Turn and Face the Strange

It seems that change is inevitable for me. I had a hard enough time keeping up with life during the pandemic, and then…you know. All the stuff.

The Job

The problem with having, like, 4 “full-time jobs” is that you legit can’t get them all done at once. This often seems to be thrust upon women. You have to be all the things – default parent, put-together single parent, inspiring cancer patient, household project manager…with an actual full-time job. The ability to handle it without question is the expectation, but that’s unattainble and unsustainable.

With that in mind, I left my beloved job of eight years.

It’s been scary. Terrifying, really. I’m at rock bottom. I’ve been at rock bottom. This gives me a way forward. I need to straighten out everything that’s happened in my life.

Listen, life is finite. If you’re catching me in a moment of honesty, I know it’s likely that cancer or a complication of it will shorten my life span. And life is no longer what it was. My kids and my health are priorities.

I am set up as a consultant/writer for now, hoping I can earn some $ to live on until I find a job…or maybe I’ll keep doing this. Never thought I’d want to be on my own, but I have weird skills that don’t necessarily fit in-house at firms. It’s energizing and is really flexing my creative skills. It’s been fun.

Things have been going as well as they possibly could have. People far and wide – so many LMAers – have reached out to help a gal out on her new venture. It’s amazing.

Now I hope my work lives up to the hype. ????????????

The Blog

Having a blog with “titties” in the title seems weird now that I don’t have any. ???? I have a plan to migrate to a different blog now that the bulk of treatment is over. It’ll be more about the after part of cancer and adjusting to life. Don’t worry, I’ll turn off the auto emails! There will be a way to sign up if you want, but I’d rather not assume.

More on that at some point.

The Health

I feel good physically.

Between being sick all fucking winter (thanks, lowered immune system!) and not having money to pay the endless medical bills, I still have outstanding medical appointments. One of them was a DEXA scan. The drugs I’m on can do damage to bones. Well, I have damage. Particularly, osteopenia, the precursor to osteoporosis.

First of all, I read the radiologist report. My oncologist has not called me, probably because I don’t have an oncologist currently. Mine left the practice to go else where, and there’s a two month wait to “establish care.” (That’s on the calendar for April.) So, I read up on osteopenia, but I don’t actually have a doctor’s advice for my particular situation.

Second, I’m not exactly surprised. I didn’t really eat meat and hated milk; plus I played sports…HARD. Broke, fractured, and sprained several bones. My guess is the drugs didn’t do all the work.

Third, according to the internet, there are things I can do to mitigate. Eat healthy, exercise – specifically strength training. This is great! Also according to the internet: osteopenia impacts people over 50. ????

Fourth…my right hip is at the cusp of osteoporosis or is already. The scan only measured my hips for some reason. I have a feeling if they scanned the rest of my body, my right knee would fall into that threshold. Maybe even my back. Still.

Fingers crossed on this.

I continue to do self chest-exams about every week. I’m feeling for any change – bumps, lumps, discoloration. Anything that wasn’t there last time. Including in the armpits. I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but at least a year before diagnosis, I felt like there was something in my right armpit. A pain – not external. Something internal.

DON’T IGNORE CHANGES IN YOUR BODY. You know it best.

Still not taking AIs. I really don’t know if I ever will – I’m really conflicted about them. Not opposed, it’s just a terrible quality of life for me. Still trying to deal with life after, and after that, I can try again.

The Kids

The kids have been pretty great, actually. They were super jazzed to have more of my attention! We had the best time on our recent vacation to the Dells area, visiting some really awesome friends. <3

We’re hoping to travel more at the end of the school year. I love these ages. Yes, they’re assholes. But they’re amazingly astute. And if you treat them like humans, they mostly follow along. We did SEVEN HOURS in the car on the way to Madison. We did stop at playgrounds, but they loved scenic areas, looking for abandoned houses, and looking at old cemeteries! I mean, the waterpark will always be the MOST fun – and we totally had a great time there – but it’s cool at 6 and 8 to not only tolerate but LIKE that stuff.

To be honest, I have yet to turn off the urge/guilt to work. I put a timeline on making all these phone calls and get all of that done and out of the way. There’s more than phone calls, but that’s where it starts. I’m confident we’ll get there…most of the time. 😉