Tag: spousal relationships

It’s Okay

Today is the day. Today is the day I’ve been waiting nervously, anxiously for. Today is the day I’ve been dreading. I made the decision to have a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I didn’t make the decision lightly. I came to this decision after three other lumpectomies, albeit all benign, and I don’t want to have to make a decision like this ever again.

I’ve joked about the cancer, mocked it and made fun of myself for getting breast cancer. Some might think I was being callous, not being caring and thoughtful of others that are and have gone through this, but I’m not. This has been the only way I can deal with having cancer. To mock it and laugh about it is my defense against it. Otherwise I would walk around like a zombie feeling sorry for myself, sorry, that is not me. Besides I wouldn’t put my family and friends through that misery.

My family and friends have been outstanding through this long waiting period. There have been lunches and dinners (with alcohol), shopping trips to buy zip up tops, pajamas and undershirts for the healing process and too many hugs to count. A dear coworker even bought me a massage for the night before surgery just to help me relax and have positive energy. Poor Mitch, who has especially had to endure my warped sense of humor and totally inappropriate comments, has no idea how much I love him. I told him last night that he was the best time I ever had. Just in case.

This morning after no food or drink after midnight, not even a cup of coffee, I get to go have dye injected in me, have both my boobs whacked off and the rebuilding begun. Of course on top of having all of this fun, I get to go wearing NO MAKEUP. This from the woman who gets up an hour early on hunting trips just to shower and put on makeup.

Now that today has finally come, I’m scared. I wasn’t going to let it get to me, but it did. Damn cancer. But I’ve decided that today it’s okay to be scared.

My World Turned Inside Out

I have been sitting here trying to think of something witty or profound to say and nothing comes to mind. I’m not feeling especially wise or funny right now. To be honest, I’m feeling lost and scared. Every year I go get my basic health exams done, you know the ones, Pap smear and mammogram. In the past both have come back questionable, so I always keep my annual appointments religiously. I had my first breast biopsy when I was eighteen. I’ve had three more since and so far they have all been benign. After the mammogram the technician put me back in a tiny room to wait half naked for the radiologist to read the X-rays and pronounce me free to go. There was a knock on the door and the technician said the radiologist saw something he didn’t like and wanted more x-rays.

After more smashing, contorting and discomfort I was sent back to my tiny little room to wait. Everything was going to be fine, I told myself, the same as always. The knock on the door and look on technician’s face said something different. The radiologist wanted to do a sonogram because he wasn’t sure if he saw something or if it was a shadow from the scar tissue made from the last breast biopsy I had done four years ago. Off I went to get a sonogram. This day was not turning out the way I had planned. The technician completed the sonogram and took off to show his work to the radiologist telling me to lie still and wait until he came back. I waited for what seemed like an eternity thinking what was wrong, how difficult could this be? The technician knocked on the door and in walked the radiologist with the technician. This was not good. The last time I saw the radiologist was four years ago when he saw the last lump. The radiologist explained that he wanted to watch the tech do the sonogram to see exactly what the tech was doing and what was showing on the screen. Oh goody, now I have two men looking at my naked chest and not in a good way.

After ten minutes of rolling the wand back and forth across my breast, the radiologist explained that the “lesion” or “mass” was new and not a shadow from the scar tissue of the previous biopsy. He said he would call my doctor and recommend either an MRI or a needle biopsy to find out if the lesion was benign or not. The technician made a DVD copy of the x-rays and the sonogram for me to take with me to the surgeon for show and tell. G-Rated of course. My gynecologist called and we discussed how to proceed. Once again it would be the needle biopsy, fun, fun, fun. She also explained that since I had been on hormones for seven years and if the mass turned out to be cancerous that I would have to stop taking the hormones. I told her that wasn’t she just the bearer of more bad news. I was not looking forward to hot flashes. Of course, I figured that it would be another benign tumor just like the previous three times. I called the surgeon’s office and made an appointment for Friday, October 11th, giving me a week and a half to stew about it. Outwardly I knew it would be nothing as always, but inwardly there was this little voice inside my head saying, “are you sure? What if…?”

I played off the impending office visit, telling Mitch and myself that it was no big deal, then immediately following up with a statement about just lopping both breasts off and not having to worry about this in the future. Friday finally came and I was so keyed up about going so that I could get this over with that I totally forgot to take my boob DVD with me. I walked into the reception area and signed in, making a joke about being early. The receptionist smiled, asked for the DVD and I gave her this stricken look, I couldn’t believe it, I forgot it. I knew exactly where it was, sitting on my dresser. I apologized profusely and walked out to call Mitch and ask him to drop what he was doing and bring it to me. What a nincompoop, I suck. Mitch being the saint he is, brought it to me in record breaking time so I could still make my appointment on time.

