Everything Changes.

“Look around you. Everything changes. Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing and changing. You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant.” – Steve Maraboli

Logos

Time, just goes. We look back and think of all the time we had to do this, to do that, and here we are over a year later and time, seems to have escaped everything. It’s really not as important as we think it is. It really is not important. Time that is. A lot more to come, first though, this:

Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you. – Marcus Aurelius

 

Tubes and all.

Last Wednesday I had my first oncology appointment. I hadn’t slept the night before, and was very tired. I was fortunate enough to have the company of my partner, Michael, through the course of the visit. I don’t think my attitude would have been as positive afterward if it hadn’t been for his encouragement, support and caring.

So this is it: I have to have a hysterectomy.

Here is why: At first I was told I have clear margins, this was from my most recent surgery, the cold knife cone biopsy. When I met with the oncologist this was and wasn’t true. Although I do not “have cancer,” cancerous cells are in place. I was diagnosed with Adenocarcinoma in situ (CIN II). Carcinoma are cancerous cells, in situ means in place. This was very different than their original assessment. First, only surface tissues seemed to be involved. Upon further evidence from the pathology report, they discovered that the abnormal cells were deeper in the cervical tissue than they’d like to see, especially after the biopsy. Also, they were showing up in the glands that run parallel throughout the cervical tissue.

Awesome!

I was given two choices for further treatment. First, if I was planning on having kids, my best option would be another cold knife cone biopsy, one where the surgery would go deeper into the cervical canal and also deeper into the tissue walls to remove as much as possible. I would probably have complications if I were to have kids. My cervix would have to be stitched.

The second option was a total hysterectomy. I would have the cervix, uterus and tubes removed, but I’d get to keep my ovaries. This option would be only if I was ok never having kids, and am not family driven.

Imagine sitting in an office chair and a doctor tells you that you’re basically making a semi or permanent decision about your fertility.

I cried a little, but mostly was in shock! I’m 34, I get annual PAPs, all of which had been clean, all of them except this last one. I felt conflict: what if I did eventually want to have kids someday? why was this happening now? are seriously kidding me?….they had to be someone else’s results.

After spending the night talking with friends, family and Michael, I decided, for me personally, the hysterectomy was the best option. I’ve never been “driven” to have kids. I love them, but realistically, if it hadn’t really happened by now, I wasn’t expecting it to, and had made amends with life in general.

So here I am. My surgery is May 2nd. It’s, for me, the most logical choice to make considering the facts. I could have biopsy after biopsy and possibly never remove all the offending cells. Not only that but I’d be destroying my cervix in the process. Or, I just remove the parts where the cells are lurking, possibly in areas yet undiscovered, and I lose my fertility, permanently.

I thought hard about this decision. I cried hard about it. Never being able to have kids is a big deal. But not being around at some point to enjoy life, family and Michael, is even worse. I’m sacrificing the parts for the good of the whole.

F Cancer.

Clear Margins.

Early last Friday morning I was having breakfast with my partner in a bed & breakfast just outside of New Paltz, NY. We’d spent the week hiking, exploring the Gunks, it was so beautiful. I received a call from my OB GYN, my annual PAP came back very irregular, so irregular that she scheduled me for surgery while I was on the phone with her.

If you’ve known anyone in this situation before, you as a reader, maybe able to understand how impacted I was, and my partner too when I related the information. It didn’t make the week any less beautiful, I did however feel like I had stepped into another universe.

Driving back from NY I thought about a lot. What did this mean for my partner and I? How much school was I going to miss? I had to clear my professional work schedule for 2 weeks due to recovery time. I needed to let my family and close friends know. That four hours was in some ways, the longest I’ve had in my life to date.

The weekend was hard, I kept a lot of emotions inside, it created a lot of tension, overall things went well despite the looming heaviness of the surgery day. My partner took me in for surgery Tuesday, I was home by noon. There weren’t any surgical complications, but now I had to wait for test results. The doctors explained best and worst case scenarios. I mentally prepped myself for everything. Talked with my family, my partner and my friends. There was a lot of positive emotion being sent around, and I think it’s easy to forget how strong those things can make you feel, and also too, to not take anything for granted.

