Sheer and utter exhaustion can be happiness

Welcome to my day-in-the-life introspective 'I don't know what the heck is happening to my body or life or soul.' I shuppose that today is a theme day for just letting go and taking good care of whatever it is that may be happening inside me. Though I suspect most of you won't know what it feels to live without a thyroid or any trace of the corresponding hormones, I'd imagine you might be able to loosely feel it like some riddled collection of staying up til mid-afternoon following an all nighter where you've had no coffee to speak of.

If you feel restlessness then feel it... when you feel tired either close your eyes or take a cat nap or do something about it rather that just trying to convince yourself that you must make it through to the end without stopping. Listen to your body because it's only trying to give you hints and feedback on what might be wrong or how you can support in it's efforts to help you feel better. Sheesh! We have a miraculous wonderful world of medications and energy drinks and caffeine laced thirst quenchers who have all been made to help us delude ourselves into thinking that we are taking better care of ourselves than most of us actually are in fact doing right now-- this very minute in fact... I'm waiting for a show of hands here... how many of you can honestly say that you've been taking better care of yourself than what life was like when let's say: Mom or Dad was running the show? Yah, I thought so. Well, now I'm just a little bit annoyed with y'all for not having the balls or brains or whatever your excuse is going to be this time-- wait a minute: TIME! That's it, isn't it?

Make TIME... go be a super hero! Save time! Make time! Take time away from the big bade ugly evil villains and save yourself before someone else has to do it for you!

N' that's how I'm surviving... MDB

So, what the heck am I going to do about it now? What, you may ask: I am not as I have been. For starters, probably part of the hardest thing for me to deal with was losing the voice that has been my pleasure. The docs warned me. They said that I could be hoarse for the rest of my life and I would never be an Opera singer... Of course, when they first warned me I was convinced that it would never happen to me. Nawh... the cancer hadn't gotten that far and I would be just fine when they took my thyroid and lymph nodes out.

Sad but true, I've woken up to the tragic reality that things were not as good as I'd hoped-- nor are they as bad as they could be. As an actor, I of course have some portfolio material that documents what I now only faintly remember as being normal. Today, I watched my first film-- Half Empty, Half Full by Gelareh Kiazand-- for the first time since my surgery. Oooh, the chills. I don't sound or look or feel anything like that young classy broad. I mean-- make no mistake-- I am still very classy, in my own way. Classy as I can be? No. That's just a cop out. Cancer is anything but sexy or attractive or artistic... But I am not cancer.

Like most women, I have always struggled with my self-image, i.e., being comfortable in my body, finding the right clothes to wear, etc. It's weird though... That has had to change for me. I am tired and achy and overweight and scarred and loving every minute of it. I guess I've had to coach myself into realizing that this is only a temporary stage in my recovery. I don't feel the same... but I think that's pretty normal considering my latest episode of 'what the heck just happened.'

In fact, I have a pretty fabulous body. In the hospital, it became pretty clear to me that I could pretty much plan on not being able to do anything for myself for quite a while. Now, although I can do more, I am still in awe of how much my body has been doing without. It's amazing! ;-)

N' that's how I'm surviving... MDB

Going everywhere and nowhere all at once.

You know when it seems like you're stuck somewhere that you never expected to be? It might be a particular lifestyle or location or mood or some other circumstance that doesn't feel quite right. In my case, I've moved from busy downtown Toronto to our family home out in the middle of the wilderness in Eastern Ontario. Now, as I have lived here before, I thought it would be fairly manageable a shift: I thought wrong!

Being dealt the proverbial blow of having lots of stuff taken out of my neck and chest, I have been struggling with not being able to do things that I haven't had to think about in quite a while. Talking a shower, for example, has become an ordeal in itself. The down and dirty is just that: I had to wait for over a month to properly wash my hair. Relax, I had a one time clean up charade with Nurse Hitler a day and a half after my surgery that got the grossness out of my hair. I guess what I am trying to articulate here is that even the simplest things in life can become an ordeal in the flashest of flashes.

Although I have spent roughly two months out here in the boonies, I've chosen to find tremendous comfort in my isolation. In hindsight, I can probably give some credit where credit is due and narrow this unexpected twist down to the moment when I created a possibility of Freedom, Health, and Harmony in my life. --Remember my rant about not knowing? Well, shortly after I was done feeling like I had Cancer: I chose to turn it into an opportunity.-- If I can't make positive out of this, then I'm not going to live through it unscathed.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, back to my point: although I'll confess that I have limited control over how I'm going to move into the NO CANCER district of recovery, I can still live my life fully and completely as I can-- RIGHT now-- intending on the fulfillment of a possibility. Excellent! No doubt, I am constantly reminded of how much I prefer the simpler life I've chosen every time I venture into Ottawa; I get uncomfortable or tired or cranky and I can't really do anything about it. At least when I am out here, I can be the master of my own destiny.

Sure, sometimes it really sucks when I have to leave something unfinished because I can't do anything more with it-- but that's just life acting like life! Sheesh! I get as frustrated as the next person when things don't go my way... and then the dust clears-- or I make it clear-- and I remind myself that my reaction is not really me. I am a young woman with wonky hormones and a sick body trying to reason my way into a better recovery than what I am already doing.

Wake up! You're body is already doing all the hard work for you-- do you get that? All you have to do is pat yourself on the back and do everything you can to support your body in every way you can. Do I make that sound too easy? Well, news flash: it is! Your body is your scope of forever... It is your shrine! Like most of us, I have taken issue with my body being too big, too squishy, not firm enough, etc. My goodness if you could feel all that I have felt of the goings on inside my body since I woke up in the recovery room. I am so impressed with my body... she doesn't really know what she's doing with all this mess that she's been left with BUT she's doing her best to keep things moving and repairing and moving some more.

