Boo Radley Buna.  If you saw my yard and ever read to Kill a Mockingbird in middle school, my garden met the description of his.  Overgrown and neglected.  And the perfectly pitiful pout on one of my all time faves, Kristen Wiig, in this meme above?  Yup. That’s me, too.  Every. Single.  Morning… as I try to find some eyelashes to put mascara on in the sun-visor of my suburban.   Really?

After the past few months of trying to figure out what to do with my new achy body with my new meds,  daily routine of brushing on my still barely there eyebrows and wondering when (or if) my eyelashes would grow back, I can just imagine my grandmother’s voice,  “PPP.”  (Poor Pitiful Pearl).

Clearly, I’ve been raised by some strong women that while very loving and always ninja-like prayerful for your needs, they know just what to say (whether spoken aloud or not) to let ya know when it’s time to stop crying over spilled milk and DO SOMETHING.  At this point in my life, it’s my late grandmother on my mother’s side (who also had survived breast cancer, along with many many other near death experiences and came out on top time and time again, until the good Lord took her home eventually,  in His perfect timing. )  She was one TOUGH lady, no doubt, and a little tough love is just what I needed now.

Quite clearly, I’ve been dealing with PTSD, yet at the same time,  looking out in my clear moments (that do in fact come each day, mind you) at the beauty in the world around me in my kids, my hubbie, my friends and fam, and snap out of it! I find myself forever trying to figure out the balance between…

…wanting to hold my fam as close as possible and not move another inch

…or get out there and take the world by storm, never missing a moment of what life has to offer! 

I’ve spent a lot of time in thought about all of this.   Whether it was in  some of my off in space moments frozen in time, as I’d mentioned before, or awake and at physical therapy appointments, or in conversations with family members, docs, or fellow survivors, trying to figure out just HOW I could even ATTEMPT any of the things I want to do since my normally very physical self hasn’t been able to keep up with my usual workout routines and hobbies.  My knees creak when I use stairs,  I somehow have a disc that’s gotten agitated and out of place in my lower back….  You’d think I was decades older than I am.  All these throwbacks remain from treatment last year along with new side effects of my preventative meds to block reactive estrogen cells and protect my cancer from returning until my cure … or possible longer.  ?!?!?!!!!!

  And this is why it’s hard to say,  “I FEEL GREAT!” when people ask how I feel.

But ya know what?  I’m soooo over it!

I want to feel great.  Heck, I want to feel good!  I’m so ready.

If this is what I need to do to protect my life and ensure that my kids have a mommy, my hubbie has a wife, and … I HAVE MY LIFE,  A LIFE WITHOUT CANCER,  then I’m not gonna sit around here any more like BOO RADLEY BUNA, just waiting it out until the cure!

only one portion of my “before” (Boo Radley-esque)garden. the other half was twice as overgrown, just attacked it too quick before I could snap a pic

…………………………….

TIME FOR A CHANGE:

So for now,

-1-

MED PLANS WITH PIRATE SHERLOCK  and GETTING BACK TO MY SUPPLEMENTS

The good pirate doc is helping me to detox from the current med before we start a new form.  I’m also beginning taking francincense and thieves oils daily through my oils as well as my Melaleuca AM and PM daily supplement packs to help my overall energy and calcium growth, as well as daily fiber to help decrease my chances of a recurring breast cancer diagnosis.

My docta is the bomb and is cool with anything I can do to live well and assist in what he’s doing for me and my family in the wellness dept.  We’re both determined to find the BEST plan of attack to keep me  CANCER free and as PAIN free as possible so that this life that I’ve been blessed to have now is a great one!

-2-

PULLIN IN THE GRUB REIGNS

I’m pulling the reigns in a bit more on our family nutrition again.  Never crazy, as we do in fact need to live and celebrate; yet we do everything as a team over here.  And if I can do more things to help the inflammation in my body, than I’m going to do it for the whole fam to help them and protect their bids as well.  We’re big on that and I’m happy to get back on track with my clean eating again.

