Golden Fears

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011 10:10 AM, EDT

Golden Fears

Make new friends, but keep the old.

One is silver and the other - gold.

We learn this important little ditty in childhood. I was a"Brownie" on my first overnight camp out when I learned this song. I was roasting marshmallows on a metal hanger. All of the Brownies were in a circle, surrounding a fire, and I had no idea what this song meant. I didn't understand why friends couldn't all be gold, which of course was better than silver.

Power outages. Spiders and snakes. Complete silence.Failure. Losing love. Losing passion. Losing...period.

Our fears are our deepest secrets. They make us vulnerable...at risk for exposing weakness. We are reluctant to share them in the rare instance that we come across someone who can use them against us. We tell ourselves we don't have them. We lie. 

Cancer brings to light a whole new set of fears, and it makes the old ones seem less complicated...less important...less reflective. More silver. Still there, but not at the forefront of thought. I can try my best to hide my new goldenfears, but the fact of the matter is this: if I cannot release them from my mind, they will consume me. The last couple of weeks have been very powerful for me. They have forced me to look inside myself and admit my fears, and for that I am both resentful and grateful. I know that this is a part of the healing and grieving process, but it caught me off-guard. I wasn't prepared for the emotional surge or the loneliness that I have felt during this period of time. After all, with the support that I have, how can I feel so lonely? Is that even possible?

In the short term, I fear that my foot numbness could be permanent. Dr. Hargis said that we may stop chemo after this past infusion because of this. Now one might think that a little foot and hand numbness is bearable considering the alternative of the rogue cells setting up camp, right? But if my feet are numb, the chance of falling is high. And if my hands are numb, I could drop things...like my children. Not so bearable. Can you imagine never feeling your child's face with your fingers again? How do you cope with that kind of loss? 

Rogue cells. Rogue cells terrify me. I don't want to be "living with breast cancer." I want to fight breast cancer, and I want to win. If I win, it goes away. It isn't hanging around looking for somewhere else to go. Chemo helps to fight the rogue cells. But if chemo isn't shrinking my tumor, it's probably not working on the rogue cells either. If this new chemo works, but I cannot have all 4 treatments, what does that mean for the rogue cells?At what point do the benefits of chemo outweigh the risks?

"Titless Tina Tatum" will be making her debut again in late October/ early November. How in the world have I let this teenage nickname of mine resurface in such a prominent light and get to me?! It bothers me now more than it ever bothered me as a 15 year-old! Who would have thought in 1994 that it would have such meaning 17 years later? And has it really been 17 years?! I've been a God-given 36DD since I was a Freshman in Tuscaloosa, and I cannot imagine life without Bess and Gretchen. I asked Nathan the other day if I could "down-size" during my reconstruction, to which he quickly replied, "I am not answering that...it sounds like a trap." He's probably right...there's probably no way he could have answered that question without creating some sort of conflict, and I applaud his ability to edit. I keep looking in US magazine and the Vickie's catalog for the right size and shape for Yvette and Shelby, but the truth is that I am not having "cosmetic" surgery. I am having "reconstructive" surgery, which will likely look amazing as long as I have clothes on. But underneath those clothes, I will never look the same, and the thought of that scares me. At 32 years old, I have never not felt sexy when it came to my breasts. From the moment I got them, I loved the attention they attracted. They are voluptuous and fun, and by golly they make me happy. I had a boyfriend once who told me that I "ooze" sexiness. That's going to gross Mama and Nathan out, but I always thought that was such a compliment...that my sex confidence was so high that I oozed sexiness. So when I think about what my breasts will be like after my reconstruction - clinical, pieced-together, numb, scars in place of nipples - I can't help but feel like a part of me will be missing. I hope that a piece of my soul does not go with them. At 32, I should still be oozing sexiness.

Death does not scare me...as long as it happens when I am old and grey and I have lived a full life! What scares me the most is leaving my children behind with no mother. That they may never have the joy of knowing how big "better than the whole world" really is. That they will not know how to treat a woman with love and respect because they haven't seen how loving and respectful their father can be with me...or that they might see him be that way with someone else. That some unknown else may have the joy of raising my children as her own. Missing soccer games, graduations, proms, weddings, grandchildren. Until I am awake from my surgery and someone tells me that my lymph nodes are clear, this will haunt me. No one can prepare you for these thoughts, and no one can take them from you.

My priest from Reno, Father Kirk wrote me an email weeks ago to tell me that he is reading my blog. He said not to edit and to keep telling the truth - he said "there is God in the truth." So there you have it - my unfunny and candid golden fears. And with the price of gold these days, who can afford to withhold them? Somehow it does feel better to get them off my chest...figuratively speaking, of course. And somehow my fears have become my friends - they have given me a sense of reflection that I didn't care to see before - a peek inside myself. And the silver ones are no less importantthan the gold...worth, after all, is relative.