Not That There's Anything Wrong With That!!

Have you ever felt like you became a completely different person just over the course of a weekend? Wow. This weekend was an amazing growth spurt for me - emotionally. First off, let me just say that Halloween was amazing. My kids were awesome, we hooked up with some friends of mine in the housing development across the highway where they actually have sidewalks (on one side of the street anyway) and Madeline was the most beautiful Cinderella and Ginger the cutest Duck you've ever seen. They Trick Or Treated for just about an hour and had a blast. Ginger even got the gist of it herself and walked pretty much the whole time, tightly grasping her plastic pumpkin full of candy. One house I watched from the street, Madeline rang the doorbell, then saw in the long skinny window by the door the man coming to the door and she started jumping up and down saying "they're coming! they're coming!". I suddenly flashed back to being a kid myself and the rush of adrenaline when you saw someone coming to the door - it was so awesome to watch my kids trick or treating. This is really all I wanted to be able to accomplish (short goal obviously) with this surgery, make sure I was OK enough to take my kids trick or treating. And I got to do it - what a blessing.

So - my last post spoke of the unveiling. Well, something happened to me the next morning. I woke up and thought "Dammit Dina, get yourself up and change your frickin dressings yourself. You've going to have to do it sooner or later." So I got everything prepared. My ointment, my gauze pads, got my drains tucked into the sides of my panties and then I thought, why don't you just turn away from the mirror - baby steps maybe. Nope - that same voice said "just fuckin do it Dina - get over yourself - you're still you, tits or no tits". So I did it. And it was hard, but felt really good to do this myself. I took time, looked, touched, examined - then cried. Very cleansing. Then I changed my drains and got myself put together for the day. Looking back at this now, feels like a lifetime ago. I had PJ come in and give me his opinion on one side, cuz it looks creepier than the other side - but I did it all myself all weekend. That felt amazing. Tonight, I feel like an old pro.

Friday night was also a complete emotional meltdown for me. It was really awful. Nancy had to take me to run some quick errands during the afternoon, then I get a call from PJ saying he really needs me home because work is telling him he's 'not doing his job'. So I quickly get home and he ends up having to work on this problem until after 6pm. Now, that may seem like no big deal, and under normal circumstances, it really should be no big deal. But, my emotions are on edge anyway, Nancy had been at our house since 7am and now I realize, I can't tell her to go home and rest because my husband isn't done working yet. It's like it finally hit me, I literally cannot care for my children by myself. I can't lift Ginger at all, therefore, I need someone to help me - all the time. I was an emotional wreck. I knew I needed help before this, I just didn't realize how much. Then to find out my husbands work was telling him what a bad job he had been doing, I just fell apart. My husband is just about the best person I know. He has been working full time while taking care of our children and most of all me for the past 6 months while trying to tend to and deal with his own father and his dementia, all personal shit - I realize this too. But, he works all day, when we have dr appts or something, he works until 3-4 in the morning, weekends, any spare time that is really, always supposed to be 'his' time, is never 'his' time. He's been living on 2-3 hours sleep for too long - and I think it all just finally came to a head. Part of me felt like calling his bosses and saying "Do you realize he's been taking care of his wife who just had her tits cut out for Christ's sake? Trust me, you can't imagine what he has been dealing with here - you couldn't just cut him a little slack this week?" But, as PJ and I discussed, life goes on. As much as we don't want it to, it does. We are going to have to ask for help for even more help for the next 4 weeks, since I can't pick Ginger up for the whole month of Nov and PJ can no longer take the time to take madeline to school. So, starting tomorrow, I will be doing that. I'm totally ready for it - wish I had another week before I headed back out into mom world, but, that's ok. I can take it. I do know my limits, and will just move slowly is all. Once I get these frickin drains out I will feel much better. They are getting a bit painful now, and I'm ready to just be done with them.

My mom and Britt arrived early Sat morning, so that was a blessing. We ordered pizza sat night before trick or treat and mom helped me get the girls in their costumes. So cool to get to share this with her. We had a great time.

