Life Bad Ass

Hello gentle readers…It’s October, and that can only mean one thing. No, not Halloween, but Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pink in your face.

I was standing on my stairs when my breast surgeon called to tell me that my biopsy results were positive…that I had breast cancer. I was home alone… I sat down. I tried to compose myself. I told him that I pretty much already knew this, as we had gotten my MRI results the day before and they were positive for malignancy. I tried to keep my tears out of my throat as he told me the next steps to take… to come into his office the following week to discuss what to do next. I thanked him… I knew, as a nurse, that his job of calling a 43-year-old woman to tell her she had cancer, was not easy–in fact it sucked, and even as I sat there, reeling from the news, I felt sorry for him, as that kind of job sucks.

The following week, in his office, I once again, tried to be brave. Ha. I tried again to not just convulse into hysterical crying. I did cry, with tears just flowing down my face, but I tried to not just completely lose all control.  I told him that I was pissed as this meant I couldn’t salsa dance. He looked at me… he must have thought I was a nut case.

It’s not that I’m a great salsa dancer. I’m a great beginner salsa dancer. But it was the one thing that I did just for me. Learning to salsa dance… well, it forced me to let go of my extreme need to be in control. Somebody else was controlling me. A man. If you knew my full history, you would know why this was and is so difficult for me. I had to let go and let somebody else lead me. I had to learn to trust my own body. I had to learn to actually look at myself in the mirror. My instructor would FORCE me to look at my own image in the mirror. I had to look at my instructor in the eyes. IN THE EYES. This is extremely difficult for me. I had to trust him… I have such trust issues. I had to learn to feel sexy, seductive. I always feel awkward and on guard.

So when I sat there, in his exam room, crying that I couldn’t salsa dance until after the surgery, until I was well enough to spin… it wasn’t just dancing. It was so much more than dancing. It was learning to believe in myself. It was learning to trust. It was the joy of the music and movement.

When I finally did dance again… a couple of years after my surgeries, after chemo… with a new instructor… We began dancing…my hair had just started to grow back… I was so overwhelmed with emotion I began crying. I had to stop dancing and try to pull it together. But I couldn’t. The journey to that moment had been so long. I had gone from being in the best physical shape of my life at the time of diagnosis… very thin, fit, muscular, with long blonde hair… to chubby, with short stubby grayish hair, and a giant scar across my chest. I was happy to be alive…don’t get me wrong, but I was back at ground zero and I knew it.

I saw my (poor) breast surgeon again and cried, this time about being heavy. I weighed more than I did when I was pregnant full term with my children. This was a result of the medication I was taking to prevent the return of the breast cancer. Then I cried harder about being vain about my looks when I really wasn’t that shallow.

My (poor) breast surgeon (you are probably really feeling sorry for him by now…) was very kind and just listened to me. He doesn’t know that I also suffer from a bit of body dysmorphic disorder. He doesn’t know that I constantly worry that my weight is too heavy, that this shirt doesn’t look just right… And it’s not just my weight. It’s that I’m not as well read as I should be. That I’m not as well-educated as I should be. That I should know more about Jazz or that I should be able to play an instrument or be able to speak a foreign language.

In other words, I’m not good enough.

I’ve done a lot of work on that front since that day in his office, crying about my weight gain… and I’ve taken the weight off. I’m still not as small as I was when diagnosed, but perhaps that was a bit small, and I’m not getting any younger.

Tomorrow they are having a fundraiser for breast cancer at my gym. It is kickboxing, one of my favorite classes… and I will go and proudly wear my bright pink boxing gloves. I went back to the gym as soon as the surgeon cleared me after my initial surgery, and continued to work out through my chemo. I will dance as I box…because I can. Because it brings me joy.

I’m fighting a lot of battles…but that makes me a freaking warrior.

Kind of a life bad ass.

My point to all this? Don’t stop fighting whatever personal battles you may be fighting. Keep swinging.

And if somebody starts crying about something seemingly stupid or silly…perhaps there is a backstory that is worth finding out. So be gentle. Be kind. I’m glad my doctor was.

Peace.

Milestones and moving day

Yesterday I dropped my 19-year-old daughter off at college. She is beginning her freshman year. I was filled with mixed emotions, as I imagine many parents are at this milestone..but then again, I don’t imagine many parents have traveled the same journey that we have, over the last 5 years.

I may have mentioned before that it has been a bumpy ride.

When we brought her home from Africa…she was emotionally extremely young for her age. Both she and my son had only learned to eat with a spoon–it’s all they had been exposed to. I let that go for a couple of days…and then put only a fork and knife at their places at the table.

She was pissed.

She demanded her spoon.

I refused. I told her she had to learn to use the fork and knife, that she would be going to school in a couple of weeks, and that she would be expected to use them there. I knew that at 14… at 14 if she only used a spoon at school, well the teasing would be just cruel. So I was firm. She thought I was cruel. She begged my husband to cut up her food. He cut some up for a day…until I made him stop.

She would pout, and purse her lips and say NO!! and look away. She would throw herself on the floor and have tantrums.

She was 14. I was going through chemo.

At one point she looked at me, during one of our more heated “conversations,” and said “Well I guess you’re going to have to get used to me living here in my house now with my rules” or some such shit like that. You can probably predict what I thought–oh hell no you did not say that to me–I am sick as hell with chemo–I fought for SIX years to bring you here, and you treat me like THIS?? AND THIS IS MY DAMN HOUSE!!!!

But I took a breath…and said that this was MY house, and that we lived there TOGETHER and as such we would learn to live TOGETHER…

We are still trying to figure that out.

It would be a lot easier if she would let me in. At least a little bit.

She has come a long long long way since those early days on the kitchen floor, pouting (and for the record, when she did that, I stepped over her, and told her when she was done with her tantrum to come find me so we could discuss her complaint…). She is obstinate. This worries me.

