Insomnia...

So, I'm sitting here at 11:59 pm, which if you know me, is ungodly, watching the season premier of So You Think You Can Dance (umm, yes, I still harbor delusions that my few years of ballet in grammar school will translate into, I don't know, admission into the Old People's Ballet Company? What of it?) writing out a list of things that I have to get done in the next three weeks. Before I have the big big big surgery, on June 17th. This one is keeping me awake. This will be my 5th surgery (in my life, not because of the cancer), and it will be a doozy. Almost 8 hours, likely 5 days in the hospital. Six weeks of pretty ugly recuperation. Dealing with a 19 month old who I cannot in any uncertain terms, lift for 6 weeks and who loves to be picked up by mama multiple times a day.

And this one sort of scares the crap out of me. Yes, I've wanted this surgery forever - yes, I was completely theoretically prepared for it. But now that there is a date and a time...holy crap. Because you know what? Yes, childbirth can kill you and cancer can kill you, and hell, getting in your car can kill you...but surgery can kill you right.then.and.there. And this is elective...there is no medical reason to have this surgery, only my own vanity and comfort. I'm putting my own life at risk and putting my family through a large period of disruption...for my vanity? Does it really come down to that? I know it's much more than that and I know I have absolutely no reason to feel guilty and I know it will be a distant memory soon but you can't help but to think. And then maybe I need to remember, like everyone else has been , some wise words by a woman we lost today...

 

Pinterest

 

 

Yes, this all has changed me - mentally, physically, emotionally - but I need to remember that I should be damned if I let it make me feel guilty for wanting to feel somehow whole again; to somehow, after the Frankenstein scars from this surgery fade, feel semi-comfortable in my own skin again. I am worth it. I deserve it. I will have it. It will be good.

Check in

Sorry, I've been holding my breath as I always do when I have a scan and I received the all clear today, so now I can breathe again. Couple posts in the works and have also been working on reopening my Etsy store (Moose Country Crafts on etsy and facebook) aaannnd as I've talked about, getting my grandparents house reaaaaaalllly close to the market. Basically I have been keeping myself busy trying not to think of getting results! Be back soon!

Mother's Day 2014

 

Mother's Day now, to me, is not a day to be feted. In fact, oftentimes I'm so frustrated and disappointed in my own mothering skills that the last thing that I think I deserve is any sort of congratulations in the matter. What it does represent is a day to be so thankful that I was gifted these two beings. I don't always remember this in the throes of another dinnertime where Jack is refusing to eat or when AR decides to scream and cry for half an hour because I don't give her the 300th cracker before lunch, but I am well aware of many fellow cancer ladies who have been stripped again of one of the most basic of human rights - the choice of whether to have children or not -  as a result of this completely unfair siege.

 

This is a day to thank God again that I get to be here. A funny thing about Mom's with littles who have gone through this fight - while most other people (and I do NOT in any way begrudge anyone this, it's just a difference that I have noticed) talk about their bucket lists and places they want to visit and things they want to do (and yes, I am not in any way saying I still don't see myself sitting in my little coffeehouse at the end of the street in the Salzburg Altstadt, sans kids, sometime soon), we make deals with God about time. And not time for us, time with our kids. I can't count how many of us have told each other that we have tried to bargain with God by asking "Please just give me 5 more years so I can get them into elementary school" and then "Please God, can I just have 10 more years because then they will be in high school" etc etc etc. Things that don't occur to other Mom's swarm our brains every.single.day. So these holidays, Mother's Day, birthdays, etc., are not just holidays, not just breakfast and flowers and cards -  they are milestones.

 

 I don't need to know how much they love me - I desperately need them to know how much I love them.



Happy Cinco de Mayo!

How time passes so quickly I have no idea. I write something then turn around to write again and find it's been over a week. Amazing. Anyway, just a stop in on this May 5th to show a tribute to my own familial Cinco de Mayo...

 

 

My Mexican Nana (my great-grandmother) and my French Pops who joined forces to create a whole bunch of dysfunctional family members! I didn't get to know them much...Pops died quite a few years before I was born. I knew my Nana but she was sick and bedridden which is a bit of a scary prospect to a 3 or 4 year old. She died when I was 4 and as any good Mexican family would do for any occasion, her after-funeral reception was filled with tears, laughter, fighting and lots of alcohol, not necessarily in that order. But these two people raised 5 kids in a house that, from my memory, had to be less than 800 square feet (we bemoan having 4 people in our 1280 square foot house quite often). When my grandfather and his twin sister were born, my aunt was so tiny that they kept her warm by putting her in a cigar box in the warming oven. Their 5 kids went on to have 14 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren, and 7 great-great grandchildren so far. Their house still stands on the next street over from my grandparents house. They are remembered.  Salud!