So this is it, my story of the last week: I have dysplasia and abnormal cell growth in my cervix. What this typically means or is translated too is defined in terms of being pre cancerous. I underwent a Cold Knife Cone biopsy. Recovery period is no exercise for 2 weeks, no intercourse for a month. There’s heavy spotting, cramping and back pain (I’m currently sporting all three of these things.)

Yesterday I had the first part of a new sleeve tattoo started. Towards the end of my sitting my doctor called and gave me great news: clear margins, no cancer.

I felt like reality again had just snapped back in place. I was so relieved. So were my partner, friends and family.

Follow up treatment will be for now, PAPs every 6 months instead of annually. I’m also seeing an OB GYN oncologist.

Before all of this happened, I signed up for a great local bike ride with my bike buddy, and also a trail run/canoe race with another friend. Training is on hold for both, but I am still doing both, maybe with less strength, but now even more determination to just DO THEM.

I don’t know how other people feel when they find out their lives don’t have to change severely. I know how I feel as a woman, friend, lover and family member. Nothing is too small or too big to help you gain a better perspective on what this journey we call life is all about.

Now I don’t have to sacrifice the rest of my cervix or uterus. I can still have children If I want (if my partner wants!) Life is, today, really beautiful.

So take a deep breath and enjoy and reflect with me.

Getting On With It.

figure sketch © ChossyGrl

“There’s a difference between meaning that is embodied and meaning that is referenced. As someone once said, no one should wear a Greek fisherman’s hat except a Greek fisherman.” Art & Fear

Classes for the fall semester are over. Next week I have a senior art thesis proposal meeting. This is, in large part, a lot of the work I’ve been doing the past couple of weeks. Along with essays for class and figure work, I’ve been gathering ideas and trying to conceptualize what it is that I want to say next semester, with my art.

I had a breakdown yesterday. I guess, that’s great, I needed it. Life is funny, sometimes surreal. All the things you think matter and are important really mean nothing when you strip away a lot of the external context.

I’m terrified of graduating. I’ve said this before, but not like this.

I have panic attacks. I’m not sleeping. And I have not been able to make art in over a month. Not a dry spell, but a brick wall.

So I took a good look at what I was really feeling yesterday and it’s fear. It’s fear of the unknown after college, it’s fear of not being a good enough artist. It’s fear of being content to be alone and not wanting to get close to anyone. It’s fear of not growing as a person, and only growing into myself.

I don’t know if the passage of time has anything to do with this. Time being a constant: it’s so intangible, but we count it in everything we do, it becomes omnipresent. Maybe getting older is affecting me this way. I had a thought about how I reached all the goals I had set for this year, and how maybe the constant of my momentum had just finally taken its toll.

I have three and a half months left of college. I’m researching graduate schools. I day dream a lot.

Sometimes those dreams are about rock climbing in other places. Sometimes they are about cycling. Sometimes I am hiking to the top of a mountain and I am by myself and everything is peaceful.

Going The Distance.

The MS city to shore is in less than a week. I’ve raised $515.00 (plus $200 that is on its way into the main MS office in Philadelphia.) It’s been such a positive experience this summer training for this event. Without even knowing that I was going to do the event, biking has become something I look forward to doing, and definitely something that has brought me closer to other people and even taught me more about myself as a person.

I did something fun with the Runkeeper application I use to track my routes and miles. I added together all the total mileage of the cycling activities I’ve done since the start of the summer.

The total was 603.04 miles.

I think that’s pretty cool! The majority of those miles were super fun, even the hills which at times are all about suffering (suffering is good for the soul!)

So that’s it. One more training ride tomorrow for fun with my team mates and then the City to Shore on Saturday.

I don’t think I could have managed this without the support of my family,  the team, or my biking buddy, who was so encouraging on our rides, and is just an amazing friend.

It’s funny….biking helped awaken this thing in me this summer that felt like being young again. Almost like being a kid, where sensations are new and fun, and laughter is really the best medicine for everything.

 

Green I.T. a solution.

