Making the most of every moment?

How the hell do you live every moment? I sure can’t do it. After I recovered from cancer treatment, I promised myself I would, and there were definitely lots of times when fruit tasted sweeter and the simple act of going for a walk filled my heart with joy, but as time goes by and I feel more confident about the length of my stay here on Earth, I find myself lapsing into the mundane, and I feel guilty about not enjoying each and every single moment to its last.

The more pressure I put on myself to make the most of every minute, the worse I feel when one slips by.  I sleep too late - crap I missed an hour of my life I will never get back.  I watch a Bones marathon on TV – well that’s an afternoon that’s gone forever.  I turn down an invitation to dinner because I am tired and feel like staying home – there go precious memories with friends that will never be made.

So what’s a cancer survivor to do?  I have been enlightened regarding my mortality – I know I won’t live forever and I mean to make the most of my life.  So what does it mean if I find myself here, on a random Thursday afternoon, procrastinating things I should be doing to move my life forward?  What should I do?

Well here’s a crazy idea – I am not going to fight this. I plan to just be my lazy, procrastinating self right now.  I intend to explore my fear that I will end up homeless and alone if I don’t book another facial party, or get another coaching client right this minute. I will ride that feeling as low as it takes me, because you know what?  I am LIVING this moment.  I am breathing, thinking  and choosing my actions, and that is part of life.  And the simple act of living and experiencing this albeit slightly crappy moment to its fullest is already turning my mood, and my moment, around. 

Well, I gotta run! I will talk to you all later.  I have work to do!!

In case you were wondering...

People ask me all the time, “How did you make it through?  The chemo, the surgery, the fear, the pain.  I don’t think I could do it.”

There are lots of tools in our arsenal that help us deal with adversity.  One of my favorites is good old-fashioned humor.  Anyone who knows me personally knows this all too well.  I may cry and bitch a little, but then there is always that joke that gets me through the day.

I lost my ‘other’ job yesterday.  For the past year, while I have been working as The Cancer Coach, I have had another job.  It’s not uncommon that those of us who choose to leave the corporate world to pursue our dreams can’t make the leap in an instant.  There are mortgages, car payments, groceries and yes, our social lives to think of.  So we carve out time in the rest of our days and weeks to follow our passions.  I have wondered for the longest time how I would ever find the courage to walk away from the paycheck, and yesterday, the paycheck walked away from me.  It stung, I will admit that.  As miserable as I have been for the past few years, I worked hard for that company.  I have willingly taken on the tough assignments, the ones that they couldn’t give to co-workers who made more money than I did because I was the only one who could put aside my ego and handle the tough client, the tough conversation.  It was hard to have my favorite executive read me the standard ‘layoff speech’ instead of telling me how much my hard work has meant to the company and how much he wishes it could be different.

But this morning, I woke up laughing.  Today is the first day of the rest of my life, I can sleep as late as I want, and I woke up at 6 am even though I didn’t have to set the alarm.  For the first day in 12 years, I woke up excited and refreshed and ready to take on the world.  I honestly find it funny that it took a bitch-slap from the universe to make me happy.  It’s ironic, yes, but also hilarious. It reminds me of how I used to tell me people that my biggest fear from the cancer was that when I went back to work after medical leave, I might come in to the office, sit down at my desk and take off my top, because that’s what I had been doing everywhere else for the last six months.  Or how I proclaimed only minutes before my surgery that once this was all over, no one was going to touch my boobs again unless they bought me dinner first.

This isn’t one of those ‘if I don’t laugh I will cry’ situations.  It’s my choice to find the humor and the joy here, because that’s how I move forward with life.  Since cancer, I only grieve true losses.  I put this one in the win column - especially since I am now available on a full time basis to help any one of you do the same.

Welcoming Home the Troops

Well, it’s finally happened.  I wasn’t sure it ever would. My boobs have become boobs again. 

