Drugs

[Listening to: Florence & the Machine]

Being stabbed with needles, injected with fluids I can’t even pronounce, spending countless hours at Kaiser and the side effects is all coupled with the mental battle that rages in my mind. It’s a familiar feeling, but It’s even more so now that they’ve increased the strength and frequency of my chemotherapy.

Drained? Exhausted? A little.

I am still fighting because I refuse to let go of all I know and love. I am afraid to walk alone into that darkness. I am too stubborn to let go of those dreams I’ve conjoured up from my childhood. I still want to turn that corner and walk down that aisle to see him waiting there for me. I would like to wipe the sweat from my brows as a nurse places my first child in my arms.

As hard as I try to stay positive, I can’t help those moments when I am overcome with the frank reality that my chances of accomplishing all of those things are close to none. In those mentally chaotic moments, I find solace and peace of mind in little things. Like writing a list of the things I’m grateful for, reading a heartfelt text I saved from my fiancé or hide under the covers with my iPod and let the beats and lyrics slowly heal the tiny punctures. Regardless, I know I will have to keep chugging along because although these struggles have exhausted me, I must choose to hang on to that thread of hope. I have to remain realistically hopeful.

Love over Fear

[Listening to: Foals]

I’ve never been one to sleep in, so I’m sometimes up before the birds are chirping and the sun is even up. I almost always wake to the comforting sound of Marc’s light snoring, and just lay there thinking, “Yes. My head doesn’t hurt. I feel okay. I can hear. I can see. I am here for another day cancer, so suck it”. Well, something along those lines at least. By starting my days with positivity and appreciation for what I do have, I begin my daily mission to love and not fear.

I like to tell myself I’ve become so much more Zen in sense that I’m more hands-off about every decision, every day and my approach on life in general. I believe that I only have control over so much of my life, thus all else is up to something bigger than me. I can sit and fear and fret over little particulars in the fabric that life has bundled me up in, but what would that do? Drain me, make my head hurt, and believe me brain cancer and treatment is enough hurt for me.

When I was diagnosed last September, I was told I statistically have a year to live before my stage 4 GBM would send me off, then I heard my oncologist mention two years with treatment, and then I read that a five year survivor is considered a long term survivor, and then that there are even people who are cured of it. I’ll personally be happy and take another day, but those all sound lovely. I have no control over the time I have on this Earth, with all of my loved ones, with all this beauty the world has to offer, but I do have control over the fear I have.

I can tell myself that I have a year, say forget it to all my hopes and dreams of growing old with Marc in this lifetime, but I won’t. I can forget about seeing the Northern Lights, buying my dad a fishing boat or ever seeing a niece or nephew. I choose instead to take control over the aspects of my life that I can change and do something about. I can love more, I can show more compassion, I can eat healthy, I can stress less, I can say “YOLO” and play hooky from work for some retail therapy with my sister, or I can treat myself to that red velvet cupcake. They seem like little things, but I find happiness in them.

If not now, when? Tomorrow? Oh wait no, Saturday? Now. With cancer on my mind, literally, I don’t know if there is tomorrow for me, frankly neither do you. So let us surround ourselves with positivity, drop those silly insignificant fears, and just love who and what we have right now.

Love.

[Listening to: The Beatles]

There will always be some darkness. I’ve often gotten myself lost in it, and forget about what’s going on. Only to start all over again to search for the light. I fear that darkness. I fear that I will one day be completely be lost in it, alone. No sense of touch, no warmth, no sight, nothing. So I strive to keep myself afloat, with any split second glimmer of light that comes my way. Because I know if I don’t, that darkness of cancer and death will prevail. It will consume my mind, and there will just be darkness. Nobody will be there to find me, save me, nothing.

When I sleep I am sometimes fearful of the darkness, so I keep those thoughts of love and hope in my mind as I drift off. At times I wake, and often afraid. His heavy, warm breath keeping a steady pace always calms me. If I toss and turn and wake up startled by nightmares, he is there, holding my hand, there to kiss my forehead, and console me. That glimmer of light that makes things okay. He is love, and so much more. Love is keeping me here, breathing, alive & hopeful.

I hope to wake each morning, with even an ounce more of hope, faith and strength in me. Each day is beautiful, each day is a blessing, and I will do what I can to stay here as long as possible with those I love and love me.

Drugs & Love

[Listening to: Paramore]

I was color-blind, everything was either black or white. Fight to live or let the cancer take its course. I felt like each thing I did would be for one side or the other. Each morning I would wake and decide what side I strove towards. Those rare mornings existed, the ones where I was tired of fighting and everything seemed hopeless, and it took a lot of will power to drive to LA for my treatment.

