Oh Baby
Feeling a little melancholy today. Sad for what I've lost-- they were only illusions anyway, so why am I so sad?
They say to picture what you want and work towards it. So that's what I've done. I did everything right. But then cancer came a knocking anyway. Fuck.
I feel like I'm in a dream, like none of this is real but I know it is.
I'm sitting in our home office thinking about how perfect a little baby room it would be. But of course, my baby dreams are on hold indefinitely, probably permanently. I don't want to be pessimistic or fatalistic in my thinking, and I don't think I am. I think I'm realistic. I wanted to have a baby by now. Before Sept 2004 happened (the month where I got a rude awakening-- I cannot control my destiny entirely, contrary to what Oprah has always taught me...) I was on a path. Get Derek and I permanent, stable jobs. Start saving for a house. Get pregnant. So I should be pregnant RIGHT NOW! Instead I have to somehow figure out how to live and move forward when the statistics say I will be dead within 5 years. What the fuck? I cannot wrap my mind around it. And I feel so good. It seems so unbelievable to me that tomorrow I could find a new lump, that I could have seizure because the cancer spread to my brain, that I could cough up blood because it spread to my lungs. I have to live in the present now.
Living in the present. Isn't that what all the yogis and Buddhists and granola crunchers strive for so hard? I'll tell ya how to do it. Get cancer. Get a cancer with a bad prognosis. I can no longer picture past 3 months in the future. It's like I have become incapable of imagining it. I think it is too painful to imagine the future anymore. When your dreams are shattered with one phone call, you don't set yourself up for that pain again. It is (ironically) self preservation of sorts. Some more judgmental minds would say I'm setting myself up do die then. I have to envision being ok or there is no way I will be. It's all about positive attitude they say. To that I retort: BULL SHIT. If that were the case, then I never would have gotten cancer in the first place. Shit happens. Face it.
I can HOPE for the best, and god knows I do. But I cannot predict the future. My best indication lies in the stats on what has happened to the overwhelming majority of people in my exact situation. Sure, I can be the one that makes it! I WANT TO BE! But please tell me how to wrap my mind around the uncertainty of not knowing this for sure. I will live in limbo, not knowing, for the rest of my life! It's not like in 5 years, they can say I'm "all clear". There is no cure. It can come back at any time. I just don't know how to make the adjustment from living life knowing that I would probably live to 80, to knowing that I will probably be dead within a few years. It changes EVERYTHING.
Work for instance. After 1.5 years off for surgery, chemo, radiation, then more surgery, I am back at work on a part-time basis. I don't hate my job. It's fine. Do I love it? No. Would I love any job given the fact that life has become so incredibly precious to me in the last year? No. I don't want to work. Spending 8 hours a day "earning a living" is not how I want to live if I am indeed going to die soon. I've fucking earned a living! I want to do whatever the fuck I want to do every second of every fucking day. It's easier to go to work and suck it up when you know the odds are in your favour to live till your 80. There is plenty of time for "free time". And don't come back at me with the old "well, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow..." That's a load of crap. Sure it could happen. But you know damn well that there is 99.9% chance you won't and a 99.9% chance you'll live till 80. So every decision you make in life is based on that implicit understanding. You don't think about it often, but this knowledge is the basis for how you order and pace your life. You put off that trip to Europe so you can save for 3 years. You wait 10 years to have a child until you are "settled". You tell your mom you'll spend Christmas with her next year. I don't have the LUXURY of thinking that way anymore. Believe me I wish I did. It is much easier to live that way. Living in the present is not all it's cracked up to be.
My heart aches because I can't have baby. The irresponsible, illogical part of me says, fuck it. Get pregnant and hope for the best. The realistic part of me says if I have a recurrence while pregnant I can't be treated. What if I die when the baby is new born? What if I leave Derek widowered with a 2 year old? Is that fair to him? To the child? And this whole thing would be even more traumatic then it already is for me if I found out I was terminal with a baby that I couldn't see grow up. I'd love to think that the universe wouldn't allow these things to happen if I had a baby. But I know it doesn't work that way. I've seen too many beautiful people, young, old, healthy, strong, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, die of this disease (online friends) in the past year to believe that God would give me special treatment.
God. Do I believe in God? I believe in something but I don't know what. I'm agnostic I suppose. I don't believe that anything purposely gave me cancer or that I am being tested or that it is karma. I am an organism. Just like a cat gets cancer, I can too. Just like a bee gets swatted, I can too. Shit happens. It isn't my destiny. Shit just happens. I never thought it would really happen to me. Not now.
They say to picture what you want and work towards it. So that's what I've done. I did everything right. But then cancer came a knocking anyway. Fuck.