I got to go to church this morning, which felt awesome! I praised God for my church family, for a successful surgery and clean path report. I was bombarded though, for some reason today, with a barrage of inappropriate comments. Why does this happen to me? I got this first, "Oh, your hair looks so cute! Are you going to keep it?" To which I replied "Um, I'm just happy to have hair right now!" then they said "On, so you've had trouble?" - What? Ok - let it go, just let it go. Then, this younger man, I think special needs, not sure (we can hope) turns to me, points to his face and says this "So - I had a scare last week! This mark on my face, thought it was skin cancer. Went to the doctor who started squeezing it and out came a couple hairs! Seems they were curly and grew right back into my face!" - What the fuck? Are you kidding me? I felt like pointing to my chest and going "yea, had a scare myself! ended up being cancer with a double mastectomy - i thought it was just an ingrown hair!". Oy.

Then, after we were home from church, my mom and I were chatting while the girls played outside - and let me preface this with a disclaimer because my mom reads my blog faithfully - and how blessed I am to have a mom who 1) knows what a blog is and 2) cares enough about me to see what I have to talk about about every day - but I need to share this because mom, you brought me some amazing insight today, and I love you for it.

I was telling my mom about a friend of mine at church who teaches at the community college up here. She had asked me if I would be interested in coming to speak to her class as they were discussing 'master role' perceptions. (The thing you subconsciously assume about someone you see in passing). Now, when I was explaining to my mom what a 'master role' was, and how she wanted to hear from me on my experience, my mother said to me "because people think you're a lesbian now?" I was stunned to hear this, needless to say, this was the furthest thing from my mind. I replied, "no, I think the fact that I'm walking around with my husband and children might negate that perception". To which she replied "not if you go to Walgreens by yourself". Here we go with Walgreens again, isn't that where that man asked me if I was a man or a woman? Maybe I should switch to CVS? Anyhow, I found myself so hurt by this. Very hurt by this. And I couldn't really figure out why. I mean, I know I can't control what other people think about me, but this meant to me that my mom actually thought this about me - or thought about it enough to assume other people thought this about me. Whereas I have only felt more feminine and attractive as of late, excited to be growing hair, etc. Maybe that's what hurt my feelings so much. I don't know. I don't want to say that I'm offended if people think I'm gay - because gay people don't offend me (bigotry offends me, that's about it), I have very liberal views on this subject, anyone who knows me, knows this about me. But I'm not gay, and suddenly the fact that my mother seemed to feel like I looked like I was, really hurt me. Ironic thing is, since I have been really coming to terms with my physical self the past 2 days, I have never felt more feminine. Isn't that funny? It's like I was just tuning into what 'feeling'' like woman was really all about, from the inside, then I get called a lesbian. Not that lesbians aren't feminine and womanly and all these cool things I'm describing, I'm just experiencing this from a heterosexual standpoint is all. Make sense? In the end, I came up with this - I guess if my mom thinks that when people look at me they think I'm a lesbian - then that's way cool with me. I'd much rather be taken for a lesbian than a cancer patient. Cuz that means they see a vibrant, healthy, strong woman - which I am. I'm take it as a compliment. BTW - the class wanted me to discuss how it felt to have my master role be perceived as 'white woman mother of 2' to 'breast cancer patient, mother of 2'. ;-)

So there's my weekend - heavy shit eh? So of course I need to share with you my devotional from yesterday. It was totally walking me through today. Check this out:

Learn to listen to Me, even while you are listening to others. As they open their souls to your scrutiny, you are on holy ground. You need the help of My Spirit to respond appropriately. Ask Him to think through you, live through you, love through you. My own Being is alive within you in the Person of the Holy Spirit. If you respond to others needs through your unaided thought processes, you offer them dry crumbs. When the Spirit empowers your listening and speaking, My streams of living water flow through you to other people. Be a channel of My Love, Joy and Peace by listening to Me as you listen to others.

I prayed so hard yesterday for that - I asked Him to think, live and love through me. Sometimes it is so hard to hear Him speaking to us, our brains get so full of our own mindless banter.

Haven't gathered all the pics from Halloween yet - will post this week. Hope everyone had an awesome weekend.

God Bless and, oh yea, Go Yankees!!!!!