We have a choice to make: to passively occupy life or to actively participate in it. And I’d challenge you to consider active participation even when it’s hard. When it’s exhausting. When it sometimes seems to return void. 

It’s not as much work to just let life occur, to let the “Groundhog-Day-Effect” lull you into the sleepiness of passivity. It’s absolutely easier to simply open your eyes to the day and get through it, task after task, checking the boxes of the have-to’s. And sometimes it feels like that is all we have the capacity for. God knows, I’ve felt that way. But what if, even when it feels like we don’t have the capacity for active participation, we choose to anyways? What if we paused the to-do-list long enough to consider the relevance of the to-do’s (see yesterday’s post)? What if we chose to sit in the silence, quiet the shame of lazy, and listen for what God wants to say to us? What if we decided that things aren’t happenstance or coincidence and instead sought important connection and purpose.

Yes, it takes effort to do these things. And we can even be really good at them……for awhile. But then we either lose motivation (because we aren’t seeing the payoff), lose interest (because we get bored easily) or lose heart (because we don’t experience immediate impact) and so we stop. We become complacent. We become passive. We become hopeless. We become weary. And then we justify our tired inaction with ‘it’s just impossible to keep that up all of the time, no one can…’ But I’d venture to say that actually, it IS possible. We just have to decide it is worth it even when we don’t see the payoff, even if we feel bored, even when it doesn’t show immediate results, even when we are weary. Cancer is teaching me this: Participating is brutally hard. It’s a choice…and a moment-to-moment one at that. But it is so worth it. I’ve been challenged to choose it in the pain of being cut open; in the throes of poison coursing through my veins taking everything short of my life with it; in the searing burning of radiation; in the turmoil of the man-created-façade of a life unmarred by cancer; in the loneliness of a battle battled by many but unique only to me… And now I have the continued challenge to keep choosing it while in the utter confusion of surviving. 

Pause. Consider. Choose. Listen. Decide. Seek. Persist. Participate. 

*Post 892

I’m In a Strange Place Today :: 9/13/17 :: Post 13

I had my first post-op with my plastic surgeon, but I didn’t even see him. I saw his nurse. She said I was looking really good and healing very well. She put more fluid in my tissue expanders and I guess each time I go, I’ll get a little more until I’m at a similar size to before. I guess each week that goes by I’ll feel more and more like I have boobs again. It isn’t the same. But it’s all a part of the process, I guess. It’s a part of mourning the loss of what I had naturally and beginning to accept the replacement parts. The final reconstruction is too far away to think about without crying… So I wait. Some more.

I also got a call from my breast surgeon today with final pathology reports. It won’t make total sense until next week when I meet with my oncologist, but I guess the short of it is that she took out each breast as a whole part including some skin and both nipples along with 9 lymph nodes from the cancer (left) side, 4 of which were sentinels. 2 of those sentinels had cancer in them but the other nodes did not. She said that was good news (she was prepared for the worst). I’ll take her word for it…thank God for experts that I can trust. She also reported I had 4 tumors. One was 5.5 cm at its largest dimension, one was 4.8 cm at its largest (she said those were huge) and the other two were .3 and .4. I also was positive for Paget Disease of the nipple (which apparently is pretty rare). Damn boob tried to kill me. Geez. It makes me wonder how long it had actually been going on before I found it. Kinda scary. Kinda something I don’t really want to know. But I also think I kinda do. I dunno… 

This whole thing is just a bunch of, “huh….I dunno…I’ve never thought about this before. I’ve never had to consider an answer to [that] question before.”

As I sit here at home, I have so much swirling in my head. I’m sad. I’m angry. I’m relieved. I’m hopeful. I’m grateful. I’m in pain. I’m in this weird blank space.

I cannot believe that they literally cut off parts of my body, put it in formalin, and sent it away with labels “Amber Havekost, Left Whole Breast, Mastectomy, DOB: X/X/X”, “Amber Havekost, Right Whole Breast, Mastectomy, DOB X/X/X”, “Amber Havekost, Left Axillary Tissue with Nodes, DOB: X/X/X”

So bizarre. So strange to fathom. 

What once was a pretty kick-ass rack is now gone. It also tried to kill me so I guess I’m getting to a place of good riddance. Acceptance is slowly starting to surface in the midst of the grief of it all.

I’m also feeling kinda pissed today. One, I’m pissed at my boob. Come on…really? You even sucked when I wanted so badly to get breastfeeding down to feed my own kids and you still were a pain in my ass. It didn’t really work very well. So they looked good, but man, did they not function very well. *eye roll* I’m also pissed because if it isn’t bad enough to lose literal parts of my body, my stomach is killing me. I cannot eat anything without feeling like I need to throw up. Stupid. “Lord…can I have a little break? Please?” Like, I really want to eat the delicious things my friends are bringing me…but oh man, will I pay for it. *another eye roll*

Oh, and I guess this is just the beginning…I don’t know what chemo will do to me. Good gracious… 

Ugh. Chemo. That’s my next bridge. I’ll learn more on Tuesday what my plan will be. So I wait. Again. And 6 days feels like a really reallllly long time. This is yet another strange place I find myself. Sitting here…post-op…still under strict restrictions of movement…feeling oddly normal and yet not even close to normal…anxious to start the next phase so that I can be done with it but dreading it all the same….and I have to wait. Ugh the waiting. 

And radiation was also confirmed today by my breast surgeon due to what pathology confirmed. Probably a long long radiation therapy treatment ahead. But again, I wait. Details to come next week. And that just means final reconstruction is foreeeeeeeeeverrrrrrrr away. 

I know it’s all temporary. I know in the grand scheme of things its short. But let me just sit in the fact that it is a long long long way away from now. And this “now” is the hardest “now” of my entire existence and I’ve had some pretty low lows.

And yet another strange place to be – I feel rushed. Rushed to “get over the grief and onto the warrior.” I feel like people think I shouldn’t want to sit and cry. I feel like people are uncomfortable with where I am, thinking I’ll always stay there. I feel like people are trying to get me to move into a new part of this when I’m just not ready. It’s not even been a week from having an entire part of my body literally cut off…. 

I’m gonna just sit here. And be. And tomorrow, I’ll just be. And the next day, we’ll see where I am then. Believe me… There is NO doubt that I will fight. That I will win. That I have an army. And all of this is because I have a big God that will make me victorious. I believe this to my core. But today, I’m just gonna be here. In this weird place where I can’t make sense of a whole lot of anything.

Absurdity. :: 9/13/18 :: Post 364

Had to go back to my gynecological oncologist this afternoon….. was concerned I needed a blood transfusion. 

That exam was a freakin blast. 

He did validate that I was in rough shape and sat with me while I cried. Why one more period? Why one more period that is literally the worst one in my entire period-having-life? Really?

But no transfusion, thankfully. And no change to the surgery plan next week, thankfully. But I did get to see the inside of a whole new infusion room and I did get to meet a new chemo nurse and have her access my port for the second time in a week so that I could have a bag of fluids. Convenient, yes. But very difficult. Sitting around while other women were talking about cancer and hearing the beeping of the infusion pumps and listening to the nurse give instructions on managing side effects. 

I’m tired. 

So. So. Tired. 

Even When :: 9/13/19 :: Post 729

I feel so heavy tonight….and I don’t have a lot of words to describe why. 

I hurt for my friend and her family.

And another friend and her family. 

I feel painfully distant from some close friends. 

And painfully disconnected from my own body. 

Even when I don’t understand why, I can do hard things…

And I can walk with others who are doing hard things…

And if morning comes, I’ll start with the new mercies that come with it.