I feel like I'm in a dream, like none of this is real but I know it is.
I'm sitting in our home office thinking about how perfect a little baby room it would be. But of course, my baby dreams are on hold indefinitely, probably permanently. I don't want to be pessimistic or fatalistic in my thinking, and I don't think I am. I think I'm realistic. I wanted to have a baby by now. Before Sept 2004 happened (the month where I got a rude awakening-- I cannot control my destiny entirely, contrary to what Oprah has always taught me...) I was on a path. Get Derek and I permanent, stable jobs. Start saving for a house. Get pregnant. So I should be pregnant RIGHT NOW! Instead I have to somehow figure out how to live and move forward when the statistics say I will be dead within 5 years. What the fuck? I cannot wrap my mind around it. And I feel so good. It seems so unbelievable to me that tomorrow I could find a new lump, that I could have seizure because the cancer spread to my brain, that I could cough up blood because it spread to my lungs. I have to live in the present now.
Living in the present. Isn't that what all the yogis and Buddhists and granola crunchers strive for so hard? I'll tell ya how to do it. Get cancer. Get a cancer with a bad prognosis. I can no longer picture past 3 months in the future. It's like I have become incapable of imagining it. I think it is too painful to imagine the future anymore. When your dreams are shattered with one phone call, you don't set yourself up for that pain again. It is (ironically) self preservation of sorts. Some more judgmental minds would say I'm setting myself up do die then. I have to envision being ok or there is no way I will be. It's all about positive attitude they say. To that I retort: BULL SHIT. If that were the case, then I never would have gotten cancer in the first place. Shit happens. Face it.
I can HOPE for the best, and god knows I do. But I cannot predict the future. My best indication lies in the stats on what has happened to the overwhelming majority of people in my exact situation. Sure, I can be the one that makes it! I WANT TO BE! But please tell me how to wrap my mind around the uncertainty of not knowing this for sure. I will live in limbo, not knowing, for the rest of my life! It's not like in 5 years, they can say I'm "all clear". There is no cure. It can come back at any time. I just don't know how to make the adjustment from living life knowing that I would probably live to 80, to knowing that I will probably be dead within a few years. It changes EVERYTHING.
Work for instance. After 1.5 years off for surgery, chemo, radiation, then more surgery, I am back at work on a part-time basis. I don't hate my job. It's fine. Do I love it? No. Would I love any job given the fact that life has become so incredibly precious to me in the last year? No. I don't want to work. Spending 8 hours a day "earning a living" is not how I want to live if I am indeed going to die soon. I've fucking earned a living! I want to do whatever the fuck I want to do every second of every fucking day. It's easier to go to work and suck it up when you know the odds are in your favour to live till your 80. There is plenty of time for "free time". And don't come back at me with the old "well, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow..." That's a load of crap. Sure it could happen. But you know damn well that there is 99.9% chance you won't and a 99.9% chance you'll live till 80. So every decision you make in life is based on that implicit understanding. You don't think about it often, but this knowledge is the basis for how you order and pace your life. You put off that trip to Europe so you can save for 3 years. You wait 10 years to have a child until you are "settled". You tell your mom you'll spend Christmas with her next year. I don't have the LUXURY of thinking that way anymore. Believe me I wish I did. It is much easier to live that way. Living in the present is not all it's cracked up to be.
My heart aches because I can't have baby. The irresponsible, illogical part of me says, fuck it. Get pregnant and hope for the best. The realistic part of me says if I have a recurrence while pregnant I can't be treated. What if I die when the baby is new born? What if I leave Derek widowered with a 2 year old? Is that fair to him? To the child? And this whole thing would be even more traumatic then it already is for me if I found out I was terminal with a baby that I couldn't see grow up. I'd love to think that the universe wouldn't allow these things to happen if I had a baby. But I know it doesn't work that way. I've seen too many beautiful people, young, old, healthy, strong, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, die of this disease (online friends) in the past year to believe that God would give me special treatment.
God. Do I believe in God? I believe in something but I don't know what. I'm agnostic I suppose. I don't believe that anything purposely gave me cancer or that I am being tested or that it is karma. I am an organism. Just like a cat gets cancer, I can too. Just like a bee gets swatted, I can too. Shit happens. It isn't my destiny. Shit just happens. I never thought it would really happen to me. Not now.
posted by Sarah @ 12:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
As I read this posting, i was just nodding my head. I am 31, married 1 year. I was dignosed 3 years ago, stage 3. I wanted babies and have since i can remember. Doc says no for all the same reasons you stated and I have wrestled with all the same emotionsand YES, it fucking sucks.
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