weens_and_me

With all of my recent travels, I have spent most of my plane rides journaling and trying to dig a little deeper into which direction I want to steer my life to next.  Questions are swirling in my mind...  Where to live? What to do next? Who and how to love? Who to forgive and how to ask for forgiveness? A friend recently sent  this and I just wanted to share it.  Although there are many things in my life that I wish I could "rehash", I am still on the endless quest to perfect "my dash"...

I've been sitting on my words and overwhelmed heart for awhile now.   Experienced an ocean of loss, hurt and pain the last few weeks that I have been desperately trying to sort through. It's all a little easier each day.  Or at least I am getting better at pretending. ;)

Trying to reconfigure, relearn who I am.  Through cancer, failed relationships, battered friendships...I am definitely picking through the Jennie Grimes "lost and found bin" to sort out who I am, what I want and what I want to do with it. I am done being someone's "Barbie", spokesperson, "fun girl at the party"... I just want to be me.  And as soon as I figure out who that is and can feel loved as just that--- I will be in a good place.

So in the game of relearning life...myself... there are things that I  deeply know to be innately me.  That I love my family.  My mom.  My amazing co-workers. Making a difference.  Running with good friends. Startling thunder storms. A kiss that makes your leg lift.  Unconditional love and support.  And on the smaller scale... puppies, crunchy peanut butter, sunshine, Oprah magazine, a good hug, a Venti iced coffee and the NY Times, singing loudly (and in my case badly) to anything-- especially Miley Cyrus. Through years of heartbreak, struggle and sadness I still wake up each morning knowing that life is good, that I am going to laugh, going to do something for someone else and try to enjoy this crazy ride for all that it is. 

I have so much to learn, to figure out...yadda yadda...and am almost 30!!  Time's a ticking! ;)

Over six months without a post but here it is. 

Strange to write a "Weens and Me" entry since he passed away this past October but with everything in life, I have to pick up and keep moving.  Looking back at when I started this blog-- 26, cancer-free (or so I thought), thinking about "rings" with my then boyfriend of three years and running marathons-- I feel like a completely different person from the one writing this today. 

I think that since my initial diagnosis ("I'm 27! WTF!?") and my rediagnosis (with more denial and less panache was dubbed "Cancer 2.0"), I fell into fear.  Deep dark fear.  I was given a 36% survival rate if I had complete radical treatment and at six months from that point, I am still rattled but making steps forward to live.  Fully live.  Because after all, don't we all have a 100% guarantee of death??

I recently realized that I had stopped really living my life.  Day to day, running errands life.  Sure, I was crossing off my bucket list and doing what all of those "things to do before you die" books tell you to do-- but I had stopped the normal.  The mundane.  Stopped trying to move forward in my career.  I stopped running, which is me.  I can see where I gave up in places...started living as though I was dying.  But this past Saturday I met an amazing kick ass cancer vixen (the founder of Cycle for Survival) who was just rediagnosed for the FIFTH time.  She was there with her husband, cycling for an hour, raising funds for rare cancers...only four days after chemo.  I looked at her, her husband and saw life.  True beautiful life and love. ( http://www.jenanddavelinn.com/blog/2010/02/blog-post.html)

This past week "fully living again" included --shallow or not-- going to a real salon to have highlights and a hair cut (thank you Sommer Muasher).  I was in tears having this simple, normal-for-most-women-my-age act done because I have been too terrified to cut my hair since its regrowth-- June 2008 (like 80 years in girl hair time!).  Terrified to spend any money on something that I could quickly lose through two weeks of chemo. Scared to invest any money in my body that still feels like it is falling apart from cancer and the drugs.  But it felt good and afterwards... I felt pretty!  Ohhhhh so pretty!!

Funny how these little cancer habits were unknowingly created.  Take tonight, I went grocery shopping and actually purchased enough groceries to last longer then two weeks.  Since my first diagnosis I truly thought that I would die and was worried my Mom would have too much to deal with that I didn't even want to fill my pantry.  Yes, there is peanut butter but no jelly.  Pepper but no salt.  I was so scared to move forward and fully live my life that in even the smallest of ways I chose not to. 

I know that these are teeny, tiny small bits of life. But they were things that I had surrendered until now.    Even through injections, pills*pills*pills and yesterday's draining of fluid from my abdomen (I swear they are trying to clone my MoJo!!), I am determined to live (boring "recycling kind of living!"). 

Last week I had brunch with a dear friend who truly set me free.  He had once created the "Happy Game" for me where we go back and forth naming things that make us smile until we both find the sunshine in life again.  I usually list off John Elway, tabasco, pandas, running-- the Jennie Grimes obvious.  But this week he called the game off.  He asked me to stop playing the "Happy Game" and to start living it.

So here it goes...

Living is a funny thing that we truly take for granted until we get a good look at what death is.  

Wow.  I just counted it out.  I am already FIVE weeks out from cancer treatment.  I can not believe that it has been that long.  I think that I am finally accepting that every sneeze, bruise or headache is not a sign of reoccurence or that the cancer has metastasized.  Instead, I am beginning to breath a little bit easier, laugh a little louder and smile a little more. 

And as I am beginning to gain more confidence that my fight is over, I have become highly in tune to how many people are still being diagnosed every day.  The third girl from my high school was just diagnosed two weeks ago.  Luckily, a mutual high school friend connected us and I can not describe how healing it has been to talk with her, share my story and send her some of the books and resources that I used during my fight.  Truly feeling that I am on the other side of things and am able to help someone else through this process has been more of a gift then I had imagined.  I feel as though this whole experience has directed me into linking with other cancer survivors, going to conferences and in true Jennie fashion, endlessly researching as much as I can get my hands on about breast cancer.

