The Moment is Now

Tonight was supposed to be the fundraiser party thrown by some of my best friends, our wedding officiant, hosted by my favorite "lady performer"/dear dear beautiful man friend, with musical performances by two of my beloved talented friends. We had a lot of rain this afternoon, and when it rains like that here in ATX we have flash flood warnings, bad traffic, bad drivers, and usually a couple of accidents.An executive decision was made to postpone the party since drag queens, sound equipment, and 60+ people in someone's back yard don't mix with puddles, mud and a chance of more rain. I was bummed to postpone because my mom came in yesterday to join the party, and even as I was driving in gridlocked I-35 traffic to my PT appointment this afternoon, I had a gut feeling that this party was going to turn out magical, despite the weather...but it's okay. Kayla, my mom and I put on our PJs, ordered pizza and watched Thor. I signed up for a Pilates class and played on Pinterest. I found a yoga blog and practiced "alternative nostril breathing"/pranayama, drank green tea, and finally got the itch to blog again, even if only to serve as a substitute for the social interaction that I feel like I was gearing up for tonight. It's good though. I'm paying attention.

I haven't blogged in a while. A lot can happen in a short amount of time. I was diagnosed with cancer only 6 months ago and so much has changed. I finished chemo one month and 3 days ago and so much has changed. Kayla and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. This blog was intended to be a reflection of our marriage. Our lives look very different than they did a year ago, even if only to us. But our marriage has proven to be rock solid. This is what we signed up for..in sickness and in health. But I digress. I wanted this to be a quick update on the progress that has been made, and shed a little light on my experience this far as a cancer survivor, which is now a major player in the reflections expressed in this blog.

I've talked a lot about the spiritual and mental experience of being diagnosed and going through a mastectomy and 6 rounds of chemo. There are physical challenges too. Now that I am starting to move around a little more in the world, spending less time in private contemplation and coping with illness, I am experiencing the bafflement of the physical complications/challenges imposed on the body of someone going through cancer treatment. Im speaking of a physical experience beyond what the eye can see, beyond loss of hair and breasts. a quick rundown, if you will:

My lips cracked open the first few days of the first few treatments. My nose bled every day for about a week after each one. My skin dried out. About halfway through my treatments I started feeling like my limbs were "sprained". This is a hard thing to describe, as it was a foreign feeling to me. I started noticing that my face looked puffy in photographs. (I took a lot of selfies...compelled to record this physical state that I am so awestruck by). And then despite my efforts to excercise, I began to lose my endurance. Quickly. Very quickly then I started noticing that I couldn't walk from my parked car to the door of the salon I work at without falling utterly short of breath, calves searing with pain. And after I thought I had experienced the "fatigue" that "they" speak of, I realized that there is another tier to that word. There is a state where you can get out of bed, but only if you have a need so great as to use the bathroom and you can't hold it any longer and you aren't wearing diapers. There is a state of being where you can walk from your bedroom to the backyard, but with leaded feet and hunched shoulders, only to find yourself stranded in the middle of the garden in the nearest chair for god knows how long because you can't find it in you to go back inside, much less take one more step...and you can ask yourself how in the hell you got like this but you know it's the chemo and that's when the mental shit comes in...but that's not what we're reflecting on here. And then there came the muscle soreness and the twitching. The twitching started in my thumb, and then my eye. Before long my stomach joined in. I would be lying on the couch and I would see something like a mini ocean wave ripple across my torso. And then my legs. Vibrating muscles everywhere. By the end all over my body. I read it is due to toxic levels of drugs. I continued to do yoga,seated meditation, as often as I was able to get out of bed or off the couch, and I continued to get more and more stiff and sore. By the end I couldn't touch my toes. My hamstrings became gridlocked. Every muscle in my body felt like it just had its first ever trip to the gym yesterday, but all the time, and with no relief from stretching. My fingers and the bottom of my feet went numb from neuropathy. My fingernails separated from the nail beds and threatened to fall off. Pain pills, anxiety pills, these are what we turn to when our bodies are riddled with poison, despite the foremost efforts to stay clean, eat clean, live clean. Comfort food is what you turn to when you can't taste a thing except the chemo and the thought of steamed vegetables makes your stomach churn and raw foods are out because they may contain bacteria and your body can't handle that risk because your immune system is shot. But steroids make you freaking hungry as hell. All bets became off...anything just to get through the day, the hour, the minute. Then the night before my last cycle I noticed that my ankles were swollen. Like sausages. The next day, still swollen. And over the next few weeks my entire body swelled up like a balloon. By the end of chemo I weighed 20 lbs more than I did at the start. My body was like a strangers. I felt as if I had aged 40 years in 4 months. My walk was now a shuffle. And that was scary as shit. There was no clear answer. Two weeks of RX water pills and a trip to the ER to have tests run. I came home with a free pair of support stockings and the same answer I had before. Kidney and heart function showed to be intact, and no blood clots to be found, but the body was still swelling. Keep taking the Lasix, hope for the best. My anxiety and desperation for good health had me running around seeking answers, obsessively recording my blood pressure, heart rate, and studying 4 months of lab results. It reminds me of myself pre diagnosis, but on crack, desperate to find the culprit. The physical state of my body had me in shambles. My mind is free of the chemo fog and heavy medications and I'm reeling. I'm lamenting the abilities and the strength that I took for granted once. I had this capable and svelte body that I could push to higher limits, fill to the brim with health and excercise, but did I do that enough? Did I love it enough? Simply appreciate it every damn second? And now I was a stranger to this body, I was broken, scared. Surreal. I visited my somatic counselor a couple of weeks ago and she reminded me that my body has been working so hard for me. It has been doing its job! It has been functioning! While I was getting frustrated and blaming my body for not being able to walk, run, play, stretch, it was churning and whizzing itself into a frenzy to keep me ALIVE. I should be thanking it. In any way that I can. So, my focus of late has been to move that frenzied thought process into one of gratitude and patience. I realize that stripped of all the mumbo jumbo of it all, my body as a whole is doing its best to recover from severe trauma and inflammation. That in mind, I am gaining so much now. Im detoxing. Its now a daily practice to rebuild. Keep faith. Have patience. Practice gratitude. When I try and sit on my knees or cross my legs or reach my back to put lotion on, I remind myself to breathe and that it took 4 months to arrive at this state. It will take some time to move out of it. And I love this body. I am reborn every day that I wake up to draw new breath.

I am ecstatic to be alive tonight. I am grateful for this life. Tonight is magical. The party will be magical, when it happens. I can't say that I can't wait because I can. The moment is now. The moment is now.