I came back home from Minnesota feeling icky. First, the travel itself was hard. I was grateful to a dear friend for helping me with my bag from the airport to my room. He did the same thing for my return home and escorted me to the check-in counter to drop off my bag. Then the conference schedule was heavily packed. Mentally, I was thrilled. I was stimulated the whole time. It was awesome to be able to talk about the work we do as Deaf interpreters. Physically, I was worn out but I kept on going until the end of the conference. Mentally, I am grateful for that. Physically, I am paying the consequences now. I got home at 3 AM Thursday morning due to flight delays. And then I crashed.
My infection got worse. This is my third surgery-related infection. This one has been around for about 10 weeks. It resulted into a huge abscess that started to bother me very much three weeks ago. I struggled with sitting. I was put on a round of antibiotics again. I started to feel better after a few days. The abscess was shrinking. Yay. It was not gone when I left for Minnesota. I hoped that it would go away on it own after I was done with the antibiotics. Nope. It became worse.
I had a follow-up with my internal medicine doctor this morning to check on the abscess. I was hurting. Everything hurts when I sit down. She checked on it and find that the inflammation has become worse and the abscess has grown bigger. It now measures 3.5 inches long, 1.5 inches wide and .5 inch deep. She is working with Dr. Jewell to see how it can be resolved. Dr. Jewell wanted a CT scan to take a closer look at the abscess and see if it affected the surrounding areas. I dreaded doing the CT scan... because today's scan was my fourth CT scan with contrast in the past six weeks. Yep... I had to drink the radioactive crap and get it injected inside me. I had been doing well the first three CT scans but today it made me really sick. I am starting another course of antibiotics in hopes that it will make the infection go away for once and all. It's a stronger type of antibiotics and I was advised to eat yogurt with it because it would make me nauseous. Radioactive crap and first doses... a terrible combination. Forcing myself to eat some dinner tonight helped but after an hour, I'm nauseous all over again. Sitting is too irritating to the abscess so I was advised to lay down to minimize the pressure on that area or I can stand and walk around. If I'm not better by Wednesday, they are going to have to open up and drain the abscess. My doctor does not want to do that because it increases the risk of more infection.
I came home in tears. I feel frustrated. I want to be BETTER. I don't want to see doctors for a while. I don't want to be poked. I don't want to take any radioactive crap or medications. I don't want to be sick. I laid in my bed for a while today as I worked. It did feel good to lay down again. I was so thrilled to stop laying down following the surgery that I was ready to be on my feet once again. Today, I felt like I was returning home when I laid in the bed this afternoon. It's okay to lay down sometime. Recovery is a gradual process.... and it is testing my patience.
As I struggled today with all that was going on with me physically, there was this person who kept on demanding that I reply to her emails or call her. I did not see any of my personal emails the whole day until I got out of the bed. Her last email was full of hurtful language. I do feel bad for her frustration of not hearing from me. I must confess... since I got diagnosed with cancer, I am valuing my private time even more. I am behind on emails some days but... it is my way of recollecting myself before I face the world. I can not attend to everything and everyone at once. That's one big con about emails. Prompt responses are expected. I miss the good ol' pony express. People expected less from me back then. Sometime I need to just curl up in my bed and rest while I shut out the world. Frankly, there's nothing wrong with that. Let me be, please.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
A Birthday Post
A dear friend sent me a video message today wishing me a happy birthday. The English translation of her message in ASL was as follows:
"Wow. What a year! Crazy! You survived one more year. You experienced grieving, heartbreak, and suffering. And you still showed your strength, resiliency, and your internal Amazon woman spirit. I love you for who you are and your fight and your willingness and capability to explain your experience to help me better understand my world as well as your world. Happy birthday from one of your dear friends. Thank you for your friendship. I love you."
Yep... what a year. This particular birthday feels bittersweet to me.
