I've received comments and emails lately from blog readers who have really warmed my heart. Thanks so much for all the support and love. And thank you for understanding that this blog is all over the place- from my job, to cancer to roller derby, to fashion and make-up, to relationship stuff, to Buddhism to yoga to advocacy- I'm not just consumed by one thing on this blog. So if you've hung in there with me and you still like this blog, thanks for being you! And now I have some other tasty tidbits for you. :)
First, I'd like to credit that joke to Tina, a blogger I've just found this week. She's pretty fabulous.
Second, if you are a blogger, you have to check out this awesome post on How to Write a Great Blog Post, Part 3 by Elissa. She is also pretty fabulous.
Third, you have to meet Erin, who rocks Buffalo Exchange t-shirts like a girl after my own heart. She's is pretty fabulous as well.
And fourth, I'd like to use the first through third points to seg-way into the fact that I am so stoked I found three awesome blogs this week, who just happen to belong to Tina, Erin and Elissa. And trust me- you'd need to be mad at me if I didn't share these. Here's the kick, though: these three girls all know each other! How cute is that!?!
T Minus, T Plus: A Plus Size Professional Bringing a Splash of Color to a Sea of Black Suits
Work With What You've Got
Dress With Courage
Enjoy!
-MM
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Brick by Brick
You think you have it so hard.
You've got a test next week, your best friend is being a b word, there's some repair you need for your car that costs $1100, your cat is sick, your boss is a prick, your tooth has a giant cavity, and you hate your ex-boyfriend. Life is terrible. You want to die.
And you go on like this for years. Years. Going from one crisis to the next. Then one day you get a phone call, and you have cancer. Bam. Like a hit from a baseball bat to the head. Cancer. Everything spins for a minute. The world seems to jolt to a stop.
Everything changes. No more "what am I going to do about my econ grade?" Now it's become "what am I going to do about being dead?" It sucks. It sucks so bad, that unless you've been through it, you can't even begin to fathom the feeling. It hollows you out in a split second. It's like being struck by lightning.
But you know yourself. And you don't quit. So you say, you know what? I can do this. I can beat this. I have no doubt I can beat this. And so you do the treatment. You have a 50% chance of living for 5 more years, so you decide to fight like hell. You have no idea what hell will be like.
The treatment lasts for one year, and the side effects are brutal. You get a rash. You get GERD. You get IBS. You feel like someone is continually hitting you in the stomach for about a year. Your bones ache like they are being frozen within your skin. You get strange shooting pains all over your body at random times for no apparent reason. You are so tired, you fall asleep standing up. You are so tired, you crap your pants- more than once. You are so sick that you have to decide what hurts worse- hunger pains or the pain from eating. You are so sick that your esophagus bleeds. Your mouth is filled with yeasty pustules. You pass out in the shower. You still have the rash. You have a fever almost every single day for an entire year. You feel every moment like you'll collapse if you don't lie down. You miss important engagements- graduations, concerts, parties, dinners- because you are so sick. You get to the point where you can't even run simple errands- you have to take a wheelchair everywhere. You sleep 70% of every day and night. You wake up to realize you've missed whole days. The hormones make you crazy, and when you are awake, everything makes you cry. You gain 50 pounds. You cannot catch an effing break to save your life. You have no control over anything anymore. You have been stripped down to your bare existence. You hate your life, and you want to die. And this time for real.
In this time, when, to no fault of your own, you have reached your absolute low point, mentally and physically, you look around you for love and support and reassurance- and you feel so small and frail and alone. You are alone because, through all this, you not only lost yourself, but you lost so many others. The first was your close aunt- who, in her own grieving process, lashed out at you for the mistakes that you'd made in the past. Why didn't you take better care of yourself? You could've prevented this! She has no idea how to deal with what is happening to you and can't bear to watch it. Her anger at the situation overfills her heart and she thrashes it around wildly. You are in the direct path. She cuts you out of her life.
Your friends from adulthood try to hang in there, but when they've never seen death so close before, they begin to question their own immortality. This ish ain't pretty if you've never seen it before, and one by one, memory by memory, lonely tiny morsels of trust left in your once overflowing life, the friends become consumed with their own lives- after all, yours IS the only one that's stopped- and they disappear. They all have bills to pay, kids to raise, families to tend. But what is most striking to you are the mistakes you made, whatever it is that you must have done to make all these friends disappear. Everyone is so uncomfortable around you. You are overwhelmed with shame.
You cling to those last few people. One of your caregivers is an old friend from way back. You lean on her. She thinks that you should be handling the illness one way, and you think you should be handling it another. Tempers flare. Words flail like sharp weapons- and it becomes a game of who can cut the other deeper. It's like a bomb went off inside you both, and feels like the worst breakup ever- even though it's not even with a guy. You feel like a limb has been severed. You both are miserable, but neither will admit it. A friendship 20 years old, gone like the snap of your fingers.
