It’s Been a Year

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I have to admit, I never thought I’d be back here updating the cancer diaries, but here I am writing to you in the middle of the night, two weeks after my last oncologist appointment; an appointment where I learned a year after my last surgery there is a small amount of the growth. Growth that might be radiation necrosis or tumor growth.

 

A year ago tonight, I was in the PACU unit of the hospital recovering from brain surgery to remove the cancer that stole my eyesight. How could it be I’ve come this far and lost so much in the process only for it to be possible I might be back at the start again? This time as a widow. Why is the universe so cruel? I’m terrified. There’s only so far bravery and tenacity can take you. I can hang in there with the best of them and have for the last eight years, but how many rounds does the universe expect me to fight through? I want my second act damn it. I want to be free from cancer and from fear. I want a life, a full one that does not include MRIs every three months and oncologist appointments and pills three times a day to keep the radiation treatments from eating my brain.

 

 

The Widow Diaries: Chapter 4 (Doing What Needs to be Done)

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I’m spent. I’ve done a lot of adulting this week. You imagine the death is what’s so horrible and heart-breaking, you imagine that the wake and the funeral will be hard to get through. What you don’t imagine is the devastating loneliness of moving on; the doing of what needs to be done, the paying bills, and changing accounts, and going to parties alone, or asking for a table for three instead of four.  It’s the going on with life and doing what needs to be done that breaks your heart and stops your heart.

 

There’s paperwork, and stuff to be dealt with, there are medical tests to schedule and face alone. There are things that go bump in the night and spiders to kill. I used to hate funerals because you’ve had days after the death to calm down and start to heal and then the funeral savagely rips off the bandages you’ve begun to loosely apply. I had no idea that life itself would come along and even more savagely rip off the now tightly wound bandages. You have to tell so many people your husband has died. You have to fill out paperwork and present death certificates and get documents with titles like Affidavit of Surviving Spouse. You have to print his name and sign your name with Admin after it when it was once wife. You were once Facebook official and fiancée and bride and wife and now your admin and widow. How did this happen? Damn it I didn’t sign up for an admin job, I signed up to be a wife, a spouse, a partner, an occasional pain in the ass, but never an admin.

 

I never imagined what it would be like to RSVP as party of one. I never imagined how tightly my heart would grip in my chest the first time I walked into a party alone. You can’t run from death, or grief, or the cold hard reality that there are bills to be paid, things that need doing, and a life that needs living whether you’re ready to live it or not. You have no choice in the matter, you have to move on; you have to pay the bills, clean the house, feed yourself, feed the pets, and keep breathing. I never imagined that losing Chuck would be the easy part. I had no idea how painful living, and adulting, and handling day-to-day life, and moving forward would be.

 

We survived so many bad things together; my cancer, both of our dads dying within a month of each other, his cancer, my second go around with cancer. They were all made easier because we were together. We got through everything together, no one was left behind. Soldiering on alone is awful, and lonely, and painful, and so so sad.

 

I’m proud that I’ve managed to hold it together and pay the bills, and make decisions, and do the things that need to be done, and I’m so incredibly grateful to my family and friends who see to it that I never face anything alone, someone has been with me for all the scary, sad, important stuff.  But, it’s not the big stuff that gets you in the heart, it’s not what gives you all the feels. It’s the thinking to yourself, I must tell Chuck they gave me a good price for the car, or I saw Hannah and Ava today and they are growing so big, they’re not babies anymore, they’ve grown into little people now. It’s looking around a birthday party for a place to sit and a familiar face to keep you company. It’s leaving the party in an Uber thinking to yourself, well I did it. I made it to the party. I left the house, I got in an Uber, I walked into the party and talked to be people like a reasonable adult and not a grieving widow. I managed to keep it together. What crazy fucking milestones are these?

 

I had no idea Chuck’s death was going to be the easy part. Living without him is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it hurts like hell.

Write, he Said… The Widow Diaries (Chapter 3)

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It’s been 3 months since Chuck passed away. I still can’t bring myself to finish writing out the thank you cards. I wrote out the first 75 in January, but I haven’t been able to touch the mass cards or thank you cards since. I did, however, write him a letter in my journal on Monday night. I cried as I wrote, it was a cleansing cry. I woke up this morning feeling calm and better than I have in a long time so I thought I’d tell you a little about our beginning.

