The Wisdom to Know the Difference

If you don't know me personally I need to preface this entry with the statement that I panic a lot. It doesn't take much.  I don't cry.  I chew on things until they pass and either turn out to be less than imagined so I feel silly or more than I imagine so I feel unprepared.  Rarely do I find I have dedicated the appropriate amount of time and energy to a high-stress situation.  With age I'm getting better, but I'll eventually run out of time and I don't know if my heart can take it in 20 years.

My mom is going to have surgery on Friday to save her life.  It's the second time in six months.  Last time I said, "Let's wait until the new year before we have anymore drama okay?"  When she was complaining in November about her right side pain I assured her it was gas.  Our family doctor and I both said she should eat some yogurt.  In January she saw a specialist, had some scans and low and behold it's cancer.

I learned one very important lesson.

Freaking out solves nothing.

A few weeks ago we got one of the many scans back and it suggested Mom may have cancer in two places and my heart dropped again.  I had just recovered from the news of the initial diagnosis.  We knew she had it in her colon.  They said it was Stage 1 if this second spot wasn't cancer.  That's a pretty big 'IF'.

When she was diagnosed I went online and found everything I could about colon cancer.  They soften the edges for the casual reader.  They don't want to scare the piss out of you.  I needed the truth.  I read the medical practitioner section of the same website and had the piss scared out of me.  

I found out this is a coping mechanism.  If I know as much about something as I can, I can gain control over it.  HA!  I actually thought I could gain control over cancer.

I wanted so badly to go charging into each doctor's office and schedule my mom ahead of all the other patients.  I was so frustrated.  I just wanted to scream at everyone, "Don't you see what's happening?!"  When they have their own lives and trouble and other patients who are going through the exact same thing.

This second spot they found was the universe announcing I have exactly no control over this.  It took me sitting in my car in rush hour traffic on the way home that evening to realize there was nothing I could do.  She was going to see the doctor the following day and he would determine if the spot was worthy of further examination.  

On Thursday evening at 6:00 PM the only thing I have control over is myself and whether I listen to NPR or my iPod.  I have no control over traffic, the weather, the Republicans, North Korea or my mom's cancer.  

Once I realized that I relaxed and it was like the weight of the previous weeks had been released.  I accepted I have one job.  I am supposed to love her.  That's all I can do.  I can stand by her while she deals with this life threatening illness.  I can hold her hand while we talk to doctors about some really scary shit.  When she calls me with special requests I can get them for her.  

Most importantly I can take care of myself.  If I don't take care of myself I am of no use to either of us.  She will need me a lot more in the coming months than she does today.  

I know I'm not the first person to go through this.  I'm certainly not the last.  I know countless books, articles and seminars have been given on this topic, but if you're anything like me, you may need to get this information from more than one source.  My advice to anyone who is up against the wall with something that causes them to freak out is this:

1. Take a breath.  For real.  I snorted the last time someone told me to do it and when it worked I felt like an idiot so just do it.  (Repeat this as often as necessary.)  
2. If you have a friend who can help you through this, call them.  My mom's best friend always says "Don't borrow trouble" and "Sufficient are the troubles of today." Call that friend.
3. I never thought I'd say this but think of the Serenity Prayer.  Accept the things you can and cannot change and hopefully a relaxation exercise or two has given you the wisdom to know the difference.
4. Focus ONLY on the things you can control.  
5. Define your duties and be thorough.  All those articles you read about time management and organization matter now.  If you haven't read any of those articles and are as naturally disorganized as I am, take an hour to check out a few.
6. Let the rest of it go.  You have defined the things you can control.  Now go forth and control those things.  That should be sufficient to keep you busy.

So far the last 10 days have been MUCH easier.  I have been a better problem solver.  I have been a better employee because I am taking better care of myself.  I am actually taking care of my business, not just myself.  

An example of one thing I did was I cut off all my hair.  It was dried out and over-processed and it frustrated me. I went to a salon and told her to get rid of it all.  Now, instead of 15 minutes of begging my hair not to look awful, it takes me 12 seconds to get ready in the morning.  It was something I could control.  Now I don't have to worry about my hair.

It looks like my mom will be fine after the surgery.  My life will resume some sort of normal.  I hope.  I am hoping for a little bit of a break.  I am hoping for some time to hang out and enjoy the spring and spend time with my mom and love my boyfriend and my pets and do a good job at work with my new found skill of "self-care."  I've started volunteering at SafePlace.  I want to be able to help the women in our community who are affected by violence to live better lives.  

