Pity Me No More, Positivity

I've been struggling with balance this week. I'm feeling tugged in many directions. On the one side, I feel good, better than I have. You can't feel my liver anymore, I have my humor back, and want to tackle new things. Bill and I went to the gym, something I haven't done in over a year. Yes, I was one of those sloppy pregnant ladies who enjoyed indulgence and little activity. After the baby came, the whirlwind of sickness took over our house and it's taken me months to seem back to normal. I want my body back or at least some semblance of it.
At the gym, Bill warned me not to overdo it. I assured mom and dad, I wouldn't overdo it. (We all know, I would overdo it). Being back on the machine Mary Suehs and I affectionately call The Monster, I was determined to get the healthy me back. I was wearing a do-rag as not to scare the other patrons, my staple yoga pants, and a new gym shirt (have to have a new shirt to get you through the door ladies). I climbed on the machine and slowly rocked my way into some exercise. I let my music just flow and take me into a zone, trying to remember what it was like to be healthy and in-tune with your body. The first five minutes weren't that bad, but I was determined to do 30 minutes. 30 minutes would make me feel like I accomplished something the BC Jodie could do. I wanted desperately to be her again, in charge and in control. Probably wasn't my brightest idea.
By the time Bill joined me next to my machine, I had 3 minutes left....and they were the longest three minutes of my life! Longer than that last .2 miles of a marathon. My body was quickly assuring me that we weren't ready for this, that this wasn't a matter of adding a little oil to the Tin Man and cranking away. I have had months of poison cycling through my body. My blood cells have been ravaged, my muscles deteriorating. My hips have been going out of joint at times due to lack of exertion. Who had I become? There was a time when I could do 2 hours on The Monster! And here I was heavily panting, my face tomato red, and feet aching. I felt light-headed and defeated when I got off the machine. I sat in the locker room and removed my do-rag, letting my prickly, white hair breathe again. I changed my clothes and into my HOA of CNY long-sleeve. All reminders of what I was dealing with unlike most people in that gym. I was conquering cancer and getting my life back. I was showing cancer that I wasn't going down without a fight.
I held my head high as I left, loving that I had done this. I had made my first step toward recovery. Full of determination to become a fighter on this last leg of my cancer journey. It was short lived. Your cancer body is nothing like your healthy body. It takes patience and care to not overdo so that you don't end up paying for it later. I woke up Monday morning with aching feet and my neck and back sore as could be. I know I am older too, and I've had a baby, so things are not going to snap back into place, but it was somewhat of a shock to me that I was in so much pain....from an elliptical. The fatigue was the worst. I could have stayed in bed all day....in fact I think I did stay in bed all day. And it wasn't just a one day recovery, it rolled into the next day too. This led to me becoming an emotional mess. I was down, I was tired, I was sick of being sick.
Cancer, you see, has a way of affecting everything in your life...good and bad. As my husband said, "You can't just have a neck ache." And he's right, any bruise, pain, blood, stomach ache, nausea, headache, fever....you name it, your mind races. Every night I lay in bed and feel my liver. Is it different from yesterday? Different from November? Or is it worse? Was this ridge there before? Should I have drank more green drinks, should I have more water, did I eat something that wrecked all my progress? Your mind plays through so many scenarios in those dark hours alone and quiet. I enjoy the peace of being able to think my thoughts on my own, for not seemingly bothering anyone else with my "pity party." But I often start thinking of what cancer has taken from me, but also from my loved ones. I'm unable to lead at this point, I need help more than I ever have. They can't depend on me as they have in the past. I can't be up with Sam all night long, or else I am in bed all the next day. I can't work because my energy is all being put toward this fight, and so I am not a breadwinner anymore. My husband, bless his heart, still loves all of me, and therefore wants to be intimate with me....and cancer has taken that from me. The worst was the other night when I did attempt to show my husband affection, only to break down in tears afterward, sobbing, because we will never make a baby again. Cancer, you took that from me. I know that I am blessed with Sam, but to have that choice, that decision ripped away from you, makes me angry and it shows you just how unfair this disease can be.
I found myself up and begging God that if I can't have any more babies, please let me be the mother to Sam that he needs. Please don't rip me away from him. There is so much I have to teach him, so much I want to love him through, so much I want to learn from him. I know you aren't supposed to beg or barter with God, but when your emotions take over, it's hard not to.
