i'm still swimming...

OMG!! i'm in denial! major denial. still. yeah, i was in it before, swimming in it, when i first became sick. i really thought that i had gotten over and through it. the initial shock and awe of being diagnosed with several life threatening diseases i've never heard off. but i just had an epiphany (sp??). i'm not. nope. i'm not. i go back and forth too many times each day thinking and processing as if nothing is wrong with me. like "oh, i'm not really sick". but i am. don't get me me wrong. i'm stubborn and have a way of just gettig through things, getting it done. it helps me deal with, and get through the hard days. sucking it up. my game face.

i don't know how to explain it. it's like i play these games with myself. maybe juan is right. he gets, and is, really angry with me because he feels i pretend to everyone that everything is ok, like nothing is wrong with me, i'm not sick. "faking it". i told him that that wasn't fair, it's just my "game face". how i cope in a way. i just suck it up. no, i don't want to worry or scare people, nor do i want people feeling sorry for me, especially when i feel like "i'm not really sick". yeah, maybe he's right. damn. i'm too good at it. i'm fooling myself.

but hey, at least i look good! not like someone whose as sick as i am, dealing with what i'm dealing with. i swear - if someone else says how good i look i'm gonna scream then whap 'em with my cane!!! don't get me worng, i'm very thankful that "at least i still have my looks" (and i was an ugly duckling! no, seriously). do you know what a joke that is? how much of a non-compliment that is? no you don't, and neither do the people who tell me that. so i just say " oh thank you so much" and keep walking. but what i really want to say is " do you know how long it takes for me to get out of bed in the morning? how much blood i spit out when i brush my teeth, and how much it hurts to do it? that my once beautiful and thick hair has gotten so thin (for me at least), and changed so much that i really can't do much of anything to it because of the chemo and all the medications i take everyday. how i can't cook all the fantastic food i use to in my beautiful kitchen with all the wonderful and neat gadgets, tools, and fancy shmancy post, pans, and knives (cooking and food is my passion and i fancy myself a pretty damn good home chef!) because they're too heavy and i may cut myself because i tremor, am not strong enough on my right side to lift the pans, don't move fast enough if there's a fire or spill something, still have sieizures. or how difficult it is to help my daughter get dresed, let alone myself as i repeat "buttons and zippers are my friends". that my muscles are so tender, my skin is so tender and raw sometimes that it hurts to wear clothes, or to kiss my dh, or let my dear lb lay with me on the sofa and read to her. how i've got to wirte everything down several times in different places to make sure i don't forget and that what you think is real, or had happened may not be real at all or have actually happened because you can't trust your memory. or that i can't run to whole foods, williams-sonoma or anywhere else because i can't drive......" i could go on of course, and that's not even the worst of it. but why. i want to live. not focus on all this bullshit. but this bullshit is my life. at least right now. i pray for my own healing every day. i pray that i wake up one morning and, poof! the pain is gone, its all gone! all of it.

yeeuup. i think i'm still in a bit of denial. will i stop "faking it"? i don't know. i don't think i know how to. but i think it's working for me. well, for right now at least. how will i be if and when i figure out how to stop? hmmmm....

be well :