The new normal

You know. I had cancer.
(whooooaaaaa...i know, i know, you weren't expecting that one.)
I remember a couple months ago reading in a book how alot of 'loved ones' of a person who has a chronic or life-threatening illness usually want and/or expect that person to get back to normal after treatment is done.
Or at least get back to what they knew the person as before.
And I'm sure the patient would love to. It's so difficult for others to understand, and imagine, how much you just cant' do that.
if you lose an arm, you don't just go back to the same self you were before you lost that arm. And for the most part, I'd imagine people around you understand that you are changed. permanently.
You'll never do a handstand again. You'll never juggle again. You'll never clap your hands again.
(hehehehe...alright. Now I'm just sorta being silly.)
But that being said, it's so hard to relay to someone who has not gone through what you have, why you cannot ever be the same, or go back to normal. I'm speaking more specifically of people who may not have lost an arm, but who still fought a good fight nonetheless. People who are permanently changed, just maybe not in such an outward obvious way.
your life was turned upside down and inside out, there is no more 'normal'. Thats part of the whole process of illness I think. You have to grieve for yourself, and mourn the loss of your old self. And it's quite a different thing from the sappy sob-fest pity parties you can go through when you're first diagnosed, or when you're struggling to understand a diagnosis, or when you're faced with horrible new information.
You have to grieve for yourself in knowing that, while you can and will survive this, you will never be the same.
Even if you get through treatment, and it leaves you with no physical outward side effects. Even if you're given a squeaky clean bill of health. Even if you didn't suffer all that much with whatever treatments they gave you. The reason you'll never go back to 'normal' is regardless of how much you'd like to forget that you just came face to face with your own mortality. Regardless of how much you want to act like you can pick right back up where you left off. There is always a nagging voice. The persistant anxiety of the 'what-if'. The unrelenting fear of something coming back, or of you missing some important signal.
But those around you. Those loved ones who want nothing more in the world than to see you as you were before it all started...they can't read your mind. They can't see your feelings. They have their own worries. And their own anxieties. Much of it they will probably never share with you for fear of upsetting you, or stressing you. (as if you don't obsess over it as much if not more than they do).
But they can't feel the same things that you are. So they want and hope and wait for things to go back to 'normal'. It's the best of intentions really.
And that maybe why it's so frustrating when you realize that you can't go back to 'normal'. You want it as much as they do.
I spent lots of times going back and forth, debating with myself whether I want to be one of those people who talks about, and uses, and perpetuates what they went through for ages. Whether it was just me dragging it out, and why I wasn't just back to my old self. I debated with myself why I was still affected by it, even though for all intents and purposes, it was 'over'. What was wrong with me? Why is it something I still think about on a daily...sometimes hourly basis? Shouldn't it be more and more of an afterthought every day that passes? Would people get tired of hearing about some sorta cancer-related thing from me all the time?
I had to finally make the decision that I just couldn't go on and forget about it. I am not crippled by it, but it does play a large part in my life. Even now. Now that the incisions have healed over, that follow ups have come and gone, that a routine has been settled into, it still is a major player for me every day.
So I may not ever be normal. But depending on who you ask, I never was in the first place.
And even though I won't ever be normal, I most certainly can get to the 'new normal'. The 'new normal' that includes all the ways in which I have been affected by cancer.

Bring on the Boring

I was reading through some various blogs the other day and it occured to me that maybe I'm doing this blog thing wrong.
It seems lots of people just do sort've "updates" of their daily life. I realized I don't do that. I guess I just don't find my every day life all that interesting to write about it. That then made me realize that I never really enjoyed doing that. I mean, even when attempting to keep the good ol' fashioned "diary" I wasn't very consistent. I had a hard time writing every night. Cuz...well...most the time I'm just not that interesting.
This morning. I woke up, started some coffee, went in to flush out my pouch, watched a little bit of the news, ate some honey bunches of oats with soymilk (yum?...yes. yum), showered, dressed, checked my email, gathered my things, took some coffee to go, went to turn on my car so it could warm up, and off to work i went. Got to work, parked, found my manager for the day was sick, proceeded to hang, answer calls, take peoples money, drink tea, crochet, answer questions, sit on my hands to keep em warm, b.s. with co-workers, scrounge around the internet for funny tidbits of information...til now. I sit here reciting my day.