I am in Minnesota for a conference this week. This morning's plenary speaker is currently fighting metastatic stage 4 colon cancer. Her presentation hit me hard for many reasons. I am sure I will discuss specifics of her presentation in future posts as I process those with more time. She said one thing that resonated with me on my birthday. She said that there's no such thing as being cancer-free. Doctors say that just to mean that they did series of treatments to stop the cancer for the time-being. The cancer is just in remission for now. It could come back to haunt a survivor later down the road, whether it is a few months or two decades. I sat there quietly and wondered to myself, "When will the cancer come back? Will it come back?" She explained that there's no cure which was exactly what I posted a few months ago. There are treatments that stop the cancer from acting up for a certain period of time. She described those treatments as a way to prolong your life. True.
After getting my diagnosis five months ago, I did not think I would see my next birthday. I did not think I would make it to this historic conference which is the first ever Deaf Interpreters Conference. Yet, I submitted a proposal to present at this conference and I got accepted. They asked me to finalize program book materials two weeks after my surgery. I was heavily drugged as I threw everything together. I will present tomorrow on one of my research studies. I will just keep on living and thriving. I don't know if I will see my next birthday. It is not a guarantee for any of us anyway, cancer or not. I can just take it a day at a time. I can focus on making it a great day. And the reality is, that's the best I can do.
"Wow. What a year! Crazy! You survived one more year. You experienced grieving, heartbreak, and suffering. And you still showed your strength, resiliency, and your internal Amazon woman spirit. I love you for who you are and your fight and your willingness and capability to explain your experience to help me better understand my world as well as your world. Happy birthday from one of your dear friends. Thank you for your friendship. I love you."
Yep... what a year. This particular birthday feels bittersweet to me.
I am in Minnesota for a conference this week. This morning's plenary speaker is currently fighting metastatic stage 4 colon cancer. Her presentation hit me hard for many reasons. I am sure I will discuss specifics of her presentation in future posts as I process those with more time. She said one thing that resonated with me on my birthday. She said that there's no such thing as being cancer-free. Doctors say that just to mean that they did series of treatments to stop the cancer for the time-being. The cancer is just in remission for now. It could come back to haunt a survivor later down the road, whether it is a few months or two decades. I sat there quietly and wondered to myself, "When will the cancer come back? Will it come back?" She explained that there's no cure which was exactly what I posted a few months ago. There are treatments that stop the cancer from acting up for a certain period of time. She described those treatments as a way to prolong your life. True.
After getting my diagnosis five months ago, I did not think I would see my next birthday. I did not think I would make it to this historic conference which is the first ever Deaf Interpreters Conference. Yet, I submitted a proposal to present at this conference and I got accepted. They asked me to finalize program book materials two weeks after my surgery. I was heavily drugged as I threw everything together. I will present tomorrow on one of my research studies. I will just keep on living and thriving. I don't know if I will see my next birthday. It is not a guarantee for any of us anyway, cancer or not. I can just take it a day at a time. I can focus on making it a great day. And the reality is, that's the best I can do.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
One Thing at a Time
I have sorely missed blogging. It's been a long while. I had two major deadlines that required me to dive right into my academic life. Yep, I was revising two papers that I submitted for publication. Those are papers about two research studies I did. Nope, they are not my dissertation topics. They were just two research projects I decided to do for fun during my doctoral program. Yep, I am a nerd. One was submitted long before I got my diagnosis. One was submitted about a month before my surgery at Mike's encouragement. I was ready to quit everything after my cancer diagnosis but Mike told me I had to keep on living my life. I forgot all about those submissions as I battled the big C.
The editors came back to me about a month ago with feedback. I planned to wait until the summer to return to my academic life, meaning get back to work on my dissertation proposal, as I wanted to give myself some more time to recover. Nope. The publishers had a deadline. Why did they have to come at the same time!?! I don't know. I felt overwhelmed because I continue to struggle with filling up my schedule. I still find myself exhausted at the end of day, having accomplished not as much as I would before the cancer. I just dove right in. I finished one manuscript last week. I finished another one today. Phew. I am tired but I'm having this high. It's the same high I feel when I passed my candidacy and comprehensive exams in the doctoral program.
