I’m too scared to blog. There, I said it.
My goal when I first started my blog was to give an accurate depiction of my struggles through mastectomy and breast reconstruction. As more people began reading, most of them personal friends & family, I felt like I needed to “show” them that I was as brave and courageous as they all said I was. I’ve given glimpses to a few of my personal struggles, such as my acceptance of my new body, but I haven’t been as honest as I originally intended. I’m terrified to really admit my true feelings but I know that if I continue to keep these thoughts locked away, I’ll never progress. It seems I’ve been stalled for a couple months now.
Next week, on June 13, it will be exactly one year from the day I received the call that no woman ever wants to get. My life has changed drastically in the last year, but I survived. I should be grateful to be alive, and I am. I should be celebrating a new chance at life! After all, I won! Right? You see it all around at the events for cancer & breast cancer awareness- the “rah-rah”cheers of successfully fighting like a girl and kicking cancer’s ass. The celebration I should be having is on hold right now and I’m not sure how long it will be on hiatus. I don’t feel like celebrating. I guess you can say that I am a mess; physically, mentally, and spiritually. Yes, I’ve survived cancer, but at what cost? I’ve come home to a train wreck and I don’t know what to do.
You want the real deal? The raw emotions that I feel, and have felt, are constricting. I’m embarrassed to bare my soul, maybe partially because I feel I have failed the “sisterhood” of which I now belong, but here goes.
Breast cancer has utterly shattered every aspect of my life. I’ve watched the pieces fall around me; the sound is deafening at times. My marriage is suffering tremendously. There’s a new, unknown distance between me and my husband. There’s distance between me and my children. My career, once thriving and exciting, is now almost unbearable. Finances, I’m sure you can guess, are stretched tighter than I could ever describe. My self-esteem, self-worth, self-love- which used to come so easily- now eludes me.
I can’t figure out if I’m in mourning, if I’m angry, if I’m in the midst of a pity party, or if I’m shell-shocked. I know without a doubt that I’m depressed and have been for months. I am grateful for the clarity to recognize that fact. I’ve sought counseling and the help of a psychiatrist. I’ve began taking anti-depressants a few weeks ago, and although all this is helping, it hasn’t been enough to pull me out of this hole. The confidence I once had is lost and unfortunately, it’s impacting everything.
I have big issues with this “new” body of mine. I have gained about 30 pounds since my mastectomy last November. (I guess I have to admit that I eat when I’m depressed.) I have lost my breasts. Although my plastic surgeon has done a wonderful job, the new boobs don’t look like my old ones. They are merely numb mounds which sit upon my chest. I have no feeling in my chest, my sides, or my left armpit. Soon, I’ll have numb nipples to go with them. I am hoping that this addition will help me feel more complete, but I am concerned that it won’t.
Intimacy has become a huge obstacle now with my wonderful husband. I do NOT feel sexy. It’s like that word doesn’t even exist in my vocabulary anymore. Bless his heart, he is trying to give me space, time to adjust, and still be affectionate. But I think I’m confusing him more than anything….he doesn’t know what to do. Sex is almost non-existent. We used to enjoy close intimacy and we both enjoyed my breasts. I probably enjoyed them more than he did. They were very sensitive and erotic. That part is now gone. Although I desperately want him to show me that my chest is still womanly and attractive, I don’t want him to touch- it still feels painfully sensitive in some areas and I’m embarrassed that I can’t feel light touches nor can I stand the way I look. Talk about mixed signals. We’ve been given advice to concentrate on other areas. Sounds like a great idea, but gaining 30 pounds has made me extremely self-conscious and embarrassed. I don’t even want this man that I love to touch my hips, or anything below my waist for that matter, because of how much bigger everything is.
And of course, it doesn’t’ help any that its summer time. This is the time of year where shorts, tank tops, and sundresses are everywhere. I’m too embarrassed to wear shorts. Hell, I don’t even own a pair. I’m too embarrassed to wear tank tops or sundresses because of the swelling in my arms, the scarring from surgeries, the caves at my armpits, and the bulging that’s on both of my sides. (Surgery on June 25th should help some of these problems) So it looks like I’ll be sporting the jeans that are getting too tight and one of the many baggy T-shirts that are slowly filling my closet. We won’t even entertain the thoughts of discussing a bathing suit. A counselor suggested that I need to use positive affirmation- telling myself that I am still beautiful. I’m supposed to tell myself that crap while all these women are rocking their barely-there summertime outfits. Yeah right. How can I possibly believe that my husband could find ME attractive? Gals, you know what a confidence booster it is to receive a compliment from a man, even strangers. Or one of “those” looks. I don’t even get a glance over anymore.
My kids are suffering because I have become so withdrawn. They know something is off- I’ve been offered backrubs, chores….all kinds of affectionate tokens of their love- to help bring their mom back. I wonder what kind of example I am setting for my children by not being able to bounce back from all this as easily as I had hoped. How can I teach my precious daughters to love themselves and accept their own changing bodies when I want nothing more than to ignore my own body because I hate it so much? I try to reconnect with them every night over dinner, to show them that I am still here. I’m just a little lost.
My career that used to be so awesome, you ask? I’m not feeling too confidant there, either. Things that I used to be able to tolerate now grate on my last nerve. I’m not excited to be there anymore. Yes, I’m grateful to have a job, one that pays well; I just miss that spark that I used to have. I go in everyday and try to do my job to the best of my ability but I feel so isolated there. I work mostly with men, but even the women there are only cordial to me. I think that my coworkers aren’t sure how to talk to me anymore either. It’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to connect with people. I was told by my HR department that I have no more protection under FMLA since all my leave has been used and that my position isn’t guaranteed even though I’m facing another surgery in less than 3 weeks. My immediate supervisor has been very cool about all my time off, but it still makes me nervous. Sometimes I wonder if I have job security or if I need to be ready for the unemployment line.
Our finances have pretty much sucked since the end of November. I was out of work longer than we had planned for and I’ve had my share of medical complications from all this. Our household bills don’t allow for only one income. Although we have had to borrow money from family, we haven’t had anything disconnected or repossessed, so we’re succeeding at barely scraping by. It will probably take us the remainder of the year to get ahead.
So with all of this going on, I’m finding that I have and am still becoming more withdrawn, more isolated, more depressed, and more insecure. Don’t get me wrong, I have identified lots of issues and have taken some action. Being on anti-depressants and seeing a counselor are pretty big steps. You’d think that I would get tired of feeling this way and make changes to help improve my appearance if it really bothers me as much as I say it does. Well, it bothers me more than I can describe but yet I’m not motivated enough to change it. I’ve started making changes to my eating habits- I am painfully aware of the consequences of my food choices over the last four months. I haven’t started exercising for a number of reasons, being newly diagnosed with lymphedema in my left arm & another surgery coming up being a couple of them. I’m still on physical restrictions, strapped for money, and have no energy.
I say the Serenity Prayer often.
“God- grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I guess you can say I’m still working on the acceptance thing.
So now that I have bared my soul, I hope that some of these feelings will be removed. I will update everyone on the medical progress that’s been made over the last couple months soon. Maybe I’ll have the courage to blog again in the coming days.