I took my prize back inside with me and handed it over to the receptionist to give to the surgeon. Once ushered in to the examination room, I got undressed from the waist up, donned the fashionable gown and waited for my surgeon to come in make it all better. We crossed the hall to the room with his sonogram machine so that he could find the lesion again and know where to stab me so he could take the tissue samples for testing. His nurse squirted the lubricant on my skin, and it was off the races with my surgeon rolling the wand over the area marked on the sonogram and x-rays searching for the lesion. He couldn’t find it. Back and forth he rolled it over and over and didn’t see anything suspect. He was getting frustrated and I was getting worried. Was I wasting everyone’s time on a witch hunt? Of course I wasn’t the one that found it the first time, but my brain works in a weird twisted way, I blame myself first. After about fifteen minutes of a fruitless search for the mass, my surgeon decided he wanted to call in the big guns.

It was decided that I would go to the Women’s Center and get a sonogram needle biopsy there by the hospital’s radiologist. Evidently the women’s center had a bigger better sonogram machine and they would stand a better chance of finding it than the surgeon’s office machine. Since it was after four on Friday, I would have to wait until Monday the following week for the scheduler at the women’s center to call and set up an appointment, another weekend of waiting and wondering. The stress was really starting to build and the little voice was getting louder, the “what ifs” coming more and more. I still presented an outward, “this is no big deal.” But inside I had a bad feeling and told Mitch so that night in bed.

His response was, “What do you want to do?”

“There’s nothing I can do but wait. I just want it done and know the outcome, that’s all.”

Monday afternoon on the 14th I got a call from the scheduler setting up my appointment for that Wednesday at 2pm. I wish I could have gone right then, I don’t do waiting well. You should see me during the Christmas season, I make Mitch crazy. Thankfully I was not responsible for taking the DVD to the center; my surgeon’s nurse ran that over for me. The staff at the Women’s Center was amazing, caring kind women that treated me so wonderfully. I can truthfully say that everyone I had dealt with so far have been the most wonderful caring professionals in the healthcare field. These are special people to do what they do every day.

As the radiologist took the syringe and prepared to stab me with it the technician reached down and grabbed my hand and held it. I looked up at her and she had such a soft sweet smile on her face, it was almost like having my mom standing there holding my hand telling me that everything would be alright. That was so unexpected and reassuring, I almost started crying. I felt like I wasn’t alone in this, that they were there rooting for me as much as I was. I felt a sharp prick and then a burning sensation in my left breast; I looked up at the screen and could see the needle moving back and forth squirting the lidocaine around the area to be snipped. It was weird and a little creepy looking at the screen and seeing the needle then the fireplace log starter moving around inside me while the radiologist hunted for the best site to take tissue samples. Again it was time for more waiting. Two to three days before I would get the results and since it was late Wednesday afternoon, I probably would not get the results until Monday.

Monday came and went no phone call; does that mean good or bad news? Tuesday I called the doctor’s office finally out of patience and was told that the results had just gotten there but the doctor hadn’t read them yet and would call me back as soon as he read through the report. My world stopped as soon as I heard the doctor’s voice on the other end of the phone, “I’m sorry, the pathology report shows you have breast cancer. It’s a small mass, which is good…” he droned on. But that was all I heard, “breast cancer” then there was a roaring in my ears and my chest tightened. I squeezed back tears, took a deep breath and clenched my jaw shut to keep from blubbering out loud. No, my mind screamed, no not now, not today. Like any other day would be a better day for cancer. I focused on what the doctor was saying. He said that he wanted me to come in and talk to him and discuss our plan of action. The sooner the better, I could come in today or tomorrow whichever was better for me. I could get a mastectomy or a lumpectomy and get radiation therapy.

I told myself I could do this and called Mitch to tell him. As soon as I started to tell him, I couldn’t talk, tears ran down my face, I took a breath and blurted it out. In his usual calm voice he said that we would get through this. We would go to the doctor’s office discuss our options and go from there. “WE” being the operative word. Not you but we. We were a couple, a team and we would fight the fight together. I don’t think I could have loved him more than at that moment. Mitch had my back, no matter what.

It is funny how you can read something and it doesn’t affect you as much as saying it out loud. I could see the words breast cancer in my mind or even say breast cancer out loud, but when I added the two words, “I have”, I would tear up, my voice dropped to a whisper and I could barely speak the entire sentence, “I have breast cancer.” It took me three days to be able say that without crying, but now I can and I can smile and think about the positives in my life. I am working with the surgeon, doing research and talking the best source in the world, my friend who went through this last year and is amazing. She is the strongest woman I know who has inspired me to try to be half as strong as she was.