I have always had this weird love/hate relationship with my boobs. (Sorry, the word breast sounds too clinical to me.) Anyway, I got mine early, well before most of the girls I knew, and I was both proud of them and embarrassed by them.  Boys in my class picked on me, while at the same time wanted to slow dance me with on the Bar Mitzvah circuit.  (Did I mention that I was also really tall when I was 12?  Most of the guys were about boob-high to me.)  My boobs look great in a bathing suit, but I have NEVER been able to button up a blouse.  It’s really weird to love and be annoyed with something at the same time.

And then one day, I found out that my boobs were trying to kill me.  These things that were supposed to be part of my sexual being, a bit of a nuisance at times sure, but an integral part of my womanhood had challenged me to a duel.  It was either them or me. 

I won.

We both came out of the skirmish a bit battle-scarred.  I lost the feeling in my feet from chemo.   Rightie lost a whole chunk of herself.  That has never bothered me.  A piece of a boob in exchange for life is a fairly easy price to pay.  Other breast cancer survivors have given up a lot more.   But the interest on that payment was a feeling of disconnection from two important parts of my body.  I didn’t have to separate myself from my boobs literally, but emotionally and mentally we were three individuals living in the same skin shell.

But just a few weeks ago, a surprising thing happened. I went to my regular six-month appointment with my oncologist.  Somewhere, during the oh so familiar exam, a thought popped into my head – “this man is touching my boobs!!!”  Now any breast cancer survivor knows that part of the whole experience is experience is getting felt up – ALL THE TIME.  I used to joke that when I went back to work, I would sit down in my cube and take off my shirt.  But suddenly, my boobs and I were one, and none of us were entirely comfortable having some man with whom we weren’t intimately involved poking and prodding.

A lot of people talk about cancer and sexual wellbeing – about how to feel like a whole vital person during and after a cancer experience which messes with your parts, your hormones and your head.  I don’t know entirely what I think about that just yet, but I must be on my way to figuring it out.  After all, my boobs are boobs again.

Living Eyes Wide Open

It’s January 10^th – five years to they day since my cancer surgery, and, according to all the doctors and statistics, today is the BIG day – the breast cancer survival gold medal day.  Today is the day that I have been waiting for, holding my breath, watching it creep ever closer, and suddenly it’s here.  Today is the day that I get to say, “Up yours, Cancer!  I win!”

I always wondered how I would feel when the big day approached.  I thought I would feel triumphant – and I do.  But I also feel sad, grieving for things that have been lost along the way.  I feel anxious, knowing that I have some tests coming up that might prove that I haven’t won. A part of me feels indifferent.  It’s just a day, a Thursday, a date on the calendar that only has the meaning that I give it.

The other day I told my mother that if my purpose in life was to struggle through some things so that other people can learn lessons, then I am ok with that.  It’s the reason I coach, and the reason I blog.  I have learned a lot of things during my cancer experience that I want to share.  Here’s the one I want to share today, January 10, 2013.  The day that I win.

Cancer is not a gift.  I am not grateful that I had cancer.  It sucks.  I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.  But I am grateful that through this experience I have been struck to my very core with the understanding that someday, I will die.  I am not immortal.  This truth opened my eyes to life in a way that I would never have thought possible, and it changed me. I live differently now.  Do I appreciate every moment to it’s fullest?  No.  I am only human. But I don’t waste a lot of time worrying about the petty dramas of life.  I love my friends and my family more.  I forgive more easily.  I let stuff go. I live life with my eyes open to the truth that I will not always be around.

I am no longer afraid to die.  I used to be terrified of death, but now I fear living an empty and meaningless life far more than I fear dying.  It will happen someday, hopefully a long time from now, hopefully peacefully and painlessly, but until then I plan to keep living my ‘eyes wide open’ life.

Today, in honor of my big day, I would like to ask you to go through your day with your eyes wide open too.  Not to scare you, or to depress you, but hopefully to have you feel the same joy I feel about being alive, without having to face something as scary as cancer. There will come a day when none of us will be here, but until that day comes, let’s try to live ‘eyes wide open’.

My Kind of Joy

A few months after I was finished with active treatment, and my hair was finally long enough to go out without a cap or a wig, I made a comment to my therapist that the Hope that went through cancer was starting to feel like a different person.  That she wasn’t really me.  My therapist told me that feeling was a common one, and that part of my healing meant I had to work to integrate that person into who I was before and who I was becoming after, and that wholeness would mean that I had successfully moved on.

