I'm stuck

I am confused. I am a mess.

The only way I know to work my through stuff is to write. Or at least write first, so I can have some idea of what’s going on.

I need to get beyond all this breast stuff. I’m hung up on the cosmetics of it all. How I look. I’m embarrassed with this big round silicon boob that sits high on my right side. I make sure my clothes cover it up, which isn’t always easy in Florida. I have no idea what I will do about wearing a bathing suit in public. I will have to get something very high and loose – do they make bathing suits like that? I am not naked when I make love with John anymore; I always have something covering my chest.

And I'm embarrassed with being so obsessed with it all.

Some people tell me that I should go back to surgery and get it fixed right away. Others tell me to wait, see if gravity and time will help.

I don’t know what to do.

I feel silly being so hung up on how I look. One woman said to me, “I never knew this part of your anatomy was so important to you.”

I didn’t either.

Someone recently pointed out something I wrote in 2006 on another blog about silicon implants. Boy, have times changed.

Am I over-reacting? Do I need to just think about something else and move on? How do I do that?

hospitals

I don’t especially like hospitals.

I don’t like all the papers that have to be signed. I don't like having to read about everything that can go wrong. I don’t like the way I feel reduced to a set of medical numbers.

And I didn’t like the anesthesiologist that I met with. Hopefully he will not be “assigned” to me.

I feel very vulnerable today. On the way back from this pre-op visit I looked at the darkening sky and just started crying.

I would like to run away

I am confused and not sleeping well. “Worry” seems to be always with me, and I can’t seem to find my way to the more elusive “quiet”.

Yesterday I lost it at the vet’s office. Jubilee had an infection in her paw that needed to be treated. The vet was young and new, and distracted because of an emergency surgery that needed to be done on a dog that had been bitten by a larger dog. She asked me to leave Jubilee for a few hours. When I picked Jubilee up later, a series of blood tests had been done on her (all were normal) and the bill came to $340. In front of everyone in the waiting room, I ranted that I would never bring Jubilee back and that I should have been consulted about the expensive testing before it was done. John told me on the phone that I sounded frazzled and “like my sister”. Jubilee is still limping.

On top of that, people that I barely know are repeatedly sending me “prayer” cards and putting me on their “prayer lists”. This makes me very uncomfortable. For one thing, I have no idea what it means to “pray for” someone. The only thing that I can relate to in my own experience is holding someone in a place of love and concern within myself. The “pray for” wording feels somehow contorted to me, and I do not understand what it means. But I’m trying to let go of that as just a wording peculiarity. What really bothers me is having my name and predicament broadcast on “prayer” billboards and the like. I do not like the attention on me, I feel a need for more privacy, and I don't know how to be gracious about all of this.

I would like to run away somewhere, to another universe, where there is no breast cancer. I would like to disappear.

a funny thing happened at the gym today ...

A funny thing happened at the gym today.

I am not a serious gym-person. I go every now and then and do some of the machines and some of the weights. Sometimes I do an exercise or yoga/pilates class. If I’m not doing a class, I usually am in and out of there in less than an hour, usually around 45 minutes.

Today, while on the elliptical machine, I kind of lost it. As in, I knew that my head was not working right. I was breathing ok, but my thoughts were jumping around. I felt like I was losing it. My short-term memory was gone, and I couldn’t remember any of my doctors’ names. When I came home John took my blood pressure and it was fine. I wasn’t really panicked, but I couldn’t concentrate, and it was a little scary. I had to just keep busy “doing the next thing”.

Actually, I felt like I was having really profound, insightful and imaginative thoughts, but I couldn’t hold on to them, or reflect on them. And they were jumping around a lot. Like I was tripping or something.

Something similar happened the last time I went to the gym, about 10 days ago, only this time the disorientation lasted longer.

I’m a little more focused now, but I think I’ll stick to just riding my bike and doing yoga at home for awhile.