I gave myself a wallow time to feel sorry for myself, but now it’s time to get beyond that and fight the fight of my life. I’m done wallowing it’s time to put on the boxing gloves.

Forgiveness

Can you ever forgive yourself? Is it even possible to really forgive one of your transgressions and fully move on? Forgiving yourself is harder than forgiving someone else. We can look at another person’s faults and misgivings, come up with a hundred reasons why they did what they did and forgive them for it. It may take a while to move on, but eventually we accept the misdeed or error in judgment by someone else and get on with our lives and relationships. So why is it so hard for us to forgive our own missteps? Do we have higher expectations of our selves than others or is it that we look at a lapse in judgment as an insurmountable failure?

I am not proud of my youth. I have done some really stupid things growing up. I made a lot of bad decisions born out of low self-esteem and when something jogs a memory I still cringe inwardly. I look back into the past with loathing for my actions. Granted I was a stupid teenager then and am well into my fifties now, but something about that time in my life still haunts me. There are so many regrets and a desire for a do over, knowing the outcome would probably still be the same, but that doesn’t stop the wishing.

I didn’t kill anybody or maliciously try to hurt others; my transgressions were all directed at me. I wish I had pushed myself more in school, gone to college, had some direction, instead of going along with the aimless mindset of a self-absorbed teenager. I thought that if a boy paid attention to me it meant he loved me. It took me a few years to figure out what real love was.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, my husband, children and my friends, but I wish I could have been better. I wish I had made smarter decisions and wiser choices, not the bonehead mistakes that I can’t seem to put in the past forever. I know I’m not the person I was then; I don’t need validation from anyone else now. The validation has to come from me and grant me the forgiveness of my past sins.

When I look back over the years of my adulthood there have been many great accomplishments. My husband who I love with all of my heart, my two sons, who are all grown up and have families of their own, a daughter that I didn’t give birth to, but love as much and a few truly special friends that I would walk through fire for. These are all the best part of me, the today me.

So what is it about those short seven years of my life that haunt me more than the thirty plus years since? How do I absolve myself, move on and truly face the future with hope and resolve? I can’t answer that, but I am working on it.

Cranky Me

Stand back everyone I’m going on a rant. Run, don’t look back, save yourself, I have passed irritated and have reached flat out cranky. I am working on three days of sleep deprivation and am pretty sure there will be a fourth and a fifth and so on. The reason for this new state, the weather has finally cooled off enough to allow us to open the windows and turn off the air conditioning. Refreshing you would think, but no, our neighbor has a Chocolate Lab puppy that is about nine or ten months old, a sweet loving and totally out of control monstrously large puppy. The neighbor’s will put the puppy out on a run I think just to get some away time from him. And what do puppies do when they are bored and have no one exercising, training and loving on them, puppies find ways to entertain themselves. They chew on inappropriate things like the deck, and furniture, dig up the yard and most of all, bark. Lucky us, the puppy is tied up outside our bedroom window.

The first night the puppy barked for an hour. He would bark nonstop for about five minutes, then stop for about five minutes lulling me into the false sense of relaxation, thinking that the neighbor had enough of him yapping and took him in. No such luck, he was just resting his vocal cords. This on and off barking continued on and on so that when the neighbor finally did take him in for the night, we were both so keyed up, neither one of us had any restful sleep. Getting up at two thirty in the morning for our work schedule makes for a short night anyway, but add only maybe a couple of hours of sleep and we have the start of short tempers. The second night we went to bed earlier because of the prior night’s lack of sleep and hoped for the best. The puppy started off again and barked his on and off routine for about forty-five minutes making another night of misery for us. Last night, he barked for an hour and a half. Mitch finally broke down and called the neighbor and left a message.

That was the whine, here comes the rant. I love dogs, but a barking dog grates on my soul. I cannot stand listening to a dog barking nonstop. If the dog starts barking go and check on the dog and find out why he’s barking. If it’s an intruder, shoot him and let the dog eat the intruder, the dog won’t be barking while he is eating. If nothing is wrong and the dog is just bored, get up off of your duff and go play with him. Run him around the yard throwing a ball, put him through some training drills or walk him. Anything to exercise his body and brain, but don’t leave the dog outside on a run to make the rest of the neighbors miserable.

