Positively Phoebe

I am trying to figure out how many of my close friends have new-ish babies and/or babies on the way right now.  And all I can come up with is... a lot.  That's how many.  A friggin' lot. The fact that I am thinking about this at all is strange and new.  Until pretty damned recently, I could have cared less about any human being under the age of, say, oh... twenty or so.  Kids?  Zero interest.  And don't even get me started on my previous feelings about babies.  Suffice it to say that I was NEVER a fan - not even as a child myself.  Just didn't have that maternal gene, I guess.  Never had any desire to have a child of my own or even to be around anyone else's. That changed slightly and slowly as more and more of my amazing friends had amazing kids.  When Steve had Maverick six years ago, I HELD my first baby.  And when Lacey had Spencer, I fell head over heels in love with my first baby.  And now she's pregnant again....

Recently, a woman started writing to me who had been reading my blog - referred to it by a mutual friend.  She's been through cervical cancer, too.  Only hers came back.  Or spread.  Or something.  I honestly cannot tell you the details because the further into her last email I got, the less I was able to focus until finally all I was seeing was, "Words words words, words words words words." on my screen.  Nothing was processing.  My brain literally turned off.  It was like a red light was flashing that just said "NOPE NOPE NOPE".  I could not sit here, less than a month after hearing my own "all clear" and absorb that someone had been through my same treatments and had a recurrence.  Or that someone else she knew, someone younger than me, had DIED after a recurrence.  I was not prepared for how reading those intimate, open words, shared by a sweet and kind-hearted woman just looking to make a connection... would make me feel. ...

Does anyone else ever feel like their life is not actually happening to them? Like nothing is real.  Like you're just watching it all happen in a movie or reading about it in a book?  Do you ever feel this disconnected from your own experiences? I think that, in a lot of ways, I have felt this way my whole life.  But since the moment of my diagnosis, that disconnection has gotten so much more consuming.  So much stronger.  So much worse.  And it hasn't gone away.  Not even in beautiful Italia. During this trip, this once in a lifetime trip, I have felt like a lot of the time it isn't even me that's here.  Like I'm just one of the numbers on the blog counter scrolling up and up and up, just reading about it.  And feeling that way makes me feel like I am somehow failing my parents, who put so much money and so much time and thought into making this happen for me.  I feel guilty for not having the mental functionality to plan things and...

Yesterday, I went to my "Life After Cancer" class.  Overall, it was informative, though little of the information presented was new to me.  Except for the fact that the recent numbness in my toes is likely a side effect of the Cisplatin I was given in chemotherapy, which I believe the nurse referred to as "coasting neuropathy."  Supposedly, this little bit of annoyance can begin around a month after treatment ends and last up to a year.  Joy!  Aside from that, though, there was just a lot of talk about "the new normal", coping with fatigue, changing diet and exercise habits, et cetera. While most of what was discussed was useful in a broad sense, I could not help but feel like I was not REALLY a part of this group.  There were 5 other cancer survivors in the class with me.  Four of them - breast cancer survivors (not sure about the fifth - it never came up).  SO, right off the bat, not only were their treatments different (and less inv...

...then hell is in me.  In my ass, to be precise.  At least, that would explain the fire going on back there. Yeah.  Remember when I was bitching up a storm about my "legpits"?  Well that was an effing cakewalk compared to this.  Somehow I guess I thought that once external radiation was done, things would start getting better down below.  Oh, Stupid Phoebe.  How you could not have been more wrong.  Since that much anticipated day a week ago, things in the side-effect area have gotten nothing but a bazillion times worse.  The raw red skin and weeping gray blisters that once tormented me up front have now taken up residence in the crack of my ass.  And, uncomfortable as it may have been in the front, I could at least make some effort to cool off/dry out the legpit blister-thon by laying like a starfish, limbs splayed as wide as possible in every direction with various and sundry pillows propping up this or that.  But you know what?...