Okay, that is dreadfully boring to me. I think its part of why when my mom, or my roomie asks me how my day was, or how was work, for the most part unless something huge and major happened, I always answer "the same ol'." Cuz it's really just more of a hassle to me to have to go through and pull out some memorable moments from a day in which is pretty routine.

So I will save you all (and myself) from the painful slow dullness of my day-to-day. But don't feel sorry for me, trust me, after the past two years of rollercoaster insanity worrying whether you'll see next fall...hehe, well, I welcome the slow dullness. Bring.It.On.

Lettin' one rip

Dear friends,
I cannot fart. The title of this blog used to be "I shall never fart again."
And I keep forgetting to do a blog as to the specifics of why I can't. But, the long and short of it is, I don't have any lower intestine left. They've removed all of the colon, rectum, and anus. Yea, i know, i didn't know it was possible to remove THAT part.
Sooooo, that has all been removed, and to take up the role of the colon, they made a "pouch" or internal resevoir if you will, from my small intestine (which you have LOTS more of than your large).
That pouch holds everything I eat, til I choose (or IT chooses...those of you that know me know who Stella is, and what she demands of me) to empty it. And why am I briefing you on all this you may ask??
Great question. (actually, not such a great question considering you're reading a blog titled I am not an asshole) BUUTTTT...I tell you this, so that questions will start to bubble up in your mind. I certainly did not think of all the ramifications of this surgery, and perhaps that's a good thing.
One thing that very quickly became obvious to me, that may not be as appreciated by everyone out there...is the ability to just rip a big ol' fart.
Hell, maybe not even a big ol' fart. Just a plain little noiseless one. Or a gurgly juicy one, or one that makes you question whether things inside you are dying. Whatever it is, just the sheer act of passing gas. My oh my what a joy that is.
Since I can no longer do this, I miss it terribly. That's not to say that I was just some huge gas-bag that you couldn't take out in public, but who was great fun at parties.
by far.
I was your typical girl. Girls never farted. Pfff...
No, I denied it everytime. I didn't speak of it. I tried to go in other rooms, or the bathroom if I needed to. And maybe my denial of this ingenious body function has lead to this sort of gaseous karma, in which it has been snatched forever from my grips. Never again to bless me with the immediate satisfaction and relief achieved only by releasing that noxious air.

At this point, again, you may be asking yourself: Why am I not only briefing you on this, but going into way too much detail about it?
A couple weekends ago, I am proud to say, for the first time in over 12 months, I finally got to fart, thanks to a wonderful gift from my rockin' Colondar model co-hort, (miss april) Paula Ries.
You cannot begin to know how excited this gift made me.
but in order to attempt to illustrate my exuberance....
Yes...FLARP! fart in a jar. Noise putty. Now granted, this itty bitty jar of gassy fun, could have a bit more bass and resonance to it, but when you haven't let one loose in over a year, anything will do.
it's basically like silly putty, and you just push it into the jar and it makes varying fartlike noises.

Now. Important lessons I have learned from this little jar of farts....

1) Surgeons and Oncologists do NOT appreciate when you make fart noises during their seminars and lectures. Even if it IS at a colon cancer-related event. pfff...

2) Farting noises will not force your cab driver to turn off the ungodly icey and unnecessary air conditioner.

3) When you haven't farted in over a year...you have a lot of catching up to do. Allow yourself plenty of uninterrupted quality fart-time to satisfy your gas-passed deprived soul.

4) Fart jar putty does not come out of tableclothes so well.

Well, I'm not sure why I felt so compelled to share my little jar of joy with you anonymous folk of the internet, but...in the very odd and strange event you find yourself knowing someone who's fart-deprived, you have just found your answer. FLARP!

In order to make the perfect man...

You know, the man that every woman thinks she wants, the man that is sensitive and understanding. He shares his emotions, and isn't afraid to cry.

In order to make that perfect man..or maybe in order to make all men into the men women say they want, they should all go through cancer.

