Linda 2.0

Today is my anniversary.
It was precisely one year ago today that an IV drip began to dose me with the anesthesia that would propel me into a seven-hour surgery. A team composed of two oncology surgeons, an anesthesiologist, and ER nurses worked together to eradicate my breast cancer and put me back together again.

I used to be deathly afraid of anesthesia. It was because of a bad reaction to sodium pentathol decades ago. I was having a couple of teeth removed prior to orthodontic braces. As soon as the anesthesia was administered, I spiraled into a seemingly never-ending nightmare and awakened crying and screaming.

Thirty years passed before my second surgery—for a minor procedure about ten years ago—but that first event at the orthodontist’s office was in the back of my mind.

On the gurney, ready to roll to the ER, my fears were intensifying. Tears began sliding uncontrollably down my cheeks as the nurse pushed the gurney through the corridor.

She brought the gurney to a stop.

“Why are you crying?” said the nurse. “Are you in pain?”

I shook my head “no”.

“Are you afraid?”

I nodded “yes”.

“Oh, honey, you’re going to be just fine,” she said. “Listen, this is what you’re going to do. When the IV drip begins, I want you to think of your happy place, the place that makes you feel the most happy and secure.”

Her instructions were like a much-needed hug. At the appointed time, I went to that happy place, glanced up at the IV, saw the fluid moving and the next thing I knew, I was in a recovery room with no ill effects.

Last January—the surgery for the big one—there were extensive discussions with my surgeons and anesthesiologist 24 hours before the big day. They explained everything I would experience, step-by-step, and answered all my questions. Then the surgeons drew circles, arrows, and dotted lines on my torso with a black Sharpie, along with cryptic notes-to-self. I still regret that I didn’t take a selfie!

This time I was totally prepared and relaxed.

I woke up fresh as a daisy.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that preparation can make even the biggest challenges easier. Recovery wasn’t a walk in the park, but one deals with it.

cancer

As a child, I had no support system. I navigated too many terrifying situations alone, and yet, those lonely times created a resilience that continues to serve me today. I can’t think of anything that I’m afraid of.

To be clear, I understand the difference between Fear and Danger. Fear is imaginary—the monster under the bed. Danger is real—walking alone in the bad part of a city at 1 AM.

I know what constitutes Danger and do my best to avoid it. Fear is something I can control.

Today I’m all healed.

I’m Linda 2.0, the new, improved version of myself—back on the trail, back in the saddle.

I’m in my happy place.

UPDATE, 4 days after writing this post. Back in the saddle!
Linda Summersea riding Rising Star. Banana Bank Horses, Belmopan, Belize. #BananaBank

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Cancer, the Lesser of Two Evils

I have a friend—a fellow writer—who sold it all, packed up, and moved to a foreign country this year with her nearly blind 90-year-old mother and a little French poodle named Prose. Impressive, right?

Alison took it all step-by-step, sharing the ups and downs along the way with her Facebook followers and newsletter subscribers.  Mostly “ups” because what’s not to love about beautiful scenery, village life, starting over, and being inspired to write about it? And, living in the country where the subject of her historical novels takes place.

In a recent newsletter, she shared how she’s dealt with a series of recent “aggravations”.

1. Alison was robbed of her cellphone, wallet, charge cards, and their passports in one fell swoop.

2. The US Social Security system says that they overpaid her and now they want their money back.

3. Half of her newsletter subscribers were “unsubscribed” in one day by a glitch within the system of the very well-known newsletter service that she uses. Zap. Gone.

Being an eternal optimist, Alison focused on positive ways to dig out from under this mess without getting discouraged. She told herself these were merely aggravations. They weren’t real problems.

“Cancer is a real problem. Your house sliding down a hill is a real problem,” she wrote.

That got my attention.

“Cancer is a real problem.”  

But you know what? I’ve had cancer, and I’d rather have had cancer than those three “aggravations”.

Why? Because when I learned I had cancer, it felt like it was happening to someone else. My general practitioner gave me the news over the phone on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

“OK. What do I need to know? What do I do? What’s first? ” I responded.

I listened carefully, made a list, and proceeded to research the “who-what-where” that were going to help me.

After the research part, I was able to trust my decision and give the responsibility for the cure to my health providers. Done.

cancerI didn’t even cry. Not even once. Some people might think that’s not a healthy response, but for me, it was important to think of my cancer problem as something survivable by means of educated professionals doing the hard work while I lay there receiving the care—not quite like a guinea pig—but sort of.
It’s been six and a half months from diagnosis to completed healing.

A few days ago, my last open wound has sealed and healed.

Of course, it hasn’t been easy. Parts of this cancer stuff are a real bitch. I’m still fairly new to the place where I live, so I didn’t have a support system here. I spent a lot of time lying alone in my bed, waiting for sunset.

I love to read. I love to write. I had no motivation to do either. I couldn’t even enjoy watching Netflix, and I haven’t yet turned on the TV in 2018.

But still, if I had to deal with a robbery, a federal department screw-up, and a computer glitch with negative ramifications, I’m pretty sure I’d have taken to my bed, having a good long cry under the covers.