As much as I love the work that I do/have done with HIV over the last eight years, I know that my passion has shifted to those affected by cancer.  I have my own disease to battle now and my red ribbon has definitely faded to pink!  This whole journey has lead me to rethink my career and consider shifting to social work around cancer or to just give nursing/medical school a go.  Funny how life happens and shifts our direction.  I would never want to endure chemo or radiation again but on the other side of cancer it all does seem like a gift.  The gift of knowing myself and what/who I want in my life.  Living through cancer has reaffirmed the strength, fight and determination I have already had but has also allowed me to be more vulnerable and let down walls that I have kept up for so long.  

And if this is post-cancer Jennie, then I am pretty excited to get to know her. 

Well, I am TEN days out from finishing breast cancer treatment and I am just now starting to believe that it is is really over.  It is such a funny feeling to have my life back, to not be tethered to a hospital, to live my life without scheduling around doctor appointments.  I am so relieved and excited to begin to put my life back together and reclaim myself after cancer dictated it for the past 18 months.

I am really excited but can't help but be completely scared.  I am scared that the treatments didn't work.  That I have given all that I have to beat cancer...and now what??  I just sit back and wait for it to come back?  During treatments (as hard, as sick and as time consuming it all was) I still felt like I had some control over the cancer.  That I was taking real proactive steps to beat it and now without those tools-- I feel open and vulnerable.  Just scared that the cancer isn't really gone and that in so many ways this is never going to end.

I still have to take a drug called Tamoxifen for the next four years-- a drug that is like "early menopause" and that you can't have children while taking it.  So I guess I will be hot flashing and barren till I am 32...but hopefully the cancer will be gone, right?  Right??

I think it is just scary to have "myself" back.  Cancer took that over for the past year and a half...and I am not really sure who I am anymore.  Pre-cancer Jennie had just moved in with her boyfriend of three years and making plans like which marathon to do next?  Which party to go to on Friday night?  Jennie-With-Cancer moved out and broke up with that boyfriend and had to make cancer treatment plans hoping that each choice would extend my life.  Jennie-With-Cancer missed out on her 28th birthday because she had chemo the day before, she lost and gained friends, she became so involved with learning all that she could about cancer that any other focus seemed to get lost.

And now there is Post-cancer Jennie (hopefully that status won't change)...and I have just begun to figure out who she is over the past ten days.  A couple of things haven't changed though I guess... I still snort when I REALLY laugh, I love to be goofy, I love my friends, family and Weens.  I just need to remember that I beat cancer with those tools-- laughter, silliness and amazing support-- and those will help me get through this phase too...so I can be Jennie again.

dear god/buddha/allah/etc....

please watch over my dear friends that i have met through this journey that continue to battle cancer. meeting them have helped me in so many ways and helped me through all of this. but i am also so very scared to hear of their own battles and fears. please help me be strong enough to help them get through this the way that so many have helped me.

thanks from mildred st in chicago.
jennie grimes.

Received news this morning, that a dear friend of mine lost her mom to cancer last night.  This is SUCH hard news and I find myself unable to focus, my eyes continuing to well up with tears.  Her mom, Grace (such a fitting name), continued to send me well wishes and support since my diagnosis-- while she continued to fight her own battle.  Just so incredibly difficult to think of my dear friend going forward without her-- they were so close and had been though so much together.  Scares me to think of losing my own mom (my angel) and also terrifies me with thoughts of losing my own battle against cancer.  I shiver just thinking about all of these treatments not working and I can not describe that my biggest fear is for me and others close to me losing the battle to cancer.

I am just getting by today.  Just trying to keep my head buried in analyzing data to avoid a crescendo of my thoughts and fears.  Trying to just make it through today while trying to still feel my fear, my sadness over this passing.

Oh yes, Bon Jovi is filling my head today.  I am officially half-way through radiation-- yeehaw!  I am so VERY ready for all of this to be over and truly begin living my life again. 

I had another meltdown at rads this morning though-- some days are better (and worse) then others.  My breast is VERY burned and is actually starting to blister in these hideous streaks.  I have several different creams that my radiation oncologist gave me...but it is not seeming to work.  Going to try another heavy duty prescription cream next.  Strange to have one sunburnt tit in the middle of a Chicago winter.

It seriously looks like I got felt up by Freddy Krueger.  Hot.

Just so hard to be 28 and to go through all of this (at any age really).  I  just really feel as though I no true control over my body which is even harder for an ex-marathoner and woman that has battled eating disorders over the years.  Having to chop my hair, have crazy chemo drugs shot into me, have eight connect-the-dots-around-my-boob-tattoos and now have my body nuked four times a week...it is all just realy wearing me down, both emotionally and physically.

But I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel though.  I have 16 out of 33 radiations done!  At this rate I will be a superhero in no time.  C'mon February 20th--- my end of cancer treatment date!!  BIG hooray!

Check out this article if you have the time....pretty insightful as to what this experience is like for me every day.

"At Rest in the Radiation Machine"
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/the-glow-of-cancer/

Even through a crazy 2008 (break ups, cancer diagnosis, surgery, moving, chemotherapy, etc), I still knocked off several things on my bucket list and had a blast doing somethings that weren't on there.  Since I first posted my bucket list I crossed off:

For the first time, in a long time, I know that things will be ok.

I have completed my first week of radiation and am on to week two!  Only 29 more to go! 

They have put eight little tattoos around my left boob-- a sort of connect-the dots if you will.  But as one of my amazing gays said today... "Jennie, it is just a constellation of beauty marks for all that you have gone through this year."  So-- maybe these are just my new "beauty marks", reminders of how very lucky I am to have made it through this.