life is a struggle, right?

A brief update: I am currently working on my senior thesis collection for fashion design; a culmination of my college work and personal artistry. It is exciting and rewarding and STRESSFUL AS HELL.

Normal stress after cancer is proving to be an uphill battle. In my pre-cancer days, I'd stay up for days and a time, drink gallons of caffeine, and kick out a project that I could be (reasonably) proud of. My body would recoup in a few days and I'd be fine.

Now, things are drastically different. I am managing my time well and have allowed time for rest, but my body is screaming at me. I like working with a deadline, but I worry that my body won't be able to keep up with the demands I'm putting it through. 10 hours a day, every day, I've been draping, pattern drafting, sewing, drawing, crying in the shower with my clothes on, all with wide-eyed anticipation for May.

After a few days at work my muscles are burning. Everything aches, from my back to the tips of my fingers. I've had a cold that's been waxing and waning for 3 months now. My PTSD symptoms are out with full force, presumably due to all of this stress. I am not complaining, I'm merely documenting my experience. I understand that cancer, PTSD, stress, and the general "failing" of my body won't go away, and I'll need to cope and adapt. That said, I am the happiest I've ever been in a long, long time. Or perhaps, just more appreciative of happiness... :)

Here is a really great, accessible essay on PTSD. I relate to just about everything that is written.

Here's a sneak peak at one of the muslins I've been working on:



So basically, in a nutshell, I'm stressed and in pain and it sucks, but I'm trying to work it out. [Not "make it work", I swear, the next person who says that to me gets a pressing block to the head.]

Everything will be Alright.

No word yet on test results.

I found out Friday that one of my Ewing's buddies died. Not "passed away" or "went to a better place", but stopped-breathing-doesn't-exist-as-a-living-being DEAD. We went through treatment together, relaying philosophy on illness, life, and death. We both subscribed to the Taoist notion of "go with the flow", as it were. When he started learning the piano, I followed suit. We were both stong and vegetarian and cynnical twenty-somethings. I had no doubt he would be fine.

If you are lucky enough to be initiated into the Cult of Cancer, your brethren will soon become your support system, your best friends, your partners in chemo crime. And, inevitably, some of them will die on you, and you have to accept it.

I am in the midst of mourning for my cancer companions, to whom I relate in experience more than anyone else, more than my best of friends, more than my own family. I think of you every day. You live inside me now, in my thoughts and actions henceforth. I live for you. You are me.



Everything will be alright.

I wrote this in my journal around June. Obviously it was written for myself, but now I'm giving it to you. I come back to it every so often. It's easy to feel helpless post cancer, but we're not. We're not helpless or hopeless. We have an amazing amount of strength within us.

Alter Egos

The mutant radiation-chemo combo has given me the power of the Alter Ego. Observe:





Hey guys, I feel great. I am single-handedly making cancer my bitch and I've also got this great Linsdsey Lohan hairdo. I will be back before you know it!







oh, hey, an eskeemo only a mother could love. Right after chemo; I've just puked. I'm really scared of dying right now. My eyebrows are falling off. I'm hopefully half way done but I cry at the thought of enduring this for another 3 1/2 months. I cry A LOT. I feel I've lost all of my friends and I miss them dearly.



Unfortunately the latter has become the norm.



Lately I have succumbed to numbness- perhaps I've just become used to my situation. When the pain becomes too much to bear, my mind just pops right off from my body like a balloon. I feel separated from everything, just floating and unfeeling. I span time like this. Nothing else matters. Great coping mechanism, huh?