Cheat code

As of yesterday, I am officially two weeks post-op. The god-awful drains sucking the gross body juice out of the remnants of my chest have finally been removed. Which means I’m no longer wearing specialized bras with hooks, or shirts with internal pockets to hold the collection bags which my mom then has to empty 2-3 times a day. Oh, and I no longer feel like a compromised cancer patient.

In fact, according to the pathology report following my mastectomy, I am officially cancer free. Halle-fucking-lujah.

That’s not to say I’m back to “normal”. Only within the last day have I found the energy or brain power to write. Seriously, even stringing together words in a conversation has been challenging at times.

I’ve been sleeping… a lot. I’ll get energy boosts like Mario pounding a mushroom and then fifteen minutes later I’m depleted. One day I will feel void of emotion – as flat as my chest now looks - and the next I can’t stop crying. We could be talking about what’s being delivered by our wonderfully generous community that has contributed to our meal train and the tears are just streaming down my face. Who in the world cries about tacos? Or stuffed chicken? Or chicken noodle soup? Me, apparently. But, of course, it’s not the food I’m crying about.

Then, in the shower, where all major revelations are born it clicked: I’m grieving. Not my breasts specifically, it's more complicated than that because grief is complicated. I understood this on the surface, but when I started to think about what I am currently feeling and experiencing, specifically in relation to grieving Adelaide, I unearthed a much needed dose of grace.

I will have a few good days followed by a terrible day because neither physical nor emotional grief is linear: hello, chicken dance.

Just as I once struggled to go to the grocery store, I am currently unable to undress near a mirror. Emotional trauma can create physical reactions. Over time I will need to process all of this, but right now I’m still in the expressing it stage.

Speaking of, I can feel stable one moment and then without warning crash – physically, emotionally, basically any word ending in -ally – I just need to be away, alone, in bed: the werewolf resurfaces.

I am remembering how to listen to myself – not just my body, but my mind and heart. In my book Normal Broken I compared this to playing the children’s playground game “Mother May I”. It appears I’ve found myself back on the blacktop for another few rounds.

My best guess is that this cancer will end up hijacking a year of my life. I will have had three, possibly four surgeries – each with their own anticipatory anxiety, advance preparations, and recovery. I know this could have been worse: I could have needed chemo or it could have metastasized – but it didn’t.

And then I am reminded of one of the most important grief lessons of all: there are no winners at the grief/cancer Olympics. It all sucks. This is my journey. I am grateful for the parts that have gone as well as they could and also devastated by the time, energy, and pieces of my body that have been taken from me.

There are of course countless differences between grieving my daughter and breast cancer: For starters, with Adelaide I didn’t want to let go of the pain of losing her. Meanwhile, I hope to forget about this pain just as thoroughly as I did the pain of childbirth. Then there is knowing that when I physically recover, I will have a familiar life to return to: the result of this asteroid was a detour, not a demolition. And then of course there is the fact that Adelaide was a person, my daughter, not some lumps of fatty tissue.

But they were both mine.

Both of my body.

Both given up.

This grief is undeniably different, but its effects are familiar and I am finding some comfort in that. It’s kind of like having the cheat codes in a video game. I still have to go through the stages and fight the bosses, but I get to skip a few levels along the way.

This week’s video game level includes continuing to find patience with myself and slowly weaning off the prescription pain meds. In part because I think I’m ready, but mostly because it’s warm outside and I just really freaking want a chilled beer or glass of wine. You didn’t think having cancer was going to make me super health conscious and give up vices did you?

Nah. This gamer has every intention of continuing to play the game: adult beverages, curse words, blunt honesty and all.

ID: Kelly in profile from the shoulders up looking out a window. Her shoulders and chest are bare.