Sunday, November 5, 2017

Every Breath You Take

Hello Darlings...

24 years ago I was lying in a hospital bed with pitocin being poured into me to make me go into labor.

My little precious was overdue and it was time for her to make her debut in this world.

I had worked so hard to have a baby.  I got pregnant easily but prior to conceiving her I had back-to-back miscarriages and one was ectopic.

So this pregnancy started with terror because I feared I would have another ectopic pregnancy again.

I had been married for 6.5 years and I wanted to be a mother more than anything else in the world. 

All I wanted was a child.

I had horrible morning sickness but I didn't care.  It was worth it because I was going to finally have a baby.

And on November 5, 1993 at 11:55 at night the greatest blessing and treasure of my life was born.

I had a daughter.

She came silently into this world with her big eyes wide open and fully alert.

My obstetrician claimed he had never delivered a more alert baby.

She had a knot in her cord---we were lucky it did not cut off her blood and oxygen supply (and sadly I had a friend who was pregnant at the same time I was and this poor woman was in her early 40's and had tried for years to get pregnant---and her baby died in utero from a knot in the cord...)

But she was as healthy a baby as can be and she soon began to scream to let us all know she was here.

All 8 lbs 2 ounces of her.

She was very short...she looked like a little butterball turkey...fat and compact...

it was the only time in her life that anyone would describe her as "fat"...she has always been a tiny little thing...

She had the biggest blue eyes and the tiniest perfect gorgeous little mouth.

My parents fell head over heels in love with her. 

Sadly my dad would pass away 2 months later but she and my mom had the sweetest relationship until my mother passed away when my daughter was 11.

She was a strong willed child who was very stubborn and could argue like a $500 an hour lawyer.

She had a way with animals and showed us her math and artistic ability at a young age.

She is marvelous...even more so now as an adult.

She is her own person and I'm proud of the woman she is.

When I look at her I marvel at the fact that the beautiful young lady before me (who looks so much like my own mother) was made in my body and carried in my uterus.

A uterus that has been trying to kill me for a year.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the hysteroscopy that Dr. Gorgeous performed on me to help find out what was going on with my body.  She took a lot of biopsies.  She warned me a hysterectomy was eminent.

But I was old enough to be past the age of needing a uterus.

A uterus that had given me my amazing children.

I find it ironic that the uterus that gave me the only thing I ever really wanted in the world is also the thing that is trying to kill me.

All I ever wanted was to be a mom.  Carrying a baby inside me was 40 weeks of pure joy. I nurtured them inside of me and loved being pregnant and knowing that I was making life inside my body.

My uterus was precious to me because I got to be a mom thanks to it.

And now, 24 years after it served me so well it is trying to kill me.

Or was...

because I got that damn thing yanked out of me on November 28, 2016...

It's gone...I no longer have a uterus.

But I still have Uterine Pappilary Serous Carcinoma

aka El Diablo

I have had a hellish year thanks to this stupid cancer...and I am damn tired of giving any more time over to it.

I am FINALLY done with treatments (we hope---we will find out the first week of December) and I am ready to get my giant hernia fixed and then forget that I have been a cancer patient for a year.

Earlier this week I was pretty down.

I felt the black bleak cloud of despair descending on me and robbing me of the joy I usually have.

I felt bitter and depressed and overwhelmed by sadness, frustration, and loneliness...

I cried many, many tears and my heart was hurt and heavy.

I'm very tired of being a single woman alone...and I'm tired of walking this path without a partner...

and being alone in the hospital just magnified that.

But I am feeling a lot better now and the blood in my veins is making me stronger...

It's amazing to me how you don't know how bad you feel until you get better....

I spent this time last year wondering if I had cancer (spoiler alert: I did)

And here I am again waiting to see if I STILL have cancer...I have 5 weeks to wait until I see Dr. Angel and see what he says he saw on the CT scan.

Life is sometimes full of irony---the organ that gave me the greatest gifts of my life is trying to kill me and one year later I am STILL waiting to see if I have beaten El Diablo...

I've learned so much in this year...so much about cancer but mostly about myself.

Motherhood taught me a lot about myself as well...I learned patience...I learned what pure true honest love is...I learned what "I would die for you" means...I learned that I am not perfect...I learned that there is nothing I wouldn't do for my children (if it is the right thing for them)...and I learned that my kids are smarter than me...

Cancer has further refined those feelings and teachings---I have even more patience now...I learned that my love for my children is stronger than my fear so that pure true honest love is even deeper now...I learned that my children are my best reason not to die from cancer (although I would die to save them)...I learned that my many imperfections are there more than ever and I have even more...I have endured more needles, pain, illness etc in the name of getting well because I want to live to love my kids for even longer....and they are still smarter than me...

I had an easy life as a child...my teenage years were complicated because of my parent's divorce and my stepmother...my adult years were mostly spent with a man I loved but didn't LOVE but he gave me great kids...

and now I am free of those burdens and an adult who is free to live her life

and yet I am bound to not live it fully because of the disease I have.

24 years ago I was in labor...

the contractions were severe (thank you pitocin) and I was scared out of my mind...

but at the end of that labor (a very appropriate word) I fell more deeply in love than I had ever loved before...when she took her first breath she forever had my love and devotion...

she is my everything (along with her brother)

she's so smart...so beautiful...so talented...so wonderful...

24 years ago I worked to bring a soul into this world and I had my dream of being a mother fulfilled...

and today I fight for that soul...I fight to be her mom for many more years to come...

I think first of my children when I am given each treatment...each chemo...each radiation...each transfusion...

I pray that whatever they are doing to me will let me live to see my grandchildren...to see my kids gt married and become older...

I pray that I live so long they fight about who has to come visit me in the nursing home.

When I had to tell my daughter that I had cancer it was the hardest conversation I have ever had.

But at the end of it I told her that I would not let cancer kill me.

That something else might but cancer would not.

I am keeping that promise...

I will not let it take me away from her...

Every breath I take is for my kids...I have the two greatest reasons for living...

and yes, I do live for myself...

and someday I hope to share myself with a man who will know that my children come first but that he is loved just as much...

someday...

but for now my motivation to fight is my two amazing kids...and that is the best reason of all...

So happy birthday to the love of my life---my beautiful daughter...

I promise that next year on her birthday I will be healthy...and hopefully with her...and that all of this will be a memory just like her labor was...

24 years of motherhood has shaped me into who I am...

cancer will not...

Inspiration Song: "Every Breath You Take" by the Police...because every breath I take and every move I make is for my kids...

Bye Darlings---God has blessed me...I have faith that He will keep me here to continue to love my two blessings...


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