So I worked on that.  And I finally reached a point where I could look at pictures, or relive events in my mind, and know the woman in them was me.  The girl wearing the $2000 wig and feeling like some alien anchor woman, sweating and itching and dying to rip it off – that was me.  The girl in the chemo chair, watching the Today Show and seeing the world go on without me because I was too sick to play – that was me.  That strong, strong woman who let go of the man she loved because he thought that a quick text or call every night before he hit the bars with his friends was being supportive – that was me, as was the woman who grieved the ending of that relationship for far too long, blaming cancer instead of realizing that she needed to be more careful about choosing men who are worthy of her love.

So yes, I have integrated my experience, and I tell fellow survivors who are following me in the journey that they will too.  But every now and again, when I least expect it, that feeling of disbelief still hits me.  Drying my lovely long hair – OMG I had cancer.  Seeing Matt Lauer on TV – OMG I had cancer.  Realizing that it’s time to let a worthy man into my life – Holy crap!!!  I had cancer!!!!  My breath stops for a minute, my heart races and I panic.

And then I remember that I survived and that I am here today to do work that I love – helping other survivors move forward.  And I realize that the fact that every so often I am blinded by a sudden realization that I had cancer means that I no longer think about it every day, every minute.  And the feeling that follows is pride, wonderment and joy.

I would never wish you cancer, or any health issue, but I do wish you all as much joy this holiday season as your hearts can hold.  And then a smidge more.

Noise

I am sitting in my living room trying to write, while a crew of workmen literally saw through the brick around my glass block windows in order to fix the flashing.  It’s so incredibly loud that it’s hard to think.  I would leave the house, but I need to be here to wait for the new hot water heater to arrive.  I haven’t had hot water since Tuesday.  I feel the frustration and anxiety bubble up in me and it’s overwhelming and annoying.  I have things to do!  I need peace and quiet to do them.  Grrrrrr!!!

And then the light bulb - yet another metaphor for the struggles of dealing with cancer.

The noise.  It starts with that phone call you get, where a sympathetic doctor tells you the biopsy was abnormal.  There is the noise of talking, the noise of anxiety swirling in your head, that other voice that says, ‘no, no it’s not me, you called the wrong person’ and that weird white noise, making it difficult to hear or understand anything at all.  Somewhere in the distance, you hear the sound of crying.  You realize it’s you.

And then there are the noises of chemo.  The clicking and beeping of the pump that is shooting toxins into your bloodstream, killing the cancer, and anything else that gets in its way.  The shuffling of feet, and the squeaking of wheels going past your door, while another patient makes his way to the bathroom.  The happy smiley sounds that your friends and family make, trying to keep your spirits up, and the silent but very real sound you hear as you catch the eye of another cancer patient and immediately know that you are not the only one suffering.

The noise of radiation is beeping and buzzing, and the sound of holding your breath so that you keep your tattoos in line with the lasers that guide the machine.  It doesn’t take long, but in your head you hear, ‘don’t breathe, don’t breathe’ until you hear the machine stop buzzing and the tech behind the protective glass say, ‘ok, that’s it for today.’

The noise of the nurse’s voice is what you hear after surgery. “You are in recovery.  Your surgery is finished.  Are you in any pain?  Would you like something for the pain?”  And if you are lucky like I was, you hear your father’s voice telling you, “They got it all out, and your lymph nodes are clear.  The doctor said you are going to be ok.”  And you drift off into another blessedly noiseless sleep.

And if you are truly lucky, you hear your oncologist say, “You have done really well.  Go live your life and check back in with us in three months.”  You hear the triumphant voices in your head for awhile.  “I beat cancer!  I can do anything!”  And you hear the relief and congratulations of everyone who saw you through the journey.

But it’s never long before you start to hear the noise of fear.  “What if it comes back?  How can I move forward after what I have been through?  Will I ever be the same again?”

And that’s when you realize that it’s all just noise.  Hearing all that noise means you are alive.  If it bugs you, put on some headphones for awhile, but never forget the beauty of the noise of life.