And I'm so darn excited about this that I'm going to repeat it, only this time with capitalization and exclamation points: I JUST BEAT CANCER!!! That's one thing off the ol' New Year's Resolution list, eh?
Pardon me while I wiggle out my happy dance:
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| P.S. I kissed this man, and I liked it! |
Well, that was an okay happy dance, but I'm looking for something with a little more verve, pop, smooth. Ah, here it is. My true happy dance:
I mean, dayuuuuuum, I deserve it. First, poison invaded my body. Then doctors made me ingest radioactive smoothies (the assholes.) And then, I vomited, gained 80 pounds, grew a beard, and oh, and I shit myself. (You can read about that saga here: No, Really, I Talk About Crapping Myself, and It's Hilarious) So, yeah, thanks, cancer. I'm glad you died. Oh, and stay dead. You best not come back to haunt this girl, because, if you're even thinking of playing zombie, let me warn you:
For real, you did.
Because from Day Numero Uno, I decided that I had to choose between either laughing or crying at the fact that the world had collided in such a way that in the space of a week my precious young cat unexpectedly kicked the kitty bucket, my big old ass finally turned 30, and the doctors told me that the giant tumor on my thyroid was, in fact, not a good thing after all.
I mean, WHO HAS THIS LIFE? Besides me?
So, seriously, I decided to embrace the funny. And then my doctors told me something I didn't want to hear:
Turns out, this shit is apparently serious.
So, I hit a scary, dark, dreary, evil patch. (Which I wrote about and you can read here: The Blog Post I JUST Mentioned ) And I started being even more melodramatic than usual, and my loved ones started getting sick of that shtick, as evidenced by this conversation with my husband:
Me: I love you.
Chris: What the hell brought that on?
Me: I had a passing pain in my neck, and I thought I might have an aneurysm. No, seriously, I might. I'm just sorta sitting here waiting to drop dead.
Chris: I've been waiting years for that...
But it's hard not to think of your mortality when this is a typical conversation at your home:
Me: My feet really hurt because of... oh, what's that disease? My poly-cystic ovarian syndrome? No. That's not it. The other one...
Chris: Cancer?
Me: No, the other one.
Chris: Your depression?
Me: No, the one after that.
Chris: Your anxiety disorder?
Me: No. Ha! I remember now! My plantar fasciitis!
Chris: Oh. I forgot you had that one.
So, with all this (sometimes literal) shit piled on my (metaphorical) plate, I occasionally lacked my typical optimism and instead embraced my surly, sullen side.
I would bunker down in bed, crippled by the knowledge that I was sick.
But over those crucial months, I learned a few lessons along the way. And even though my battle with cancer isn't over (I still have the tumor, which causes weight gain, irregular hormone surges, and intensely severe depression AND anxiety), I think my (thought-up-on-the-fly-because-I-needed-to-post-because-it-has-been-almost-two-weeks) list is ready to help me deal with whatever comes along.
Lesson One: Find the funny, or else you're f*cked. *
If you can't laugh, then whatever battle you are fighting is already lost. Focus on one moment of joy. For me, that's the time that I thought my spontaneous shitting HAD to mean I had colon cancer. While researching that illness's symptoms, I ran across a bumper sticker that said, "I lost my colon... but I'm still full of shit." See what I mean? Hilarious. That crap still cracks me up. As does this:
Lesson Two: Love the ones you want to; don't waste your time with the rest
Sounds harsh, but there it is. When you only have so much energy, it's important to determine where you want to spend it. For me, it was my immediate nucleus. If I had to be sick, then I had to spend quality time with the things that made me the most happy. I prioritized my interactions. First, my immediate family (Chris and the cats). Then, friends (huge shout out to my dear pal, Mariah, for being the best rock anybody can throw at a disease) Then, the rest -- siblings, grandparents, nieces and nephews, etc. Everybody else could suck it. If they weren't worthy of my time and energy, then they didn't get it. Now, I'm not saying to go out with the slogan, "Be a bitch!" Be compassionate, caring, kind, attentive. But don't intentionally throw good after bad.
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| Why in the name of all that is Rice Krispie Treats wouldn't I want to spend all of my time with these blokes? |
Lesson Three: Get a kitten, dammit!
For realz, y'all, don't take things too seriously. My list here; it's ironic. Because nothing peeved me more than trying to read up about a disease and having everybody on the great world wide web tell me how I should feel and what lessons I should take away from my brush with being really, really, really sick. How you want to deal with your issues is YOUR thing. Not mine. Sure, I'd recommend the above two points (find the humor and spend quality time with your actual loved ones), but those helped ME. They might not help you one iota. And that's fine, because it's YOUR thing that is going to help you. Find that thing. For me, that thing was getting a remission kitten. And even better than just getting a remission kitten was naming her Khaleesie, after the mother of dragons in George R.R. Martin's epic saga "Game of Thrones."
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Lesson Four: The most important tip
Tune back into A Study of Stuff! I know we've been irregular with our posts lately, but, as this post shows, we've been a bit busy with the bad stuff, the good news, and a new family member. From here on out, we are dedicating ourselves to posting AT LEAST every Wednesday. Keep checking in, and leave comments. You want us to write about something? Being pet owners? Being thrift shoppers? Being killer cooks? Being adventurers who travel to local haunts? Whatever. We don't care. We just want to have fun with YOU. So, y'all come back, ya hear?
* I would type out the whole word, but my mother reads this thing, and I don't want her to think I'm too much of a hell-bound hussy.
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