I haven't written in a bit. I have wanted to, but I'm just working through some stuff. I feel like I'm surrounded right now by this little cloud, and every once in a while this lightning bolt hits me and I scream, "I HAD CANCER!" and then the thunder rolls over me and I fall to the ground because I'm still all smoky and shocked.
I'm still shocked.
Suddenly the crisis part is over and I am left singed and changed. I am still absolutely shocked that I had cancer, and saying it doesn't diminish the power of it. I've been saying it for weeks. I feel it very differently today than I did when this started.
I really thought that with my first blog post that I'd be able to keep this light and funny, that I'd show that cancer doesn't have to be terrible. I actually think I have done that, and not because I kept to my intention but because it truly wasn't terrible.
But in some ways, it's utterly terrible. Utterly, deeply terrible. I think that's finally hitting me now, that I'm 'safe', on the other side of it. I can safely freak out because I don't have to focus now on getting through another test, or worrying about test results. Now there's all this left over room inside me and what I'm discovering is filling those little divots is shock, and ... I don't know the other words yet.
I worry about my ovaries and I want to just be tested now for cancer. My whole pelvis carries my trauma and stress (when I get stressed, my whole pelvis clenches up, for example). I don't like to be touched, my pelvis is often sore or wonky - it's just where I hold things. (Which makes sense, it's the cradle of life!)
My womanly bits all live within my pelvis and I've had a lot of problem with it since I was 15 years old. I won't get all into it given the mixed nature of this audience but I had a benign tumor removed from my right ovary in 2002. Now I've had cancer, and I'm doubly scared that maybe something is down there that I just don't know about. Sometimes being well tuned in to your body is difficult, it would be nice to have some silence now and then. I am not a hypochondriac, I don't worry unnecessarily that I'm sick or dying or whatever - but this feels really important and serious to me and it adds to the shock of "Holy shit, I had CANCER." Real, actual cancer. Not 'pre-cancer'. Not "could become cancer". Not "a chance of cancer". Actual cancer, inside me, Kristina, ME.
I'm still shocked.
Now I get to figure out who I am as someone who has "had" cancer. I want to go to my GYN and ask him for a blood test for cancer because then at least I can breathe for a while. How do I ask for that? How do I convince him? I have no doubt that I really need to do this for myself, for my piece of mind, and I feel like a damn crazy person, I feel like it doesn't make sense to anyone but me which makes me feel like it shouldn't make sense to me at all.
I feel like I've just broken up with someone and keep finding their goddamn crap all over my house.
Me again. Your posts are flashbacks in time for me. Even five years post-cancer-that-was-barely-even-cancer, a bulging disk in my back had me completely convinced I had metastatic cancer in my bones....I sobbed in the doctor's office when I finally went in, partly from pain but mostly from fear. The good news is that 14 years post-cancer, the fear is gone and has been gone for some time.
ReplyDeleteOne question for you (no right or wrong answer)....is getting the CA125 test going to bring you to peace? Or is it a stepping stone that eventually leads to needing annual full body CT scans? If the former, go for it...pay out of pocket at one of those lab places if your doctor won't order it. If the latter....maybe time is the healer you really need?
You have earned the right even in the medical model to ask for additional screening. You had cancer, and that alone puts you in a special group. Not that you were not already special you know....do whatever you need to have peace. Go bravely and confidently into your next appointment with whomever and state you need this assurance.
ReplyDeleteHey, have I mentioned I love you?! ;-) I am excited to go out to coffee with you and discuss our pelvises. :-) You know I understand all of that stuff! As for the CA125...I had my first one this year. It's now my baseline. Based on my family history, I am to get one every year from here on out and if that number goes up, it's a sign to start looking for what's going on inside of me! You have had cancer. There should be no objection to ordering the test if it's what you want to do.
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