MY LIFE STORIES

THE GREAT MENTAL AVALANCHE OF 2020 – Just in case you’re curious.

This year has sucked for the whole damn world.  I don’t want anything I say to suggest that I think I’ve had it worse than everyone else because I don’t.  I’m actually sympathetic & empathetic to a fault.  I sacrifice my own happiness in order to make other people happy (something I’m trying to improve on).  I’ve held on to all my pain & emotions from everything I’ve gone through in life because in my mind I have no right to complain.  There are plenty of people less fortunate, people whose abuse was way worse than mine, parents of children with cancer, the list goes on & on.

Here’s what finally triggered the avalanche of pain and suffering I’ve dammed up for over 40 years.

A dear friend of mine was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer in November last year.  She had a successful hysterectomy in December, all the margins came back clear, lymph nodes clear, stage 1 on both ovaries.  The cells on one ovary were aggressive so they decided to do chemo, just as a precaution in the event they missed anything.  Throughout her journey we bonded, a lot.  The two of us were the only people we knew personally that we could relate to.  So many times we said how lucky we both were to be saved by the grace of God.  In both our cases it was a total fluke that it was found.  Both found in stage one.  She got thru chemo successfully and was declared cancer free April 16th.

May 27th, her cancer is back.  It’s stage 3 now.   In June they start her on a very aggressive chemo treatment because the type of cells she has are rare, unpredictable and hard to kill.

July 7th she is hospitalized with so many blood clots up and down one leg that its swollen like a tree trunk and clots are starting to form in the other leg.  This is a side affect of her chemo so they stop it & start looking for trials for her to participate in.

July 14th.  She’s stage 4 now.  Cancer has spread to her liver, stomach, lungs and esophagus.

July 22.  She’s been given a month to live.

August 3rd I find out a young adult in my family has cancer (Thankfully it was successfully removed and no further treatment was necessary)

August 5th.  My friend lost her battle.  I broke.

On August 8th I found out one of my uncles has been diagnosed with cancer,  He died on August 10th.  (This opens a whole other can of worms with abandonment issues.)

September 13th I lost a former in-law, also to cancer (I’m in the smaller group of exes that still communicate and get along with my ex and his family so yes, this affected me.)

September 24th we lost my husbands grandfather.

This avalanche buried me.  Since then I have had very little motivation to try.  Anything.  I don’t want to socialize (in that sense COVID has actually been a blessing for me).  I don’t have the energy to do anything.  I just broke.   

How many times can one person be broken and put back together again?

In 2008 my husband & I were working with a fertility doctor after almost 2 years of trying & failing to have a baby.  In April, 2 weeks after my 32 birthday, the doctor found the reason for my infertility.  I had uterine cancer.  Stage 1 grade 1.  The earliest they could’ve caught it.  I went through 6 months of a progesterone treatment to try to get the cancer to lie dormant long enough for us to have one more chance of conceiving.  It didn’t work.  So, at 32 years old I had a complete hysterectomy with the removal of both ovaries, forcing me into menopause.  My life hasn’t been the same since.

Let me preface the rest of this post with the fact that I am not looking for sympathy or pity, nor do I want any and I’m not complaining.  I simply want anyone suffering with anything remotely close to this to know that they are not alone.  I also want people to realize sometimes they need to not talk and just listen.  I know people had the best intentions.  But it did more harm to me than good.

I can’t tell you how many people would say to me, “at least you have Ethan” and how upset it made me when they did.  If it were just about me this wouldn’t have bothered me so much but it wasn’t.  My husband really wanted kids.  The effect of it for my husband is what I still, 12 years & 8 months later, am not over.

People say I’m lucky that I didn’t have to go through treatment.  I hate that too.  I’ve been made to feel like my case of cancer wasn’t a battle.  It wasn’t worthy of celebration when I was declared cancer free.  Here’s a couple things I’ve actually had people say to me: “well, it’s not like you had to go through chemo”; my own brother told me how pissed he was when he saw my survivor tattoo because I “didn’t deserve it” since I did not go through the hell of treatments.

I was extremely lucky it was caught when it was, had I gotten pregnant it would’ve killed me and it was early enough that I did not have to have treatments.  If I had cancer in another part of my body, I could’ve froze eggs in the event that treatments would affect my fertility.  Chemo and radiation treatments are temporary.  I know there can be long term effects from those treatments, but I don’t know what all that entails for others or the impact it has on their lives, I can only speak from the experiences in my own life.  My “treatment” was my hysterectomy.  The effect that has had on my life has been detrimental to me.

Two months after I was diagnosed with cancer, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer.  Between this and my son I never had time to deal with the emotional trauma of it all.  I had no one that understood.  When I did try to talk about it, well, I’ve already explained the type of responses I got.  I was made to feel small, less than and basically felt like I was being told I have no right to complain, I’m one of the lucky ones.

Being forced into menopause at such a young age makes it 10 times worse than when you go into it naturally.  When cancer is the reason for it and breast cancer is a concern taking hormones is not an option.  It’s like I ran into a brick wall at full speed.  My son was only 7 at the time and has severe ADHD, combined type, and menopause robbed me of the patience I so desperately needed.  My ability to let things go, gone.  It’s affected my memory, temperament, weight, anxiety, depression, sex life, and so much more.  Hot flashes, mood swings, it all sucks. 

I already had PTSD from childhood traumas before all this.  I already had a dam full anxiety & emotional trauma.  I have spent my life just trying to survive, trying to run from all of it so I didn’t have to face it, relive it, deal with it.  I had no choice but to add all the trauma and emotions my cancer caused me to my already full dam.

I am physically free of cancer.  I haven’t survived it, I haven’t beat it and I’m not free from it.

Maybe one day…