A Lesson in Failure

Yesterday, the most horrific thing happened. We were at a pumpkin farm with the kids when the inevitable happened- my ileostomy bag failed for the very first time. The ostomy nurse warned me that it can happen sometimes, and I read about a real life experience in the cancer memoir I read over the summer. Neither prepared me for the real thing which was beyond awful. It was only my fourth outing from the house in three weeks, two of which were doctor's appointments. It has been an ordeal learning the confidence again to leave the house with this thing, and then to have this traumatic event happen was a realization of my worst fears. Kind of like taking one step forward and two steps back. I had remained mostly calm in the beginning, but of course the situation deteriorated fast and I simply hit a breaking point which reduced me to tears. Once again, I was forced to contend with how I was making others feel when I had not yet even mastered my own feelings. I was made to feel like I was upsetting others during an episode of profound personal embarrassment and discomfort. Not only had my bag failed, I failed in the way I handled it, and others failed me when I sought comfort. When I needed empathy and compassion, I was met instead with cold and distance.

Although the cancer has been treated, I have not returned to normalcy and my recovery involves a lot of complex emotions that the stoicism of my earlier days had not fully addressed. It made me want to scream, "Wouldn't you be freaking out right now if this were happening to you??!" Being in this situation makes me feel every slight by others more keenly. Hurts and disappointments effected by others, however unintended, are perceived as insensitivity and lack of understanding of how raw and open my wounds are right now,literally and figuratively. Maybe everyone is tired of my cancer and of dealing with the wreck that is me right now-- I don't blame them one bit. Perhaps they feel as if their part of the journey with me has ended and they want to get off at the very next exit. But you can only imagine how I feel about it myself. Every single day of the past 5 months, I wish that this experience was done and over with so that I could just move on and return to "normal" life. I wish that more than anything else. I'm tired of being tired, tired of the pain, and tired of not being able to do all the normal things that a healthy 35 year old would otherwise be able to do. There is an absolute limit to how much one can "stay positive" under the circumstances, and adding in the component of not having a supportive partner through this experience makes me lean on others all the more. So when they let you down, you feel as if the sky is falling and the ground is crumbling. I know it all sounds overly dramatic, but how else can I possibly communicate and adequately describe the sum of my feelings right now? It's like trying to mop up a wave of emotions once they've spilled onto the floor.

Sometimes I ask myself why I'm exposing myself this way on this blog. Why am I opening up the most sensitive and embarrassing episodes to scrutiny? And then I realize that this blog is my coping mechanism. When others need me to be strong, I can always come back to this in my weakest moments. When I can't sleep for worry or when I'm intensely angry over all this, I return to the keyboard to unload. When I'm afraid to say things out loud or tell people just how much I'm hurting because I don't want to scare or burden them, I can always comfort myself and achieve a kind of catharsis through this memoir. At times, this journal is an open letter to those I love. At other times, it's my personal diary. I can't worry over what others will take from this or how they will judge me. I can't censor my own experience in order to ensure others are comfortable. It's a way for me to release all the thoughts and emotions that would be otherwise be "socially unacceptable" to share in person. As I am wont to say, "It is what it is." If I go back and read this in a year, I want to be able to say that I didn't just remember the straight facts about my cancer experience. I need to remember all the excruciating layers of it so that I won't forget the lessons that I hope to take away from it.