Loss and Life in General

So far 2016 has not been an easy year for me.  Was given the skin cancer diagnosis on January 21st and things have been pretty par for the course since then.  The trials and tribulations of being married to an adult child of a narcissist (who also happens to be in complete denial of the face that his mother is a narcissist) have not gotten any easier.  This past Monday (March 7) we found out the counselor we've been working with for months died suddenly and unexpectedly.  It affected me quite profoundly and has left me feeling the loss of the support he provided.  At this point I'm not willing to even consider finding another counselor because we put in so much emotional work and I just don't feel like I can do that again anytime soon.  Building a good relationship with any counselor is crucial to getting anything constructive done and I just don't have the emotional energy available for that.  The other part of this, of course, is dealing with Donald's constant need for reassurance at the expense of my feeling of emotional stability.  It's not a good combination and with the death of our counselor the separation will probably come sooner rather than later.  The other major issue with Father Eugene's unexpected death is I'm now left with either finding another counselor who's dealt with childhood sexual trauma before or just dealing with it on my own.  And right now I just don't know how to proceed with that.

Update on the pre-op appointment is next, although if you've got a problem with needles you may want to stop reading here.

So...it might be best to talk a bit about the mass that was removed from my right eyelid in December before I get into the pre-op info.  The ophthalmologist at Langley AFB and an assistant removed the bulk of the tumor on my eyelid with a local anesthetic.  This means they used lots of eye drops the numb the hell out of my eye, and finally inserted a needle with general anesthetic several places around the eyelid and finally into the eye itself.  It sucked.  I'm not afraid of needles and could get shots all day long, but having a needled inserted into my eyeball was quite anxiety producing.  After that needle it was a piece of cake.

Now, moving on to the pre-op....the very nice dermatology specialists had several of us folks who were going to be receiving MOHS surgery to have their cancer tumors removed watch a video.  The video was great except that it talked about taking some extra tissue around the actual tumor to ensure all the cancer was removed.  That particular method isn't going to work well with me because there IS no extra tissue on the human eyelid.  The other issue the video raised that concerned me was the fact that is talked about doing multiple sessions of general anesthetic to get all the cancer.

I was less than thrilled by the idea of having a needle go into my eyeball not only once, but possibly several times.  It was a concern I raised with the surgeon who was understanding, but said the only other possibility was to put me to sleep for the day so they could do the removals as necessary.  Being put to sleep was not a thrilling idea either because I need to be able to eat frequently to manage my hypoglycemia.  There are times I'm amazed my body functions at all with the multitude of individual problems it has.  The surgeon was confident he'd be able to remove the mass in one go, but of course he can't guarantee that because once the mass is off they have to cut the skin into layers and look at each layer under a microscope to make sure they got all the cancerous tissue off.  So we decided that instead of having to go through my eye more than once he'd instead go through a nerve in my mouth.  Which I'm much more on board for, so yay I suppose.  The surgery itself is scheduled for May 10 and we've pretty much been told to expect to be at the hospital for most of the day.

The other super great thing that happened is I got the results back from the biopsy done on the other side of my face.  It's showing pre-cancerous (which means it's on its way to becoming cancerous, but isn't quite there yet) which brought me a lecture to do all the things I'm already doing when I'm in the Sun but hey, who's counting wear sunscreen and reapply every two hours, wear a wide-brimmed hat, put on clothing with SPF, and wear sunglasses.  Okay, I don't wear sunglasses all that often because I have prescription glasses, but I guess I'll be wearing them over the summer now.  Ugh.  At least I know when the hell they're going to cut my eyelid now -_-

Round and Round we go

It's been a couple of weeks since the last counseling session Donald and I went to.  (Feels so odd using the handle of Donald for the spouse since Trump is EVERYWHERE online right now, but that's the name we're sticking with for blogging purposes.)  Overall it was a good counseling session for me.  Not so much for Donald, but that's mainly because he's having to deal with some hard truths and he's so very steeped in denial that it's like his world is crumbling.  

The counselor asked us how we were doing since the holidays and Donald and I just looked at each other uncomfortably.  I've noticed my tolerance for his defense mechanisms and the general bullshit that surrounds his family of origin is pretty much gone since getting the skin cancer diagnosis and this session really showed it.  One of the first things I said to the counselor was that the holidays really showcased for me especially since we'd done all that work in counseling right before the holidays that as long as I'm married to Donald I'll be taking second place to his mother.  (For anyone who's reading this and is confused just follow the NPD and dysfunctional family tags on the blog and you'll catch up really quickly.)  The counselor simply nodded to acknowledge this fact while Donald's comeback was 'I don't think you'll be happy until I cut her out of my life.'  Now.  There's a huge difference between letting your mother control you which is what's been happening the 15.5 years of our marriage and setting healthy boundaries.  Donald is unable to see this because he was raised with the understanding that to show love to your mother is to let her make all your decisions.

