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kyburgGiggling here.
*sigh* What to do.
One of the things I am eternally grateful for is that I never wrote a single thing down besides email while Cliff was dying. I kept some things he wrote, and a response to one rather incendiary email I got once, that I never sent - just to remind me. Because once it was over, all the days and weeks and months and years compressed down very quickly into very spare memories, almost as if it had all been winzipped up and stored away with only the headers left available for browsing.
I never knew when it would end. I just knew I couldn't quit.
I find myself thinking in the same circles (What have I thought of today? What have I done today? Did I make that phone call or checked that piece of information out? What else can I do?) - and I have to consciously say to myself, "No. That's enough. Check back with Mom/others to see what they've come up with before you go further."
Because this time, I'm not the entire team. Jim made a good observation in that I'm not alone - there are other people involved when it comes to Mom, and I don't have to worry about everything. I don't have to shoulder the entire responsibility for making it all work.
But I remember. My body remembers too, and reminds me that anxiety makes me nauseous. I spent most of my adolescence in that state - I remember. 5'3" and 70 lbs., walking into high school nauseous. It sets off a minor panic of "EAT! You're gonna die!" that has been there ever since - when I'm happy and secure, I eat well. When stressed, it's the first thing to go and the last thing to come back.
5'6" and 96 lbs. I remember.
Do I need professional attention? No, not yet. I'm sleeping - and eating normally - and functioning.
I'm just totally scared witless in fits and starts. And I think that's normal. I've seen the face of this beast before - not only do I not want to see my mother go through that...I don't want to go through that again.
And then I take a deep breath, remember that today - there's no pain, discomfort or any other outward sign of trouble. The treatments likely will be much worse than the cancer's presence was in the first place. And I'm okay. No matter what, I'm sure I'll be okay.
So how much of this do I write down?
Probably enough to remind myself that this is now, that was then - and it's a totally different world now. And enough to retrain my brain into thinking differently, staying centered and calm.
And Cliff will have been gone five years September 18th. And it's been over eleven years ago that he was injured in first place, nine years since the strokes and heart attacks, and so on. The timing is impeccable.
-- I just took a phone call from one of Cliff's old doctors (who Jim sees now, it's all good) - he's going to get a referral for me. No, it's really good. This is from someone I trust - I know it's going to be okay, and I can actually give Mom something she can use.
But that's as much as I need to do today.
So what does everyone want to read next?
[Poll #340896]
*sigh* What to do.
One of the things I am eternally grateful for is that I never wrote a single thing down besides email while Cliff was dying. I kept some things he wrote, and a response to one rather incendiary email I got once, that I never sent - just to remind me. Because once it was over, all the days and weeks and months and years compressed down very quickly into very spare memories, almost as if it had all been winzipped up and stored away with only the headers left available for browsing.
I never knew when it would end. I just knew I couldn't quit.
I find myself thinking in the same circles (What have I thought of today? What have I done today? Did I make that phone call or checked that piece of information out? What else can I do?) - and I have to consciously say to myself, "No. That's enough. Check back with Mom/others to see what they've come up with before you go further."
Because this time, I'm not the entire team. Jim made a good observation in that I'm not alone - there are other people involved when it comes to Mom, and I don't have to worry about everything. I don't have to shoulder the entire responsibility for making it all work.
But I remember. My body remembers too, and reminds me that anxiety makes me nauseous. I spent most of my adolescence in that state - I remember. 5'3" and 70 lbs., walking into high school nauseous. It sets off a minor panic of "EAT! You're gonna die!" that has been there ever since - when I'm happy and secure, I eat well. When stressed, it's the first thing to go and the last thing to come back.
5'6" and 96 lbs. I remember.
Do I need professional attention? No, not yet. I'm sleeping - and eating normally - and functioning.
I'm just totally scared witless in fits and starts. And I think that's normal. I've seen the face of this beast before - not only do I not want to see my mother go through that...I don't want to go through that again.
And then I take a deep breath, remember that today - there's no pain, discomfort or any other outward sign of trouble. The treatments likely will be much worse than the cancer's presence was in the first place. And I'm okay. No matter what, I'm sure I'll be okay.
So how much of this do I write down?
Probably enough to remind myself that this is now, that was then - and it's a totally different world now. And enough to retrain my brain into thinking differently, staying centered and calm.
And Cliff will have been gone five years September 18th. And it's been over eleven years ago that he was injured in first place, nine years since the strokes and heart attacks, and so on. The timing is impeccable.
-- I just took a phone call from one of Cliff's old doctors (who Jim sees now, it's all good) - he's going to get a referral for me. No, it's really good. This is from someone I trust - I know it's going to be okay, and I can actually give Mom something she can use.
But that's as much as I need to do today.
So what does everyone want to read next?
[Poll #340896]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 01:06 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 01:59 pm (UTC)*dies* It's even funnier when you visit the online store :-D
How about Dragonball Z Episode Critique and Review :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 02:33 pm (UTC)Here. Go see
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 03:20 pm (UTC)I found that if I ate while doing something else - picked at dinner while reading the bills or the paper or something (preferably not anxiety-causing), or watching TV - just distracting myself - the food went down a little better.
Another may-help idea is actually to write down all the stuff to do or that you have done related to this crisis. Whenever you have an idea that might help, add it to the list. Being able to look at a list full of check marks and see that, no, really, you've DONE everything on the list, may help with the desire to keep going through it all in your head. (Especially if EAT and SLEEP and TAKE CARE OF SELF are on the list.) Or not. Your call.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 12:24 pm (UTC)I have more reserves, these days - but I'm also more attuned to what I can do to get my anxiety under control quickly, too.
That's part of hating this whole situation - I despise being depressed with the fire of a thousand suns and would do just about anything to avoid it. Just about.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 12:22 pm (UTC)I was never warm. Nothing tasted good. I would get a cold, and it would linger for months - and in at least one case, turned into pleurisy. Watching television made me nauseous every time food was shown.
I'm going to go try and find one picture I can remember of me, taken the day after my sister got married (I was 20) - 120 lbs., and I looked like a wire rack. And that was when I was doing well - it certainly wasn't pretty.
I still panic when I miss a meal - the pressure to keep eating enough to stay alive was so incredibly present then. People weren't jealous - they were thinking of institutionalizing me. That was - 1979 or so?
Tell me we're not fucked up today. Ain't gonna get fooled - and at 155 or so (stopped looking a couple of weeks ago), I likely should drop a bit more (and would feel better about it), but I don't ever want to be in that place again. Out of control doesn't even begin to describe it.
I'm not pretty. Cute was possible, with work. People are happy to see me, I think - and that's where any physical appeal probably comes from. I'm nearly always glad to see other people - and I'm pleased when people meet my eyes in the hallways here at work. They smile when they see me, even if I'm having the worst hair day on record.
I'm not pretty. I'm average to the point of plain and washed out. But it doesn't have anything to do with how much I weigh - even at my thinnest, I was still an ugly drink of milk - just a very skinny one. These days, I'm less scrawny, which I think is a plus. My limbs have shape - I was sadly sticklike most of my life.
Ah well. I'm jealous of your pretty mouth - not to mention what's between your ears. So there.