silver linings

my dog got out yesterday. But someone found him and put a sign up and he’s home-Silver lining.
today my van blew up-but I got it parked near a friends house and my hubby is away for a week so I have his car, AND three people helped me-silver lining.
I had a bad headache, but my counselor says I’m right on track and doing well in handling my depression-silver lining.
got stuck in the city with one kid while the other was at school. but someone he likes picked him up and they had a great play date-silver lining.
I have some lesions and some swelling in my head, but no tumor. SILVER LINING:)
no cancer for this chick. IT IS A GOOD DAY. if you can breathe, and you have kids who love you and people to help you and good food on your table, then it is a good day. I am a very VERY lucky girl.

MRI’s and dirty dancing

If I didn’t think I was sick before, today sealed the deal.
People have been coddling me. It’s kind, if not annoying. I know they mean well. But they are scared. I am too-though perhaps not quite so much.
I had an MRI today. The two others I saw there were having other imaging done. People were laughing and relaxed.
I couldn’t comprehend the directions I was being given. I had to relay them to my person. My best friend came, and acted as my support. Good thing, since I lost 23 IQ points when I walked in the building. Somehow my anxiety made me dumber.
When people know that you are almost 30 and getting a brain scan, they tend to treat you with kid gloves. Even the folks at the hospital. Lots of guiding, lots of reassuring, lots of kind faces, and patience. Even the info clerk checked in as I was leaving. Am I that person now? Until they say NO TUMOR, will I be the sick one-the one who might have cancer? Are people going to feel sorry for me, and worry for me?
Those noises-that machine-the time it takes to complete-all these things add up to some surreal feeling-like this can’t be happening. I am young. I have two little kids. I haven’t even gotten my first tattoo yet!
I felt like it wasn’t real for a while. Until that room came into view. Large, circular, clear glass, with a sort of control room next to it. They lay you down. I suppose in a less extensive scan you can just lay there. But they gave me an emergency button, military scale ear defenders, and then strapped my head to the bed, put a cage over my face, and other things I couldn’t even see, and then for forty minutes I could do nothing but practice “gentle breathing” and swallow. I would find the beat of each test’s noise, and find a song to go with it. If I couldn’t, I would think of my best friend dirty dancing when we were drunk as skunks pretending we were 20 again, not desperate to have a kid-free night out with the girls. You do what you gotta do right?
I am a cool calm collected person under stress. I can get things done. I am your go-to gal. Ordinarily.
I. Was. Petrified.
It’s not the test. Like when my daughter was sick last year, I was never afraid of the tests. It’s the results. It’s the confirmation that something may be broken. That there is something out there controlling what I cannot. It is the most debilitating feeling when your life, or your child’s, is possibly in the hands of someone else.
I realize logically it should come back clean, and that whatever physical symptoms I have are probably easily explained, once we figure out the puzzle. But logically I also know that there is a lot of cancer in my bloodlines. And there are laws of averages, and science to show that there is a possibility that my scan could show something. Even minutely possible. It’s still there.
What if? I know everything is going to be fine. But what if…..

New Year’s Day

I’m having an MRI on New Year’s Day. It’s a slow day at the imaging lab and ill be hungover so i will probably need the nap. I plan on getting epically, colossally, wildly and innapropriately drunk on New Years Eve. And I triple dog dare anyone to try and stop me. The next day I will lay in the loud chamber and let them map my brain for tumors. I know they’re not actually looking for tumors. But they don’t want to be very wrong either. Especially given the short time between my mothers diagnosis and her death.
I fully intend to enjoy the me-time, choosing to meditate and get a bit centered, and not focus on the potential what ifs that come with stuff like this.
I will be 30 in February. Old enough to be totally ok with where I am on my journey, young enough to be scared to death that maybe my journey is already more than half over.
I know my husband is scared. He doesn’t want to be, and he tries to hide it, but I’m aware. I have a heightened sense of these things.
It’s so strange to think that maybe there is something wrong with me.
I can admit I am depressed and failing and that doesn’t bother me, but a medical condition due to something physical I get nervous about. It’s all very weird.

So two weeks. Sure makes you think “I’m going to really enjoy everything this holiday season.”
Because everyone’s number is up at some point.

So my mom died

My mom died. She was 49, living her life and she died. She felt a twinge, went numb, went to the doctor. They cut her open, found a tumor. She fought, and she lost.
Almost two and a half months ago I was at work pouring beer and chatting with the regulars when I lost my sight in my right eye. Ten minutes later my fingers went numb. Then my arm. My shoulder, my face, my right side was useless. I was so so scared. The hospital called it a migraine. IV fluids and muscle relaxers. But I didn’t have a headache until after I got the feeling back in my body. Id never had one before, and so i just went with it. i mentioned to a family member that my symptoms were really similar to my mothers. I told my doctor, the same day I reached out for help for my depression. And now I have a referral to a neurologist. I see him in early december. And he’s going to want to scan my brain. What if he finds something? What if my moms tumor, her brain cancer, is genetic or hereditary? There’s no science on her type that says its not. Patients don’t typically live long enough to get that kind of data. She made it six months from her biopsy. 9 months from initial symptoms. St Patrick’s day 2006.
I can’t help but wonder if that feeling I’ve always had-that I would be the one in the family to face the health crisis-was bang on. I wonder if the Reason everything is falling apart in regards to my health, is because there’s something more happening inside.
Now I sound like a hypochondriac.
Every twinge in my brain makes me paranoid. The very idea that a simple “migraine” warranted a neurological work up is unnerving to say the least. I don’t want to Know. i don’t want to put people through that. if i go, i want to go fast, and with the least impact on my kids. if I’m 29 or 99, thats all i ask. but I’m getting ahead of myself. they’re just being cautious right? and the short wait time to get in to see the dr is luck right? It’s all going to be ok.

Right?

That old familiar feeling

“It’s funny how that old familiar feeling we so easily slip back into isn’t always a good one. Comfort doesn’t necessarily mean safety, or positivity, or health-it’s just easy.”

Usually when someone thinks of a familiar feeling, they’re stuck in the middle of a country love song. Arms being wrapped around you, sweet feelings of romance blah blah blah. Normally I love these songs. Not so much lately. MY old familiar feeling is darker than that. It’s sadder than that. It certainly seems to be doing more damage. My poor kids. How awful to realize your quiet demon is hurting your babies. The slow detachment from your life-and the things you love the most-is suddenly brought into focus in yet another harsh moment when you could have used kindness, but instead got mad. I never wanted to be a “yeller”. I didn’t want to be a crier either. But I spend more nights than is comfortably admitted drowning out my sobs while the bath water runs and when the tub is full crying so hard no air comes out. this is no life for me. For anyone. I want more. I have been responsible for a good portion of the deterioration of my marriage, the reactions in my children, and I am fully responsible for my physical well being and the lack of care for it.
Tomorrow I’m asking for help. Again. But they will listen this time. I will make myself heard. I want to be better more than I want this black hole I’m in. The tug of war going on inside me is exhausting.
One of the smartest women i know once posted something about how you should never assume the smile you see isn’t hiding a battle going on inside. You don’t know what’s going on behind people’s eyes. We are masters of our disguises. Please find some compassion for the person on the street who greets you, and says hello or smiles and nods your way. It could have taken a lot of effort, and you could be the one who shows them there is life on this planet after all.
My mom had cancer and an episode I had this weekend that ended me in the ER rings eerily true to hers. Off I go tomorrow to rule out what my family is so scared of. I know I don’t have a brain tumor. I just need to prove to them. History won’t repeat here. Not in my body-not in my life.