Category: Fear

Strength

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My 2nd cousin, Jennifer, has been battling brain cancer since 1999. The fact she’s even here is a miracle and yet she continues to show such strength and character through pain and trauma. I’m in awe.

Her brother, TR set up a web page on the website The Caring Bridge. I have never heard of this website, but it’s a fantastic way to keep a wide range of people from all over the country up-to-date on the progress she is making.

As I was reading the posts and Jennifer’s story, and realizing just how long she has been battling this, it struck close to home. It hit me that only a little over a year ago I may not have been here and here she is being so brave and putting on a strong face when she’s in so much pain………I got very emotional. It just hit me suddenly. I’m small change compared to what she has had to endure. I don’t know why it’s hitting me so strange…..perhaps I’ll find out when I see my therapist next week. Survivor’s guilt?

I also have two other 1st cousins who have battled aneurysms and thankfully, we’ve all WON, but with three 1st cousins with annies and the daughter of another with brain cancer, I’d think all of our cousins would be running to have MRI’s and angiograms….they SHOULD. I know my cousin Toby has had an MRI (I believe) since her sister and I had our annies coiled…and thank God everything looked good, but I worry about my two older (40’s & 50’s) sisters who are heavy coffee drinkers, drink alcohol and have been smokers for many years. All things I’ve read that make them at risk for annies. Hereditary, smoking and age – it makes me scared.

I’m scared for Jennifer and yet I’m hopeful the new and progressive treatments she is about to undertake will help her. God has kept her on this planet for a reason and hopefully he still has other plans for her here.

For those of you with family members battling illness, check out The Caring Bridge website. It’s a terrific vehicle for sharing and sending messages to those who need it.

Looking Back

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In looking back at this time last year, I was still struggling. Struggling with my balance, my head pain and my every day life. A little over a year ago, I was still using a cane and had barely set foot into a store, much less drove my car.

Yes, I have made some major milestones in the last year. I feel very good and am starting to exercise again. We’ll see how well I can stick to it this time. I went back to work full time in April and although the catalog was a huge, huge struggle for me this year, I did it.

I still get very tired, which is a little frustrating and I still feel “brain tired” when I overdo it at the computer, or pretty much anything that involves a lot of brain work. Even everyday things.

Last year I recall being frustrated with how pooped I’d get wrapping presents and how I was unable to assist with the Christmas tree as much as I would have wanted. This year, I hope to make some more milestones by stepping it up from last year and being able to do more.

Dave, as usual, has been wonderfully supportive and caring. I still don’t know what I’ve done to deserve him, but I’m a lucky woman all the way around.

Delayed Reaction?

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It’s interesting. I went through the week leading up to my 1-year anniversary, a little apprehensive, certainly reflecting on the past year and the same time last year, and looking forward to getting on with life.

However, in the days and week following THE day, I’ve had very odd feelings. I’m unable to fully explain them…I wish I could. As I type this, I’m numbering page files for the final catalog files to send to the printer tomorrow. I never got to do that last year…I was in the neuro ward. I’m running across emails that I sent out just a day or two before the annie ruptured last year…and I’m thinking about how I sat at my computer, overly stressed, overly tired and completely unaware of what was going to happen the next morning. I’m trying to remember if I was experiencing any headaches or neck aches or eyes aches, but I can’t. And that just seemed to come with the territory while working on the catalog anyway, so I probably
wouldn’t have thought much of it at the time.

I almost started crying….while checking page numbers! LOL How add is that. I didn’t cry on the anniversary. I didn’t cry when speaking to my sister about her experiences last year, nor when Dave speaks of what happened last year. I certainly start to feel emotional, but isn’t it odd that a solitary, technical, unemotional task like numbering files almost got me! LOL Very strange.

I’m just glad I survived this year’s catalog. It was just my main goal to see if I could do it again, but then all hell broke lose at work with people critical to the process leaving, then the same old stressful crap that’s always associated with the catalog was there, only magnified because I’m just not able to work as quickly or as efficiently. BUT…I did it. That’s a HUGE accomplishment, so kudos to me!

Thoughts

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It’s odd. As the one-year anniversary of my ruptured brain aneurysm looms closer, as I repeat doing some of the same things I did last year, I get “nervous”. I can’t think of any other word for it. It’s like, if I do the same things I did last year, it’ll happen again or something. Even though I know it won’t. Silly really.

I also think about the things I did last year not knowing I had the little, well, NOT so little, time bomb there. The stress of work is bringing it all back heavily. How did I not burst an aneurysm during the previous years of the catalog? Why didn’t it burst during my most stressful days last year? Certainly, it could have been worse and I’m very lucky to be here to experience all the lovely stress of THIS year’s catalog process, but I can’t help think about last year and how close I could have come to facing the grim reaper.

It’s almost like I’m reliving last year, but this time with the knowledge I had the aneurysm. It IS making me take things slower and easier and I’m giving myself more breaks and trying to enjoy life more this fall than I did last fall. I’m just lucky I’m HERE this fall to enjoy it right? No one reads this…not sure why I ask questions! LOL