Happy First (Sober) Birthday!

The last drop of alcohol I pray I will ever have was the night before I checked into the hospital October 25, 2019. And while some days I hate it, I am proud of myself for staying sober and not giving in to this demon that haunts me, even thought it is one of the most lonely and hard things I have ever done in my life. 

I started drinking in Junior High. I don't really remember a time when I wasn't drinking, with the exception of being pregnant and my son's first year after he was born. Through my journey over this last year I realized I probably was responsible for 90% of my relationships ending and it was due to alcohol. I realized I've spent my whole life making drinking buddies and hardly any real bonded friendships. I've concentrated on partying and nurturing relationships that were doomed to fall apart as soon as the alcohol went away. 

One year ago today I checked into Boone Hospital ICU for my second bout with pancreatitis. The first round happened just a year and a half before at the end of July 2018. After that first attack, I was later told my pancreatic blood levels were off the charts, literally, and I'm pretty sure I was dipping one leg into the ground. Of course this was just six months after my first battle with breast cancer, my double mastectomy and full hysterectomy. I really didn't think a year could get any worse than 2018. 2020 gladly said "Hold my bourbon".... ironically LOL 

With a pancreatitis diagnosis, the most common cause is alcohol. In 2018 I was in total denial that was my cause. I blamed it on EVERYTHING but the alcohol. Hell I'd been drinking almost my whole life, since my first experimentation in Junior High with my girlfriends when we would take some hits from our parents liquor stash just to feel grown up and cool. How could alcohol just now decide it was going to wreck my pancreas and wreck havoc on my life. Seemed so unfair to me. I'd already been through so much. Why me? EVERYONE around me was drinking, and usually A LOT more than I was drinking. Why are they not collapsing in pain and agony as well? UNFAIR! Don't get me wrong and I do not wish illness upon ANYONE ever! I just have many moments on my path of recovery of "why me" that in time, I hope I will find the answer to within myself and my healing. After that first round, which I'm pretty sure could have killed me had I not went to the hospital that night in July 2018, I was put on a very strict diet and was told I would never be able to drink alcohol again. With a pancreatic diet your fat intake has to be limited to under 30-40 grams per day. I walked out of the hospital that day in July and thought no big deal. Well I'll tell you folks, go to your pantry and refrigerator right now and add up the fat grams you eat even per meal. You will be shocked. I know I was. Also no more alcohol. No biggie right. I had cut way down anyways due to my breast cancer and all the challenges that had came with that first round of surgeries and healing. But cutting down and cutting it all the way out are two very different things.... and for an alcoholic, yes, alcoholic, it is damn near impossible to fathom the thought of never ever having another drink again. My fiancé and I, at the time, basically lived in the bars or at friends houses throwing down booze just about every single night prior to my first attack. Having to go along with the same routine post pancreas attack was not working for me. So I withdrew. Started staying home more because just being around it was pure torture. I fell into a massive depression and, looking back now, was not fun to be around at all. 

About 6 months after my first attack I saw a specialist in St. Louis and he told me it was okay to have a light beer every now and again or a glass of wine every once and a while. I was so excited. I could finally kind of join the groups again and maybe try to get back into the groove with my fiancé. Try to get him to love me again. Show him I hadn't changed and I was still me, fun (drunk) Kristy, the one he repeatedly said he missed and wished would come back. So we got into somewhat of a groove and I was content and happy. I would go out for a while and then be finished like a normal almost 50 year old, about 10:00 get tired and ready to head home. I felt like for the first time in my life I had my alcoholism and life in general going in the right way. My fiancé didn't slow down the partying however, and would go out without me or take me home after a nice night out and head back out to keep on partying and that hurt me greatly thinking he did not care about my feelings at all. Unfortunately he did finally find someone who could keep up the partying and drinking, because I was no longer any fun and I had made the decision to save my life the only way I thought I knew how. By staying home and cutting myself off from the temptations. By saving my life I pretty much lost my whole life. But as I am on my sobriety path I see now that was not a life. That was sitting in a bar night after night spending tons of money and killing ourselves voluntarily.  It was just several more years that were added to my collection of 35 years of addiction and alcoholic friendships. After my fiancé left me, I once again fell into a deep depression and yes, fell all the way off that big red wagon. Like head first, swan dive right into the bourbon barrel. He left in March and by June 2019 I was back to all night bingers. Back to random sexual encounters where you wake up and don't even remember who they are or how you got home. Ashamed as hell, because I had done so good for the prior year and had almost quit drinking. And was healing both physically and mentally from my breast cancer surgeries. I was finally getting back to a place where I was planning an actual future with my fiancé and didn't quite think about death every day any more thanks to the lovely BC. And now here I was back acting like the totally idiotic addict that I know now I was. But I didn't care. My heart was shattered, my world had been blown apart, I really didn't care if I lived or died, and I was drinking and nothing was happening to my pancreas so I thought well maybe the doctor was wrong...