-3-

GETTIN MY GROOVE ON

EXERCISE:  I met my hubbie while training for a marathon at the gym that we both worked at right here where our children all still swim in the summers.  I danced my whole life, taught kickboxing all through college, etc., etc. ….   In other words, to find myself in pain simply walking down stairs or getting up from sitting to standing is a night mare!  However, I know that, being an adrenaline junkie and an extrovert, “social morphine” would kick in if I walked into a kick boxing class and I’d find a way to do a brand new class at the highest impact and love every minute!  As the music would end and the attendants would leave, I’d collapse in pain, suddenly realizing and feeling my joints that were screaming at me all through the class, unbeknownst to my psycho-self.  I’m weird like that.  Therefore, with incredible self control, I’m not entering those classes right now, even though every pretty long-locked-blonde-super-fit-mom-friend has invited me to at the local club that I’ve been going to with my trial membership (my physical therapist is there… doing some BUTT KICKIN’ DRY NEEDLING!  SHOUT OUT TO Eric Cedor  & Troy Bourgeois of “The Science & Movement Center” WHOOP WHOOP!!!)

So what can I do?  Now that Eric’s really helping me get some relief in my back again,  I’m stretching each morning either during or after my morning prayers,  I’m getting movement again (and breaking up scar tissue from my surgeries!).  I may not be running in this gorgeous spring weather the way I’d like to, or trying out all of those cool classes like I’d like to with my friends, or even flying through my Beachbody DVDS that I have on my shelves as I did before.  Instead,  I’m babystepping through good ol’ Mari Windsor  with dancer-like pilates that I grew up doing since I was in kindergarten or younger.  And ya know what,  it suits me just fine,  I can do it with my girls who are prepping for cheer try outs, and who knows… maybe I’ll even be doing my splits again soon!

-4-

BUNA-FUL GARDEN … FULL OF WILD FLOWERS AND BABY STEPS

What it all comes down to, is that,  the weeds that had overtake my garden were so symbolic of how I see everything.  “GO BIG OR GO HOME!”  Often times, that’s true.  As a performer and choreographer, that’s perfect for the stage.  But I treat the world like a stage.  If I can’t do it BIG, than I don’t’ want to do it at all.  Well, when I looked out at my Boo Radley garden and spent time (With my belt wrapped around my back for support.  Nod to my P.T. So he knows I’m being cautious) thinking and realized that about myself.

I made a decision.  This time.  I’m taking baby steps.  FOR REAL THOUGH.

I didn’t need to go spend a ton of money buying new plants, flowers, soil, and mulch, and break our backs and budget on an over the top garden that I’ll probably forget to water and kill half it (let’s be honest).  Nope.  Just like everything else in my life right now,  I’m just gonna start with pulling the weeds out and seeing what we’ve got to work with.  And that I did.  And it turned out, that after just a little pulling, pruning, and weed eating, what was there was simple and lovely and just what we needed for this Easter.  In fact, we even had some brand new little decorations given to my kiddos (for free! Thanks, Jenny!) to put in the bare spots that we normally would have planted a money pit of flowers.

LESS IS MORE… symbolically simply lovely (notice our pup peeking out the door window!)

…………………………………………….

And there you have it. 

We’re saying good bye to Boo Radley Buna.   In fact, very unlike ol’ Boo,  we’ve pulled our old porch bench out in front of the garden to watch the kids play and visit with neighbors more.  Now would ol’ Boo Radley have done that?  I think not!

We’re taking baby steps not only to gardening, all things exercise, food, but life in general.

I may not be attacking everything like the WONDER WOMAN MOM that I’m itching to be and feel like I should be on the days when I come out of my fog and suddenly want to make up for lost time and seize the life I’ve been gifted,  but  I am enjoying each day, one day at a time with my family: some challenging, some easy and breezy.  Some days we’re playing in the back yard, some just watching my toddler stopping to smell the clovers with her imaginary friend, “Mr.Firewalker“, on the side of the road (literally. Ha!) and some just laying on the floor doing old school Mari Windsor Pilates in my living room hoping to get into those Pilates classes in the gym or on the elliptical… maybe one day?  Just not today.

Either way, today, I’m moving forward.  I’m not letting the weeds grow over thoughts, holding me captive to my own brain.  I’m not letting my body go stiff at its joints, refusing to let me dance as I always have.  Every day, I’ll get up slowly, stretch and get moving… and as the day goes, I’ll move more, and by the end of today…

I’LL MAKE TODAY JEALOUS OF YESTERDAY

AND TOMORROW JEALOUS OF TODAY

EVERY DAY IS A NEW DAY, AND CANCER WILL NEVER TAKE THESE DAYS AWAY FROM US.

