Tornado or It’s a Wrap

I woke up to the sound of rain and thunder storms on Easter Sunday night. I also woke up because my left arm was aching from lymphedema. Suddenly the pleurisy pain in my lungs--apt word pleurisy since je pleur is “I’m crying”—was less than the pain in my left arm. I was grateful I had some lymphedema appts this week.

I also woke up to a tornado of concerns about whether I was making the right decision about my cancer esp. during time of Coronavirus. A new spot has popped up on my chest since I last went to Nashville. I I could have my shoulder radiated right away and get rid of these spots, but then risk any invisible cells escaping. My kind radiation doc Grant Clark reiterated yesterday that I should try the clinical trial, and if it didn’t work, radiation was still an option.

Still I have things to weigh. This drug is no guarantee, and I’ll have to go to Nashville for many weeks. Chemo again each week which will stir up the radiation recall which has done a number on my range of motion on my left. Of course, I’m grateful to be in trial, but just going to Nashville is a risk for exposure esp. since I have to stay at a hotel.

I know everyone has worries, so I’m trying not to whine too much. But the various aches and pains sometimes get to me especially as I try to exercise, do yoga to work on my badly damaged range of motion from the left mastectomy & latissimus flap and proton treatment. My body will never go back to normal. Besides the missing breast, the skin on my chest is destroyed. I can’t have reconstruction bc I’ve had too much radiation. At the age of 27 I had stopped sunbathing to protect my skin. So much for that. My range of motion on left is pitiful.

I know we have to learn to give things up to be better, humble people. But it still causes me grief on some days.

Plus I have such a history with this cancer that PTSD recurs.

For example today as Missy Cross wrapped my arm for lymphedema (a photo will follow), I thought of the last time I was wrapped for a swollen arm. Dan had just gotten out of hospital from gangrenous gallbladder, and I got a phone call during my appt. that my mother was dying and that I needed to go to North Carolina. I felt sad today in particular. Plus it felt like Missy was breaking my arm as she pushed my arms into positions that a normal person can do easily. The pain exhausts me.

Fortunately it’s only some days I feel this way, and like a tornado, my worries are soon gone. Then I’ll work on rebuilding again. Thank you to the essential workers like the PTs, doctors, nurses, friends, and family who help me rebuild.

“Grief and resilience live together,” Michelle Obama reminds me in “Becoming.” I try to keep that in mind.