Not a Good Day

Some days are better than others for everyone.  In this wonderful journey, it can sometimes even be moment to moment.

I have tried really hard to be positive and to stay positive.  I know that others take their lead from me.  When I'm feeling good, acting positive, others feed off of that and act positive around me.  It makes everything good, fun and easy.  Normal.  I miss normal being easy.  Not being an act.

Most days I feel fake.  I'm acting. I can put it that positive face most days for other people.  I can smile.  I can be positive. I can play the "happy" role.  Maybe that's why so many people think I'm so positive or strong. They all see me like that, playing that role.  With the smile pasted on my face.  I've done it so long, sometimes I actually believe it myself.

I remember back in high school, Ms. Deacon taught most of the business classes.  I think I had her for 3 or 4 classes.  One thing I remember her saying all the time was, "Fake it 'til ya make it."  I guess that link stuck. 

I've been faking it.  When I say I wish I was half as strong as people think I am, I mean it.  I really wish I was!  I'm not that strong.  I don't understand where it comes from when people see strength in me.  Or when people tell me how positive I am. 
Come see me at night.  Come see me when the sun goes down.  Come see me when I can't get dressed without help. When Jim has to clean the incisions aka the 4 inch scars across my chest.  Come see me when I have tears streaming down my face waiting for him to finish before he helps me get dressed again. 

Come see me on a day like today. 

Today should have been a good day.  It should have been.  It hasn't been.  Not at all.  Maybe I'm just tired.  Maybe I don't have energy.  Maybe I'm sick of faking it and not making it for real.  Whatever it is, today is not a good day.  Not at all.

Last night my friends came over for our "viewing party" to see the pictures of us from 3 weeks ago.  They all looked so good.  Some shots of each of them really captured their personalities.  They all looked beautiful in their pictures. 

I felt fake looking at my pictures.  Like it was all an act, a bad act.  The egg retrieval was the day before.  I can see my belly and chest, the chest I no longer have, swollen from the drugs.  I can see the bruises on my legs from where Jim injected the hormones every day.  I can see me acting, trying to fake it 'til I make it, and failing. 

When other people can't see through it, I can.  I can see through the act.  In the pictures, I can see the bad acting job.  I see me failing.  Trying to paint a look on my face that I don't believe, that isn't real.

I just don't feel like me anymore.  I'm not who I used to be. I don't look like who I was.  My hair is short and purple.  That's not me.  I have long straight blond hair.  I had.  I had long straight blond hair.  I don't anymore.  Now I have short purple hair.

Now I have a chest I can't feel.  When Jim cleans the incisions, I have to look away.  I can't watch him touching my chest when I feel nothing.  If I don't watch, I don't know when he's touching me or when he's not.  I have to look away.  I don't want to know when he is putting the ointment on the 4 inch scars in the middle of each chest that used to have nipples. 

I used to exercise when I was stressed out.  I used to go to kickboxing and beat the shit out of the bags.  I was known as "the Julie with the kicks".  I haven't been to kickboxing in months.  I haven't done more than a short walk in months.  I don't exercise anymore.  I have gained weight and lost muscle.  I feel like a fat blob.  Not only do I not have my hair or my breasts or nipples, I don't have my muscles or my physical strength anymore.  I'm flabby and fat.  And I just feel ugly. 

I feel so ugly now.  So defective and repulsive.  I can't move without my chest hurting from the expanders under my muscles and the incision under my right arm from where all the lymph nodes were taken. 

The surgical bras that they gave me at the hospital are so uncomfortable and bulky.  I hate them.  I have to wear on 24/7.  The only time it has come completely off was when I put on another one or tried to shower. 

Post mastectomy bras are expensive.  I brought a sports bra with me to the plastic surgeon yesterday but she said I need one that not only does not have an under wire, it can't have the band where the under wire could be.  The sports bras I have all have that, or they are over the head and I can't raise my arms. 

On my way home from getting an oil change today, my first day driving, I stopped at Walmart to see what they had.  Looking at their sports bras, and seeing the kind I could get but not seeing it in my size was enough to start to get me choked up.  All I could think was, "Please God, do not let me lose it here in Walmart!" 

The woman from the dressing room area was so nice.  I asked her if there were more out back (no) but she said there were other kinds in other areas that sounded like what I was describing.  I said, even if you have any post mastectomy bras".  She showed me exactly what I was looking for.  A $7.99 Hanes ugly ass front closure nasty thing that was exactly what I need to wear.  I bought two. 

