shellyb47's Cancer Blog

May 17, 2008

It does not get better then this

Views: 158

I am amazed at the ulgy face of stress. Up until a few months ago, I had no stress. It tooks years but I learned how to live a stress free and laughter filled life. It is a wonderful lifestyle; and it is without a doubt, a choice. My children were learning, more about me & my life philosophies each & everyday. Our days were good days. I believe us to be very close and sincere with each other. But then… they are teens & I am or can be niave at times. My children are 16,15 and 11. Since my divorce 4 years ago, we have gone from borrowing money for food to being completely debt free and able to buy a house. I could not have made it this far in 4 years without their support and willingness to learn how to cook dinner, wash their clothes and do homework without supervision. With effort for the first time in a very long time we became “happy”.

Now enter cancer. Its wicked wicked deliberate vile uninvited double confirmed existance has changed everything.

How does this happen? It has created pure anarchy. MY days have evolved to a daily battle of mind “or” matter (tumor).I will stay mentally and emotionally and spiritually positive and I will win the battle over the darkness that is trying to grow within. This darkness is a demon that can be felt but not seen. Thats it! Cancer is unseen and it must remain unseen because I will fight back with my unseen self, my inner self. I belive in God and Miracles and the power of prayer. All of which are unseen. All of whick including the darkness is truely felt. Believe me I feel this tumor I feel its growth, I feel it pinching on my nerve in my right arm, I feel the swelling in my elbow and the stiffnes of my joints on the rt side. My breast is becoming progressively harder and harder. And the pain in my shoulder causes me to sit straighter then ever. I am exhausted and feel for lack of a better word…I feel gray. I contiune to work. I love my 2 clients and I admire them and their families for having learned to continue their fight each and every day. One client is 11 the other is 27. I would not wish their struggle on anyone. I am reminded each day there are worse things then cancer.

The good thing? The door that opened? The blessing in disguise? How can all of this be seen as a positive? Just like I had to teach myself how to love and trust again, I have had to teach myself to grieve. I have not been vey good at that. I have always grieved silently,I am open and forth coing with who I am what I believe but when it comes to the really painfull stuff. I am master of hidden emotions. I can cry my most painful moments silently and without exterior evidence of remorse. I am afterall a nurse. I have learned to hold the hands of those who are dying. I have seen the unseeeable. I have been the strength for others who had no strength left. My profession taught me how to decieve myself. Only another nurse or care provider will understand what I mean by that. I learned at a very early age, hide your emotions and help the other person first and foremost.

Until now I had no idea I had sooo many of my own tears.

I also had no idea I have the core strength that is evident I am my mothers child. She is a cancer survivor & divorced mother of 5. Having discovered my core I now reach inward each and everyday & I always pull out new & refreshed hope. I had no idea how strong I really am. Surgery is this thursday. ewww, is about all I can say to myself. Ewww. I wanted it done off and over. I cannot get over something until I go thru it.

The other good thing. I got the strength to ask for help. Here’s the cool part. MY former inlaws are now helping with the kids. They will share and do things with them. We have not spoken in over 5 years. And now… my kids are with them right now. That is so cool They do not live here, but they will spend the summer closer more upstate and the kids can visit them as often as they like or as I need. How cool is that? I can now relax knowing the kids will not have to witness my flat chested, bald and nauseating summer of 2008. They can play and they will have others to lean on. This is my miracle.

Oh oh another miracle?... yes there is another. I am going to Alaska for 10days after my mastectomy. I will heal on a cruise ship. This is not something I could ever be able to afford. But oh how lucky to know and love a wonderful generous kind man who says “you wanna go and if you go you wont be pitiful, because you canot go if you are pitiful?”

He did not use the word pitiful he just made a squinty facial expression. Knowing me was that was the safest way to go. I sat very still and said yes I really want to go. I am a good nurse. On the inside I was riding the wind.

An opportunity to ignore the pain and mental misery while looking at the most amazing part of this great country is a miracle. That is what dreams are made of. I will return with vidoes to set to music and I will watch these vidoes while I my mediport sucks in the chemo, my hair falls out and I relearn how to pad my bra. It does not get better then that.

Peace and strength today and always.

Posted on May 17, 2008 at 4:43:05 PM by Shelly Bryant ( It does not get better then this, 6 comments)

Cruise ship, padded bra and no hair…man chicks get all the cool stuff.

