Little Victories

I have been making a concerted effort to eat more, and more often.   I’ve always gotten stressed about “meals” because I just can’t eat copious amounts of food at one sitting.  So I graze through the day but sometimes forget that it’s okay not to eat full meals like other people.  My body just can’t process that much food all at once.  So it’s oatmeal when I wake up (most days) with fruit and smart balance butter.  Later I have leftovers from my dinner the night before.  In between all this I snack a lot and have added things to my diet that are high in fat.

But the pain has an insatiable appetite, Picture Pac Man eating your food.  Pac Man being the tumors.  The adrenaline from fighting the pain eats away at the pounds and no matter how much or what I eat, it doesn’t stick   And I’ve added things to my diet that I normally never eat because the food is hard to digest.  I’ve been eating ice cream made with coconut milk (mainly).  It does have some milk in it and my tummy is sensitive to it but it’s very high in fat, which I need.  I also bought chicken sausages the other day.   I have very high cholesterol so I have to be careful but at this point, who cares, right?

And that is my conundrum.  I am absolutely ambiguous about living.  Perhaps that is what my soul is here to learn.  How to love life regardless of the body’s particular challenges, which seem way over the top sometimes.  Okay, most times.  I say I want to go HOME yet I get scared when the weight starts falling off again.  And when I get a notice that it’s time for my mammogram (having had breast cancer, I should have had a double mastectomy instead of just the right) I don’t want to bother because I’m so thin there is almost no breast tissue.  However, there are multiple tumors all over my chest and getting a mammogram hurts like the devil.  So I’ll probably let it go.  Because even if the cancer was back, I am not going to treat.  Not even a mastectomy.

When I think about not fighting anymore, I feel this little piece of me putting on a pair of boxing gloves and getting back into the ring.  An uppercut here, a jab there and a full blown knock-out to my head, which has so many tumors in it my ears, ring constantly.  I have had tinnitus for over 24 years.  I’m used to it so it’s not maddening anymore.   Unless it gets so loud I can’t hear.   My ears, my eyes, my legs and all that is inside of me scream for release.  But my soul screams “No, not yet”   Maybe it’s just fear of the unknown.  Or fear of the known, but forgotten.  I do so wish I could remember what came before this.

Yesterday, I took my car in for emissions testing.  I timed it based on what I heard years ago about how to avoid long lines.  So I went after lunch time and at the beginning of the month.  The whole thing took 15 minutes….no lines and I passed.  I was worried because I so seldom drive it I thought there would be a problem.   I was so overjoyed that I got it done (I had been struggling with whether or not I should even keep it but I’m not emotionally ready to let it go) that I high-fived myself when I got home.  Really.   Little victories.