I was remarking to a friend the other day that I don't know if I could do my first semester all over again. My first semester in the doctorate program was like this: I was working full-time and I was taking six courses at the same time. Granted, it was a suicide mission but I pulled it off. Post-surgery, can I do that? I don't know. I'm tired a lot. A breast cancer survivor friend who has been in remission for two years said she's still tired. Cancer is like that. It slams you right in the face when you least expect it. And when you are done, you need the time to recover from whatever your body has been through. I was on a good track of returning to my workout routine but that slowed down recently. I had been having some pains for several weeks. I thought it was part of the whole process. Two weeks ago, the pain got so bad that I could not sit comfortably nor do sitting poses in yoga. I decided to see my primary care physician last Tuesday to see what's up. She found that it was an abscess that has been growing for weeks and it finally got the best of me. I am on antibiotics that is making it go away slowly. I am happy to report that the pain is slowly going away. I avoided taking pain medications because I needed a clear head to write the papers! Now that I am done, it is nice knowing that it's an option if the pain bothers me really bad.
I ran into a breast cancer survivor at a gathering the other night. She said that she learned one thing. She would just allow herself to schedule one thing/activity for each day and not commit to subsequent activities unless she could manage to finish the first one. I felt that was a good advice and something I could live with. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and drowning to the point that I get frustrated with myself for not accomplishing as much as I set out to. Again, another valuable lesson in patience.
The past two weeks it's been all about writing, rewriting, and rewriting. I ached to do other things such as writing more entries for this blog. I wanted to continue working on my art project. I wanted to... I wanted to... I wanted to... yada yada. Now that I am done with the papers, I knew that the first thing I wanted to do was to blog! Now I want to crash and have a long slumber. I certainly lost sleep over those papers and I am still recovering. Good night, folks!
The editors came back to me about a month ago with feedback. I planned to wait until the summer to return to my academic life, meaning get back to work on my dissertation proposal, as I wanted to give myself some more time to recover. Nope. The publishers had a deadline. Why did they have to come at the same time!?! I don't know. I felt overwhelmed because I continue to struggle with filling up my schedule. I still find myself exhausted at the end of day, having accomplished not as much as I would before the cancer. I just dove right in. I finished one manuscript last week. I finished another one today. Phew. I am tired but I'm having this high. It's the same high I feel when I passed my candidacy and comprehensive exams in the doctoral program.
I was remarking to a friend the other day that I don't know if I could do my first semester all over again. My first semester in the doctorate program was like this: I was working full-time and I was taking six courses at the same time. Granted, it was a suicide mission but I pulled it off. Post-surgery, can I do that? I don't know. I'm tired a lot. A breast cancer survivor friend who has been in remission for two years said she's still tired. Cancer is like that. It slams you right in the face when you least expect it. And when you are done, you need the time to recover from whatever your body has been through. I was on a good track of returning to my workout routine but that slowed down recently. I had been having some pains for several weeks. I thought it was part of the whole process. Two weeks ago, the pain got so bad that I could not sit comfortably nor do sitting poses in yoga. I decided to see my primary care physician last Tuesday to see what's up. She found that it was an abscess that has been growing for weeks and it finally got the best of me. I am on antibiotics that is making it go away slowly. I am happy to report that the pain is slowly going away. I avoided taking pain medications because I needed a clear head to write the papers! Now that I am done, it is nice knowing that it's an option if the pain bothers me really bad.
I ran into a breast cancer survivor at a gathering the other night. She said that she learned one thing. She would just allow herself to schedule one thing/activity for each day and not commit to subsequent activities unless she could manage to finish the first one. I felt that was a good advice and something I could live with. Rather than feeling overwhelmed and drowning to the point that I get frustrated with myself for not accomplishing as much as I set out to. Again, another valuable lesson in patience.
The past two weeks it's been all about writing, rewriting, and rewriting. I ached to do other things such as writing more entries for this blog. I wanted to continue working on my art project. I wanted to... I wanted to... I wanted to... yada yada. Now that I am done with the papers, I knew that the first thing I wanted to do was to blog! Now I want to crash and have a long slumber. I certainly lost sleep over those papers and I am still recovering. Good night, folks!
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