The difference between dealing with cancer and dealing with bureaucracy is that I would have had to deal with the bureaucratic issues all by myself.

Does any of this make sense?

I guess what I mean is that I never felt fearful or stressed about the cancer, but I’d feel very fearful and stressed if I had to make a lot of phone calls (I hate phone calls) and push a lot of sensitive paperwork to restore my life.

I know that Alison (Check out her website here: www.alisontaylorbrown.com) has probably gotten it all sorted out by now because she has an amazing attitude when faced with high seas.

She’s an inspiration, and that’s what we all need: inspiration from other people, showing us that if they can do it, we can do it, too. We may not be side by side, but we’re virtually together on this planet. At some point, we all need inspiration from someone like Alison to get us through the deep water.

I’m hoping for the water to recede soon.

Thanks for listening.

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Seasonal Blues: Eventually It All Comes Together

Except when it doesn’t. But hang in there—this isn’t a blog about pain and misery. It’s about life’s surprises.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2017, I actually wasn’t too freaked out. My first response to my primary care physician, who was delivering the news from the other side of the country, was “OK. What do I do to fix this?”

We had the conversation about oncologists, surgeons, reconstruction and hospitals. A few days later, I returned home to Washington state and began the interviews, appointments, and education process. A lot to learn! A lot to take in, and more importantly, a lot to decide.

seasonal bluesFast forward to today. My first surgery is eight weeks behind me.

Where did the time go? It’s almost as if it never happened. Or maybe it happened to someone else. I did, very often, feel as though I was watching someone else’s life. Except for the long voids of empty space in time. The long period of not writing. All the blog posts that I never finished. The long period of doubts and fears and alone-ness (not loneliness).

My point is: when you’re in this situation, the one thing you realize is that you damn well need to get rid of anything that isn’t working because you only have this one life to live (that I know of in this current space in time) and you’d better make this current life the Best it can be.

Then, just when I could do the simple things that were forbidden for weeks—rolling onto my stomach in bed, enjoying a hot restorative bath, easing into a hot tub—doubts crept in.

Yesterday I was seriously— and I do mean SERIOUSLY—considering leaving this writing stuff to the next generation. Maybe, I thought, maybe I was meant to have more time for walking on the beach or binging Netflix. I’ve been reading Ann Patchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir about Writing and Life, and I’m watching other parts of my life teetering on a seesaw each day.

I hadn’t re-read my manuscript since pre-diagnosis and yesterday was the day I was going to put aside the delays of the past three months, open Scrivener and see what was there. It was HARD. I did everything I could to avoid it, including walking 7,000 steps in the cold. (I’m on the other side of the country again.)

But then, after nervously consuming multiple items that were beyond a reasonable person’s calorie count for the day, I did it.

That is, I opened Scrivener and re-read Chapter One.

I found a couple of words that needed replacing because they echoed each other’s sounds in a non-complementary manner. I re-shaped the first two sentences to remove any triteness and draw the reader in. I was careful not to change anything just for the sake of changing it. Then, I renamed the chapter to reflect more depth of the content: From a blah “My First Memory” to a significant “A Fierce First Memory”.  In short, this three months absence from writing was beneficial. I’m back in the saddle.

Fierceness is my strength. Some people might call it stubborness, but, no, I say that it is fierceness. Tenacity. It’s what has had my back throughout these sixty-seven plus years. I can see now that “A Fierce First Memory” at age three is all about everything that would—and will—keep me together for the rest of my life.

I fell asleep feeling pretty good. Feeling as though I’m on the right track and able to assess the memoir content from a reader’s point of view.

This morning, if any doubts were lingering, I was surprised to greet three reinforcements from the Universe:

  1. A person I do not know, and who does not know my Polish heritage, was in touch with me, and she is from Poland.
  2. When I clicked on a New York Times article about tackling difficult challenges to self in one’s later years, I found that the subject was Polish and had much to say about tenacity. The article was a revelation for me because I only know the Polish-American point of view. Aleksander Doba reveals something I had not ever heard:

    “The more you don’t believe in Polish people, the more determined we are. To prove themselves, Polish people will endure everything. If you aren’t willing to suffer, you can do nothing. You can sit and die. This is the only one thing you can do.”

    Doba has a deep, almost performance-art-like sense of this. You can be made small by life or rage against it. “Nie chce byc malym szarym czlowiekiem,” he told me. “I do not want to be a little gray man.” This is a common expression in Poland — and a good motto for us all.        (*Dziękuję, Mr. Doba!)

  3. I had an email from John Guzlowski’s blog. He is a poet, a Polish Chicagoan whose Catholic parents survived Buchenwald. Until chancing upon his blog a couple years ago, I hadn’t even known that the Nazis had rounded up any non-Jews.

I accepted this trifecta of Polish-ness as a positive message because I rarely come in contact with much that touches on my heritage, so I am happy to acknowledge this as a happy accident of communications.

Seasonal Blues. Eventually It All does Come Together.

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*Thank you, Mr. Doba