She was so nice, asking me how I was doing.  Her aunt is a survivor.  I told her my surgery was 2 weeks ago and it was my first day being allowed to drive again.   I said that the surgical bras were horrible and I wanted to get more than the 2 of those I had. 

I put on my fake smile with the fake positive attitude.  I thanked her for all of her help.  She told me I needed to come back and let her know how I was doing.  Her help was another thing that almost made me lose it today in Walmart.

Jim was busy trying to get things done today.  His dad brought Rocco home.  We missed him so much.  I swear Rocco knows what is going on with me.  He hasn't left my side much of the day. 

When Jim was out and I went to the bathroom, Rocco got off the other end of the sofa when I got up.  He followed me into the bathroom.  He sat down right in front of me and sat there waiting for me.  After I washed my hands, he walked back to the living room with me and got back up on the other side of the sofa and both of us fell back to sleep.  I missed my buddy. 

While Jim was doing a few things around the house and in and out with the errands he had to do, his mind has been elsewhere.  He saw my tears when he was cleaning the dressings on my chest.  He knows I have no feeling there.  He helped me try on the bras that I bought at Walmart, since I can't put them up on my shoulders.  He told me I look beautiful.  I don't believe him. 

All day I have been an emotional mess.  I feel defective.  I'm an impostor.  I'm not me.  I'm going through the motions each day.  I put the smile on and play the part.  I act like I'm happy and positive, smiling and laughing.  Once and a while I forget.  Once and a while its real.  Once and a while I am me again.  Not all the time. Not today.  I haven't forgotten once today.  I can barely play the part of the fake positive happy smiling cancer patient today.  Today I'm who I have become.  An emotional mess, defective, raw, crying, fat, ugly blob with purple hair.  Today I'm the me I have really become.  Today I'm the me that I hide from everyone.  Today I am being real.  And today fucking sucks!

I hate being like this.  I hate being an emotional mess.  My face hurts from the tears.  I have a headache from crying all day.  I can't breathe through my nose because I'm so congested from crying for hours.  But I can't stop. 

And then Jim will tell me he loves me.  That I'm beautiful and that I look fabulous.  That makes me cry more.  I don't believe him.  I don't look fabulous.  I'm not beautiful.  And sometimes I think he's only with me because he is a nice guy.  His girlfriend moved in with him and now has cancer.  He can't end it now.  So he's stuck with me.  He's stuck with an emotional mess, fat, ugly cancer patient for a girlfriend. 

He takes me to all the doctor appointments.  He sits through everything with all the oncologists and the plastic surgeon.  He has missed so much work and even more sleep.  My shit, my cancer, is impacting HIS life.  Its messing with his job, his career.  That's not right.  He's a good guy.  He doesn't deserve that.  He doesn't deserve to have my shit fuck up his life. 

So many times I think I made a mistake by moving in with him.  I couldn't have taken care of myself after surgery, living on my own, but it isn't fair to him that he has had to be my caregiver.  He's supposed to have a girlfriend, not what he got.  Not this.  Not me. 

He tells me not to worry about him or his job.  He says he's fine. He's not worried about him or his job and that means that I shouldn't be worried about it either.  But I am.  I don't want this to be too much for him.  And I feel like I am.

I feel like I'm a burden.  I feel like everyone feels bad for me and has so much pity for me. 

The day of surgery, when we were in the parking lot of the hospital, I asked Jim if we could go away, right then.  I wanted to drive far far away and get away from all of this. I still do.  I want to run away.  Run far far away from my life.  From cancer.  I don't want this.  I don't want to go through this.  I don't want to put my shit on other people and to have my shit fuck up the lives of people I care about.

I don't want to get sick.  I don't want to go through chemo or radiation.  I am so scared of starting that.  I'm afraid of what side effects I'll have and how sick I'll get.

Nothing during this whole fucking mess has gone well.  The lump that was probably nothing, wasn't.  The biopsy that would be fine, wasn't.  The fertility preservation didn't go wonderfully.  The insurance company gave me shit.  The IUD fucking KILLED, the two times I had to deal with that.  The "most likely nothing in the lymph nodes" was wrong when surgery happened.  The one lump ended up being 3 separate areas in the same breast.

What the fuck will chemo be like?  How many side effects will I have to deal with?  How bad is it really going suck? 

How fast will I become a "sick person"?

And what happened to my acting ability today?  Why can't I put on the happy, smiling, positive face and fake it 'til I make it? 

Why can't be the old me?  The me with long straight blond hair who goes to kickboxing a few nights a week and kicks the crap out of the bag?  Who smiles for real?  Who can dress herself and shower?  Who has feeling on all of her body?  Why can't I be the old me who doesn't have cancer?