I Continue Down

Today I find myself more down than when I last wrote here. Why now, when my prognosis suddenly seems so good? I am being ungrateful, especially when I think of those who are diagnosed at Stage 4 and must hold onto every year as a blessing. So what's wrong with me?

Yes, I feel as though a bullet chased me down the street and I improbably managed to duck. But that in itself makes me feel unsafe, like walking in a bad neighborhood and waiting to be stabbed. Also, transitioning out of crisis mode has freed me to think of lesser problems that had to be put aside before. It must be that way when soldiers finish a battle: then they realize they're cold and wet and hungry.

I have said over and over that I "just want to get back to normal", to "resume" my life. And on the surface, I have. I'm working again, and starting to write the book again, and have begun to be able to talk about other matters besides cancer when I see family and friends. All that is undeniably good. But in another way, I don't feel normal, and it doesn't feel that I've just turned back the clock or put the train back on the track after a temporary derailment. I think I felt that way after the first cancer, once chemo was over. I actually may be more shaken now than I was then! Really, twice around feels like too much, especially when I look about me and see that most people never get on this merry-go-round even once.

My mood may be partly because I find I am still in pain..or call it discomfort. It had gotten so much better by a week after surgery that I pretty much thought I'd be fine by now, two weeks later, and instead it seems to be taking its sweet time to go away. So I'm conscious of that body part all day (and when I'm not asleep at night) in a very unpleasant way.

Then too, I'm mentally in a state of discomfort, conscious of some deep alteration that feels more disturbing than the cancer I had eleven years ago. I didn't feel monstrous after those surgeries, and I sort of do now. It's not just the lack of nipple...that doesn't bother me as much as the whole appearance of the thing. And I do think of that poor battered and mutilated breast as a "Thing", sadly enough. Yesterday and today I couldn't stop wondering if any of my clothes will look okay, and that I will surely need to ditch my tank tops and bathing suits. I can't tell you how bad that unimportant idea makes me feel. It's very odd.

I had a dream last night: I was cutting the arms off very small dolls. That is, they seemed like dolls, but they were alive. I wasn't being violent and I wasn't enjoying it at all: I was doing it for their own good. Gee, where do you think that came from?

As I said, kind of feeling down.