A Good Cry

"There is nothing quite so satisfying, and so healing, as a good cry."


Isn't that the truth! I've only cried a couple of times since we found out everything. They were quick cries and not significant. I would quickly stop myself because I didn't want anyone to see me...especially not my husband or kids. I had to be STRONG! Do we really even understand the true meaning of that word? I think I was being more strong willed...and not strong. I know that Ashton is watching me as I move through this and we don't know yet if Sage and Emma have the same disease and will need the same treatment. I wanted to be strong for them, but I forgot that they needed to see me be real. As I said before, I moved through the days for a while. I, in my mind, was still healthy and invincible. It wasn't until my appointment with the surgeon that I began to realize that this was all reality and it was happening......even when I was trying so hard to ignore it. Even as I sit here and type, I can't get the thought out of my head that if anyone reads this, all they are going to see is me whining and feeling sorry for myself....or needing attention.

As we were driving home from the surgeon's office, I was reading the thick packet that Dr. Mac gave me about my surgery, recovery, 2nd surgery, hospital stay, healing, ileostomy bag and food. Basically, all the information I needed to be prepared. I think it was page 10 that was finally too much! I threw the papers in the air, got mad and then cried like I have never cried. My poor husband didn't know what to do with me and you could see it in his face and you could hear it in his voice. I think he tried to reason with me any way he could. I WAS NOT going to do this....nope! "WHY ME GOD?" That cry hurt! I couldn't breath, I was gasping for air through the tears. I could feel myself getting louder and louder and my stomach was killing me. After I came home, I went to our bedroom to try to calm down and get myself together.....because it really was all about keeping myself together, right? Each one of my kids and my husband came in one at a time to lay with me. Another moment that I get to take with me in my memories. That was my first step to healing. They say that you have to take it day by day, but I have to take it thought by thought. It's hard to keep those negative feelings away. I swear I'm in prayer at least 90 percent of the day because of what I'm feeling or what I'm thinking. It was that great big cry that helped me to release my anger, sorrow, fear and confusion and help me accept my circumstances. Sometimes a good cry can be so cleansing and healing.


Information about Familial Adenomatous Polyposis at: http://hopkins-gi.nts.jhu.edu/multimedia/database/intro_84_FAP-Book.pdf

I Love Cupcakes

"We must adequately face our grief, but we must also accept our new set of circumstances and begin to move on. How do we move through grief and toward acceptance? Most of us have never taken a course in 'How to Handle Disappointment.' We simply stumble through the emotions and pain, hoping to find joy once again."

Let me tell you the single hardest part of where I am at right now. I don't have any pain. They want me to have this drastic surgery and I feel fine.....completely fine. I like to think that if I was in pain, it would be easier to accept. I guess I will never know.

I went to see the surgeon last week. Dr. Mac is a funny and encouraging guy. I'm happy to have him as my surgeon. I'm sure Bill would agree. I dreaded that appointment for days before I went. I knew he was going to confirm what I already knew and honestly, I didn't want to hear it again. I was extremely concerned that he was going to tell me that I either had to wear a bag on the outside permanently or even temporarily. Either way, I was not having it! I went in with that attitude too.

Dr. Mac explained the entire surgery to Bill and I, answered all our questions and then told me that I would benefit from wearing the bag for 12 weeks while my J-Pouch (colon made from my small intestines) and my new rectum (made from the same) were able to heal where they were sewing it to my anus. I also want to tell you how happy I am that I get to keep my anus. Some of us are not so lucky. I've never been a farting girl, but it is nice to know that I could if I wanted to!

I agreed to the bag for 12 weeks. He's very convincing. To this day, I am still disgusted with the fact that I am going to have my intestine stitched to a hole in my stomach so that my poop will fall into a bag on the outside of my body. Being able to see and touch my small intestine on a daily basis is not my idea of excitement! I know there are worse things in life, but I don't think you can truly understand how gross that is until you are faced with it yourself.

It has brought up some funny stories though. One of my daycare parents came to pick up his son one day. He also happens to be our landlord. Anyhow, I was telling him that I was irritated by this woman that walks her dog every morning and allows him to poop on my grass. There was still unclaimed poop at the edge of my lawn. His solution was that I walk down to her house after I have my bag on and squirt some poop on her lawn. That image and the fact that I could do it....gag!! HORRIBLE! I got a good laugh out of it though. That was the first comment that had been made that didn't include me crying during or after.

My surgery is set for Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 7:30. I gave all of that information because I am counting down the days until it comes. It is not an eager countdown, but a count of how many days I have until life changes for a while. I've told several people that I may gain 20 pounds before I go in for surgery...and it may very well be from cupcakes! I plan to eat anything and everything now!

Information about Familial Adenomatous Polyposis at: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=familialadenomatouspolyposis

This is not what I signed up for!!

"None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives."

This was the first chapter and the first quote in my new book. Do you know that I read that quote 20 times or more? Over and over and over again. The part that I kept reading was simply this, "None of us knows." None of us. Not just that "I" don't know...none of us knows. The next few days that I read this book, I analyzed so many parts of my life. I wish I could tell you that it was romantic, but it wasn't. Talk about a big, fat pity party! I was done feeling mad, now I was just sad, lonely and probably still a little bitter. Let me tell you people, sad, lonely and bitter are NEVER good company to keep. However, I'm learning now that I am grieving.....deeply. I thought about every harsh word that I said to my children or my husband....parents, friends....extended family. I thought about why I did such stupid things. I was quite disgusted with myself.

