Emotions and Outings

The last few days have been tough.  I have been torn between sitting in the corner of my closet, preferably hiding behind the clothing, definitely in the dark and probably with some sort of heavy metal playing (the kind that you can't actually understand the words, it just hurts your ears and drowns the senses).   We are "half-way there" on chemo, which just makes my chest tighten with panic about "oh my word, still have to go another six chemo at least...???"  And it's too much.  And the anti-coagulant needles every day, also too much for the hour leading into it and the seconds it takes to actually shove the needle through to pierce my apparently-alligator-tough skin.   I just feel... tired, no.  Weary, no.  Trapped, yes.  Trapped.  Trapped in this circumstance.  Which is not very cheery or positive or how I like to feel.  I went on campus to pay an overdue library fine (cuz the books were due when I had my surgery and I kind of missed returning them in the hustle of diagnosis and the chaos of those 11 pre-surgery days and then 12 days in hospital), and being on campus just dredged up a whole bunch of disappointments around having to stop with only 4 weeks left in the semester, dread about eventually picking those final four courses back up and re-doing all the work, and hoping I will ever have the energy and brain-power to get it done again, and missing my university friends, and missing the studying and the university life and balancing my schooling and homework with helping my kids do theirs.  And I am so lonely.  I just feel (sorry) that everyone else gets to go on with their lives and I'm stuck in 'this'... dictated to by cancer, by germs, by stupid blood clots, by medicine schedules, by appointments, by chemo schedule, by the average day having not a full 12 hrs of 'do what I want cuz I feel good enough to', by feeling like a burden to those closest to me, by wondering if I will ever get back to 'life as I knew it' and knowing that probably I won't, which is okay but still, wasn't my choice, you know?  And my oncologist had used the words "six more chemo at least" which was a heavy because the "at least" sucks the life out of me... not literally, [chuckle], actually, the chemo is the cure but wow does it keep getting harder, draining me more, taking so much longer/more to recover from.  Coming off of six days on the couch made that tiny two words just so hard to hear.  And yet, I've had it pretty good.  I'm not overly nauseous, I haven't thrown up (that's my personal threshold... I do NOT. EVER. EVER. NEVER. want to vomit).  I have parents who drop everything to come when I phone in tears.  I have sisters who give up their days off to distract and entertain and love on me.  My husband has been incredibly gracious and kind and putting-up-with-my-emotions-and-needs.  My kids are beautiful in spirit and in smiles and generous with their love and hugs.  I have dear friends who keep my spirits buoyed with texts and outings if I can.  The army of meal-bringers is going strong and blessing our family with good food (otherwise it'd be cereal for dinner a whole lot of nights).  And "your lungs sound clear" and knowing that x-rays and CT scan are showing the cancer is "very diminished".  What right do I have to complain?  Why am I so blue?  I have no idea.  Well, I do, I just can't figure out how to articulate it exactly right...and that frustrates me, too.  See, I'm a mess.  I just know that the last two days have been tears and tears and tears.  And I can't even wrap my understanding around what's got me down... except that I think it's just everything.  And chemo.  I won't be able to use my port which means and IV which means the nurses will have to find a vein that accepts the needle and that hurts and which means burning veins from the first chemo and that really really burns for a long 30 minutes.  [big breath]  So, let's not worry about that just yet.  Be anxious for nothing.  Don't worry about tomorrow.  These are the truths I keep turning to.  And I trust that God has a plan and I'm in it.  I believe this firmly, even when I need to keep saying it because I keep allowing my mind to be distracted by the other stuff.

Good distraction:  Yesterday Shawn had a holiday day and we took it as a family.  I was teary.  I was blue and weird and overwhelmed by the physical activity of all that walking and driving and kids-talking and they-are-a-lot-like-puppies-tripping-over-each-other-in-words-and-actions.  And it was wonderful.  I was the Mom.  We were all six together.  The sun was out.  We stopped at a huge Asian dollar store in Richmond.  We enjoyed the Granville Market.  We had gelato and Easter cookies and saw the sites and soaked in some sun and laughed and sang and tried snacks from packaging we could only guess about.  It was a good, good day. 

And I did my shot in the van, with everyone around, with the traffic jam, waiting til the cement truck had moved ahead a little first... cuz I'm a rock star.  There hadn't been a good spot (clean washroom) to draw (I have to fill the syringe from a vial, so it's a bit more of a process than just the quick pre-loaded needle which is easier and faster to do), and then we got stuck behind an accident that really slowed traffic and would have put me too far off schedule.  So, whatever the 'club' is for 'weirdest places to give myself an injection' I did it!   In traffic.  Which made me proud of myself and made me smile.

Choosing gelato... we opted for not-traditional ice cream as part of our adventure for today... and then there were the mystery snacks in the van in the traffic jam: hilarious!  Daddy was a total chicken!  M enjoyed playing with the the strawberry jelly candy "it's like skin!".  K and I enjoyed the shrimp chips while B stayed true to his not-adventurous-self and only tried one of the little chocolate filled animal cookies.  

It was very interesting to take our kids to Richmond, a very Asian population with signs in Mandarin and other characters that we couldn't read... to hear the kids' chatter about their observations, you would think we had taken them to a foreign country.  C actually repeatedly said something about being "in China" even though we kept telling him we were still in B.C.  It was interesting.  In our home community there is a diverse population, but to be in Aberdeen Mall was to be somewhere so very new and not very diverse, I was glad for them to experience it!  B's 8 yrs old observation, "I noticed, at the mall with the big Japanese Dollar Store, that when I looked around, all the people had black hair."  It made my heart happy to share this experience with our kids.  Grateful.  God was with us.  Even when we parked, there was no parking at all, but I had prayed and I prayed again before we had to do the second loop at Granville Island and God provided front-row parking right then!  God is good.  We saw an eagle in the city, always a sign to me of God's presence.  I know He is holding me as my emotions and mind flick from happy to sad, worried to calm, peace to fretting, overwhelmed to closing my mind.  God is good and today we remember Jesus dieing on the cross to take sin and cancer to the grave so that we could have peace and life eternal.

Thank you to those who messaged me yesterday.  It warmed my heart to know that you could sense my hurting, that God had put me extra on your heart, that you had taken time to send love.  It set me to tears each one, but the good tears from receiving the love.  Thank you.