During all of that I believe I was delusional. I tried so hard to convince everyone around me that I was okay when I clearly wasn’t. I buried the emotional baggage only to have it arise and consume almost every bit of me. I never dealt with my emotions in a healthy way, and times like those made it even more apparent that I truly needed to learn how to. Bottling everything up and refusing to face these issues head on caused all the confusion I feel now. Although my new-found love of writing has helped me, I still struggle with making sense of everything that I’ve faced.

I want things to be “normal” again, I want to feel beautiful again, I don’t want to be emotionally and physically drained, and these side effects from the radiation and chemotherapy need to stop.

No, I am not emotionally where I truly belong, and it’s frustrating not having a light showing me the right path and guidance on how to deal with it all. It affects every relationship I have left, and that’s the scary part. It’s scary knowing that what stands between happiness and me are my own delusions and state of mind.

I feel that I had the rug pulled from underneath my feet. I fell and laid there. I would slowly rise at times, sit up occasionally, but often times I’d end up laying there again. I would look up at everything and everyone passing me by. Sometimes people would stop, sometimes some would look down with pity in their eyes, and others would try to help me up but it was my own self that would lay me back down on that ground again. My family, my fiancé and a few true and loyal friends would be the ones who would be there trying, but like they say, you are your own worst enemy.

So as I continue to try everyday to pick myself up I will try to focus on the things I do have in my life. I must try to realize that I’ve laid down many times before, faced different demons head on, and it is time for me to make things right for my own sake and nobody else’s. If I am not emotionally and physically sturdy enough to face these hardships and cure myself, I surely can’t do anything for anyone else. So much of my happiness in life stems from the happiness in those I love and truly care about and that’s what I will fight for.

I will try my best to pay no attention to those demons that will drag me down. I will not be discouraged when they grab hold. I will learn to heal and let those people I love and the things I love in this life help me. I must remember that although I get lost, I can always be found again.

Beats & Drugs

[Listening to : Zedd]

Am I afraid of dying? No.

I was at one point, when it sat right in front of me, right beside the image of my family and the love of my life. I could allow it to take me, or I could fight it for as long as possible.

It would scare me sometimes. I know we are all destined for it, but I would feel it loom over me every time a slight headache would arise. The thought of dying of cancer would bring anxious feelings, that at any moment this sickness could take everything from me so abruptly. I tried so hard not to let it get to me, I tried to find strength in the little things.

Each and every time I walked into that radiation room and that giant machine, empty bed and radiation mask waited for me, the feeling of hope would be ignited. I would lay down on the bed, the technicians would play one of the CDs I brought in and I would let the beats drift into my ears, through my blood stream as the radiation rays pulsed through the air and into my skull, both mentally and physically curing me cell by cell.

Sometimes it would be Arcade Fire, Nero, Jay-Z or Two Door Cinema Club blaring through those speakers in that radiation room. Each and every time I lay there I wouldn’t pray or be upset, I let the music do its job.

 It would take me back to those moments when those chills ran up my spine as the song would climax and I danced at a rave or those times when a performance was so haunting that you can’t help but be consumed by every chord on their guitar. Sometimes the radiation session would be done and the technician would already be back in the room but I’d still be engrossed by the music. Each song would having me yearning to live, for another opportunity to be in that massive crowd, and feel the bass pulsing through me.

I knew that with each session, with each pill that I took, and with each burst of laughter, I was healing. Whether it was medically  true or not, I could feel myself healing, changing for the better. I began to chip away at the fear, and started to feel the anxiety release it’s hold.

Drugs Part 2

 Listening to: Rhye

I needed to learn how to not be fixated on things that I couldn’t do anything about now, but instead deal with things that are in the present, like being told that the stage of my brain cancer left me with a year to fit all my future plans into.

Writing this I’m pulled back into that very moment where I sat with my mom, aunt and doctor. They all sat on the other side of the room from me, everyone seemed to dance around the question, and me being the frank person I am, I just asked.

 ”So, how long does that give me”

 ”Well, about a year”.

I looked over to my family and responded with a simple “cool”. Not because I was cool with the idea, but it was a “cool, you’re using those statistics of those 60 & 70 year old people on me. I’m healthy, 21, active and I’m going to be on the opposing side of that statistic. Just watch me.

 Being told by someone that you’ve got a certain amount of time left on this Earth, is the weirdest thing. Me being the stubborn person I am, I thought, “And what makes anyone sure that they’ve even got tomorrow?” It was motivation for me.

 Writing this brings those emotions back. That heavy-hearted feeling, the anger that this doctor seemed to have no faith, the pain for my family as my they wept, and the fire that was lit within me to strive to live.