Because you're sick of it! You're sick of it all! To have to endure everything, and then, in the midst of it bare the psychoses of those around you? To have to carry their inadequacies as they dump them on you for being sick? You're the cancer patient! These are their faults, not yours! Why are they lashing out at you, making your life even worse? Shouldn't I be the one being taken care of here?
What is it going to take?!? It's all been ripped from your clutches- your life, your health, your body, your future, you friends, your dreams, your time, your energy, your job. It has even taken your personality. You are shaken to your core. You are a naked shell compared to what you once were. You are Job. You look around you and it is a desolate wasteland of nothingness that surrounds you now. How did you even get here? A year ago you never would've believed that this would be your life now. You were so naive. The destruction from your life has created a huge void. Is this rock bottom? Please tell me this is rock bottom. Please tell me things get better from here.
There is nothing left to do but rebuild. You discover that the whole time you thought you were alone, there was a prince right beside you. He was there holding you up when you weren't looking, all along. The cancer seems to be gone. You can allow your body to begin mending. It will take years, and the fatigue and pain never fully subside. You try to figure out who you are now. You try to build your old life again, but everything is different. Everyday is a brick. Brick by brick, though, you make a new life. It's not as carefree as it was, but you are alive. Things are not easy, brick by brick. Slowly you rebuild.
Most importantly you find, you are not alone. You find a community of other survivors. Healing is not easy, and many of the symptoms still exist. Nothing is the same as it was, your body has changed, your mind is not the same, your personality is different. But you have learned to accept that. Things are ok. Then things are good. There are still very few true friends, and only one or two people you trust anymore, but slowly life becomes great again. The bricks begin to build a structure, which is still wobbly most of the time. Brick by brick, it becomes stronger. There are cancer scares, and sickness, death and disasters. And finally, after a long, hard road, when you realize that everything is still in shambles, you sigh to yourself and decide to just be happy for the little there is. It is not much, but it is awesome. Life has begun again. It has been six years, and life is starting to look like a life I like to live again. Thank you, God.
You've got a test next week, your best friend is being a b word, there's some repair you need for your car that costs $1100, your cat is sick, your boss is a prick, your tooth has a giant cavity, and you hate your ex-boyfriend. Life is terrible. You want to die.
And you go on like this for years. Years. Going from one crisis to the next. Then one day you get a phone call, and you have cancer. Bam. Like a hit from a baseball bat to the head. Cancer. Everything spins for a minute. The world seems to jolt to a stop.
Everything changes. No more "what am I going to do about my econ grade?" Now it's become "what am I going to do about being dead?" It sucks. It sucks so bad, that unless you've been through it, you can't even begin to fathom the feeling. It hollows you out in a split second. It's like being struck by lightning.
But you know yourself. And you don't quit. So you say, you know what? I can do this. I can beat this. I have no doubt I can beat this. And so you do the treatment. You have a 50% chance of living for 5 more years, so you decide to fight like hell. You have no idea what hell will be like.
The treatment lasts for one year, and the side effects are brutal. You get a rash. You get GERD. You get IBS. You feel like someone is continually hitting you in the stomach for about a year. Your bones ache like they are being frozen within your skin. You get strange shooting pains all over your body at random times for no apparent reason. You are so tired, you fall asleep standing up. You are so tired, you crap your pants- more than once. You are so sick that you have to decide what hurts worse- hunger pains or the pain from eating. You are so sick that your esophagus bleeds. Your mouth is filled with yeasty pustules. You pass out in the shower. You still have the rash. You have a fever almost every single day for an entire year. You feel every moment like you'll collapse if you don't lie down. You miss important engagements- graduations, concerts, parties, dinners- because you are so sick. You get to the point where you can't even run simple errands- you have to take a wheelchair everywhere. You sleep 70% of every day and night. You wake up to realize you've missed whole days. The hormones make you crazy, and when you are awake, everything makes you cry. You gain 50 pounds. You cannot catch an effing break to save your life. You have no control over anything anymore. You have been stripped down to your bare existence. You hate your life, and you want to die. And this time for real.
In this time, when, to no fault of your own, you have reached your absolute low point, mentally and physically, you look around you for love and support and reassurance- and you feel so small and frail and alone. You are alone because, through all this, you not only lost yourself, but you lost so many others. The first was your close aunt- who, in her own grieving process, lashed out at you for the mistakes that you'd made in the past. Why didn't you take better care of yourself? You could've prevented this! She has no idea how to deal with what is happening to you and can't bear to watch it. Her anger at the situation overfills her heart and she thrashes it around wildly. You are in the direct path. She cuts you out of her life.
