Lobster Sandwiches & Caulk, Not At The Same Time

 


In the market a couple days ago, I spied a Lobster Roll sammitch in the cold-case. Given the price, that's an item I'd NEVER buy ready-made, doesn't fit my living-on-the-cheap lifestyle. But I thought, "I should allow myself to eat a Lobster Sandwich." Totally.  A topline luxury I'd never otherwise think of, but one I gifted myself with. It felt wicked-good to have such a decadent treat; it tasted gloriously salty-sea & tender-sweet all at once. Lots of happy munching.

I gave myself permission to buy it, spent a couple more bucks than I normally would but it was delish and I enjoyed it supremely.  I think one needs to allow for treats like that occasionally when you're going through scary stuff. I'm not about to lose my mind and start ordering Foie Gras (no matter how much I love it) or anything-- but once in a while?----Yes, absolutely Lobster Sandwiches.

     I will allow for the possibility of Lobster Sammitches. I'd forgotten how amazing Lobster is.

                  So, thank you, Cancer, for reminding me about the worth of small pleasures.

    Cancer changes things. All catastrophes do, and Cancer certainly is catastrophic. People connecting your dots that maybe didn't before, or people actively caring, taking time out of their life to reach out, to console and communicate.   It's good & nurturing, but it's almost...unsettling...because it's such a tsunami wave of compassion coming right at you. One part of you appreciates the human warmth of it & absorbs it like daisies in the sun, the other dreads it ---because it once again confirms that something is really wrong with you.

             Time. Time takes on a whole new mantle when you find out you have Cancer. You start thinking about Time you've wasted. Time you wish you had back (a useless expenditure of vital energy but most people do this), Time you wish you'd loved harder, forgiven sooner, gone the extra five miles, planted your garden earlier, gone to all those parties you routinely stayed home from, Time you should've noticed the golden glint of sun peeping through the trees, glittering hypnotically onto the surface of the creek; more Time you should've spent craning your neck toward the night sky counting the razor pierce of silver stars through the velvet black of night; Time you should've held open more doors for other people, Time you should've invested in talking more with people you love even though you think what you have to say is unimportant. Time you shouldn't have wasted holing up in your solitude, shutting others out.

                          Time gets real damned heavy. Nearly suffocating.

                                                       Worst part?
         You can't grow any more of it; you can only use what you have left to it's best advantage,
               whatever that amount may be. Cancer kicks your ass that way.


Cancer-Talking Fatigue: you get so weary of talking about it, but this is precisely the time to talk about it. It just gets so paralyzing to keep saying the same things over and over, kinda like having your boots slogged deep down in a mudhole trench, keeping you unwillingly stationary. Maybe a positive aspect of that is after a while you don't tear up any more, you don't get that cannonball in your throat when you have to say the word "Cancer"; you get a wee bit numb. I'm convinced The Numb is therapeutic, is good periodically. You don't want to live there, though.


I'm going to a Breast Cancer support group for first time soon. I'm so not a Support Group kinda gal, have never been. I keep the majority of my emotions to myself here in my precious solitary life on the farm. I keep a close eye on Nature and her many costumes; that helps me to stay emotionally equalized. Art & music help me to stay emotionally equalized and so do my dogs. I'm talking about the quasi-gnarly kind of stuff you really don't want to bother your kids or close friends with, those everyday mini-crises of faith or pimples on fundamental life that we often grapple with, which we feel the finer sensibility demands we keep in our sneaker.


             This thing, though, as difficult as it is to talk about, I'm getting that you just have to.


    I do most of my home repairs myself. My Master Bath sink developed another leak. I fixed it myself a couple years back and I suppose the super-cold weather has contributed to making the caulk shrink away from the crack I'd filled it with.  I sighed, got out my miner's headlamp & put it on, got the caulk and the gun for it and went to work. Turns out I didn't have as much caulk as I thought and could only complete a small section of the needed lengthy repair.

     Running out of caulk felt like the end of the world in that moment; I angrily slammed the bathroom vanity door that I worked so hard to paint and trim and stormed out of the bathroom, fuming, my hair on fire.  Later, when the volcano finally slept, I saw how out-of-proportion my response to running out of caulk was. The chagrin was industrial-strength. I'm recognizing how short on patience I am lately, so not like me at all. My whole life, people have commented on my unusual patience. Where the hell is it now that I really need it?

                                                Yup, Support Group.   *Whew*

                                      Stale doughnuts & acidy-y coffee, here I come.

Another note about Cancer Talk----it doesn't help even a little bit to hear how Aunt Linda or the dry cleaner's sister or how your son's girlfriends' cousin did with their Breast Cancer.

                     Breast Cancer is literally as individualized as your fingerprint.

I will have had three separate biopsies and a type of DNA test on the mass itself after it's excised from my body, plus special blood tests, all to tell the team now responsible for my life, how to craft my unique treatment plan tailored prescisely...as precisely as science allows us to at this juncture...to my exact cancer. Someone else's treatment plan may have some overall similarities to mine but their response, my response to that treatment is highly specific & varied, possibly even genetically-determined.

     Encourage me & support me, God knows I need that; I feel like a fern left too long without moisture right now. Just please, don't tell me about somebody else's cancer. Doesn't help.  Other cancer patients may feel differently and that's their right.

                    This is my cancer and I have to own this shit before I can help rid myself of it.

              Yep, I'm angry.  Stages of grief, dude. Kubler-Ross, way smarter than I am. I apologize if it offends you for me to say I don't want to talk about other people's cancers...it truly isn't meant to offend; I'm pouring out my heart here, so work with me a little.  :)

                                                                         

                 


                                                                           

   If all Breast Cancers could be killed with the same treatment, if they all had the exact same histology parameters that never varied, we'd have eradicated it LONG ago.  My cancer is just that...my stinkin' cancer, unlike anyone else's aside from a few obvious generalities. That is why it's so damn hard to kill, why the host organisms (all us cancer folk) suffer during treatment. It just doesn't want to be taken out of it's cushy home where it's set down such deep roots.  Kinda like "Alien" coiled up in your chest. Gotta get that vicious, nasty, terrifying crap outta there.



      Total non-sequitor of Siamese Kittens because A.) I love them very much, they are magical kitties from Heaven that make me smile great big & flood the raw chambers of my heart with unbounded joy & hope;  B.) I miss my lil boy Sakai desperately, and  C.) Cause I can.  😘