Woman Interrupted

A paradox. Changes happening all around me, in my life, in me, yet I feel like I am in suspended animation.

Cancer and all it’s associated physical/treatment and psychological horrors have left me ‘congitively impaired’. The jokes I make about chemobrain are wearing thin to those around me (“when is she going to stop using that excuse? Treatment is over”.  And yes, there IS such a phenomenon as chemobrain.) I feel like the synapses aren’t firing or something. My frontal lobes feel like they can’t grasp hold of anything. My memory is shot, I lose track of myself in track of thought mid sentence, I lose entire words … I just go entirely blank. My head still feels ‘foggy’ and spacey. I have 10 books on the go (or more) because I just can’t concentrate. Although I’m enjoying re-reading Lewis Carroll’s’ works. Nonsense is easy going and makes me laugh 🙂

Books, while I’m on the subject 😀 I came across one today I want … “Modern Esoteric Spirituality” by by Antoine Faivre, Jacob Needleman, Karen Voss. And hot on the heels of that one … “Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times“ by R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff. Both fascinating sounding books dealing with, well, the history of the various streams of esoteric spirituality … gnosis and hermesticism (alchemy, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Kabbalah, Gurdijeff and Jung etc). I might splurge. I am BAD. I spend money on books like most women spend money on shoes, or handbags (at least I curb the handbag spending now). This week I have already bought a Barnes & Noble  special leather bound edition of the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, and a lovely edition of Grimms Fairy Tales.

I have volunteered myself to help with reading groups at Liam’s school on Thursday mornings. Kindergarten and Year 1 (composite class–Liam’s class). His teacher is incredibly understanding of where my head is at right now. She says maybe helping the little ones read might actually help retrain my brain a little too. I told her, cynically, I think K1 was about my level right now.

I’ve had to withdraw, again, from uni this semester. I felt disappointed in myself for having to do it, and very frustrated. When am I going to start feeling good? When am I going to be functioning like a normal adult again? But as others kept telling me, school will still be there next year, right now I need to concentrate on resting, healing and letting my PHYSICAL self get better. I’ve been focussing so heavily on the psychological stuff that I haven’t given my body a chance. And I’m still enrolled in my film class for next semester … I will wait until then to see if I’m capable yet. And honestly, once I made the decision and did the deed, I felt a load of pressure disappear off me. Now I can do what I want and not feel guilty thinking I should be studying. The problem is, all I can do at the moment is sleep. I sleep day and night (on and off) and I have NO energy to do anything. It seems to be getting worse. I can read whatever I WANT. I can watch movies, play my guitar, do whatever needlework I’m doing.

Maybe part of that can be attributed to it being ‘this time of year’. Anniversary time. 5 days ago was the anniversary of my first surgery on my breast. A month ago was the annivesary of diagnosis. And on Thursday, I have to go have my first mammograms and ultrasounds since I was diagnosed and have undergone all the treatment.

Scary, difficult time. Lots of looking back at the past year, getting the shudders every time I think of going for the tests on Thursday. I anticipate that all will be fine, and the cancer won’t have been returned. It’s not the possible results that make me sick with trepidation. It’s the act of going and having them done again. It brings up a lot of old feelings and crappy memories. And it looks like I will have to do it alone this time, without anyone there to support me. My parents don’t seem to get the reasons why I am nervous, sick, and a little depressed about it. As far as they are concerned, I think it’s very much a case of “you’ve had it cut out, you’ve had all the treatment, that’s it get over it and on with it”. My father even said to me a few weeks ago when I TOLD them my tests were due and I was nervous “what have you got to be scared about?”.  After all, I have a sister with a brain tumour. Dismissed.

That has been bothering me, but I’m okay. Months ago I would have been distressed and barely able to function because of something like that being said to me. There have been other things happen during the last month that would have had me in a right mess 4 or 5 months ago. I look back now and see how just how far I HAVE come, as per a discussion It had with my therapist a few sessions ago. My appointments with her have dwindled to one every 2-3 weeks, and I’m feeling much more back to my old self, and actually a better version of, than I have been since I was diagnosed, and before. Well, apart from the physical problems … the eternal exhaustion, the what-seriously-looks-like-I-really-am-in-menopause things … I’ve started to prickle whenever I feel ‘warm’ now. Like needles pricking me hard, but worse than pins and needles, much worse. Like hundreds of ants under my skin BITING me. It’s torture. I’m gaining weight because of the hormone medication and really need to get on top of that.

My hair has, indeed, grown back very curly, and dark. People are having troubles recognizing me in the street. Just as everyone predicted (if I had a dollar for every time someone said that my hair might grow back curly and a different colour … I’d be travelling the world right now!). It’s a challenge. And it’s a lot thinner than it used to be *sigh*. But … I’m happy to have HAIR!

I’M MOVING! Perhaps in 6 weeks/2 months. I am going to be sharing a house with my Aunty, Anne. She is only 10 years older than me and we are more like close sisters or friends. It’s a nice little house, only a few years old, and it has a lovely big back yard, with beautiful gardens, and an awesome cubbyhouse that Liam loves. Bathtub (oh YES), dishwasher (OH YES!!) and a great covered outdoor area. Unbelievable that I am moving from a town of 4000 people to a village of around 700 PEOPLE!! But only10 minutes away from where we are currently so Liam can stay at his school and catch a bus. One of my best friends and her two kids live there, my cousin and his wife and their two kids live there, everyone knows everyone and it’s a place I’ve always thought would be really charming to live. AND it has the world’s smallest operating cinema there. A cinema in a little old house filled with antiques. A cinema with with red velvet curtains and those ancient red velvet seats. It only shows old/indie/arthouse/foreign films (but I don’t think it is open very often anymore).

Now I’m really getting into random territory. I saw the most beautiful thing today. Liam has taken up rugby league (to my horror) and as I sat at the edge of the village green this afternoon while he was at training, under a cloudy threatening sky, I saw two black cockatoos flying low overhead. You don’t often see them, but you hear them occasionally, and it’s a mournful sound. The old wives tale goes that if you see black cockatoos it is predictive of rain. The number of birds you see is the number of days it will rain. I saw two. But it’s been raining solidly here for two weeks already (the river flooded last week).

So now I guess I’m all caught up 🙂 I intend, once again, ‘reprising’ this blog. I’m over myspace largely. If I feel like working things out via writing, catching up people in one go, sharing little beauties and funnies, this place will suffice. Expect quite a bit of ‘spiritual’ talk. I hope, this time, I can keep it up. The change of domain is for anonymity’s sake and getting rid once and for all of some that have somehow managed to find me no matter where I go.  Some people have found me on facebook that I’d rather not get heavily involved in discussion/sharing with. The privatley-owned thing seems the way to go.