80 Reflections Upon 2009: Less Squeamish

I discovered the text in italics in January from an unposted blog entry I had started in November 2008 but later rewrote before posting.  It became Choices: Parts 1 and 2.  I rushed the Part 2 entry because I had just learned that my co-worker Diana Knight had died from breast cancer and I wanted to write a tribute to what an awesome person she had been before too much time slipped past.

In 2009 a newly diagnosed woman asked me if my cancer experiences had permanently changed anything about my life.  I admitted that it had.  Honestly that topic is one that could fill a lengthy blog posting, but the part of the answer I write about today is that my touch with breast cancer left me less afraid of confronting things.

So here I am at the early part of 2010 with this entry from late 2008, and I think this part of the unfinished blog expresses more eloquently what I was trying to say.  I know what kept me from publishing it initially.  I wasn't sure that I was comfortable using the words "my" and "nipple" in something the world could see.  I was embarrassed to think that a male co-worker might read it.  Or my dad.

Now I don't really care.  Nowadays I'm not afraid of a whole bunch of things that used to make me uncomfortable or squeamish.

Maybe that means I've reached another level along the path to maturity or wisdom.  Maybe I'm more comfortable with past events that aren't so fresh. 

In any case, I think the original bit below that I extracted from the 2008 blog entry is superior to the one I posted.  I want to correct my error from 2009 by posting in 2010 what I wrote in 2008.  How's THAT for putting a year in review, eh?


PARKING
When I returned to work in May 2006 from maternity/cancer leave, I felt disoriented. I had been on leave for nine weeks and a lot had changed.


Some of the staff had turned over and new faces replaced the old. Familiar people had moved to different desks. My furniture had been pushed back a foot or so within my office and all of the books I had left on the credenza – some of them personal – had been scattered throughout the department. I was no longer a manager of seven people, and my body couldn’t tolerate a 40-hour work week.

I had gone on leave as a pregnant cancer patient, feeling much more like a victim of circumstance than like a survivor. I returned, proud of my new status of Mommy, yet still adjusting to the changing needs of my baby and to the changing needs of my body. I had made it halfway through chemo.

Cancer had taken a lot away from me at that point. It had taken away my choice to go into labor when my body was ready, and replaced it with a scheduled inducement of labor. It had taken away working breasts that could feed my baby; and replaced them with a tender lumpectomy scar, bottles of formula, chemotherapy-poisoned milk I couldn’t pass on, and one nipple that bled if I didn’t sleep in a bra. It had also taken away the natural situation in which I could put the needs of my child first, and replaced it with a priority to put my needs first. Oh, that was hard! Cancer seemed like a beast, and fighting it felt like succumbing to a heartless machine that stripped away my humanity.


I needed something over which I could have control.


I found it in the parking lot. I broke the old habit of always parking in the back. I began parking in the front of the building, or at one side or the other. I followed whatever mood suited me that day.


Oddly enough, this was freedom to me.


I shrugged off the old constraints I had given myself about my “favorite” area to park the car, and I took on the attitude that my habits didn’t have to define me.


This was a small way to express that sense of personal power, but it mattered, and emotionally it helped me heal.

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That part at the end was what inspired me to cut it from the original entry and paste it into today's entry.  The taking back of some small part of personal power helped me to heal.  Once in a while I get e-mails from people who've let me know that my blog helped them.  Those messages make me feel really good, and let me know that recording such a personal journey through a disease that impacts a woman's image of her sexuality was and still is worth it.

I still park in random parking lot spots at my place of employment.  It's a different parking lot at a different job, but I like how it feels to not be mad that somebody else "took my space" and I like how it feels to make a new choice each day.  It's also a step in the direction of being less rigid. 

I'm a high strung, Type A kind of person, but life has taught me to appreciate what I already have even as I yearn to attain the goals I've set.  I can roll with the punches and find something positive about most any parking space in the garage, even if I have to drive several levels up.  The optimist in me finds something positive in just about any situation I'm in.  If I didn't, I'd cry.

So here's to being less squeamish about saying what needs to be said.

I'm still not going to give details about how cancer treatments affected my sex life, though that is a topic in general that really needs more attention than it gets.  I really sympathize with the women who have had mastectomies and lost all nerve endings in their breasts.  I especially sympathize with the women who are dating and have to add "doesn't care that my breasts aren't my own" to the list of qualities they look for in a mate.  But these are the things you face when a medical event has altered your body.  It is what it is and it doesn't have to be the end of the world or the end of your sexual satisfaction.  Focus on the things you can control and let the importance of the things you can't control dwindle to something trivial.

Anytime I'm faced with a situation that causes me continual stress, I start looking for the pieces that I can change.  If I don't like my job then what new projects can I take on, what new skills can I learn, or what new employer should I try to work for?  If I have a "friendship" that feels more like a battlefield than a friendship, then what do I lose by letting it go?  Or what can I do to make it better?  If I feel like all my time goes towards others so that I never get the time I need to relax and recharge, then what can I shift so that I take back enough time to feel balanced again?  This isn't an exercise I complete once and then forget about.  Life doesn't stand still.  New challenges come up and old situations require new evaluations.

So what did I learn for my life after cancer?  I learned to stop running from the evaluation exercises.  Life is too short to hide from the things that make you uncomfortable.  It's the same advice you've heard a million times from a million other sources, but it's a universal truth because it's true.

Where will I park tomorrow?  I have no idea.  That choice gives me power, and I'm not giving it up.

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