I gave the example of the N taking video of Bess over Thanksgiving and lying to her about it.  The counselor agreed with me that this was a breach of trust, especially given that Donald has basically tried to place the N in a position of power over our family.  The counselor castigated Donald for not taking any action in the situation.  There was then a discussion where the counselor advised Donald he really needed to listen to me in regards to boundaries and the overall safety of the kids because my instincts were very good whereas he was too passive.  This was so very validating for me because for YEARS Donald has told me I'm too aggressive in dealing with the N which is bullshit.  I'm building boundaries and standing up for myself and the kids.  But the whole setting boundaries thing goes against everything he was ever taught going up, so of course he'd find it aggressive.  The power differential in his family of origin is ridiculously tilted in his mother's favor, but rather than acknowledge any of this Donald would rather stay within his cloud of denial.  It makes his life with his mother safer for him, but it makes life hell for me and the kids.

The other major thing that came up in the counseling session was what happened when I set a boundary with the N.  She'd sent us both an email that had no text and only had an appointment time at JC Penney portrait studios.  The subject line said pictures for me and the kids.  I asked Donald if she'd said anything to him about this over Thanksgiving and of course she hadn't.  We both felt the email was demanding so I handled it.  I replied to her email with one stating we didn't mind that she wanted pics with the kids, but we did mind that with no prior warning she'd sent us an appointment date and just expected us to comply with it.  I also pointed out that she could've said something to one of us while we were all at the Aunt's home for Thanksgiving.  Finally, I told her that she needed to give us a heads up for anything like pictures with the kids so we could be prepared instead of feeling like we had to drop everything to make this happen.  Her reply simply stated she'd discussed it with Donald over the Summer and she'd take my request into consideration for the future.

After explaining what had happened to the counselor he agreed that she treated me as inferior.  He also praised me for standing up for myself and the kids because Bess hadn't wanted to do the pictures for the simple reason that we'd had no notice.  The boys didn't really care, and that was fine.  Other than the N being an N the thing that really irritated me about the whole thing was all Donald did was try to soothe his mother's ruffled feathers.  He never really backed me up which is basically how this marriage works.  I'm on my own trying to take care of myself and the kids and he's constantly trying to take care of the N.

So goals for the year continue to be:  become cancer free; get gainful employment; and get separated.  Finishing up the last class of this master's degree and it's a doozy.  But it will end and eventually life will become less complicated.  Spring is coming soon and I can't wait to welcome it back ;-)

The one where you find out you have skin cancer

I'm very proud of my cultural heritage and it always amuses me a bit when people are surprised I don't consider myself just 'White'.  The bulk of my heritage is Irish, Italian, and Native American and while I think the only thing I inherited from my Native ancestry are my cheekbones, it's still very much part of me.  Because I got the Irish skin I've always been very careful with it - it rarely tans and often burns.  As a child I broke into awful rashes in the summer that the local doctors could never figure out and finally just said I had an allergy to the sun.  Because of this I've always slathered myself (and the kids now, as well) with sunscreen and taken very good care of my skin.  But...you can't really put sunscreen on your eyelid cuz it burns when it gets into your eye.  So it figures the one place I couldn't put sunscreen on would be the place I end up getting skin cancer.  

I had a sty like mass removed from my eye last month because the thing just would not go away on its own.  Got the phone call yesterday from the very nice ophthalmologist who removed it that it was in face, caner.  Nodular basal cell carcinoma to get technical.  I've been looking around online to see what I can find out about it and the good news is most bcc is rather easy to remove.  The crappier thing in my case is I had this thing for probably a good 3 years because I kept getting told it was a sty.  So I get to go see a dermatologist (which isn't a bad idea because I have a ton of moles) as well as a specialist who will perform MOHS micrographically controlled surgery on the remainder of the nbcc because unfortunately when the bulk was taken off they didn't get it all.  As long as the bcc hasn't gone back too far I should be fine and this should be a relatively non-invasive experience.  

I've been reminding myself since last Thursday that the world doesn't stop just because you've been told you have cancer.  Nature is always able to recover after natural disasters and I'm looking at this in much the same way.  Just because I got some shitty news doesn't mean I get to go hide in a hole and if my seasonal depression hasn't put me in that hole yet, this sure as hell isn't going to.  But it is a bit frightening because I've been telling the doctors for at least as long as I've had that thing that I'm just so tired...my energy level has plummeted from what it used to be.  And I have no idea if it's from this cancer, or a combination of both it and the L5 radiculopathy that's been continuously eating away at my leg muscles.  Advocating for health used to be something I only had to do for my kids, but for the last few years it seems more and more like I'm doing nothing but this for my own health.  And military health care is not an easy beast to deal with.  It's almost impossible to find an actual doctor (not a PA) who doesn't changes duty stations within 3 years.  I'm beginning to think I just need to get my care switched to the civilian sector so that I have the continuity of the same health care provider instead of having to constantly explain this to every new doctor I get assigned to.

Anyhow, life will continue.  The kids will keep growing, I will finish my degree, the world will keep on turning, and eventually this will be something I can look back on with appreciation for the experience it gave me.  But for now I just want to get through it.  And I'm not going to hide from the sun because that's no way to live.  Just keep on applying that sunscreen and enjoy the time that I have because no one lives forever and no one should.  We all get one life and we just have to make the best of it.  So that's the game plan.  I'll update my blog about this occasionally, but it's not going to overtake my life.  If anything, it will make me even more determined to enjoy what I have.  So I'll be over here doing the self-care thing while the world keeps turning.  And eagerly awaiting the end of Winter.