I met Chuck in March 1991, I was still 18 and he was a few months shy of his 20th birthday. I met him at a mutual friend’s house after her 18th birthday party. He came to pick him up his mother, she’d kept my friend’s mother company while we were all out celebrating Jenn’s birthday. I opened the door to him standing on the front step in his black Member’s Only jacket. I loved him on first sight, my heart immediately knew his. I was so smitten I actively pursued him, flirting any time I saw him, stopping by the pizza place where he worked, and eventually I gave him my number and then going to see him when he didn’t use it. I asked him, “Hey, you don’t use a pretty girl’s number?” (brazen hussy, party of 1) If you know me, you know this is so totally like me and so totally not at all like me. He called the next week and we had our first date on June 6th. We saw Soap Dish and had dinner at Friendly’s. We drove there in his 1979 baby blue Buick Regal; I loved that car.  My mother joked, it must be love at first sight if we enjoyed Soap Dish. It was and we did.

Write, He Said… The Widow Diaries (Chapter 2)

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I’ve been seeing a therapist since June after I had a meltdown in the hospital after my surgery in May. I saw my primary care doc after I was released from the hospital and he recommended Lexapro. I started taking it, but found it actually caused me worse anxiety than it had been prescribed for so I spoke with my primary doc and decided to seek counselling while leaving the door open to move to another anti-anxiety if the need arose. It’s been eight months and the weekly therapist appointments are helping immensely. Having an impartial party to tell my troubles too and let my guard down with has been a godsend. Sometimes it’s just easier to talk to a stranger than the ones who love you.

 

Also, a godsend? The folks at Lacuna Loft. Lacuna Loft is a group for young adult cancer survivors, which my thankful-to-be-considered-young-adult-at-45 will age out of next year. They offer periodic online creative workshops. I missed the first one I signed up for in October because I was in the ER with a migraine that caused me to temporarily lose my vision. The two I’ve managed to take part in have been so much fun and reinforced the idea that art for art’s sake is healing, and nurturing, and great for anxiety.

 

I have yet to find a local bereavement support group and the widows’ Facebook group I joined often left me feeling more upset and sad so I made the decision to leave the group. Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure I’m yet ready to be in a group and talk about Chuck’s death. I don’t like crying in public. I’m just learning how to feel and fully acknowledge my feelings so I definitely don’t think I’m ready for public displays of sorrow.

 

What has also has been helping are the audiobooks I’ve been listening to. The first blog was brought to you courtesy of Jenn Lancaster’s, The Tao of Martha. Her writing about her dog Maisie’s battle with cancer and her eventual death and the grief that followed finally brought my words pouring out of me like a spigot on full force. The Bloggess, Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy gives me strength and reminds me to be militantly furiously happy in the face of sorrow and grief. This week it’s Stephen King’s, On Writing. His blue-collar approach to daily writing was a gentle reminder to just sit down and write, and Martha Beck’s continuing piece in Oprah Magazine about hunting for happiness follows her advising a woman feeling unmotivated and unhappy. Her advice to do what makes you happy reminded me to get back to what I love to do.

 

Honestly, right now I don’t love writing, but I think that’s more a case of being out of practice and being unsure if I can maintain my original pledge from the 365 Days of Carol Anne Cancer Diaries that I’d always tell you my truth no matter how bleak, gross, or sad. I’ve been writing more personal missives in my journal and working through my grief talking to family, friends, and my therapist, some of which I think could very well not be fit for public consumption and surviving and fighting your way through cancer offers you a treacherous villain, cancer. Learning to go on and face this new life as a widow offers a no less treacherous or formidable villain but it’s an abstract; transcendental if you will, villain. You can hate and despise death all you want but no matter what you do it’s not changing or going away. And, while I’ve never believed in ghosts or visits from lost loved ones I’m unbelievably hurt that I haven’t dreamt of or seen (believe me, I’m rolling my eyes with you) Chuck since he passed on. Why hasn’t he come to me? Yes, I’m as confused as you why I’m looking for something I honestly don’t believe in is as mystifying to me as it is you.