Earlier I wrote about my feelings concerning a situation I was dealing with at my university. I had on Tuesday presented my concerns to my professor and today at the start of the lecture was met with a rather amazing surprise!

My professor had indeed inquired about physical notebooks containing the essays we needed for the class, as a solution to having to print out all the articles that were being posted on-line. The foundation that is offering the course I’m taking in conjunction with the university did in fact have old copies that they were seeking to dispose of. The foundation is in the process of reprinting these essay books and was kind enough to offer the old (trashed) ones to our professor for our use in this fall’s class. FREE!

This is great! I’m grateful to my professor for following through with my inquiry about the essays. It turned out to be a good idea.

An obvious question would be this: if the course is set up the original way, with the essays not offered in bound form, wouldn’t it be more productive to offer the bound essays regardless of their availability on-line? As a necessary book/text for the course? I think so, well personally anyways. I can’t stare at a screen for hours reading essays, also, I can’t carry my laptop everywhere to read when I  feel like it, the bound form seems like a good idea. If anything, the foundation could require that we hand them back in to be reused at the end of the course, bonus recycling points!

Good end to the second week of classes.

 

From a text message to a Blog post.

This loneliness and a story about why I’m never bored.

(This is painful, in my chest and hard to tell.)

There was a boy, we weren’t that much younger than what I am now. We were sitting in a room with hard chairs, dark walls, plenty of lights and magazines. He sat in one, I sat catty corner, next to him. He was crying. I was trying to read. I reached out my hand and placed it on his wrist, I squeezed it. He looked up at me. Quiet. The tears ran down his face, his cheeks pink and flushed, his eyes swollen from the fluid. His nose dripping. He said, “tell me it’s going to be alright.”

I said, “It’s going to be alright.”

And he cried. And so did I, even though I had not intended to.

Weeks later we were at the funeral. A week after that it was new year’s eve. We were listening to music at a dinning room table in his parents house. It was late. I was tired.

He started to tell a story and then broke into tears. “He’s not alone right? I mean….I don’t want to be alone.” I squeezed his hand and said,

“He’s not alone.” /end.

But we are. And he was. And even my comfort was crass. I was alone then too. Tears and death and love and sorrow and endings.

Don’t wait….risk everything. It could be gone. Anytime. And you’re left with unconnectedness and wondering. Madness and depression.

Progress & Gratitude.

The portrait I’ve been working on for a friend is slowly taking shape. A couple weeks ago I was getting up early before class and work just to have an hour or 45 minutes to get a few strokes and colors down, now that summer classes are finished, I can sit for hours and push the brush. It’s nice to have the time back to explore with the paint and the forms, and I’m grateful for the time again. The piece is taking shape, and I can see characteristics of my other friend, starting to come through, which is always a cool process. Sometimes I think to myself, when painting “does this really look like the person I want it to? Will they recognize themselves?” Some times they do, other times they don’t and are surprised that I would interpert them that way.

Something I’ve learned from painting over the last year: it has to do its own thing. I can start off with an idea, or general impression of what I want to achieve with any piece, but realistically, I have to be open to everything. Sometimes accidental strokes make the best new beginnings. When you start to command the paint or the brushes, a piece looks artificial, not sincere or spontaneous. At least for me, I’ve found this to be true. So, I’m excited to keep working on this portrait, and I want to prime some more boards for a few others while in the process.

I had this moment last night, and I wanted to put down a few words about what happened. Even if just so some day I can come back here and reflect and be like, yeah, that’s why all of this matters…

I went to a happy hour for a friend last night, it was great to see them, and meet some new people, laugh with some old people and just have a good positive night. Afterwards I went food shopping. When I left the store it was almost dark. I looked up at the sky while putting the groceries into my car and the skyline was lit by pinks, oranges, purples and blues. Some of the clouds stood out starkly against this bright background, others simply melted into it. It was an amazingly beautiful moment. I had to actually stop while leaving the parking lot and just sit by the car and watch it for a while. It was that beautiful.

I thought to myself, how nice it would be to see others in the lot, watching the same moment I was watching right then. But people were just driving by. They looked at me, but never looked at the sky.

