You Too! I Thought Was Only Me!

When I began this blog it was more so a way for me to finally talk about the events that have made me the person I am today. Losing my Mom. 

It's taken 5 years since my mom passed for me to get these stories out, and I am a very private person, but writing has always been a therapeutic outlet for me, and it was time to say what the hell. What I'm starting to realize from those relating to my posts is that although we're taught to be one-of-a-kind and original, sometimes it's nice to have those "You too! I thought it was only me" moments.

I would never wish for anyone to go through the experience I did, but it is nice to know that I am not the only one. This goes for a lot of things. It's the reason why people relate to music and entire web pages are dedicated to quotations. It's reassuring to know that someone, somewhere is feeling, has experienced and/or can relate to the same things as you.

Losing my Mom at such a monumental time in my life, I was really the only one I knew going through such a traumatic event. Everyone else got to worry about their college boyfriend, or finding a fake ID. I was worried about how life would never be the same, and wondering if things would ever be as good (i.e. When I graduated, if I get married and have children and not having my Mom for those moments).

Hindsight being 20/20 ... during this time I would've highly benefited from a "You too!" moment and my hope is these posts do just that for some of you.

Remission

Temporary relief ... from disease or pain

After fighting for two years, a ten pound tumor and cervical cancer later we got the news that my Mom had entered remission. Even after this declaration from a team of certified specialists, we still worried and the previous shock from the two years prior stuck with us all. We could try and forget about it, but we all knew that each one of us had some sort of fear and damage from everything we had undergone. 

She spoke at a survivors dinner, her hair had started to grow back into a Twiggy curly pixie cut, and slowly life was returning to normal (whatever that means). But life doesn't owe us anything nor (as previously mentioned) is it fair.

I was two hours away experiencing my freshmen year in college. My mom had met another one of her goals: to be there to move me in, and send her daughter onto her next phase in life. I returned home before winter break and my Stepdad and Mom said we needed to talk. Immediately I knew. We had had this talk before, with the same tone, same setting it was the worse case of Deja Vous a person could experience. The cancer had come back, and had settled in her brain. I felt sick. That deep down sick to my stomach, but we beat once, so why couldn't we do it again? Something in me knew that this time was different. 

I feel like from every traumatic experience in our lives we make it through and experience remission, a temporary relief from pain. We may feel like we have made it through, but all it takes is a song or image or something that brings us back to that exact moment, and it all becomes real again. Even after the remissions in our lives, many times the experience's will continue to somehow effect us or in my case, shape our paths in life. From this, we have the choice of learning and growing from these negative experiences or to let them bring us down. 

I chose to grow.

Photo Credit: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Love-Life-333602435

Count Your 5... Then Leave Your Bed

Think of 5 things you're thankful for... then you can leave your bed

How many times does your alarm go off, you may be press the snooze button a few times, and you get out of bed to start the day without thinking of what you're thankful for. You may be thinking "God dammit I need my coffee" or "I wish it was Friday," but chances are you wake up and go about your day.

Now, my mom had good and bad days. They call it treatment, but to be honest this may have been the worse part of the disease. My 5'11 tall beautiful, strong willed mother at her worse quickly shrunk to only 110 lbs, and even getting out of bed in the morning became a struggle. She knew her days would consist of draining chemotherapy or radiation, and then the next day would be a visit to the Dr's office. 

After speaking with her Dr one day she came home and explained that every morning from then on she was going to think of 5 things she was thankful for or that she was looking forward to, and until she had those 5 things, she wasn't leaving bed. Those 5 things gave her the courage and the strength to pursue each day, and the hope that some kind of relief was in sight. Even for the most optimistic, she had her days where she would say "Ya know what, today, I'm staying right here" (her bed) and that was OK. 

Every morning, think of 5 things, 5 reasons to pursue the day to get out of bed. And ya know what, some days if you can't, its OK to just take a day and stay in bed. 

Photo Credit: http://www.damncovers.com/laying-in-bed-fb-cover/

The Worry Ward

Stress is stress is stress. I don't care who you are, or what level of Ohm/relaxation you tell yourself you have achieved. Things make us worry and stress out, we're human. It's all about the perspective.

Even when things got bad, treatment wasn't working, treatment was working (and hurting) my mom always kept a level of calm. I'm sure she worried and she stressed, but she made little goals and milestones and celebrated those big and small (ice cream was a celebration treat of choice).