I would be mortified if a neighbor called me to complain that my dogs were causing any inconvenience for them. I just don’t understand people anymore. What has happened to manners and thoughtfulness? The saddest part about the whole mess is that the puppy will probably be the one to suffer the most from our sleep deprivation. He will probably be kenneled more and for longer periods causing more out of control behavior or worse turned over to a shelter because the owners don’t want to deal with the problem.

Okay so much for my rant, I’m still tired and cranky, but I feel a little better getting that off my chest. Mitch and the dogs thank you too for letting me vent. Cross your fingers for us that maybe just maybe we might get a decent night’s sleep soon. That or pray for cold weather so we have to close the windows and turn on the furnace.

More Photos from Vacation

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Walking on the bluffs very high up and I am not sure this is really a trail.

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Mitch looking and the trail map and trying to reassure me that we are on the right path.

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Mitch found a sign and is really proud of himself.

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Grand Falls – the largest continuous flowing waterfall in Missouri, not as impressive as Niagara Falls, but not bad.

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Surprises

Yesterday we went to see a play. Something I had never done. Oh I had been to dinner theater ages ago, but I’ve never gone to see a real play. So this was to be a new experience. And ladies surprise, it was Mitch that suggested it not me. He had read the review in the newspaper and was intrigued so he suggested it to me. I’m pretty much game for anything so it didn’t matter what the topic was, but I read the review too and said sure why not. The play was being run at a local theater house, “Unicorn Theater”. I went online to their website read about the venue and future offerings. The plays looked a bit offbeat, not stuffy at all. I went ahead and purchased tickets online and printed them out.

The play we were going to see was “Venus in Fur” and the paper reviewer had written that it was a bit kinky with bondage, leather and whips. I was really surprised that Mitch wanted to go. Mitch is not in to debauchery, me, well I’m always up for a bit of debauchery. Maybe more than a bit, but I’m not telling.

We decided to go to the Sunday matinee, thinking that it wouldn’t be very crowded and were immediately surprised that it was almost a packed house. Imagine that, all the seats filled on a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the day, who knew plays were so popular. The next surprise was that the majority of the patrons were female and even more, elderly. We were the youngest in the crowd. There were more canes in the house than in an old folk’s home. I had no idea there were so many elderly women that were into kinky. It makes you wonder what goes on behind those lace curtains, doesn’t it?

The play started off sedately enough but soon the “F” word was flying around repeatedly. Me, I wasn’t offended because I can fling it with the best of them, but these women were my mother and grandmother’s ages. I would never say the “F” word in front of my mom, not if I wanted to keep my teeth. I looked around to see all the faces with the shocked disapproving looks and was completely floored that all of these women were laughing and slapping their legs at the raucous bawdy humor. I guess I need to get out more.

The play progressed to partial nudity, black leather spiked dog collar, black lace bra and garter complete with black stockings. And this was what the actress wore before she donned the sheer white nineteenth century gown. It was distracting for me to see the black under the prim and proper white gown. I’m pretty sure that was the point and it succeeded. The play was engrossing and held the audience in rapt attention all the way to the surprise ending.

We really enjoyed ourselves so much that I think there may be more plays in our future, and who knows, maybe more kink.

Treachery

The treachery of your words
Sweet and soft
Belie your actions
Deception and duplicity.

The look in your eyes
Guileless and loving
Seek to hide the truth
With smoke and mirrors.

Your lies are now exposed
I will not fall victim again
I will become as deceitful
And use your tactics against you.

Cramping My Style

Work is cramping my style. I have been swamped at work lately. So busy, that I have been going in an hour early every day and working through lunch just to keep up. That extra hour of early time means that I don’t get to do any writing and of course when I have no time to spend writing, I have lots of great story ideas. All of these ideas come when I’m either walking the dogs, taking a shower or doing something else that entails my hands being otherwise occupied and there is no paper or pen around so I can at least jot down an idea. Then just like a dog seeing a squirrel, I start something else and totally forget what I wanted to say. I have no idea how many story ideas that I’ve lost and are floating around in the mishmash of my brain among all of the other things I’ve forgotten, like where I put the electric bill.

What I need is a thought activated idea recorder that will record my random thoughts, organize them into complete sentences and write a finished polished story. I could then take my idea recorder, plug it into the computer and download this wonderful story. What a superb product this would be. Every writer I know would have one. Sadly I know of no such gadget or believe me I would be the first to own one.

