Breaking Point

Today, I reached my breaking point. Through the planning, the focusing on the good parts, the trying to tell my family/others why it's not that bad, and everything else, I have not allowed myself to feel. Today, with one bump to the ankle, I felt everything. That moment of pain brought every experience back to me: the surgery, the pain, the restlessness, the frustration, the fear, the falls (klutzy people do not belong on crutches), the financial anxiety. On top of that came the new information: this could keep happening over, and over, and over. I have been asked what else I can do to lower the recurrence rate. Sadly, my options are not good. Bone cement could cut through the bone into my joint, and I would be limited in activities for the rest of my life. Chemo... it's chemo. The side effects are endless. So we go into this surgery just hoping to be part of the other 50% who are healed after the bone graft, and pray it will be the last time. These were the thoughts and images that rushed to my brain upon that moment of impact this morning. So I wept. Uncontrollably. It was that gasping, semi snotty, face contorting blubbering where you are too embarassed to see yourself let alone let anyone else see you. Despite that, I ended up finding James because I couldn't stop. I love James. Very much. He let me sob and tell him how much I didn't want this until it all worked out of my system and simply held me and told me how he understood. I needed that. I realized how much that has been missing.

I know I can't expect people to react the way that I need. I just am feeling baffled and lost when it comes to the responses of so many people close to me. I have gotten everything from the indifferent ("bummer" and "well isn't it easy the second time around"), to the cliche ("god is in control" and "others have it so much worse"), or even having someone express how much it will effect THEM (apparently my pain is just too painful for someone ELSE to experience). I don't need anyone to fix this for me... I'm a fixer, I'm a planner, I can hold my own and honestly, nobody could work these details better. I don't need to be told to be reminded that I'm not a child soldier or that at least it's not cancer. 1) I am familiar with other people having WAY worse crap going on in the world. The big picture is not a mystery to me. 2) Why yes, I have considered the fact that benign is better than malignant. 2b) However, cancer or no cancer, bone tumors eat away your bone until it's so weak it could crack in half while I was walking down the street, and leave much of the rest hollow. So yes... it's still a big deal. I am also 100% aware that God has a plan, God will take care of me, and anything else people care to share with me about God. I have a relationship with the Lord, he & I have been down this road before, and I trust all of that. I just don't like it, and choose to tell God that. I don't think that God has a problem with that, so perhaps everyone else should be ok with that too. I get that I have been through this before, and even said myself that recovery will be more manageable this time around. That doesn't make this any easier. That doesn't make it any less of a stress or a burden. In fact, in many ways, I don't see how people don't understand a second time is not going to be better. It's worse... IT'S BACK. AGAIN.

I don't know what it is. Maybe people don't know how to respond. Maybe people are selfish or not listening. Maybe some people have smaller IQ's than I care to admit. Maybe people think I deserve it. Likely all of the above.

I guess right now I just need to be allowed to feel. I have been through my fair share of bullshit in life, I am handed that end of the stick, I know how to get through it. I'm not always graceful, but I make it, and I'm proud of it. I just am tired of being told how to see things, how to feel, how to react. I know better than most of you because I know what I'm facing, and I know myself. So I guess, selfishly, for now, if you can't let feel this, experience this, and scream a bit through the emotional rollercoaster of these next few months, I ask this:

Please just shut up and leave me alone. You are no help.

Unlike this guy... he is a huge help:



A baby mini hippo. Be still my heart.