Your friends from adulthood try to hang in there, but when they've never seen death so close before, they begin to question their own immortality. This ish ain't pretty if you've never seen it before, and one by one, memory by memory, lonely tiny morsels of trust left in your once overflowing life, the friends become consumed with their own lives- after all, yours IS the only one that's stopped- and they disappear. They all have bills to pay, kids to raise, families to tend. But what is most striking to you are the mistakes you made, whatever it is that you must have done to make all these friends disappear. Everyone is so uncomfortable around you. You are overwhelmed with shame.
You cling to those last few people. One of your caregivers is an old friend from way back. You lean on her. She thinks that you should be handling the illness one way, and you think you should be handling it another. Tempers flare. Words flail like sharp weapons- and it becomes a game of who can cut the other deeper. It's like a bomb went off inside you both, and feels like the worst breakup ever- even though it's not even with a guy. You feel like a limb has been severed. You both are miserable, but neither will admit it. A friendship 20 years old, gone like the snap of your fingers.
Because you're sick of it! You're sick of it all! To have to endure everything, and then, in the midst of it bare the psychoses of those around you? To have to carry their inadequacies as they dump them on you for being sick? You're the cancer patient! These are their faults, not yours! Why are they lashing out at you, making your life even worse? Shouldn't I be the one being taken care of here?
What is it going to take?!? It's all been ripped from your clutches- your life, your health, your body, your future, you friends, your dreams, your time, your energy, your job. It has even taken your personality. You are shaken to your core. You are a naked shell compared to what you once were. You are Job. You look around you and it is a desolate wasteland of nothingness that surrounds you now. How did you even get here? A year ago you never would've believed that this would be your life now. You were so naive. The destruction from your life has created a huge void. Is this rock bottom? Please tell me this is rock bottom. Please tell me things get better from here.
There is nothing left to do but rebuild. You discover that the whole time you thought you were alone, there was a prince right beside you. He was there holding you up when you weren't looking, all along. The cancer seems to be gone. You can allow your body to begin mending. It will take years, and the fatigue and pain never fully subside. You try to figure out who you are now. You try to build your old life again, but everything is different. Everyday is a brick. Brick by brick, though, you make a new life. It's not as carefree as it was, but you are alive. Things are not easy, brick by brick. Slowly you rebuild.
Most importantly you find, you are not alone. You find a community of other survivors. Healing is not easy, and many of the symptoms still exist. Nothing is the same as it was, your body has changed, your mind is not the same, your personality is different. But you have learned to accept that. Things are ok. Then things are good. There are still very few true friends, and only one or two people you trust anymore, but slowly life becomes great again. The bricks begin to build a structure, which is still wobbly most of the time. Brick by brick, it becomes stronger. There are cancer scares, and sickness, death and disasters. And finally, after a long, hard road, when you realize that everything is still in shambles, you sigh to yourself and decide to just be happy for the little there is. It is not much, but it is awesome. Life has begun again. It has been six years, and life is starting to look like a life I like to live again. Thank you, God.
Friday, July 15, 2011
3 Great Things
I just wanted to share some hot new finds.
#1 MelanomaGirl.com is a site I found via Facebook (believe it or not). I kinda went off on a tangent on there the other day. I guess I don't know how to deal with it when I see a mole that looks suspicious to me or when my friends post (over and over) "OMG I got so sunburned today!" or "I love my new tanning bed place!" I mean, come on people. All I'm asking is wear sunblock and stay away from tanning beds. (I mean, any advice, btw?) Anywho, speaking of tangents..... lol....what I was saying was.... that I found this awesome site called Melanoma Girl. She's got a well-designed website and an uplifting, amazing attitude to boot. Her t-shirt designs are pretty stellar too. You should definitely check it out. Cuz it's "pretty cool!" (see video)
#2- I got an email from Brenda Becker for MelApp and she informed me that there's a new iPhone app called- appropriately enough called MelApp. According to Brenda,
"MelApp is an early detection mobile app that uses the iPhone’s camera coupled with image diagnostics to assess if users’ moles and freckles are low to high risk of melanoma. Highly sophisticated patent protected mathematical algorithms and image-based pattern recognition technology lets MelApp analyze a user’s uploaded image of their mole or freckle, using an image database licensed from Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Within seconds MelApp will provide a risk analysis of the uploaded picture being a melanoma."
Ok, not the best named idea out there, but I feel like this is pret legit. And so high tech! It's a very sheek looking app, very functional, pretty intuitive design. All in all, I give it a thumbs up. Check it out at www.melapp.net
and
www.healthdiscoverycorp.com .
