The good, the bad, and the phantom pain???

Years ago, a movie came out with the title, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."  I never watched the movie.  It looked like the kind of thing that I do not enjoy, gritty, dirty, and violent.  UGH.  On the other hand, I've made use of the brilliant title on a number of occasions.  This is one of them.  Please note that I did substitute a couple of different words for "Ugly."  I believe they are quite synonymous with ugly.

Today was mostly good.  It did not start out that way.  I had a very rough night last night.  I felt terrible.  I'm still battling with an infection.  It causes pain and general misery.  I couldn't sleep, even though I was exhausted.  In the dark, my mind raced into and around every possible negative scenario that can happen when a person battles cancer.

When I finally got up I went about performing the little chores that constitute living in our day and age.  Every little thing is exhausting right now.  I can't explain how much energy it takes just to turn on my side in bed.

I have been very worried about the extra heavy load our girls are carrying in working, and trying to care for their ill mother.  They never complain, they are two of my greatest blessings in life.  I simply can't imagine how I would manage without them.

The next thing I know, one friend has purchased us a weeks worth of groceries.  Another friend hands our daughter a substantial amount of cash.  If one must face cancer having a loving support group helps to take out some of the sting and suffering!

The bad?  Facing myself in the mirror.  I'm sixty-two, have given birth three times, (our little boy passed), nursed two babies, and my breasts were far from perky.  (If that is TMI....sorry, just being a bit real for a moment).  It's one thing to look at your own old lady crests and quite another to see lines of sutures marching across your chest wall.  I tried to prepare myself for this eventuality before I had my double mastectomy.  I'm not certain that anything can prepare you mentally.  Actually, I guess my bad, can also double as my UGLY!

Phantom pain?  Sometimes my breasts itch.  I reach to scratch the itch...THERE IS NOTHING THERE TO SCRATCH!  The worst though, is when I get the same old miserable pain in my nipple from radiation during my first bout with breast cancer in 1991/92.  One should not have to endure nipple pain that severe, when one no longer has a nipple!!!

I do understand that my brain is still receiving signals from the nerve endings in the affected area.  This means that whether you have lost a foot or an arm...your brain still tries to convince you it's still there.

Our baby was only sixteen weeks when he died inside me.  I had a D&C (medical procedure where they remove all the pregnancy related tissue in the uterus).  For a full year afterwards my brain kept telling me that I was pregnant.  I kept feeling the baby move.  I would repeat over and over, "You lost the baby.  You're not pregnant...and yet I would still feel him move within me.  That was most distressing.  Each time I had those sensations it was like losing him all over again.

I did not write this blog to depress anybody  Life is filled with hard, challenging, of all types and dimensions.  Many times it would be easiest to just give up.  The song says, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  Sometimes...hopefully only temporarily...it might turn you into charcoal.  You know the lump of coal BEFORE the pressure turns it into a diamond.

From birth I had severe allergy asthma.  I was born in a time when the only treatment for asthma was to give oxygen and pray that the attack would subside.  I spent many times in a hospital in an oxygen tent.  As I grew a little older, my Mama would stay up with me all night.  I would lie in our recliner because I could not lie flat in a bed.  I couldn't breathe at all if I was flat.  After a long night of just struggling to breathe Mama would say, "Oh listen?  The birdies are singing.  We've lived through another night."

I have known all of my life without a doubt that life is precious.  Even in that awful extremity (it is miserable when you can't breathe) I knew that there was a validity in fighting.  I will not give up now.  I will fight on...please do the same!