Finished with Radiation

I finished radiation today and I know that I should be happy, no ecstatic, that I made it through another treatment step. But today has been one of the worst days that I've had in awhile. I cried through my entire treatment, wishing so much that my husband was there with me. That I didn't have to make that trek to treatment everyday alone or at least that I didn't have to sit in an empty apartment every night. I do have amazing friends and do not want to trivialize the great support that they have been, but at the end of the day I there is a loneliness in my soul that I can't shake. I ache for Gessner, for his touch, for his voice, for his love. He loved me so much and I just want that back. No matter how hard things got, we always had each other and our love. I know that it is cliche, but at the end of the day, love is enough sometimes.

"They" say that grieving takes at least a year. A year is a nice round time and lets you go through every season and most major events. It is logical that if you get through the first year of grief (or anything really), that you will be okay. But I don't feel okay. Right now I don't feel better than I did this time last year. Right now I want to bury my head in the blankets and scream. I want my husband to come back and anything besides him coming back is not an acceptable existence for me. I don't want this life. I don't want to go through another year like this without him. I don't want to be without him. I am tired of trying to "make the most of it" and hope that it will get better. I've had a year of it and I can say, that it hasn't gotten better. My life is not better than it was a year ago. It's actually worse. On top of not having my husband, I have cancer. I have no breasts. My body is mutilated and ugly. I don't have a job and I feel like my career is slipping away. I have lost friends. And I can't move forward because I am stuck in cancer-treatment.

I am so tired of being this person who is sad and complaining. I don't want to be negative or whiny, but I feel like I am at a breaking point where I cannot take any more of this. Or that I don't want to. It is a like a business doing a cost-benefit analysis. Right now the costs are outweighing the benefits of life. And the worst part about it is I feel so helpless to change anything. I know old saying (and clever flow chart) about "if you are unhappy, make a different choice," but I don't know how to do that (and I'm really not looking for advice on how to do it because there isn't anything that I haven't thought of...I'm just using my blog to get this stuff out of my head).

I hope that most of this is just because I do not feel good at all. I'm at the end of a treatment cycle, which means that I am about as beat up as I am going to get. They are giving me a break so that my body can recover. I think that I might have a bug or my body might be trying to fight one or something. As my friend said today, I've heard that cancer and cancer treatment make you feel like shit. Yep, it can.

The Pressure to Be Positive

In our society there is an incredible pressure to have a positive attitude, especially for people who are dealing with illness or loss. I can't count the number of time that news of my loss or my health have been followed by the words "but at least..." and then some attempt to put a silver lining on my situation. Some of them have been incredibly insensitive, like "at least you don't have kids" or "at least you are young so you can start over" and all of them have the effect of trivializing the pain I am going through. I know that people do not intend to be harmful, in fact, they likely think that their platitudes are helpful, but that doesn't mean that they are not hurtful. One girl told me that I should watch The Secret and it would change my life. I've read the book and so I guess her message to me was that if I believed that I didn't have cancer, I wouldn't or that I attracted cancer to myself. Let's not even think about what The Secret's answer would be to Gess's death.

I agree that it is harmful to have a negative attitude all of the time. For illnesses and cancer particularly, there is evidence that feelings of hopelessness correlate with poorer outcomes. I am a big proponent for trying to find hope in life or at least for the day, especially when life is hard. But, that doesn't mean that you have to be happy and positive all of the time. Life is not all positive and pretending that it is does not make it so.

I am a widow and I have cancer. That sucks. Period. No way around it. And I should not feel compelled to act positive about it all of the time. In fact, if I start acting positive all of the time, you should be concerned. At the same time, I can have good days (and yes, I've had people actually respond negatively to me when I said I was doing well). There are ups and there are downs. There are days when I feel so sick that it is a struggle to get out of bed. And then there are days when I feel pretty good and try to have a little fun. There are days when I am positive about my prognosis and there are days when I am negative about my prognosis. This is life. And you know what? It's perfect normal to have both of these types of days, especially when you are dealing with issues like cancer and widowhood.

So, the next time you find yourself trying to offer a friend the "bright side" when he or she is talking about a rough patch, resist the urge and offer a hug instead.

The Stages of Grief

The Kubler-Ross model of grief describes it in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages aren't necessarily experienced chronologically, but I can say that I have experienced all of them. And all of them more than once. They aren't distinct states, exclusive of each other either, they meld together and are often intertwined. I think that there is a common idea, as well that grief takes one year and that once that magic one year mark passed, the grieving is over and it is time to move on. I can tell you that one year is not a magic mark. No lights went on and I did not suddenly feel better. If anything, I am feeling worse these days than I had recently.

Today I found myself in the bargaining phase again...a phase that I have always been uncomfortable with and one that I never believed that I would actually experience. I always that it was strange to try to change things by promising to do something or not do something. But, tonight I found myself saying that I would do anything to have my husband back. It was bargaining at my best--but of course there is no sense in that. And when I realize that I fall into the despair of hopelessness again. Perhaps that is the depression stage beginning anew.

Very alone

There are days when I feel very lonely, days like today. I realize that I have friends and I don't want to dismiss them, but my soul is lonely. And I realize that it is going to be this way for a long time because I am alone and am not exactly a catch right now. I had my love and my partner. I had my chance. Now I'm sick and alone, and I feel like I'm destined to stay this way.

It's been a year...

...a missing you every day.