Until ..... October 25, 2019. Back to ICU. I had been hurting all week at work and knew what was coming, but thought if I waited until Friday after work I wouldn't miss any work. Just be in the hospital over the weekend and back to normal. That was a great plan in theory, but in reality I was in the ICU at the hospital for 6 days. Was discharged with the alcohol and diet lecture and on my way I went. This time alone. You know what I still find crazy. I was STILL in denial that it was the alcohol. True definition of an addict. But this time I was determined to not drink and to get sober on my terms and was going to do it right. Was going to kick my life off and start living. Hell I was almost two years out of my cancer diagnosis and feeling pretty good. I guess God figured I still wasn't going to be able to do this on my own, because 2 weeks after my pancreas issue and my stay in the hospital I found a lump under my arm and of course you know the rest from my other postings. Yes it was cancer, and I was about to begin the second breast cancer battle, this time with a surgery, chemo, and radiation. Oh yeah and pancreatitis, sobriety and a pandemic to boot. Yep there was the "why me". Again. 

One of my very best friends that I worked with at Shelter gave me a daily devotional that was beach themed before I left work in November for my fight. He was also leaving work, to retire. I've never missed someone so much and I hope that he knows how much that book, and what he wrote in it means to me. I read that every single day and it kept me going and in some ways brought me back to a faith I thought was gone forever. I do definitely still question it every day. Because I hurt every day. I want to drink every day. And I don't know why he would pick one person to take on so much. I am a broken person in need of peace and healing and yet it seems like the hits just keep on coming. A month ago I had another attack. I had done nothing at all to spark this attack. My doctors just basically said once the pancreas is damaged, even if you do everything right you will still have attacks and the pancreas will continue to decompose. At this time there is no cure or treatments at all for my chronic pancreatitis condition. Just eat right and stay away from alcohol and pray. 

I will be having a few fun procedures in the next two weeks.... But for today I am going to celebrate me and my accomplishment. I sometimes say "I don't have a choice" to not drink. But that's not true, I do have the choice. I could drink.... and die. And thus far I have made the choice to stay sober and try to live a little longer in this crazy world!

Another Trip Around the Sun

It's been a few months since I last wrote and since I have been released from active cancer treatments part deux.  I was going back this morning and reading my blog entry from last year's birthday and cried a little.  I was so hopeful and so excited for the upcoming year.  That it may have finally been my year of peace.  But as most of you know, this trip around the sun was anything but peaceful and overall pretty shitty! I'm thinking this one tops the last two in the shitty year department.  So MAYBE this coming year will be my year!  The last year in my 40's.  

I am going into this next year hopeful.  Hopeful first and foremost for a healthy year.  Hopeful that I may find a partner in crime.  And hopeful that I can finally settle into being who I am supposed to be and to love myself for that.  

As far as what has been going on with my health and healing journey, I continue to be in a constant state of pain on my radiated side. Thank God for pain meds.  I know they are supposed to be bad but I am thankful for them.   Even though my skin has healed, my burns are deep and in some areas all the way through.  I've been told that since I have no fat, that my bones and muscles were more than likely affected more and it would take some time to heal.  The doctors say most patients turn the corner at about 6 months out.  So I'll be counting down the days for the next 4 months!  haha! Some people have asked me if I'm healed/cancer free.  They do not do scans after treatment is over.  Just basically toss ya back out there and "hope" all of the torture and pain you've been put through is "enough".  The mental tole this takes on me, and every other cancer patient, is a daily battle. Every ache, pain, bump, lump is the constant question, "Is it back".  I do realize as the years pass on and it stays at bay this mental battle will get a little better.  This shit is evil and you just never know.  

I was supposed to begin a chemo type hormone blocker right after I finished radiation.  This pill is supposed to maybe keep the cancer at bay.  In return the side effects you receive to keep the cancer "maybe" at bay are sometime intolerable.  It kills your bones, throws you into early osteoporosis, and leaves some patients in constant joint and bone pain, along with other fun side effects.  And then there is not a guarantee that it won't come back any way.  For me, the pain that I am still in right now from the radiation has made me decide to forego this pill until I get back to ground zero and am feeling like a normal human being again.  And then I will assess and probably try out the pill.  This is a hard decision for me and I am battling it every day.  But either way there is no guarantee that the evil shit won't come back. So I am choosing to get back to "normal" before I begin to put myself back in pain again.  