I’ve always been the type to be fueled by the discouragement and lack of faith of others. When people doubt me and tell me I can’t, it drives me. I knew that the therapy and radiation were the medical necessities, but it would be my mental health and state of mind that would keep me going.

I despised those looks of pity, that “oh you’re doomed” look when you say cancer. I still get those looks. I hated those side glances I got when I walk into a room without my head covered, exposing my missing patches of hair.

 Don’t get me wrong I’m still dealing with the aftermath of it all. The tears of frustration and anger still come and go. I thought those forty-two sessions of intense radiation, weeks and weeks of chemotherapy would be easy, and I’d be perfectly fine afterwards. Little did I know that all of this accompanied by the bag of prescription drugs I was forced to carry around were nothing compared to the emotional baggage that was placed on my shoulders.

I buried those bags for the time being, and focused on marking off those days. My efforts were all concentrated on staying as positive as I could to keep everyone else around me hopeful, and on physically taking everything head on.

Slowly, my love for life and everything in it began to become more and more apparent.

Drugs: Part 1

[Listening to M83]

I’ve had my fair share of drugs, both legally and well, not so legally.

In my 21 years of existence I’ve had two near death experiences. For some, that’s two too many and for others, that may mean I’m not living life enough. For me, those instances both taught me valuable lessons; 1. Always wear a life jacket and 2. Don’t get brain cancer.

I could start by telling you why I believe I got brain cancer. I believe the universe was telling me to pretty much slow the f*ck down and not power through my youth. I’ve always had a plan, get into a decent college, power through my undergrad in three years, get my Business Management degree, land a great job and make lots of money so that I could help my parents out and be financially set. If you ask anyone who really knows me, they would tell you I’m always thinking about the future.

Things started to slow down for me about a month after I started my first full time job. I went to Kaiser for headaches, was diagnosed with migraines and was sent home constantly with a bag of drugs. After countless “migraines”, tons of money spent on useless prescriptions and an emergency room visit, I was convinced these weren’t just headaches.

Labor day weekend, my boyfriend drove me back home to my family in Los Angeles. While I tried extremely hard to enjoy the mini vacation, I quickly learned that it would be nearly impossible to do so seeing that I had the constant pounding on the right side of my head. It felt as if someone was drilling into my skull with a power drill at full speed.

I spent the next full week in darkness. Any bit of sound, light or movement would seem to intensify the pain. I hardly ate, moved or even spoke. No amount of drugs they gave me would mask the pain. I laid there essentially wanting to die. During that week I was taken to the emergency room by an ambulance three times. The first two times, I was shot up with morphine, never given an MRI and was told to go home after. I was constantly asked “What’s your pain level 1-10?”, and I almost always answered with an “11”. It wasn’t until the fourth visit where my family raised hell in the hospital to get an MRI did the physicians realize the extent of my “headaches”.

Before I knew it I’m lying there in the ICU confused and slowly piecing things together. The pain had slightly subsided, and as my family and friends would shuffle in and out of the room, I tried to mentally be okay.  I wanted so badly to go back to that daily “normal life” routine. Yet every waking moment, I was struggled to convince those around me that I was okay as well as convince myself. Sleep was something I knew very little of. It wasn’t the ideal place to sleep seeing that countless times during the night I was poked with a needle, or waken up to swallow countless pills. As I try to think back to the feelings I felt during it all, I can’t really put my finger on one emotion. I was angry, sad, hopeful at times, helpless, and confused.

As my older sister slept on the sofa in my hospital room and comforted me on a daily basis, I couldn’t help but let the guilt build inside me. That it was my fault that she put medical school on hold to be there with me. I felt guilt that my family, boyfriend and friends were going to have to emotionally deal with this burden. I felt that I was a burden.

Yes, everyone has their own obstacles and struggles. Yes, we try to understand from the outside looking in. Yet when it comes down to it, you aren’t in their shoes, you have not seen nor experienced what they have, so you can’t truly understand. You were not there slowly gaining consciousness in the recovery room, nor lying there with 52 staples in your head, or having to mentally and physically push yourself so hard to walk down those ICU halls days after your 2 brain surgeries. You were not there having those surreal moments when you wake up every morning in pain, hoping and praying that it was a dream. Even though I had all the support in the world, I knew that it would take more then flowers, words and visits to cure me. Looking back at all that I’ve been through before being diagnosed, I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I needed to get over this hurdle too.

There are so many pieces missing to this story. Partly because I’ve tried to forget a lot of it but also because I don’t want to think about those times right now as I try to emotionally pull myself together again.