinary people I encountered as I moved around the city on foot. I thought I was confronting them with a dilemma: Would they choose Western medicine - modern and effective - or their own ancient medicine, out of fondness for their tradition? Faced with the reality that I am addressing both an acute and chronic condition, I opted for chemotherapy to address the critical window of high recurrence likelihood. At the same time, Luke and I have made significant dietary changes to ensure I am addressing my "terrain" - my symbolic soil in which I allow cancer to cultivate or die. Little by little I am changing out my cosmetics, household chemicals, servingware. I am also giving deep consideration to the centrifugal forces that seem to keep me in perpetual motion, always chasing after something like my happiness depends on it. A lifestyle shift is needed.
So there you have it. I hope you never find yourself in similar shoes. However, should that time come, I'd be more than happy to provide you with information and resources to help you make the most informed decision you can. Our lives and livelihood are not to be taken lightly. Rather, they are to be taken into our own hands. AboutSnapshots in time across a span of years managing breast cancer Archives
June 2020
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