Where is Mercury?

* Disclaimer *
Moving forward, I’m going to call any of my friends who have or had breast cancer my ‘sorority sisters.’ It’s easier for me. So no, I’ve never pledged a Greek sorority, just the breast cancer sorority with chemo.

This post is for my sorority sisters. It’s to honor and see you. It’s to give the world just a glimpse into what it’s really like to have breast cancer. To recognize the struggle we are all going through right now, me included. It’s a bit scary to be this vulnerable to the whole world, but honestly fuck it. Throw aside the emotional gatekeeping for just a moment and be real and raw. We all need the damn world to see us and know this struggle, so here we go……

I’ve had 5 sorority sisters reach out over the last week and discuss body image issues. I wanted to be a hippie and blame Mercury being in retrograde or say NSA decided it’s no longer a planet, like it did to Pluto. I wanted to come up with some platitude to make it all better. Reality is cancer sucks and continues to be the unwanted gift that keeps on giving.

Meanwhile, mother nature is blasting us with heat. We are reaching for clothes we haven’t worn in a year, a year that has tested and pushed our bodies to the max. All of the sudden, items we’ve had forever no longer fit. That cute little summer dress (where we felt flirty and it instantly changed our mood when we put it on) is now more like a sausage casing bringing out our anger and frustration. We are reaching to the back of the closet for the “fat clothes” crossing our fingers and hoping they fit, because we really don’t have the energy for yet another task or problem. It’s not fair!! The movies show people losing weight when they get cancer! Not blowing up like a hot air balloon. I did not sign up for this and now I’m angry.

Sisters, I’m just sitting in that anger for a while. Fuck being positive. I’m feeling it so I can get through it. I’m cursing the weight gain, the edema, the bloat, the chemo belly, the upcoming mastectomy. I don’t like what I see in the mirror. I can’t fit into over half the clothes I own and I don’t want to buy new, because who knows what my body will be like after my mastectomy and reconstruction! I’m angry. I’m sad. I’m annoyed. Cancer has taken so much from me and it continues to take (or this time add) to the emotional and physical toll.

I’ve gained weight in the past, but this weight gain is different. Maybe it’s the generalized edema or water weight that makes it feel different. Maybe it’s just knowing that for once the sole cause isn’t a terrible diet or sedentary lifestyle, but rather something I have no control over, the poison entering my veins. It seems to make no difference what I eat or do, the chemo belly or bloat is there every day, leaving me looking at least 6 months pregnant and just as uncomfortable.

It makes me mad. It makes me sad. It makes me feel all sorts of things on top of all the feelings I’m already feeling about cancer. And I know if I try hard enough I can get some semblance of normalcy. If I wear the right wig, have on the eyebrows, lashes, a flowy outfit to hide the belly, I can pull off looking good.

See, really I can!!! But it’s so much work and effort. I don’t have a glam squad to help and I’m exhausted half the time. It’s just not feasible every day. So I continue to feel these feelings, continue to be go back and forth between angry and sad; between “I can control this” to knowing a lot is out of my control. I try and accept that this extreme isn’t forever. Eventually with some time and effort, I’ll lose some weight. Remind myself I don’t have to go buy a whole new wardrobe quite yet. I can wait and see what fits after all this is said and done.

And there’s still a lot to still be said and done. I’ll be losing multiple parts of my body soon. Then six months later, just as I’ve got that body figured out, I’ll start reconstruction. Just as I’m accepting the new post cancer body, it will change again. Then again. And again as reconstruction isn’t a one and done surgery like many think. Reconstruction also isn’t an instant fix to all these feelings. It brings its own challenges and changes. It won’t magically fix everything. It’s a small feeble attempt at some sort of control or normalcy that I haven’t even determined if I’ll be doing yet or not. Because again a lot depends on this new cancer body I have and what it will allow. It’s another thing I don’t have control over.

Losing control over my body in multiple ways has made me sad. It’s made me tired. It’s made me scared. I’m sick of cancer and all the side effects. Like I said I’m over the weight gain, and bloat but it’s more than that. There is the exhaustion that hits out of nowhere, the lack of stamina some days and then inability to sleep due to steroids the other days. I’m sick of having to precisely plan out my week based on where I’m at in my treatment, and then still being unable to complete the tasks I wanted to. I’m over worrying about the future or if I’ll ever come out of this cancer fog and fatigue. Worrying if I will ever be able to go back to bedside nursing or am I going to have to take a huge pay cut and take forever to pay off my student loans. I’m over worrying and confused about how I plan for the future when so much is unknown and out of my control. Will I even be here for the future?

Sisters, this is the reality we all know. I know you all feel these things. I know you resonate with it, because we’ve all talked about it. I know I’m not alone and that helps more than you’ll ever know. On these hard stretches when life just isn’t fair and things are extra hard, I think of you and I do my best to just get through. Try and reach my little daily water and protein goals, and be kind to myself while still allowing myself to be angry at the cancer. I force the dogs to snuggle with me and spend hours on Tik Tok. I cry and reach out to you all. I randomly just ask Mitch for a hug and hold on a little longer than normal. I try to just get through the day like I know you are too.