 

Next week will be three months since he left me and some days I’m a functioning adult and others I’m a couch dweller binge watching ER on Hulu so I don’t have to think or feel or consider what next, where do I go from here. I don’t have answers right now and my boxing gloves and moxie are powerless against death.

 

I promise, or at least I hope, these blogs will be less depressing as time goes on and I’m feeling less uncertain and broken. For now, I take comfort in the company of family, friends, and authors like Jen Lancaster and Stephen King and the advice of my therapist, and of life coach Martha Beck in Oprah Magazine.

Write, He Said… The Widow Diaries (Chapter 1)

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Write, he said. In October of 2010 my late husband, Chuck encouraged me to write about my first cancer diagnosis, he felt it would be good for me to tell my story and to get my thoughts out of my head and onto my blog. Seven years later he died after a far too short battle with an uncommon and aggressive form of kidney cancer.

 

In the seven years and forty-six days since I first walked into the ER and woke up in the ICU I had ten surgeries, 62 radiation treatments, fought cancer twice, and my husband was diagnosed with and died from what we first believed were kidney stones. On October 10, 2010 I couldn’t have imagined (not even in my very worst nightmares) the days that laid ahead for the myself and Chuck. I certainly never imagined Chuck would die just eighteen days after our twentieth wedding anniversary or that I would spend our twentieth anniversary putting together a walker for my dying husband.

 

I never wrote about Chuck’s cancer, because it wasn’t my story to tell and to be perfectly honest it was almost too unreal to wrap my head around. I was sure my brave, strong husband would beat it, that there would be a miracle, that the next treatment would work, and drive his cancer into remission. His first oncologist told us people with Chuck’s condition live three years, Chuck lived one year and two months from the day he was diagnosed. Chuck was already sick and on a clinical trial when at my five-year scans the doctors found that my cancer had come back. It was all too much to believe, it was all too much handle. I never wrote about my second bout with cancer because I didn’t have time to muse about what was happening to me. I didn’t have it in me to feel sorry for myself or be scared, I had to be okay. By the time I had my brain surgery in May the clinical trial Chuck was on had failed, the cancer had grown two to three times in size and spread, he was on a chemo drug that was making him terribly ill. I didn’t write, because I couldn’t write. I refused to believe that Chuck would die. I was delusional and very, very wrong.

 

So, here I am, a widow, living alone for the first time in my life. I am sad, and scared, and lonely; my heart is broken, shattered. My world is in ruins. I’m shocked, and lost. There is a lot of uncertainty these days, and I hate uncertainty. I like definite, sure, and sturdy. I depend on definite and stable. I depended on Chuck, possibly too much. It’s been two months and fifteen days since Chuck passed from this mortal coil. I’ve had good days, bad days, and very, very bad days. I’ve had days when I’ve felt empty, lost, and alone. I’ve had days when I’ve felt accomplished and sure of myself, and I’ve had days when I felt my ability to function, get out of bed, feed myself and the cats, and to behave like a functioning adult somehow indicated that I didn’t love or miss Chuck enough, that somehow, I was dishonoring Chuck’s memory with my ability to be okay, that I was not grieving his loss properly or deeply enough. I questioned my love and devotion to Chuck. Why wasn’t I a basket case? Why was I able to function while other widows in the Facebook group I joined were not? Is my strength a character flaw? Am I in denial? Is there worst yet to come?

 

It’s a rainy Saturday and I’m home alone with nowhere to be and no plans for the next few days so I have time to feel all the feels and the reality of Chuck’s absence is very real. I’m so sad it physically hurts.

 

Write, he said, so here I am seven years and four months since I walked into that ER; seven years since Chuck encouraged me to write to help me deal with my first cancer diagnosis. Truthfully, the first blog helped save my sanity, it gave me something to be accountable to every day. It gave me a way to explain what was happening, it gave me a place to download each day’s data into daily bite-sized bits I could digest and understand. Truthfully, I believe it’s some of my very best writing.

 

So, here I am hurting, confused, and overwhelmed. Write, he said and so I shall; to honor his memory and because it’s really the only thing that makes sense right now. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be as faithful to this as I was the 365 Days of Carol Anne Cancer Diaries because as I’ve learned over the last seven years nothing is certain and nothing is set in stone.

 

~  Carol Anne