THANK YOU GOD FOR TODAY.

*Please do yourself a favor and click below.  Just a little song that always gets me through.. even if I’m listening to it in the parking lot of Target on an alone trip for errands late at night. (Like I did just yesterday!)  Sneak ’em when I can:

Matt Maher: Lord I Need You

Scribbles.  Static.  A full bowl of tangled spaghetti noodles sometimes making it on the plate, and many spillin’ right on the floor.  That’s about the best way I can describe my brain most of the time since the major portion of my treatment has ended.   That, my friends, is the best thing I can give ya for why I haven’t written a darn thing in a while.

Am I sad? Not necessarily.

Upset?  Nope.

Just often stuck in one place, not moving forward or backwards.  Frozen in time.

I wouldn’t have even noticed it, and I’m fairly certain that most around me surely wouldn’t either (at least, I don’t think so.  Not workin’ on my acting chops to put on a show, or anything, it’s just that it’s a rather unnoticeable state of mind).  I just come off a bit disconnected here and there, I guess. Kinda helps that I tend to be a daydreamer  on my most favorite days … staring into space every now and then, and probably forgetting a few things on   a good third of  my whole darn grocery list, if not my wallet, or even the purchased groceries, too (That last part was a pregnancy brain moment. True story!).  Not always, but only on the days that I was really enjoying myself after, oh I don’t know… forgetting my phone so that no one could reach me to tell me I was supposed to be at a doc appointment, work meeting, or something else where people were waiting for me and I was off jogging down my favorite cypress moss-covered street only to pass my boss with a smile as he drove past me, having no clue that I’d just missed my first faculty meeting as the new teacher on my first job out of college (Yet another, embarrassing, but true story)!   I want to kick myself once I snap back into reality on those days for letting people down; yet, I gotta admit, each moment of oblivion has always been fun while it lasted!

 I’m a mess.  A hot mess.  Often, I apologize for it… A LOT.

And sometimes, I just kinda gotta own it.

Since my last infusion in June, my moments of “goofy hot mess me” and periodic days of simply not being able to start the day, staring at the same list of “to dos” and wondering at 1:00pm how it is that I’ve been on my feet yet can’t recall what I’ve done, or why I haven’t done a thing… have become more and more clear in their differences from what is and isn’t my norm.

After “waking up” from one of my “trances”, standing in my office moving the same papers from here to there for a good 15 minutes… IT HIT ME.

P.T.S.D.  (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

I’ve mentioned this once before, yet I’ve unfolded the mystery of my wheel spinning more and more in my unexplained writer’s block.

When Cancer first introduced itself to me,  I shook hands with my challenger in the center of the ring, put on my gloves, handed pairs to my family and friends… and we gave it everything we had.  No turning back.  We barely batted an eye.  Was I naïve?  Was I stuffing feelings?  Hardly.  I felt every punch and remember every fall.  But we got back up and never tapped out.  I always referred to my state of mind in the most challenging portions of my treatment as “keeping my head in the game”.   What I didn’t realize was that the day they disconnected that infusion line in the summer, or removed my port in my most recent reconstructive surgery this fall,  I couldn’t walk away from my opponent.

Each day,  I notice new side effects from both my continuing “preventative treatment” (estrogen blockers…) and cumulative effects from chemo, radiation and my multiple surgeries.  And yet, when I bump into people around town, I give a thumbs up and come up with a brief (and sparing) response to the question, “So you’re all done, now, right?”  An entirely normal question that seems completely impossible to really answer.

All done with cancer. 

All done?

Cancer never feels… “all done”, like a toddler who’s finished their happy plate.

Like the many, many, MANY other people out there who’ve been faced with cancer, or ANY other abrupt challenge that dropped into their life and told them to “sink or swim”, I chose to SWIM.  My whole family threw off our “floaties” and swam our best strokes, pulling each other along when our arms and legs were falling limp.  Trust me, there’s nothing more I’d like than to get out of the water and never look back.  Playing the victim card isn’t exactly my thing,  nor do I believe it’s anyone’s desire after facing tragedy, … or loss in many cases.