A lot of things with her worry me.

I moved her in to her dorm room yesterday and helped set her up. We got her books… I did a final scan of the room, and carried out the boxes. I hugged her good-bye, wished her luck and said I would see her later. And I turned and walked away.

She needs to miss me now.

She needs to know that she actually does love me…that I am not this person she has created in her mind.

For five years she has been trying to build a wall between us. For five years I have been trying like hell to tear it down.

I spent last night worrying what she was doing, her first night alone…had I taught her enough….had I done the right thing letting her go…

She did not text me–she texted my husband earlier in the evening.

Eventually she will see, through all of her anger, pain, sorrow….through all of her bullshit…I have always been here.  Even as she pushed, punched, kicked me away…I still held on. Even if by a thread.

And that even now,  I still do.

Even as I let go…just a little bit.

Healing the caregiver…

I may not win any friends with this post.  Then again, maybe I will.

It’s no secret that I have been a registered nurse for 24 years. During this time, I have worked in emergency, recovery and radiology. I have seen a number of patients that have impacted me personally…their stories stay with me to this day.

However.

There is a dirty little secret about the nursing profession. We all know about it…we nurses that have been doing this for some time…we nurses that believe in advocating for our patients…we nurses that have seen the changes in healthcare, the changes in the guard at our administrations…

It is the bullying in nursing that is unlike any other I have come across in any other profession. I know that this has been historically a mainly female profession. I know that we should be supporting each other…and we do. Until we don’t.

I have seen nurses that have been hand-picked by management, or that have some underlying pathology begin their dirty work. I have seen nurses attack other nurses in such vicious ways… I once had a friend accused of using cocaine because she ate a powered sugar donut and had some white powder on her lip. I have seen  a nurse carry a little notebook in her pocket to write notes on about other nurses, to go back to the manager and “tattle.” I have had a manager come out to the nurse’s station at Christmas time and give gifts to her favorite nurses…in front of all of us..and walk away.

I have personally seen all sorts of mean, underhanded things done to nurses by other nurses. I believe this is done as a means keep nurses scared and unable to organize. See me later for my “Why nurses need to be organized” lecture.

I think that a PhD student of psychology could write their thesis on the pathology of nurses…and why they turn on each other. From the “why nurses eat their young” to retribution against seasoned nurses for speaking out about unfair labor practices, entire articles could be written.

As it stands right now…I don’t see myself returning to nursing. Ever. This makes me very, very sad. But, as any person in an abusive relationship must do…I must save myself.

I am saving myself.

When I can finally  legally write about the final straw that caused me to leave this profession, you gentle readers will be the first to know.

As for now…I’m hanging up my stethoscope. And picking up a pen and microphone.

They say laughter is the best medicine…let me heal people (and myself) with this…

For now.

What determines what we are? There are a number of reasons why I ask this…I’m not currently working as a nurse, and as soon as I get the legal ok, I will blog this out. But as such, having been a nurse since 1991…I am left feeling a bit, well, lost. I watched Tracy Morgan thank his nurse this morning on the Today show…and I was filled with both pride for the nurse and a feeling of …loss.

I recognize that just because I am not currently working as a nurse doesn’t necessarily mean I stopped being one. But this transition from scrubs to regular clothes isn’t going smoothly. I understand that when one door closes, another opens. And that this departure from one of my life’s callings has allowed me to devote more time to writing and to my comedy…well, now that I can finally smile again.

So my question still remains…was I always a nurse? Or, did I get prodded along into this career, due to life choices and situations at the time…was I always a writer? trapped in a nurse’s body? Or am I both?

For now…now I will focus on my writing. And being a mom. And doing stand up–and getting back on stage. For now I will salsa dance in my kitchen while making dinner. Nursing…will always be a part of me. I will always be a care giver. I just won’t be paid any money for it.

And that’s fine with me. For now.

A change is a comin’

I feel a change a comin’…. it’s been coming for some time now. It’s like the person inside my physical body is standing up, raising her hands up over her head and stretching,and then, looking around and stepping out of this shell now, ready for business. It’s as though I’ve been asleep or stunned for a few years, and now I’m back…I think that the best way I can explain it is the years of extreme sleep deprivation combined with extreme depression from having a child with autism caused me to just “go away” mentally…I was here, but not present. I was focused on just surviving the day, not living. And it’s hard to live in a survival state for so long, and to take hit after hit. I don’t mean physical hits, although those did occur–those of us with autistic children know the violence that comes with that diagnosis that isn’t talked about…that’s a blog post for another day…..I’m talking about just everyday life in my life. The working in an emergency department and dealing with not only the patients, but the psychology of the staff there. Getting out of the ED, and eventually going back to school to obtain my BSN…I was still not really “present.” Getting diagnosed with breast cancer, going to Africa to get my two children….all done in a state of numbness, if I’m being completely honest……

So why now? Why “wake up” now? I think that I must. It’as as simple as that. I cannot allow life to just happen to me any longer. I have always said I wanted to write, that I would write, but did not write. Now I will write. I am dancing once again. I had taken some lessons before I was diagnosed with breast cancer and a few after I recovered. I’m only ok, but I’m back to dancing again. I will not wait for permission to live, to dance, to write. I will just do it. If I don’t…If I don’t, I think my soul shall sicken, break, and become something I don’t want. I can see the writing on the wall. I can see bitterness, boredom, loneliness, and depression…god, not more depression….right there, in big flashing lights, on the wall, warning me to pull it together, to live. I have four children to live for. I have myself to live for. So do it.

And so, since I am, and always have been, a go big or go home, kind of gal, I am choosing to live. And for me that means to write. Well, and a few other things. So stay tuned. Let’s see where this goes.