All I got was a day off work because I over medicated…like I haven’t done that before, chuckle.

Your posts are a hoot, great attitude cancer blows, so put up a sail and ride it.

Nothing but good thoughts to you, prayers and such.

Mac

Posted on May 17, 2008 at 7:43:24 PM by rigidridr

Well Mac, you are a bit of a hoot yourself, and thank you for talking to me. You know the kind of attention I am going to get on vacation with my pallor,lack of demension and lack luster appearance.I wonder if I can save some money and buy a swim suit with only 1 cup. LOL.

I have to laugh and tease myself. I have to. For me sadness and anger are capable of cancerous behavior.(multipling and creating darkness of spirit and heart) Humor is contagous but not many catch my humor or irony. I need to vent and talk, this blog allows me to talk mostly to myself and to others I dont even know. No one in my life knows about this site. It is something I am doing for myself. It is my journal. My surgery is only 3 days a way. My bones ache, my arm hurts and I am very very tired. I really dont care about that. How I feel is not nearly as important as how I think. I went to a garden center and simply sat. I enjoyed so much floral beauty and then I came home to my yard. My yard has… pine trees.

Pine trees. Yes this week is going to feel like a pine tree.

Peace.

Posted on May 18, 2008 at 8:27:41 PM by shellyb47

Walking around Chicago, last summer I found the “cancer survivors walk” it is a garden/park area dedicated to survivors. There are about a dozen plaques as you walk along, and each on has a sentence or two about survivorship. I could have sat there for days, soaking up all the encouragement I felt.

If I calculate right, your surgery should be Wednesday? I will keep you in prayer as well as your doctors and nurses. Take your bikini to the hospital and ask them to hang it up in your room, just so you remember not to be pitiful and that you have a life to get back to.

God bless kid.

Mac

Posted on May 19, 2008 at 3:51:12 AM by rigidridr

Shelly,Mac,
With you two on our team, we will get support and love and some Laughter. Love ya Both.

Posted on May 20, 2008 at 11:21:10 AM by karlak

Hi Shelly,

I am also newly diagnosed, I’ve already had my surgery and sounds like we are both triple negatives, not that it’s a club we want to be in.

I have faith that we will both do fine, I am praying for both of us.

Blessings.

Posted on May 26, 2008 at 4:52:08 PM by angelwthwingz

Shelly,
I just read your blogs. I too am a nurse and you and I seem to write long blogs. I identify with so much of your personal expression. You communicate it very well. You should be post-op by now. So please let us know how you are doing. In many ways I envy you. I so often wish I had something that could be cut away. I pray you are doing well. Let us know. We all care. And I agree. Our children are the hardest part. With gentle hugs, Gaile

Posted on June 6, 2008 at 1:16:42 PM by gaile

May 14, 2008

worry

Views: 180

—http:///2008/05/14/

I understand (y)our anxiety. I know all to well how the mind can over rule reason. If you can learn to trust your body again, trust it to heal. You can do it. I will have to do it as well. Trust and believe only in the goodness that your body is capable of. You had the cancer removed, it is time to believe in yourself again.
Sincerly and with tenderness
Shelly

Posted on May 14, 2008 at 7:52:55 PM by Shelly Bryant ( worry, 1 comment)

Hi Shelly,

I was diagnosed 8/15/07. I found a lump in May and I thought it was related to my periods. It went away and then came back bigger and harder in July. My doctor thought it was just a cyst and I should go have it drained. Then it wouldn’t drain, so had to have a biopsy and the big “C” word came out and messed up everything.
I am sure no one will ever forget exactly where you were when you hear those words “you have cancer”.

Had L mastactomy on 9/25/07 with Sentinel Nodes done first the day of surgery. 10 out of 10 Nodes (7 were attached to breast tissue) were negative! But my tumor was triple negative.
Which can be aggressive and can come back even with chemo and radiation. But the doctors feel that they got everything. The surgery wasn’t that bad at all. I did have to go get physical therapy from the node sx. I couldn’t believe that little cut (maybe about an inch long) made moving my arm very difficult. I was off work for 5 weeks. One week longer than I wanted to be off. Started chemo in December. I had (A/C)
Adriamyacin and Cytoxcin together every 2 weeks for 4 rounds. Then I had Taxol weekly for 12 weeks. The A/C part was harder than the Taxol.
And there were days that all I did was cry. It’s all the steroids and junk they put in your body. But you CAN do it. You really don’t have any other choice! I have 2 boys 5 & 7 and I am married so I fight as hard as I can to be here everyday for them! I try to enjoy every minute
possible. It really makes you look at things a lot differently.