Just because it feels like your stuck somewhere that is only a temporary symptom of being human-- it will pass, I promise! And also, even if you feel like you don't know what to do: DON'T let that block you from doing anything! Most human beings have no idea of what we're doing most of the time. Sure, we might have a general gist or some learned behaviour that makes us feel more efficient or comfortable at least, but NO-ONE knows everything-- NO-ONE!

N' that's how I survived... MDB

****** Here's a a CHALLENGE I'll invite you to try: go everywhere and nowhere all at once-- Go on, I dare you! ;-)

Having difficulties with medical secretaries is awkward indeed BUT it doesn't have to be.

If you ever feel like you're getting the run around at a doctor's office... Don't stop calling or asking questions until you get the answers you need or they help you find somebody who can. For example, I peppered my ENT's office with phonecalls: wanting to know when I'd be meeting my surgeon. I would usually call every day around about the same time (it became a habit or ritual of sorts.) By the third call, Sherri (the receptionist) reassured me that she would call me when she heard back from the surgeon's secretary. I pointed out to her that I would still be calling her on a daily basis because-- you guessed it-- this was CANCER. It's my life we're talking about. After establishing an open, personal dialogue with Sherri, I made sure that I would always address her by her first name and make some small talk each time I called. By the time I finally got my appointment, Sherri left me with an invitation: I could call her if I needed any help.

So, what do you do if you have an awkward face-to-face encounter... As prepared as anyone will try to be for their first conversation with the doc who's going to cut the cancer out: you'll still feel unprepared. Human beings habitually like to figure out everything they can without even having a real clue about what lies ahead. When I presented myself in front of my surgeon's secretary, I was given what I interpreted to be an impersonal glance and asked for my cards and I could take a seat in the waiting room. I guess, because it was such a huge deal for me, I thought that I deserved more feeling or sympathy or respect and something was surely missing... So I sulked. Just a little bit. Hopefully not so much that anyone would notice me-- and if they did I could just blame it on the cancer!


Before leaving the hospital, I spoke with the receptionist and gave her the alternate address and contact info. I wasn't getting any sympathy from her and let's face it: my life was tragic! I kept trying to get answers and she was not even giving me any clue of care or concern. Frustrated, I stormed off. After a moment's composure I went back to her desk, catching the end of a venting session she was having with a co-worker. This was my cue. I waited until she looked up and then I apologized to her, explaining that I was dealing with a whole lot of stress and new information. Then I remarked that I had no idea what she was dealing with each and every day. She must get lots of people blowing up at her.

"You do an amazing job of it, Lily, really you do. You're right there at the front lines taking shots from every angle. Thanks for doing what you do... You make it a whole lot easier for all of us to cope."

After that, I was sure to call her by her first name every time I called. Then I was asking her how her weekend or march break went. It felt like she spent more time talking with me and she wouldn't leave me hanging; promising to call me back and when. Turning her into a person meant that she was no longer an obstacle: she was on team Melissa.

N' that's how I survived... MDB

Dealing with not knowing... then knowing more than I wanted to know

After discovering my superhero-- yes, folks that'd be me-- I have risen to the unforeseen challenge of coping with a whole year of not feeling so hot only to receive the news that I have papillary carcinoma a.k.a. thyroid cancer. All my hopes were not dashed to smithereens, however, as my particular type of cancer is one of the best you can get. 1) It's curable, 2) You can live without your thyroid, and 3) it is usually a simple case of going in and taking all the bad stuff out. Only one dose of radioactive Iodine should kill any remainig cells. That would be the best case scenario.

Following my diagnosis (12/17/2008) I had a very weird Christmas-- not knowing what to say or feel or what was going to happen or when-- but I managed just as well anyway. When I got back to my apartment in Toronto, I was adiment about getting on with all this treatment and surgery stuff because I had first noticed something back in Spring 2008.

I had spent all my time, following the Christmas holiday, doing my best to keep myself busy enough not to worry or think or throw a tantrum because I had absolutely no idea when the surgery would happen. Following my appointment on January 23rd, my family and I loaded a moving truck and take everything that we could back to our family home up near Ottawa.

The meeting with the surgeon was informative. He hardly said anything to me and let his resident explain the extent of the surgery and all possible risks and side effects associated with such an invasive procedure. They mentioned numbness caused by nerve damage, difficulty swallowing, and an assortment of other things that could go wrong-- Wrong, of course, is what I heard: nobody ever says that there's anything wrong when they talk about how they're going to make the bad stuff go away.

Most of the information just floated by me. I was on this weird all-but-euphoric cloud of fear and anxiety and fatigue interspersed with the odd moment of panic. One thing that I do remember was when they were talking to me about what might happen if the cancer had moved into my voicebox. They would have no way of knowing until they got inside but if they found it: they would have to cut the nerve on my right vocal chord-- Which truly scared me!

For more than ten years I had been training my voice to be an actor and I had always loved singing and now this strange man in a white coat was telling me that I might have a hoarse, scratchy voice after my surgery. Of course, I held my 'I don't know what to do or feel' cards close to my chest. It couldn't apply to me and I was going to be the exception and my voice was going to be just fine without any cancer tagging along.

What did they leave me with? Well, the standard wait time would be four to six weeks before surgery. For me, that seemed like forever! Forever, a.k.a. four to six weeks, came and went. And you'll be happy to know that just about everything they told me was a risk actually happened to yours truly.

After prepping as hard as I could, I woke up in intensive care with the dryest mouth I have ever known. I was thirsty and sore and groggy and feeling rather rotten. But that is where the fun begins: being reduced into a state of 'I donno what I'm gonna do because I can't do much about it anyway.'

N' that's how I survived... MDB