In one of these emotionally charged moments, I took to the Internet to search a girl I had seen on Say Yes to the Dress a few years ago. Her story was calling out to me that night. I didn't know why, but I had to find her. Being the sleuth that I am, I was reading her blog in no time. She was named Margo, and had been battling cervical cancer when she was on the show, picking out her wedding dress. She was a sweet, bubbly girl, at only 24 who was looking forward to finding a dress with her bald head and all and marrying her best friend. She was so vibrant and young, I remember thinking. To my shock, and to many others, the show ended with her passing a month after her wedding.
Now in this place that I am in, I wanted to revisit her story, see how she thought, read her blog and for what reason? I don't know. I just felt compelled. I mean, I am writing a blog, and I wanted to see if we were the same...if we were on similar journeys.
I found her blog and started from the end and worked backwards. She was very sick at the end. Her leg was swollen, she  had had two surgeries, radiation, and finished chemo. I got stuck there. I'm finishing chemo this week. She was preparing for her scans, I am preparing for my scans. We both were playing the waiting game. I can't explain it to you unless you live through it. You can be in a place of joy and laughter and then WHAM! It slams you in the heart that a few hours will determine if you take the light road or the dark road. Will the cancer metastasize? Are you having more aches and pains? Is that a regular cough or are your lungs in danger? Do I feel something in my breast? All these questions race through your head as you walk a tightrope trying not to lose your mind and remain catatonic in your room. You will not let Cancer take everything, you MUST live in these weeks leading up to scans. You must breathe. You must love the tiny moments, no matter how hard it is to push the thoughts from your head. You have to remain positive.
Believe me positivity does not come easily to me. I have never lived in the moment and let things just be spontaneous. Anxiety sits on my back and pushes every one of my buttons. It has since I was a little girl. I've talked about the ulcers, the sleepless nights, the worries about my body, my face, my career, my loved ones. Now add your own life to that. It's enough to make you even more sick. So what do you do? Do you let the anxiety pile on with the Cancer and make you into a hermit? Or do you put it in a compartment of your mind and soldier on? The only way you can turn the anxiety off is through positivity. And I'm not talking about the "Aw shucks, Jodie, hang in there, you can do this." I mean the positivity that comes from inside yourself, the little positive moments that make you smile in a day, even in the darkest of moments, so that you can give this fight your all. If you let the negativity in, it's a slippery slope to giving up. And believe me, there are days when I want to give up. Not because of the pain, the chemo, the fatigue....but because of the loss of the old Jodie. I want to be her again, and I never really can be. I've been branded a member of the Cancer club at this point, and I can't go back. This diagnosis has shaped me, made me stronger, made me have a clearer sense of purpose, but robbed me of the carefree delight I had in having a beer, and laughing until my sides hurt at just ridiculousness. There is now a seriousness to me, the lightness is gone. And I don't know if it will ever come back.
That lightness can only come back if I let the positivity stay. If I pocket all the smiles of my baby, the laughter when he's tickled, the feeling of my husband's hand clasped around mine at night, the long hug from my Dad when I am leaving for chemo...letting me know he's there, my mom's hand wiping away my tears when I just breakdown, the times when my sisters call just to tell me they love me. I put that positivity in my back pocket and when the pity party starts, I open that pocket up and let those memories, that love flow. It makes me feel less alone, less scared of what is to come. Slowly but surely, the darkness drifts away, and I find myself ready to fight. Not because I am this all powerful, super human. I am anything but. I am scared, and mourning the life I had BC. But I have to force myself to lose the anxiety and wonder, allow myself to wonder, of a bright future. I have to think of this as a new beginning. It will be rewritten very differently from the version my 10-year-old self had (thank god in many ways for that!), however, it is far from over. My hair will be shorter, my body scarred in many ways, there may be more chemo in the future, I will have hot flashes from the medication, and other twists and turns. However, I will also ALWAYS have a reason to fight, a reason to have faith, a reason to believe. God hasn't given me any other reason to not believe at this point. I have been given the gift of redefining who I am and why I am on this earth. I will not let the negativity in and I will not give up. I can't. I'm not done yet. I am a force to be reckoned with Cancer, and I am just getting started. Don't worry team, I've got this!