But back to my original thought, work is definitely getting in the way of my writing. (See what I mean about “squirrel”? One minute I’m focused the next off on another tangent.) The audacity of a company in the business of making a profit through the labor of their employees, said company shows its’ appreciation by paying us a salary and actually expects us to work and earn that salary. Can you believe it? Actually work to receive my paycheck? Oh man, the unfairness of it all. But I really like eating, I’m not the starving artist type, so I go in and work every day giving it my all, so for now I have to squeeze out my writing time when I can, right along with my work out time, which isn’t getting done on a regular basis either.

Orso, Orso, Orso What am I Going to do with You?

Orso is trying to kill me, or at least maim me. This morning as I was waiting for Mitch to come out to the car so I could take him to work as I do every morning, I reached over the driver’s seat to pet Orso when he turned sideways pinning my arm against him and the barrier bars separating the front seat and the back section of the station wagon. He leaned against the bars crushing my arm, invoking a string of foul language and screeching on my part. It hurt deep down to the bone, I was amazed my arm wasn’t broken.

Of course that would have changed our plans for the morning and I wasn’t dressed for a trip to the emergency room. I hadn’t showered yet or put on any makeup, definitely not a pretty picture at four in the morning. I could see the whole scenario in the emergency room now.

The first question would be, “Are you in an abusive relationship?” and the nurse would look sideways at Mitch.

I would hesitate and say, “Yes I’m definitely in an abusive relationship, but not him. It’s my dog that beats me up.”

The nurse wouldn’t believe me and call in a counselor and then the whole day would be shot which would put Mitch in a foul mood, getting him arrested. Then after I get my cast I would have to go the ATM and get money to bail him out, go to court and try to explain why it wasn’t Mitch. I’m not sure that I would be allowed to take Orso into court as evidence, but anyone that owns a big lunkhead like him would believe me.

Luckily for all of us, Orso didn’t break my arm, but I am sporting a huge knot and a bruise that runs across my foreman. That dog is out to get me.

I’m Married to a Ten Year Old Boy

Don’t get me wrong, I love Mitch with a passion and ninety percent of the time he acts like any normal man in his sixties. He takes his responsibilities seriously, has a strong work ethic and for the most part makes good decisions. If you ask almost everyone that knows Mitch, they will tell you he’s an old soul. He is usually pretty serious, doesn’t smile much, which scares a lot of people. He’s reserved and holds himself back a bit around people. Mitch is definitely not in the group labeled that the collective IQ drops when a bunch of guys get together. But every once in a while the ten year old boy comes out to play.

Because we pheasant hunt, we own bird dogs which require daily exercise. Our walks include both dogs sniffing the ground checking the scents left behind by other animals. Squirrels, raccoons and possums beware; these two will sniff them out and if we let them, will give chase. Squirrels run in fear because Charlie is fast enough and has caught and killed a few; Orso goes along for the ride. Geese are another favorite that the dogs love to chase. As long as the geese are not nesting, it is legal to harass geese with dogs in order to make the area less desirable to them. Geese are pretty lazy and will stay around and take over an area if not managed by different means, such as egg shaking and using dogs to make the geese fly. You can’t let your dog attack and kill them, though.

The ten year old boy thought that it was pretty cool to let the dogs chase the geese and make them fly. Well the geese only flew as far as the lake and landed in the water. That did not stop the dogs, only slowed them down a bit. Charlie and Orso jumped right in and started swimming after the geese. The geese swam up and down the lake with the dogs in hot pursuit and refused to come back when called. The two just kept swimming away after the geese to the other end of the lake. Problem one – Mitch discovered that there was no way he could get to the other end as quickly as the geese and the dogs would. Problem two – how would he get to other end quick enough to catch the dogs? Mitch had to run home jump in the station wagon and drive to the other side of the lake. He got there just in time to see the geese and the dogs turn around and start back the way they came. The ten year old boy quickly figured out that the dogs would drown from exhaustion if he couldn’t get them to come out of the water. This meant that he might have to jump in and swim out to them. Mitch finally caught Charlie’s attention and coaxed him to shore, with Orso following. I had two very tired dogs and one husband in the dog house.

One of our neighbors put a deer target out in his front yard propped up against a small tree. The start of our walk yesterday morning was just about sunrise still fairly dark, and the dogs didn’t notice anything, but on the way home the sun had come up and was a lot brighter out. Charlie saw the deer first and froze just staring at the deer; Orso swung around and saw what had captured Charlie’s eye. Both dogs stood stock still waiting for the deer to make a move so they could give chase. Of course Mitch encouraged Charlie to get a closer look, just like a little kid. Charlie lunged at the deer causing Orso to follow suit. The deer statue didn’t move, the dogs felt foolish and now I had a ten year old boy rolling on the ground laughing at the prank. All I could do was stand there, shake my head and roll my eyes.