This is one thing she told me, and it should be told to everyone.

We were sitting in the hospital and I don't hide emotion well. She could tell seeing my hero, my person in a hospital bed was wearing me down, and although I furiously denied it, although she was the one going through the war on her body, she looked at me and asked me a simple question:

"Do you think worrying does any good?"
I stared at her, and took a second (for once) before responding.
"No, but I worry about you"
She looked at me and said "If worrying did any good, don't you think they would have a ward of worrying specialists in this hospital ... I can tell you I've spent a good amount of time here and I see no worrying specialists."

It's true, if worrying did any good, someone would've discovered it by now, and of course claimed it as an untapped miracle cure for something. We all worry, but the fact that it does no good for anyone especially ourselves. So when I have a bad day at work or something just didn't go how I planned, I look back and smile, because really what is there to worry about. Things will happen how they happen, and if anything is going to make it better it won't be worrying. (but according to my mom ... chocolate chips and ice cream might)

Overall its simple: worries are worthless

Photo Credit: http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Don-t-Worry-314690326

The C Word

No, not that C word. I'm talking about Cancer.

"You're mom has cancer" the Doctor told me and moved quickly from laymen terms to material that basically would've taken an in-hand doctorate for me to understand (that story is for another day).

But, he always came to back to that single term cancer. They told me it was cancer, what they didn't tell me was that much more than a noun, this term takes over a life of its own. 

According to dictionary.com:

can·cer

  [kan-ser] 

noun

1.

Pathology .

a.

a malignant and invasive growth or tumor, especially one originating in epithelium, tending to recur after excision and to metastasize to other sites.

I put the term in red because invasive is probably the only word needed to define cancer. It's much more than a tumor or growth, it becomes a part of your life, squeezing its way into your everyday routine and it doesn't care who its bothering, it works on its own schedule. 

I quickly saw one of the strongest women I have ever known battling everyday. In addition to life's stress she had to worry about something that should be hidden in our minds: surviving. 

How did she handle this? Humor. My politically correct, j crew model of a mother came home with a do rag on her head and a sweatshirt that said "I have chemo brain, what's your excuse."

 And we laughed and we laughed. Like nothing was wrong, and she wasn't sick, she was my mom. And for a second.... everything in my world was right again.... for a second. 

Proceeds from the sale of these shirts go to supporting the fight against cancer and cancer research:http://www.choosehope.com/product/i-have-chemo-brain-what-s-your-excuse-t-shirt

That's Not Fair...Life's Not Fair

When I was younger I used to respond to every "you can't do that" or "no" with "THAT'S NOT FAIR"

Unfailingly (my own terminology) my Mom responded with "Life's not fair honey." To preface this my mom was "the mom." The woman who would stay up until midnight with me because I had no ability to sew my home ec project and basically the reason I am today, so this response was about as blunt and (what I thought at the time) as rude of comment that ever left her lips. Until my junior year in highschool these responses somewhat made sense, why I couldn't go on a date with a guy two years my elder, or why my curfew was midnight not one o'clock like everyone else's.

Then she got sick. And suddenly, although she had told me a million times that life wasn't fair, it was what she wasn't telling me: Life's not only not fair, but it doesn't owe us anything and at times it doesn't make sense.

I remember that day like it was yesterday (cliche I know). My stepdad and mom sat me down and explained to me that my mom had cervical cancer and a large tumor and they were going to do everything to beat it. It all didn't seem real, like I had jumped into a Lifetime movie or teen melodrama.

And it continued to seem like a sick joke until the day my mom came home, still beautiful as ever, with a her clean shaven head and that symbol made everything sickeningly, punch to the stomach real. All I remember is crying and we looked at each other and said the same thing "Life's NOT fair"

My Mom and I 

My Purpose

Now beginning this blog I never intended for numerous numbers to actively follow or read it, no that was not my goal. 

My goal was to put out on the interspace the lessons and the truth that sometimes in life, well almost always, it's what they don't tell you that matters. It's the not so easy, no so pretty pieces that truly form a character and mold someone into their "person". I'm not here to put lipstick on a pig instead, I want to review the good, the bad and the ugly, and hopefully, someone stumbling on this page will be able to relate to that one bad day, that car won't start, bank accounts dwindling bad day and understand that it really is living the experience and discovering the "whats" of what they did not tell you that makes everything worthwhile.

photo credit:http://browse.deviantart.com/art/A-Bad-Day-for-Hair-67934985