One month out

Tomorrow it will be one month until my surgery. This time next month I'll be pretending to relax in a house somewhere in Phoenix while everyone nervously flutters around me. I will be in a panic. Today, I am already likely panicking. Or maybe not. I spent most of last night and today sick to my stomach. Is it Herbert? I'm not sure, his pushing on my brainstem and relentless commitment to my vestibular nerve could be the culprit because the incessant spinning I thought I had mastered has returned full force. Maybe I have the flu, maybe I was poisoned. Who knows. Either way it has been a less than ideal way to start my Fall Break. Not much of a break really, the looming weeks of finals ahead are weighing heavy over my mind. Then it occurred to me somewhere between the Netflix I was watching while lying in fetal position and my trips to the bathroom where I laid on the floor in fetal position, that it's almost time. It is almost time to face what is happening. Ouch, the stomach pain gets infinitely worse when I think about it.

I started being scared less of the outcome and more of the process. I had been so concerned about the endgame that I failed to think about what it would be like to be there, to be put under, to relinquish control of your body and give yourself over to an "expert." I am not so sure I want to do that. I am not so sure I have a choice but if I did I would chose to not have this in the first place. I know, wishful thinking, right? Wasted time is what that is, we can't live in what ifs, it's just wasteful. Just torturous. I am terrified of going under. Starting a day in one way and ending it in another. It's strange. It's like flying, you wake up in one place, go sit on a place and go to bed in a new place. It's strange, it's often disconcerting, isolating, you can become wholly disembodied through the process. How can you find solid ground when things keep changing?

So today I mostly slept and then got irritated when people told me that, no, you feel fine, you are fine. The incessant desire to glaze over what is happening with some kind of faith in something unseen to me is just annoying. You don't "know" that I will be fine. No matter what you have been through there is no undeniable truth to what you have to say. You don't have a guarantee, you don't have a good answer for me, bring me an expert, maybe then I'll listen, but you? You don't have an answer for me. AND PLEASE, stop regaling me with stories of all the people you knew that had ear infections and couldn't hear and got their hearing back. Is that what is happening to me? Oh, is your friend's wax buildup equivalent to the growth that is systematically finding ways to demolish my brain to make room for it's new condo complex? Herbert is both squatter and real estate developer. AND HE IS NOT GOING AWAY. You can will me better all you want, and I appreciate the thought and gesture behind it, but fundamentally denying the truth of my situation, building me up with a false sense of security and hope? That is not optimistic, that is unrealistic. I've spent weeks preparing myself for the various REAL outcomes and refuse to back track. I am moving forward, with Herbert, with my new normal. THAT IS OPTIMISM. Accepting your conditions, you life, your fate (if you are dead set on having some kind of certain reliance on the spiritually unseen) and living with them. Living a full life whether you can hear about it on your right side or not. That is belief, knowing that you can make it despite the insistence from your body that it is tired. I can live with this, hell, I can confront this, but that doesn't mean it is not real. Pretending it's fine will get me NOWHERE. Stop pushing me to change my attitude. My attitude is fine. I laugh daily, I cry seldom. I try like hell to be self reflexive. I am facing life HEAD ON, I am not skulking around, I am not giving up, and I am not pretending that nothing will change. I am owning my future, whatever it may be. I invite you to do the same for your life. Own it. Face it. Be who you always wanted to be.

My blogger profile begins with the quote "here she lies where she wanted to be." where she wanted to be. Not where anyone wanted her, not where fate placed her, not where Herbert thought she would be. HERE I STAND, WHERE I WANT TO BE. I am taking my power back bitches, and ain't nobody going to stand in my way. And no, don't correct the grammar in that sentence. I know, I did that for effect. Seriously.

I don't know more than I did about my future this week versus last, I don't understand my diagnoses any differently but I do know a few things. I am strong, I will fight for me and I will be amazing. I am committed to myself, my family, my friends and my health. I am committed to you if you are committed to me. I know that when I go into surgery I will be surrounded by so much love that I won't be able to give up when I feel scared. I know that I have a lot of people who care. I know I care about them too. I know that people mean well when they use their various tools for coping to change what this means to them. To argue my future, my present, my condition. So I know I don't fault them. I know that this month will likely be hell. I know that I will have good and bad moments. I know that in the end, it is out of my hands. It is in the doctor's hands. Maybe acknowledging that I can't do much now would be relaxing but that is not really my style. You know, relaxed... I'm more the compulsive worker outer, organic eater, and workaholic type of coper. But can you blame me? I am owning the only things I can. I hope my six pack makes it through the surgery. I wonder when I can work out again after it's over?

One month out you guys, home stretch. Or is it just the beginning? I guess we'll see.

Peace and love

Samira

oh boy....

