Boop

The only golden in the world content to do nothing and would actually not prefer to go for walks, thank you very much!

Back in college I was a good-time girl. I loved to party. Tuesday Boozeday, Thirsty Thursday, Sunday Funday — you get the idea. I think the only day that didn’t have a drinking nickname was Monday? We all need a rest day.

Yet as hard as I partied, I rarely ever overdid it, and I never blacked out. In fact, I thought blacking out meant you drank until you passed out.

Sweet dummy.

But now, I have blacked out.

The last thing I remember is being wheeled out of pre-op and laughing as we dodged a nurse who nearly got run over. Then I was awake again in post-op.

Imagine my horror to find out that although I had absolutely ZERO memory of anything after the near collision with the nurse I was, in fact, still awake and jabbering (as I do) on down the hallway and into the OR.

Immediate humiliation washed over me as I searched and searched my brain for any tiny piece of an image, thought, face, sound – something? I couldn’t find that operating room if I was standing outside the door, or pick the team — my doctors aside — out of a lineup if my life depended on it!

I’m told I was a delight. Yikes.

The hardest thing I’ve had to do this year — or possibly ever? — is sit still.

I hate it.

I am a busy person. I love being busy. Being productive. Getting. Shit. Done.

I was so ready for surgery — one way I was getting shit done in the cancer battle.

But, I may have misjudged how hard this was going to be.

For the first week following surgery I did almost nothing except sleep or toss and turn trying to sleep. Exhausting.

In week two things are improving. I’m not waking up constantly throughout the night and I can move beyond the bedroom!

But I’m still sore. Sore in the most annoying way. Not necessarily painful, just constant. And with the location of the soreness plus restrictions on movement — sleeping on my back, no raising my arms higher than my shoulders — it’s impossible to find relief.

I’m anxious and bored all at once. There is so much to do. So much I want to do. But I don’t really have the energy, and if I do try to move around too much, I’m back on my ass in no time.

I’m in a real “hurry up and wait” phase. And I’m losing my patience.

Alex asked me for something that I apparently told him yesterday he could have today. When I said no, he threw his hands up and said “Mom! You said I could today! Chemo brain!” and walked away, shaking his head and crushed with disappointment.

Whoops. I feel you, buddy.

Sigh. I am so tired. Tired to fighting cancer. Tired of my brain being garbage. Tired of being tired. Tired of being dependent on others. And SO tired of missing out on life.

We’ve cancelled two family vacations and haven’t traveled outside of Charlotte all year. The past seven — almost eight — months have been running the kids around, working, doctors appointments, treatments, and not much else.

And yes, I’m grateful for modern medicine and the rest of the life I get to have thanks to it and all that (said al la Steve Martin in the “A Holiday Wish” SNL sketch circa 1991), but what I really want right now is my life back.

Everyone has a threshold of how much they can take. Some people can hold a thimble’s worth. Other’s a mountain. I can hold a lot. But I’m getting pretty full. And it’s making me cranky and hard to manage.

As much as I want to be back to myself — or at least back to an active lifestyle free from cancer restrictions — Justin wants it for me, too. I can tell he’s exhausted from trying to keep me restrained. And in the push-and-pull battle of me pushing forward and him pulling me back, I broke his boop.

No no no no no. Come back here and get your head out of the gutter.

When one of us is frustrated — with the other, with the kids, or with life in general — our reset button is the tip of our noses. If I’m upset Justin can gently touch the end of my nose, looking in my eyes with comfort, and I’ll respond “boop.” And vice versa.

I don’t even remember where, when, or how it started, but it has never failed to bring us back from heightened emotions.

But the other night, after the touch of his nose, there was a soft, mechanical “blerp.” I broke his boop.

A broken boop is a cause for concern, to be sure, but it’s not unlike the warning your car gives you if you don’t buckle your seat belt. Your car will still run, still take you where you need to go, but you could be in deep shit if you get into an accident.

I get showered with flowers, calls, cards, gifts and food, but the cancer support team stays mostly in the shadows. Chaffering to appointments, managing medications, clearing surgical drains, ensuring I’m fed, clean, dressed, and not falling over or sleeping on my stomach. Plus listening to me whine constantly. And managing the kids. It’s a lot.

And there’s this perception that because he’s not the one dealing with cancer, he can’t complain — which he doesn’t, but he has every right to.

This life we’re living is exhausting and scary. It’s changed both of us forever — and our kids, our family — in some ways we won’t fully realize or understand for years. We’re still too far in the thick of it to see how and how much it’s changed us. We’ve been on high alert since January, operating at max capacity.

And because I am a generally positive, upbeat person, it’s hard for me to express, to show up in any way that’s not happy and optimistic. If I’m not happy people automatically assume I’m depressed? But I’m not. Just human.

And usually after I’m able to zoom out, gain perspective, take a breather — as simple as getting a pedicure or dinner out — I’m back to bubbly.

I think the same is pretty true for Justin. When you get caught in the rinse-and-repeat cycle of the less fun, more necessary monotony of life, it’s easy to kill the batteries on your boop. But I’m happy to report his boop is back — and it’s spread! Lillian and Alex have discovered their boops and help us with ours!

We talk about bucket filling and bucket draining a lot around our house. Everyone has a bucket and we’re filling and draining all day long. You can fill or drain your own or others by each and every action you take each day. A hug is a guaranteed way to fill a bucket, but a jab — literal or metaphorical — will drain yours and theirs.

We all each also have a plate to fill — one most of us would prefer to have more on the empty side.

The past few months my bucket and plate have been quite out of balance. The thing about getting them back into balance is that it always requires leveraging the plates and buckets of others.

Thank you all for filling my bucket. I had to get a larger size.

Thank you for taking things off my plate. It hasn’t been this clean in longer than I can remember.

And thank you to Justin for letting me break his boop without breaking anything else. This year has been harder than anything I’ve ever been through — and I know we’re not done yet.

I wouldn’t want to get through this with anyone else. I’m no place without you.