Or at least that is what me, and a fellow cancer-person have decided. But really it just got me thinking about how dealing with something as traumatic as cancer affects genders differently. I don't want to delve further into how different types of cancers affect different genders...I'd be writing endless dissertations on it at that point.
But its interesting to me if I take the time to look at how I think I've been affected, or changed as a person, and what that means for me. And how a guy at my age with the same type of cancer has been affected and/or changed.
Inevitably, you HAVE to be changed by the experience of being diagnosed, treated, and surviving something like cancer, in any form. You just have to. I don't think anyone will argue that point.
But HOW it affects you...and this can be a multi-faceted aspect of course. The joke between us was that men (this is a hugely broad assumption and generalization of course) become more 'in touch' with their emotions, and are alot more sensitive to the world around them and their loved ones. Sssooooooo, isn't that what most women say that want in a man? Luckily, I do not have to go seek this. I have what I want. BUT! If you're in the market for that strong sensitive man, boogie yourself on down to a cancer support group and get to flirting ladies!

(Disclaimer: the views conveyed in this message do not necessarily reflect the ideals and beliefs of the author. meant purely as philosophical cancer b.s.'ing with other like-minded good sense of humor having individuals)

(and p.s. I don't think all men are the same, and know full well there are LOTS of exceptions to those 'male stereotypes. I've been blessed enough to meet said exceptions)

You don't know

I am no stronger than you.

I am no braver than you.

I am no more inspirational than you.

I am not those things. I am only what you see in me.

I am scared. every minute. of every day. day in. and day out.

If you wake up with your house on fire, your bedroom engulfed in flames. Do you just lay there on your bed and say "Ah well. I gave it a good run. Might as well just lay here and kiss it all good by."

No.

You get the hell out of there. You run, scramble, lunge, bolt for the door. You gasp for air, you do anything you can to cool your singed skin. You get out. You lick your wounds. You look back and think "Good God, I got myself out of THAT?!?"

So why is what I did, or what I went through any different?

You know what's different? Jealousy. Jealousy takes on a whole new meaning. Everyone is jealous. It's in human nature. Envious, Jealous, whichever you want to refer to it as, in some form or another, everyone, in some stage, has it.

If I had a dime for every time in the past I wished something about me, or my life was different/better/bigger/nicer/ I'd probably not be in so much debt right now.

But that was before.

NOW? Now there's jealousy and envy. But it's much more broad. Now, if I had a dime for every time I wished I was just fucking normal...just plain as plain can be....just blend into the background nondescript average jane? Gggooooooooooddddamn I'd be a ga-fuckin-zillionaire.

I hate to sound rude. But you just don't know.

Afterglow

The setting: Lake George, Adirondack Mtns

You guys.
you guys have no idea.
I am coming down from a high.
I spent a whirlwind weekend tucked away in the mountains.
and fell in love with 18 people and one dog whom I'd never met previously.
We came from all over the country.
Backgrounds as different as can be.
Spanning the spectrum in age, and demographic, but all with one uniting theme.
These people (even the dog) were all touched in some way by the bastardspawn that is colon cancer.
but that almost became 'besides the point'.
They were some of the rockin-est, life loving-est, sick twisted sense of humor-est, bread bakin-est group of folk I've had the pleasure to call myself a part of.
And after the weekend was all said and done, we'd laughed together, built butt pyramids together, jumped off docks into gorgeous icy lakes together, sang together, stripped down and twirled ourselves in nothing but blue satin fabric together, branded ourselves together, learned new uses for tubesocks and strawberry shortcakes together, made mudslides, truffles, and focaccia together, and finally created a breathtaking 12 pages of iconic photographic goodness together.

I would go into detail about how each and every person i met that weekend will be with me forever, but it would just not do it justice. I would elaborate on why that weekend provided a sense of meaning and validity to the past year and a half of my life, but you wouldn't get a true understanding. I would hypothesize, metaphor-ize, personify-ze, analyze, and/or philosophize (typos intended to allow for greater literary impact ;) how this weekend with strangers who are now family, was one of the best things I've done with myself. but it just wouldn't even break the surface.

Now the glow is fading. The tattoo has scabbed over and healed. My impromptu bang trim has grown out a bit. The high is wearing off, but the memories are filed nicely away for easy access on those "I really need a smile" days.

Thanks Colondar. as I've said before. You rawk my world.

Colon Buddies

only some of the Beautiful Ones

Hier kom ik

So off I go into the wild blue yonder!

Glad to say that my mom, my two best friends, and I are leaving this afternoon for an 8 day stay in amsterdam.

Gotta flat rented for the week:
I'm TOO ready for a vacation. Insurance worriers be damned!

Europe here I come