So remember those tumor moments? Well, I do. How do I remember? Well the thing is I think they are becoming more frequent. Or maybe, as some are pushing me to believe, I am just more in tune to them. Either way, shit is happening all up and down my world. I am like one walking tumor moment, head to toe.

Let's start with sleeping, no big deal right? Wrong. I originally heard the tinnitus in my ears while in bed. I even tried to convince myself that it was some kind of a noise coming from my bedroom since I only ever heard it when I laid down in there. Well, it is still there and now it is accompanied by the occasional dizzy spell. How a person has dizzy spells while laying down, I have no idea. It's like I am in a perpetual drunken state with the spins... So, while I was sleeping, fighting myself for the covers, I SLAMMED my head into my bedside table. Boy, what a tumor moment!

I routinely walk into walls while coming down narrow hallways. TUMOR MOMENT! Walking in a straight line? That is a thing of the past. Today I even walked to school with my shoes on the wrong feet...tumor moment? I don't know if being generally confused about getting dressed was one of the symptoms, but I am going to roll with it.

I could sit here all day and list the moments that take my breath away, not because they are romantic and heartening, but because they are just so damn shocking, I can't believe it is my life. I would list them all, but there are too many. They've begun to blur together. They don't mean as much one by one and in aggregate they are proof of my need for a new normal. I am watching my body slowly revolt against me. I tell my eyes where to look but they betray me. I tell my feet where to go, but they betray me. I tell my pain to abate, but it betrays me. My mind, my body, they don't belong to me anymore. I am bearing witness to the deterioration of a strong body. I have to hold on to walk down the stairs. I have to be mindful of what I drink and eat because the nausea is always right below the surface. I have to be mindful of things that never should have to matter. Generally it is scary, but I laugh about it, even when there is no one looking, even when it is just me, laughing alone. The lonely clown.

So what else is going on? Well, generally I am a cranky bitch. Yup. I've pretty much lost my motivation. It is that time of the semester that things begin to wane anyway but for me, instead of late nights working through the desire to give up, I am just giving up. Not outwardly. I go to class. I read just enough to keep up but I've lost my honest motivation to engage the material. I was the person who read, looked up everything in the readings, then re-read. Now, we're lucky if I read at all. If I skim. I'm too tired. From what? I have no idea. I sleep when I don't have answers to avoid attacking the people around me who are trying to love me. I draw lines around myself, around my heart. It's too little too late, I think to myself. Where were you when I had nothing wrong with me? Why could you not emote then? Why is it that we leap to each other's aide in emergency? Is this even an emergency? Is it even trouble? It's fine, right? I'm fine. I think I'm fine.

I think I am fine and then I get up and fall backwards in my chair. People chuckle as a utter my new motto, "ACT CASUAL!" I don't feel that casual. My body is slowly disintegrating under me. I have abandoned my healthy diet and thinking, propelling myself forward with candy and sweets, thinking, on the off chance I die, I may as well enjoy what I have while I am here. It's really just pathetic. I know I'm not dying. But I don't have the strength to fight my body, my heart, my mind and worry about appeasing the people around me. I don't have the answers. I don't know why I am mad. I just am.

Though I am walking around harboring anger I do have fun most days. I am laughing my way through this process and honestly most days the laughter reaches my heart. It absorbs into me. It lifts me up. Makes me recognize my luck, my life and my never ending ability to just act casual.

I think I know why I am so all over the place... why? Oh you want to know? Ok then. Surgery is set. I go in December 20th to get mah brain chopped open. NBD. I got this. But I didn't realize having the date set would make it IMPOSSIBLE to think of anything else. I didn't realize that now my minutes are consumed with thinking of what it will feel like, what it will be like and how I will heal. It's just official now. Logistically, I'll finish my finals, hopefully well, and then I will send them off into the ethos. I'll head to Arizona shortly thereafter, preparing for 2 days of pre surgery poking and prodding, which will hopefully normalize this process so that my heart doesn't stop the day of surgery. I've already asked Jason to make sure no one kills me on accident and he has promised to kick their asses if they try, so we've got all of our bases pretty much covered.

I dunno, I think I need to work out more but I did so many jumping lunges I can barely feel my legs. Whoops. So I sleep. Tired or not, to avoid being alone with these incessant thoughts. It's not at all restful. It's actually quite the waste of productive time. But I have always done well with time pressure. So, logically, if I spend all day sleeping, and wake up just before things are due, I have set up ideal working circumstances. This is just really smart. I am just really smart.

I don't really know what to say. This is just a stream of consciousness post. There is not really any kind of moment of uplift or substantial lesson. Just a recognition that this is real. It's official. It's happening. And there is nothing to be said about it, it is what it is. In the meantime I will take advantage of what my brother tells me is the "Street Cred" that comes with having a brain tumor. I'm legit. Don't mess with me. I got street cred.

Peace and Love always - Samira