It was a weird moment. I felt grateful for my family, for the friends I had just left, for my bike buddy Amanda, who is always positive during our rides, and has kept me going all these weeks. I felt relaxed, like time didn’t matter, the reason it existed was for this moment. I also felt sad because sometimes there is a part of me that wants others to see these things and feel them the way I do. I am not sure if they do, or if they understand the deepness of them in me, or in life. It is only a piece, I know, but something I think about….stopping to see what’s there, instead of looking for the next thing.

Today I woke with this feeling of deep gratitude. Still some lingering sadness, I think that is always a part of me. I accept this most days and am ok with it. But today, just reflecting on the many things in life there are to be thankful for, and how beautiful that makes it.

Bridging the Gap.

 

I’ve been training for my first MS City to Shore bike ride these past few months, and it’s been an eye opener. I started out riding my old mountain bike and quickly realized there was no way I could physically endure 75 miles on a mountain bike. My mother graciously “lent” me her old Specialized hybrid to train on, and that’s what I’ve been booking miles on since. It’s a pretty solid ride, handles nicely on the pavement, and when I need to go off road, the tires can take it.

People are funny. Most of my training rides now are 20-30 milers, and I’m trying to get out 3 times a week at least. Occasionally I get a lot of unwanted feedback from other riders I pass on the trail during longer rides, especially when I’m by myself. I don’t respond, and when I’m feeling especially motivated, I’ll throw a peace sign or an extra big smile as a reply.

I would like to know why other bikers put negative shit out there. I mean, why take that extra step and be rude to a perfect stranger when it takes so much energy to do so? What’s the point? I’ve had other bikers make rude comments about my bike, yell at me about how slow I’m going, and pass way to close without warning.

I suppose this is just normal. It just surprises me, because I’m not like that, and I work extra hard to put out good vibes while I’m riding. I think it helps. I just don’t get the negativity.

Anyway, the hybrid has been great. It took a couple of weeks to physically get comfortable to 20 mile rides, but now they are enjoyable. I feel stronger, and 30 mile rides are starting to look good too.

Over the weekend I was on a training ride at the NJ shore with my mother, who also rides. I had set a goal for us, and after 19 miles of great riding we hit that goal: crossed a fourth bridge from North Wildwood NJ and were headed into the mainland when I noticed my back tire running low. A half mile later it was flat. Not only had the tube gone flat but the tire itself was slashed from some glass we had hit crossing the last bridge on our route. There was no fixing it and we had to be picked up. It was a bummer, but we had made so much progress crossing that fourth bridge, I didn’t stay bummed for long.

On Monday I took the bike to the shop, got the tire and tube replaced and Tuesday I was headed out to ride again.

Confronting Mental Walls

When I pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead Tuesday morning, the sky had gone completely gray and it had started to rain. My goal that day was a 22 miler. I looked around the lot, there were 4 other cars there, that meant, maybe 4 other riders out in the rain. I wouldn’t be the only one riding. I had to face this…thing. Come event day, it could possibly rain. I would have to decide then, whether or not I would want to ride 75 miles in the rain. So here I was, in the pouring rain in the parking lot with my gear and my bike, thinking about riding.

I think, sometimes, it’s easy to think of the weather as a barrier. It’s too hot, you get sweaty and can’t do things. It’s too cold, you get cold and can’t do things. It’s raining, you get wet and can’t do things. I was standing there thinking…it’s only water, what do I really have to think about? Only a few things really: the pavement will be a little slippery, so I have to watch my braking and my turns. I might also have to work harder, but really, I’m just going to get wet and if I can live with that, then why not ride?

I got on my bike and rode, 21 miles, in the pouring rain. It was the best training ride I’ve had so far. My pace was better, my breathing, my endurance. It was fantastic. And it was only rain.

I did see 5 other riders. Most of them were smiling….like me.

The note I made was about barriers, and what they really are, what they really represent. There are no limitations except the ones you have already conditioned yourself to accept in your own mind. So what would happen if they didn’t exist anymore? What if….