I fell and fractured my ankle two weeks after radiation was finished and I was in a boot for a few weeks.  I have been a bad patient and haven't worn it like I should have.  So today for my birthday I will be heading back to the orthopedic doctor to see if it has healed up okay.  Hopefully I won't be in too much trouble!  haha! 

Pinktober = PTSD

Well here we are again. October. Breast cancer awareness month. Where everywhere you look you cannot escape those damn pink ribbons, pink shirts, pink ads.  EVERYTHING pink.  And while, to an outsider, someone who has not had first hand experience of the nightmare that is breast cancer, the pink overload may seem like just a sweet gesture to honor those of us who have had to endure pure hell.  I know some beautiful warriors embrace the pink.  But I know of a lot more that start getting PTSD the closer October gets every year.  We cannot look anywhere for a whole month without being reminded of our nightmare.  I am one of those people.  My Facebook feed is full of every other ad showing something to buy that pertains to breast cancer.  Every where you go shopping there are signs and displays to remind you of that time in your life when you wasn't sure if you would be alive in a year. A time in your life you would love to never be reminded of again. 

For me, a now 2x survivor, it only enhances my PTSD.  Also both of my diagnosis came in November, two years apart, so in general this time of year is very hard on me.  And then to look around every corner of my life and see the pink shit thrown in my face, almost as if taunting me.  You beat me twice.... think you can do it again?  That is my daily demon.  Will it come back again.  If so, the odds of beating it that 3rd time are not real great.  Of course this time they said they got it.... again.  Just as I was told they got it all three years ago as well.  So you just never fucking know.  And this, my friends, is the reality of a breast cancer survivor.  Not pink ribbons, bright shiny happy colors, or anything that resembles any sort of fun. 

Breast cancer survivors have been through more surgeries than most people have in a lifetime.  We have been ran through every scan machine and have sat in more doctor's offices than we care to count.  Sitting there praying to God that the cancer is gone, or hasn't spread, or just isn't there at all.  We have had multiple poisons put into our bodies to kill the cancer and hope that it doesn't also kill us in the process.  We have been burnt so deeply that more than likely there is some type of permanent damage to the bones, skin, heart, or other organs, along with the massive nerve pain that may never resolve.   We have lost our hair, our breasts, and in some cases our reproductive parts as well, due to our cancer being hormone fed.  Thus the need to remove anything in our bodies that could possibly produce hormones to feed the beast. 

This October for me has been extremely hard.  With the combination of just finishing up treatments for my second battle in the midst of Covid, while getting sober, it has been the loneliness time in my entire life.  I now, for the first time in my life understand people who feel hopeless and alone and like no one cares or understands.  I am living it.  I am very thankful for my mom and my sister.  And I get it.  People have their own lives. As we grow older, people have their husbands and children to rely on. Most people's friends are now their spouses and children. Friends are for people in their 20's and 30's.   I neglected my relationships and family a lot in my life to nurture friendships when I should have been doing the opposite and I may not be alone now  This is a lesson I have learned the hard way and now I have to learn how to make a new life for myself.  And I know now what relationships are worth nurturing.  Life is hard right now.  I live alone, I work alone, sobriety voids a lot of friendships and invitations, although I am okay around alcohol, it seems to make other people uncomfortable. And you add Covid to the mix and it's a perfect storm. I know it will get better.  But I also know that I am going to have to make some hard decisions and changes. 

I left town two weeks ago to just get away.  Off the grid and a much needed change of scenery.  I just returned home and I realized I only missed my big bed and TV in the bedroom LMAO!  There was absolutely not another thing that I missed in two weeks about this town.  This tells me I am ready to move on.  Being here seems to no longer benefit my mental health.  There are a few things that were holding me here.  One was my oncologist that I love.  I returned home to a letter in the mail  stating that my oncologist is retiring at the end of November.  As if 2020 wasn't bad enough, I'm now losing my one doctor I had full faith in.  So staying for my oncologist is now not an obstacle.  My last obstacle is of course the most important, my job.  But I have been working from home for almost a year now with no problems at all. Hopefully that may continue to be an option for me.  But right now those are still conversations that will need to be had if I truly decide it's time to move.

So 13 more days of  Pink PTSD and we can move on to the holidays, which is usually a whole another type of PTSD. LOL  But thankfully, not this year!  The whole fam bam will be on the beach this year for Christmas and I couldn't be more excited for a real vacation!