Meltdown

 

Some days are in the making for awhile; today that sort of day evidenced itself while I had a bit of meltdown.  With the help of others Whom God has placed in my life during this journey, I accepted the invitation to rid myself of some cancer frustrations and know that it helped me. Meltdown days do not suddenly take place; they build up over days, weeks, months or even years; but they are there, lurking inside of us.  I don't believe it's helpful to allow them free run of our lives; but under the right circumstances they can/should be very therapeutic.  Mine was.

Even though this has been brewing awhile Monday is when it began to boil over; 2 of my fellow cancer travelers reeked of cigarettes; both of them undergoing even more serious treatments than myself.  One of them showed the chemo nurse and I her radiation burns.  Awful, huge, festering on her chest, arm pit and upper back....so badly burned from treatments they have to stop for now until she heals more.  How awful!  Yet I wanted to shake her and the other person like rag dolls!  I wanted to tell them that for nearly a year I've been doing everything I could to get medical help and was doing everything in the meantime to stay as healthy as I could; that now I would be the best patient I could be to take full advantage of cancer treatment.  I wanted to vent that I didn't take anything about this journey for granted and am committed to making sure I give my utmost efforts so I will remain cancer free after this.

Next I finally accepted that had I gotten the medical care community to help me in Nov 2008 I wouldn't be battling cancer now, it would have have been pre-cancer then...but hey, at least my monster didn't get to spread into other organs/areas.

Another part of the meltdown today is medication isn't normally a part of my life (remember, other than cancer I'm very healthy) but I now am taking heavy duty narcotics daily because killing my monster (and it dying off) is quite a painful process.  I realize the drugs are just for this journey but still I simply don't like being drugged up.

Now to be a bit personal; the radiation and chemo do good things, like kill my monster, but they also do other things like make me still bleed daily and a new bonus 'gift' the exterior skin on (modestly she says) my front bottom parts are being burned from radiation.

And now as a final ingredient to this meltdown brew I discovered today that even though the government has a medicaid plan in place for cervical cancer assistance it seems I may not qualify for all or any of it's benefits!  I'll still get treated but it's possible I will qualify for nothing else which goes hand in hand with this monster AND all the bills for what is being done will arrive in my mailbox.

So ladies and gents I burst into tears today while with my radiation oncologist and a friend; later in the evening I shared it all with my sister, too....all 3 told me it was okay to meltdown.  I believe them, I thank them, I thank God for them and now this burden is considerably lightened.

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
~D.H. Lawrence