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Solo Journey…

/ Lynne / Leave a comment

My journey is mine alone. We may often share some joys and heartaches but, for the most part the path I am on I must travel those trials alone. This does not mean that I am truly alone in the sense of not having anyone to share it with. It just means that the trials and tribulation, the ups and the downs, the good and the bad are all something that I have to experience as myself. Not as a woman, wife, sister, daughter but as just lil ole me.

I feel there are two types of alone. There is the type of alone where I have no friends, no family no one to share my life with and the alone where it is just me. Where I exist as just me and my feelings and experiences. See we can share experiences with others but what they personally experience and the feelings they have after are totally different from yours. There is a nuance here that makes it so different.

This path I am on this year has been a struggle. While my husband was there with me every step of the way his pain and grief were of a different sort.  Where he had accepted some time ago that we would not bear children, I, on the other hand was still holding out hope and desire. Not to say he didn’t grieve as well. That happens when the hope or potential is gone.

We have each been dealing with the loss at the same time but in much different ways we are solo.

There have been many things and people that have loved and cried and helped us along the way. There have been many changes in our lives since February  2015 and I’m sure there will be more yet to come.

One of the positive changes we have made in our journeys is our path to better health and well-being. We starting going to a boxing club three times a week. There is something so gratifying after totally putting all of yourself into a workout, sweating it out leaving it all on the heavy bag, punching out the frustration, pushing yourself to do more, hit harder, move faster. Just be. Because when you are in front of that heavy bag, it’s just you gloved up throwing punches, focusing on hand and foot placement, moving your hips as you hit, all the little tiny things that go into such a large overall movement.

That is how a solo journey is, little tiny moments that make up one big change. We are barely two weeks into our boxing journey but each and every class 3 times a week I learn something more about myself. I learn I can push myself just a little bit harder each time, punch a little bit faster, do more crunches and butterfly kicks and do a knee plank just a little bit longer. AND if I can survive all that and come back for more than life gets just a little easier to deal with.

It’s all about small movements and changes that make the big things so much better.

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Flex Friday Feature Title Boxing Club Green Hills

The Fear of Death…

/ Lynne / Leave a comment

For as long as I can remember I never expected to live to see old age. I’m not sure if it was losing my grandfather when I was 10 or so that triggered my fascination with how long I would live or just what it was.

I was surprised when I turned 25 that I was still alive, then again ten years later, and living to 40 what a shock as well. See deep down I never thought I would live a long life. I never expected to honestly and truly. If you have been reading the last couple of weeks you will know that I am now 41 and at the age my mother was when she started showing signs and symptoms of having cancer, and that I have pre cancerous cells and major surgery coming in just over a week.

My ob oncologist is very thorough. See I have liver disease and there is an increased risk of my liver failing during surgery due to the way the body reacts to anesthesia.  So I’ve had to have extra blood tests and doctors visits and ultra sounds. Each time with the warning of the risk of my life during surgery.

I know I shouldn’t panic. I’ve already had one surgery and came out just fine but it was not as serious as this coming surgery. I am afraid I won’t make it to recovery, I’m afraid that my life will end on the operating table.

See after all these years of feeling like I wouldn’t live to be old I’m afraid now I won’t make it.  People keep telling me it’s a rational fear and that it will be okay and the doctors are just taking extra precautions but I’m afraid.

I’m afraid when I hug and kiss my husband just before they wheel me off that it will be the last time I see him. I wonder how it will feel to just not be anymore.

These are the fears that can eat you alive, these are the not so rational, rational thoughts that plague you when you face your mortality. This is why I’m going to see a therapist on Thursday. This is why getting help when you have a mental illness is so important. I know I’m spiraling. I know i’m fixating. I know in the rational part of my brain that this will be fine, but there is that little voice that keeps saying what if? What if…….I guess I will deal with what if when it happens.

So I guess that’s that…It’s not fair.

/ Lynne / Leave a comment

Well the visit with the oncologist was long and informative and exhausting all at the same time. It boils down to this.

I have a 6 inch cyst on my left ovary, yup you read that right six inches.  It is pushing my bladder and my uterus out of position which has been causing some auxiliary problems that I just thought were part of getting older.

The surgery will remove both ovaries, both fallopian tubes, my uterus and my cervix. They will be doing an open incision because they want to remove everything in tact so that they can do a frozen dissection and test for any other pre cancerous/cancerous cells.

I will be spending 4 to 5 days in the hospital afterwards and then 6 to 8 weeks on home rest after that.

Good news is that I will have plenty of time to complete my last three classes, bad news I won’t be able to do anything much.

We were hoping to keep one of my ovaries so that we could harvest eggs and possibly use a surrogate but the percentage of having viable eggs is less than 20% so adoption it is for us.

I’m sad, angry and ready to shout at the world it’s not fair. Because to be honest it’s not.

My husband and I have stable income a beautiful home and deeply desire to have a family of our own. Nieces and nephews are great but it’s just not the same.  Why is it that those that do not have these things can pop kids out seemingly on a whim?

I believe in choice and accountability for your actions but it’s just not fair. When I think about all the babies that are lost to abortions or not wanted or harmed by their “parents”.  Especially when their are loving couples that can provide all the love and support for these children. How do we live in a world where children are abused and tossed away so effortlessly?

When did it become okay for human life to become disposable? AGAIN and I can’t stress this enough what you decide to do with your body and the things that go in and come out of it is your business and your choice. I have no right to tell you what is right for you but for those of us that don’t have a choice it is very painful. It crushes our very souls. It weighs us down and makes us want to rip a new one in the fabric of society.

At the end of the day I will take my meds, put my cpap on and lay down and go to sleep and wake up in the morning with all these feelings bubbling to the surface. It has been like that for ten years. The yearning and desperate desire to be a mother, and who knows how much longer that desire will go unfulfilled.

At the end of it all I get to feel like it’s not ever fair nor will it ever be. I know there is no promise of fairness in this mortal life we live. I know that, and can’t change it.  I can acknowledge it and struggle to accept it but I don’t have to like it. Acceptance and like are not equal to each other. So therefore I can accept this hand dealt to me but I don’t have to like it.