Checking In After 3+ Months

Oh my! Has it really been more than THREE months since I last wrote in my blog?? How did that happen?!? I feel like it was just last week that I was coming home from the hospital after my surgery. Wow -- time flies!

Lots has happened since late January...here are some of the highlights:

1) I started a marketing consulting project for Jamba Juice in early February and it turned out to be the best possible thing that I could have done. I was a complete wreck leading up to it -- Am I ready to start work? Will I be completely exhausted? What if my digestive system decides not to cooperate and I am running to the bathroom every 5 minutes? Does my brain still work?? -- but once I started, everything just fell into place and I eased back into a state of normalcy with very little effort. And I have to say that working 25-30 hours a week doesn't leave a whole lot of time to stress about "what if's," which has been a huge blessing.

2) The job itself has been really wonderful. I was a bit leery at first as to whether or not the management team was really committed to repositioning the brand as "healthy" but I have little doubt anymore. It's just something that will take a while, since the economy is definitely not working in our favor and since the changes that need to be made (e.g., switching to all organic fruit, etc) are not easy nor inexpensive changes to make. But I am enjoying what I am doing and feel really good about the fact that the company's vision aligns well with my own personal values, which is something that I feel passionate about after all that I went through.

3) I turned the big FOUR-OH in mid-April. It hasn't been as bad as I feared, but then again, I am still in a bit of denial. The fun part, though, is that Pete and I just met my best friend, Lisa, and her husband in NYC to celebrate. Lisa turned 40 ten days before me and so we thought that NYC would be a great way to celebrate and, indeed, it was. We managed to fit in a couple amazing Broadway shows, tickets to a David Letterman show, lots of shopping, loads of great food and tons of laughter. All in all, a trip of a lifetime!!

4) My health continues to improve. In fact, I just had a 3-month check-up today with my oncologist. My blood work shows that everything is back to normal or very close. The only test that was elevated was one of my liver function tests, but it's much improved over where it was at the end of treatment last November, so it's moving in the right direction. My mom joked with me that the results could also have been skewed because of our recent NYC trip -- true, true!! :)

5) I still have the annoying numbness in my feet. It started about 6 weeks after my last chemo treatment and is still quite persistent. I mentioned to Dr Gullion that I have also started to get shooting pains in my feet and legs, which has been quite alarming. However, he said that he thinks this is actually a GOOD thing -- it means that the nerves are likely regenerating. When I hear things like this I can't help but to be in total awe about how resilient the human body is!! I have come to understand that our bodies truly want to heal. Unfortunately, that is not always possible but there is still peace in knowing that our bodies do the best that they can to return to health.

6) The other -- less troubling, but equally annoying -- symptom that I have experienced lately is occasional abdominal pain surrounding my incision. When I was in the hospital in January, my surgeon had to make an incision about 2-inches long right near my belly-button. The incision was healing so well in the hospital and by the time I was discharged, it looked quite sealed. And since I didn't want to have to schlep back into the city a few days later to have the stitches removed, I opted to have the doctor remove them before I left. In hindsight, that was probably not the best decision since within about 5 seconds of walking in the door my dog jumped all over me with excitement, which caused my incision to split open. And as if that weren't dreadful enough, the nurse informed me that I could not get the incision re-sutured because of the risk of infection. Therefore, I had to leave the wound open and let it heal "from the inside out." And I had to change the bandages on it twice a day, which means that I actually had to LOOK at it. Yuck. Yuck. Double yuck. Needless to say, it eventually healed but, unfortunately, I am left with quite a bit of scar tissue in the area. Dr Gullion thinks that this scar tissue is likely constricting things when I move or when my insides shift around and that is what is causing the pain. The only option is to open me back up and try to clean up the scar tissue but I run the risk of just creating MORE scar tissue and so his advice is to just wait awhile and see if it gets better. So that's the plan!