Now, going forward, I hope I remember I wrote this the next time I panic about something.

Pinback

Up until Friday night Pinback was one of my new favorite bands. I overcame my issues with crowds and eagerly waited for an hour and a half through what was either an ironically stupid or just plain stupid opening act.  They came on and I was really impressed because they almost sounded like their studio music.  It was pretty obvious they didn't know they needed to warm up their voices. Once they got into their set they quit missing notes and sounded like their studio albums.

About half way through the show I got tired of the people behind me dancing and hitting my back.  My boyfriend moved to shield me from them and the girl wedged herself into his space shoving us both to the side.  She was squealing and thrashing about excitedly and I decided I no longer wanted to be close to this obnoxious young woman.

I am trying to live a life dedicated to non-violence since I've become a volunteer at SafePlace, the local battered women's shelter.  I wanted to throat punch the girl for shoving us out of our spots.  She is the reason I avoid concerts because when I am at home or in my car listening to my music I rarely feel compelled to commit any act of violence.  I also get to listen to their cleaned up, studio sound without weather or stupid, ironically or otherwise, opening acts.

Because my friend texted me that she was at the show we decided to stay. The crowd wasn't so bad where we landed after being unceremoniously shoved out of our spots. I decided it was an opportunity for me and my boyfriend to hold hands and slow dance like we would've in high school.  Considering he makes me feel young again it was perfectly acceptable.

After the show we found my friend and went for coffee.  We agreed their songs sounded a lot alike but the encore was pretty good.  It was a pretty good show.  It was worth the price of admission.

I must add they no longer occupy a spot among my favorites though.  The song I've attached is one of my favorite songs. It is the best example of 75 songs that sound a lot alike.  Perhaps the lyrics are different but the tempo, sound and general feel of the songs are all the same.

Because their songs do mostly sound alike I've removed them from the upper echelons of my favorites.  They remain safely among the bands I am happy to hear though.  That's saying a lot because if Sting and the Indigo Girls knew I'd finally rejected them after many years I'm sure they would be disappointed.

Television, the gym and penises

I do not own a television.

When I got divorced I gave the television to my ex-husband in exchange for my cat.  I find her far more entertaining.

That isn't to say I don't watch television shows.  The Internet is a wonderful thing.  With Netflix and iTunes and Hulu I am able to stay up to date on all my favorite shows.  What I don't get are the ads or the bulk of senseless crap they're putting on television.  I spent hours in front of my television watching America's Next Top Model and Friends re-runs.  I also played Rockband on my Wii and that was a lot of fun.  I'd consider buying another television if it would come with a Wii and two self-sustaining teenagers to play with me.

For some reason we, as a nation, care about the Kardashians, probably more than the Obamas.  Ask a thousand people their thoughts on sequestration and ask the same group about Snooki's baby and I'm fairly certain you'll get more information about the baby.  As I've stated in at least one earlier post, my choices at the gym are MTV, Fox News or Telemundo and I don't speak Spanish.  I understand Stupid enough to know I should reconsider what machines I use.

Yesterday I was donating platelets which takes a few hours and I was subjected to what the staff wanted to watch.  It wasn't so bad.  They were watching Tron which I hadn't seen and didn't want to see bad enough to quit listening to my music.  Then came a commercial for my favorite hummus.  That's when I felt like an idiot.

Whenever discussing hummus, I've asked people if they've heard of that brand and they always say yes.  I don't think it's as bad as saying, "Have you heard of these things called 'Fritos' or 'Dr. Pepper' or 'apples'?"  I suppose it just made me feel a little daft.

I realize today all this does is make me seem a little disconnected from the rest of society which isn't so bad.  I'm neither one of those people who only watches wrestling in the neighboring trailer nor am I one of those people who only reads physics periodicals.  I listen to NPR when I feel I'm not informed enough and I read a lot.  I also use Facebook.

Saying I depend some on social networking may make me sound like fall into the trailer park category, so let me be clear, it does not mean I depend on the captioned pictures of kittens for my news.  It means I find some fairly interesting articles on random topics and I am entertained by them.

I found this gem a few days ago on Facebook: Interesting penis facts.  Now you too can be an expert on penises because you read an article about it on the internet.