Yet it’s a part of me.

There’s no going back to our “old life” now and to “the way things were”.  Rather,  we keep swimming.   I can’t forget what happened, nor do I entirely want to.  (Regardless, the scars all over my body wouldn’t let me.)  I’m learning more and more of the long term effects of my diagnosis that will remain with me every day.   In a few years, I pray to hear the word “cure” from my doc’s mouth and stamped in my charts; yet, I’m accepting that, just like every other milestone,  that will be reason to celebrate, have a dance party with my kids, and have a margarita..

… yet also know that it won’t erase the stamp that Cancer has placed in my life and the random days that I may wake up in  fog…  static…  like a phone off the hook again.

However,  those are merely symptoms.  Minor details.  Little things.

God has never failed me in putting all those Marley tunes in my heart, and I won’t let my Rasta-muse out of my thoughts now.  “Every little things is gonna be alright!”

So, please, pardon me if I’m in my p.j.’s in carpool line (possibly even afternoon carpool line!) periodically,  or if I’m not on top of my blogging/FB page posting/phone or email returning here and there… it could be a little PTSD or (if you know me well) it could just be “the usual me” having a lolly-gagging day.  It happens.

I’m pretty sure it happens to more of us than we’re willing to admit.   I ask for prayers for my fam and for anyone and everyone out there that is still “swimming”, for I know well that sometimes the current seems impossible and sometimes the waters are calm.

I know that when those days of “static” and disconnect become more of your norm than just periodic, it’s time to reach out.  I know there are often loved ones that have been standing there, watching while we’re “frozen in time”, unbeknownst to us.  I know they may feel frozen, too…  I know that, for me, there wasn’t a moment that I didn’t see my family watching or feel them wanting me to be better.  They still do.  As a mother, that’s definitely the hardest part.

I also admit, that I can be entirely too hard on myself and expect far too much too soon.

Don’t we all?

Some days,  it’s just fine to be spaz.  I’ve always owned up to being one and never claimed perfection.  So glad I did.  It really helped explain my recent helping of humble pie as a mother of what looks like, as comic Jim Gaffigan has coined the phrase, “T.M.K.” (too many kids)… completely missing Firecracker’s b-day celebration at school.  Yup.  Mom-of-the-year confused calendar dates and graciously offered the opportunity for the teacher to run out to the store (on her break, with her own cash-UGH! I don’t blush, but the thought of this turns my cheeks a good firey shade of crimson) to buy some Little Debbie Snack Cakes for the class so that she would have something special as the class sang and the teachers stood in for me for the “Mommy-kiddo b-day” pic.  Talk about lookin’ like the forgotten 4th kid in a big family circus.  Don’t worry, I totally made it up to her on my second attempt the next day at b-day lunch, when we remembered to wear her spirit shirt for her birthday, but was late for her lunch period and played it off by checking her out for 40 minutes to go eat Sonic in our new ride and have a dance party in the car!   Oy vey!

Ya see,  we adjust.

Admittedly,  I wanted to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich, but the truth is…

The kid was fine.

She thought it was all good!  In fact,  she rubbed it in to her siblings that she “got junk food 2 days in  a row from her teacher AND mommy!”  (I die inside when I think of the whole ordeal, but somehow, confessing here makes it better, right??)

PLAYING HOOKEY ON HER BDAY LUNCH TRIP TO SONIC: She doesn’t look scarred for life, does she??

Moral of the story:

Some days I’m knockin’ it out the ball park.  Some days… I’m stuck, either licking my wounds or  in a zombie trance and nobody may here a peep from me.    And others?  Other days, I’m just like a lot of other moms out there, sipping coffee a little longer in my pjs and forgetting a few things here and there… just because.  And guess what,  whether or not everyone wants to post it on social media,  I ain’t the only one out there having ANY of the kind of days just mentioned.

I merely happen to be one of the few spazzes that’s willing to admit it.

So thank you for pardoning me.  ‘Cuz  some days, it may be PTSD, and others,  it may just be me.

Regardless, thanks for stickin’ with me.

All the prayers and love, comin’ right back at ya.