Just remember you can do this! And I am here if you need to talk.

Take care and best wishes,

Doris.

Posted on May 15, 2008 at 7:42:58 PM by doris

first time for surgery

Views: 168

OK so this is my last week with 2 breast and perhaps pain free and with energy. What does one do with their last week of health freedom? The last week of being able to deny the cancer exists. There is no pain, no scar and there are still 2 breasts. Tomorrow I clean the garage of a good friend. What else is there to do? I am simply at a loss for thoughts and even greater loss for decisions. I have mentally exhausted each and every negative outcome.I believe I wqill get thru this, so many have come before me. I believe I will be able to tease myself when I look in the mirror and tolerate and accept the physical morphing that will transpire with surgery, reconstruction and alas chemotherapy. I also know myself well enough to know I will be crying intensly on the inside. I have never been good at showing my truest pains or expressing my deepest disappointments. I am a people pleaser. Others come first. I want this over and done with so I can started on rebuilding my life again.I have rebuilt my life and self so many times. ALthough life has been easy it has not always been nice to me. I know I am not the same since my diagnosis and I will not be the same when the chemo is over.I accept that I am vulnerable,human,mortal. I will always be tender and to trusting. I will awlys love with the deepest and best of intentions. I will always think the best of those near me. So in a way its reassuring to know I will still be me, just a different me.Could my kids love me any more then they already do? I doubt it, but maybe they will wash the dishes when I ask.

I will always see the world as beautiful and people as good and cancer as an evilness that brings about personal change in the most evil of ways.

I simply have come to uderstand, I dont have the power to change what is happening inside my body. How can I explain to anyone how I “think or feel” knowing I have “a” cancer growing somewhere in my body. They “suppose” it came from my breast. SO now I am having “it” cut off.I think in colors, my moods come in colors. I dont know if that is odd or veyr different from other people. When I think of myself I think of yellows, and white and pastel colors. Its different from my favorite color, is is simply how I would paint myself I would use yellow and white and maybe pink. Now pink means cancer to me so probably not pink. Now when I think about myself and superimpose colors of my inner self in paint I see a grayness,a blackness and darkness that I have mever had before and this makes me cry a cry that is so deep and so painful I cannot explain or share with anyone. TO understand I cannot make the blackness go away by myself, I cannot change the color by myself, I cannot make this better through anypther means wracks my body with sadness. IT is black,it is growing, it is evil. I have to force myself to inderstand this color is not “me” it is not who I am. It is an evilness that must be conquered. People who are family and friends tell me they know I am a strong person, they know I can make it through this… I think “how do they know, when I dont, how can they see me as strong when I feel so weak?” When this is all over I think I will burn all the black colored clothing and items I own. I think I will smile a smile of life.I look forward to that smile. And that smile will belong to me, it will be because I will win, I will conquer this and I will not hurt anyone in the process. The only looser in this war will be the dark spot.

How can one think or feel anything more then ‘wow’ this is going to be rough and am I am going to be strong enough. It is about me now, and all I want to do is listen to others talk about thei day, their aches their plans. MY plans are simple. Work till surgery, recover go back to work Start chemo and work as long as I can. Go bald, get fat with chemo,nap and walk when I can and start life all over in December at 48 years old . And yes I will also “grow some new boobs”.

Ok to answer my son who is 10 “how come you are going to get sicker if they are cutting off what is making you sick?” That was sweet and endearing. I could only respond with sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. My greatest pain comes from thinking my children will see me suffer. I cry each and every time I think about their little hearts hurting so much.

Posted on May 14, 2008 at 7:39:39 PM by Shelly Bryant ( first time for surgery, 1 comment)

Wonderful post! You have a great attitude and I am praying for your complete healing, physical and emotional.
Be honest with the kids, that was my kids biggest gripe, I did not level with them right away.

Cancer is perfect for getting you over any ideas for waiting to do things or say things. Cancer makes you take ownership of every day you survive. Before my cancer I lived as if I would go on forever, I had little respect for my days. Now I can see my days and those who fill them for what they are, precious.

Hug the babies, kick cancer square in the ass and get busy living!

Prayers and love
Mac

Posted on May 14, 2008 at 8:46:28 PM by rigidridr