7) On a sad note, my parents lost their home in Scottsdale to a fire on March 17th. Once I went back to work in February, they started to ease back into their prior, "normal" lives and had returned to Scottsdale to get some stuff done which they had neglected in the past year while taking care of me. One of those chores was to get a new roof put on their home. Unfortunately, in the process, the roofer caught their roof on fire and it took six hours for the fire department to put out the fire. They lost everything. Anything that wasn't destroyed by the fire was ruined because of smoke or water damage. Trying to battle with the insurance company and to sort through all of their life's belongings has been truly devastating and emotionally draining for them these past few weeks. My heart goes out to them -- after all that we went through this past year and after all of the months of giving all their attention and energy to me and my family, my parents deserved to be able to kick back and just relax for awhile. And now that is likely not going to be a reality for many more months. :(

But what can you do? After all that we went through last year, I think my parents realize that all you can do is just take things once day at a time and focus on your blessing with every step.

8) Hmmmm...what else??

9) I am still doing pretty well with my "no regrets" life plan. In fact, I have found that I don't really have much choice!! In these past 3 months, I have learned first-hand that when my life starts to get out of balance I literally become physically ill. There have been a few instances when I felt that my life was becoming a bit unbalanced (for example, when I wasn't eating as healthy as I wanted to or wasn't exercising enough or when I had some concerns about whether the work I was doing for Jamba was truly aligned with my own values) and during these times, I felt really physically ill.

I can definitely remember having feelings of "discontent" prior to my diagnosis and treatment. Like when I was working for Pottery Barn and was trying to get pregnant with a second child. I knew that I was working too hard and was very stressed and that this was likely contributing to our infertility issues. And I knew for a long time that I should probably quit my job and focus on getting pregnant since that was my #1 priority (this is what I ultimately did) but it took a looooong time of ignoring this intuition and just trying to plow through before I finally came to my senses.

I think that it was hard for me -- and probably for many women -- to accept and believe that I couldn't do it all. I wanted it all -- I wanted the great career, and the beautiful children, and the perfect marriage, and to be in great shape and be able to run a 10K any time I chose. But I came to realize that only SuperWoman can do all things perfectly. And there is no such thing as SuperWoman -- she doesn't exist. The reality is that there are many woman just like me who stretch themselves so incredibly thin trying to be perfect at everything and they don't realize the consequences. Like the fact that their health is taking a toll. Like the fact that their marriage might be taking a toll. Like the fact that their children really, really need them to be more present and in the moment. Like the fact that in the quest to be perfect at everything (or at least appear that way!) that they have lost sight of their own priorities.

So I think that one of the biggest gifts that I have gained from having cancer is that I now get physically sick when I begin to lose sight of my priorities. Funny though, eh? To think that feeling sick is a gift! But I have been reminded these past 3 months how easily priorities can be overshadowed by other things which seem more important (or just plain more fun) at the time. And so I am grateful that my mind and body don't let me and my priorities get mis-aligned. It's a blessing indeed!!

10) The kids are doing great. The daily Luke-isms and Kyle-isms keep us all laughing and overall both boys seem very happy. They are both healthy as can be and are growing like little weeds -- both added more than an inch between January and March -- and still spend the majority of each day bouncing off every wall in the house.

11) Pete is also doing great. Blurb is keeping him busy, but he still loves what he does and he is home most nights in time for dinner with the kids so it's all very manageable.

12) And speaking of Blurb, I finally figured out how to download this entire blog into one of their book templates. Now all I have to do is a bit of formatting and add some pictures and I'll be ready to print my first book! Yippee! Given how much I am working these days, this likely won't happen for a couple more months but stay tuned...I'll definitely post the details here when the book is finally complete.

Okay, I must sign off now since it's getting late. It's been fun to write again -- I really miss it but am also happy that I no longer have much to say that is of much interest to anyone other than perhaps my mom and dad, who still love to hear about my day! :)

Nite-nite!