#3- You have to know about Funnycancershirts.com! Holy shit. Truly great cancer design going on there. Totally seriously!
Great to be back after a full month taking off!
-MM
#1 MelanomaGirl.com is a site I found via Facebook (believe it or not). I kinda went off on a tangent on there the other day. I guess I don't know how to deal with it when I see a mole that looks suspicious to me or when my friends post (over and over) "OMG I got so sunburned today!" or "I love my new tanning bed place!" I mean, come on people. All I'm asking is wear sunblock and stay away from tanning beds. (I mean, any advice, btw?) Anywho, speaking of tangents..... lol....what I was saying was.... that I found this awesome site called Melanoma Girl. She's got a well-designed website and an uplifting, amazing attitude to boot. Her t-shirt designs are pretty stellar too. You should definitely check it out. Cuz it's "pretty cool!" (see video)
#2- I got an email from Brenda Becker for MelApp and she informed me that there's a new iPhone app called- appropriately enough called MelApp. According to Brenda,
"MelApp is an early detection mobile app that uses the iPhone’s camera coupled with image diagnostics to assess if users’ moles and freckles are low to high risk of melanoma. Highly sophisticated patent protected mathematical algorithms and image-based pattern recognition technology lets MelApp analyze a user’s uploaded image of their mole or freckle, using an image database licensed from Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. Within seconds MelApp will provide a risk analysis of the uploaded picture being a melanoma."
Ok, not the best named idea out there, but I feel like this is pret legit. And so high tech! It's a very sheek looking app, very functional, pretty intuitive design. All in all, I give it a thumbs up. Check it out at www.melapp.net and
www.healthdiscoverycorp.com .
#3- You have to know about Funnycancershirts.com! Holy shit. Truly great cancer design going on there. Totally seriously!
Great to be back after a full month taking off!
-MM
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Separate Vacations
Every few years, Bobby and I do separate vacations. This actually started sort of as an argument the first time. Hilarious. It happened when I, in one of my not-so-noble moments, booked a vacay without Bobby. In retaliation, he did the same, and two weeks later, when we were both back from our separate trips, we were better for the experience. We were both reminded of what independence feels like, happy with ourselves, and more appreciative of our love for each other. I don't know, but I'm guessing that separate vacations either make you love what you have or realize that you need to make a change. And for me, it also makes me really evaluate what I love and how I would spend my time if I wasn't thinking so much about someone else, which is not only good for me, but good for the relationship. Getting to watch tons of bad tv completely guilt free isn't too shabby either. lol
Yes, that's right: I'm on a stay-cation. B went off to LA in pursuit of all kinds of worldly comedian knowledge, and I decided to kick it right here at the casa. The warehome. The old homestead. It's day 3 today, which I have designated "cleaning day." Day 4 will be "art day." These days were preceded by "sit on the couch day" and "healthy indulgence day."Both day 1 and day 2 were allotted extra time for bad tv. This included The League (my fave), Southpark (of course), Jersey Shore (eek!), Bones, Psych, The Unusuals, Celebrity Ghost Stories (I am such a sucker for these!), Archer, along with lots of Food Network, and also Samantha Who?, which I just now found.
Yes, Samantha Who? is a bit cheesy, but I just love the idea of waking up and being completely wiped clean from the person you were the day before. On the show, she has retrograde amnesia, and wakes in the hospital to find that she has no memory of her life before a hit and run accident 8 days before. So she sets out to find out who she is, and progressively realizes that she was a horrible human being. The funniest part is when she asks people to describe her to herself. Pretty interesting, right? Can you imagine waking up tomorrow and having to ask people what you are like? What are your favorite foods? What is your job? Do you like your job? Do you like yourself? Do you like your family? Your friends? Your life?
To just add to that, ask yourself this- if you asked the people closest to you WHO you are, would they even know? Dr. Phil has this thing he calls a personal truth. I'm not a big Dr. Phil fan, but I love what his says about it.
"Decide what your personal truth is. Every single one of us has one — something we believe about ourselves when nobody else is watching. Our personal truth is what we really say to ourselves when our social mask is off. Once you decide what your personal truth is, then you'll be less vulnerable to what others say. Personal truth is so important bc I think we generate the results in our life that we believe we deserve. If you have a damaged personal truth, you generate the results that match that. When we grow up, people write on the slate of who we are. People like parents write on our slate. But the most tragic thing of all is when we pick up the pen and start writing and we write the same things they did."So there's a little something for you to chew on all week: who are you, and do you like who you've become? Would you like a description of yourself?
Rest assured that am asking myself these questions, too. It's what I'm focusing on this week, too. I'm focusing on the part of the description that I want to change.
It's a great stay-cation! Namaste!
-MM
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