Even after I came back into the light in the past 2 years - God's light that is, it is still hard to look at myself. Ask any person in my household, I get dressed in the dark...with only the closet light on. I'm still trying to see the growing person that others around me see. I had to decide at that moment to forgive myself as I had been forgiven. I couldn't carry all that BLAH with me on this unexpected journey that I was getting ready to take. What most of us don't realize either, is that we are being prepared for change before we even see it coming. The one thing that I kept telling myself, the only blessing I could see at the time, was that this was perfect timing because Ashton and I were both treatable. We have time to treat it and monitor and manage the other areas that this disease affects. I, by no means, signed up for this but IT IS my life. I had to decide whether I was going to fight or surrender. I didn't know how to do that. I soon learned that fight and surrender came from the same place. I had to surrender my circumstances to God, so that he could help me fight.

I couldn't pray for a couple of weeks.....remember the sad, lonely and bitter company that I was keeping? When we went to church that Sunday, I almost cried walking in. Just because you are in church, doesn't mean that you always feel God there. That Sunday was emotional. I felt like every person that looked at me knew that I was diseased in some way. I had to move past it and jump in. The first thing that our pastor came up and said was this, "The need to pray is greatly on my heart this morning. I don't usually interrupt worship, but I feel the need today." He said this beautiful prayer that was MY prayer. I'm sure I wasn't the only one that needed it that morning, but it spoke to my spirit. All his prayer said is, "I don't have the words, but you know my heart." I couldn't pray because I didn't know what I needed or maybe I needed too many things and didn't know where to start. Over the next several days, it became clear what my heart was asking for. I thought I needed healing and courage. NOPE! I needed peace. You can't get through situations like this without peace. Does that mean that I am not concerned about the outcome of what is about to happen or that I don't have bad days, no. My next phase was just me going through the motions and I lived in that stage for a while.

Information about Familial Adenomatous Polyposis at: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=familialadenomatouspolyposis

P-O-O-P!

Unless you are a mother, father, daycare provider or diaper company, I understand how you could easily be offended by that word. There are many words that have become a second language to me since December 30th, 2008. Some of those words are colon, rectum, anus and POOP! At my recent surgeon visit, Bill and I actually giggled at how many times poop was said between us and my surgeon. When I first started explaining this disease to people, I would try to stay away from most of those words. Now they just seem to fall out of my mouth like I was saying the most beautiful words in the English language.

Let me back up a bit. It is amazing how in a matter of moments - notice I said moments and not seconds, your life goes from being somewhat easy to understand to forever changed. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'm sure we don't know at that moment. In my moment, I took my 13 year old son to get a new pair of glasses. I can remember everything that we talked about that morning......or argued about because his idea of fashion and mine are very different. I remember what Bill, Ashton and myself were talking about in the lobby while we waited for the eye doctor. Then, I remember feeling the knot on his head and being somewhat alarmed by it, but I told myself it was probably a big cyst or that was the way his skull grew. I wasn't worried. I will never forget that day and when someone asks me how this all started, the first thing I think of is Ashton telling me that he kissed a girl for the first time the night before.

I won't take you back through the rest of the process of us learning that Ashton had Familial Adenomatous Polyposis/Gardner's Syndrome. Those days were filled with doctor's appointments, phone calls, research and learning my family history. I didn't have time for anything else, besides getting my son healthy. When I worried, I looked up more things on the Internet.....which only led to more worry. Sadly, Ashton will have to become familiar with all those same words......colon, rectum, anus and POOP. At 13 he has been poked and examined in places that no 13 year old boy could ever imagine or should have to and he has handled it with his head held high. People always ask me how Ashton is handling things or how he is dealing with me finding out that I have it.......or how I'm being strong for him. What most people don't know is that Ashton is who I look up to. He's the one that reminds me that this is just something we have to do and that when his surgery day comes, he's going to do it for him, not for me. He wants to live, not die from this disease too early in his life. So often we think we are teaching our children, but they are teaching us.

There is something different in the way you feel about saving your child and saving yourself. There was a difference for me anyway. Ashton was my first love. My little "oops" that changed my path in life. I was willing to do anything to keep him healthy. However, when the time came that I found out I had the disease, I had done way too much research. I knew exactly what it meant. While I was so set on doing everything possible to keep Ashton from having cancer, I wasn't willing to do the same things for myself. I had the same thoughts that any other woman would. I need to stay on top of this and get the treatment so that I will be here for my family and my future family.....but at the same time, I wanted to live out my years with my colon, rectum and anus right where it was. I didn't want to worry about POOP.

I was given a book shortly after I found out. The title is, "Thrive, don't simply Survive - Passionately Live the Life You Didn't Plan." I was resentful of this book and my situation in the beginning. I wasn't mad at God because I truly believe that God uses situations to change our lives and the lives of others. I don't think I'm being punished for my faults because even the best of us have faults. I got mad at life. Why me? Why now? Why my child? Then, why me came again. I didn't have time to be sick myself. I needed to take care of my son and this was just a major road block to my goal! I know any mother would agree that in our family, we come last. I was going to have to put myself first and I still have not learned how to do that. My pride and vanity began to take over.

Information about Familial Adenomatous Polyposis at: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition=familialadenomatouspolyposis