A garden, untended

I stayed home from work today, and I was thinking about you and how I would come back to this space and attempt to tell you what’s been going on and why it’s been so quiet. I won’t pretend you’ve noticed my absence or thought about what’s been lacking from this space. I show up here mostly for me, because I can’t stay away from writing for too long. I hope that doesn’t sound selfish. If you haven’t missed me, well that’s okay, because I’ve missed you.

Summer was full of summer-y things some of them fun like vacation and day-trips and some of them necessary like medical appointments. With work and school schedules being what they are, summer is often the most convenient time for dental visits and doctor check-ups. Maybe you can relate.

In our house, summer revolves around family time because we are together so much–me and the kids, me and Phil, both of us and the kids–and by the end of summer, I am spent. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. I know there are people who thrive in summer. I am not one of them. I said more than once out loud to another person, “I am not my best self in summer.”

It was kind of a joke. But I didn’t know how true it was until this week.

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I don’t really know where this story begins. Maybe it’s at the beginning of summer when I was feeling good about life but decided it was time to schedule a physical. Maybe it was January when I started to notice something different about my period. (If you need to leave now because you can sense where this is going, I take no offense. You can skip all the way to the end to get the bare bones version.) I’ll spare you some of the details.

I’d lost weight since my last physical and my blood pressure was reading a bit low, so after years of taking medication to lower my blood pressure, I was given the go-ahead to stop. I was feeling good about my health and the positive steps I’d taken to get there. Because of the other issue, my provider ordered an ultrasound, which I took care of ASAP. When the results came back, I wasn’t prepared. I had a large cyst on my left ovary.

It was months before I could see a specialist to find out more about what this meant, and when I finally did, she ordered another ultrasound to see if the cyst had changed in any way. It hadn’t, and it was three more weeks before I could follow up with her. During that time, summer ended, and I went back to work. The start of school is a stressful time of transition as we as a family re-adjust to a daily schedule and new routines, not to mention the stress of learning new students names and needs.

While I was waiting to see the specialist, I had blood drawn to check my cancer antigen levels, and I knew that surgery was part of the next step, but I didn’t know anything else. The cyst. The surgery. The uncertainty. It all loomed in the background but I tried not to let myself think of any of it too often.

I love the challenge of a new school year, and if it was only this and a health issue, then maybe I could have handled it. But money is always tight in the summer because I’m not working, and current and future medical bills did not ease my worries. Added to those stressors are others I’m not willing to talk about here yet.

So many things have been going well and right for our family in recent years and months. I thought these were small bumps and they would pass.

On Wednesday I walked into the specialist’s office to talk about surgery and my blood pressure was off the charts high. I mean, when the doctor walks in and says, “I’m having a stroke over your blood pressure” while you sit there sobbing into a wad of tissues, you know it’s not good. No amount of talking about my blood pressure was going to make it better.

I listened through tears as she talked me through all the possible scenarios about surgery, some of which calmed my fears, others that did not. We talked about how when you have an emergency C-section (the only surgery I’ve had in a hospital) you don’t have any time to think about it or worry and you get to meet your baby at the end. Not so when you’ve got an ovarian cyst that doesn’t appear to be cancerous. No one’s in a hurry to take it out, which is good in a way, but for my chronically overthinking brain, bad.

So, she sent me back to my primary doctor to get the blood pressure under control. It was still high later that same afternoon, but it had come down some. We agreed to put me back on the blood pressure medication and she gave me a prescription for an as-needed anxiety medication.

I am an anxious person. I have known this about myself for a long time. I have never thought my anxiety was that bad. However, I couldn’t describe to you what “that bad” means. Thankfully, my doctor didn’t ask about the prescription. She told me, saying, “I’m giving this to you. Don’t use it every day. But let’s see if we can get you through this.”

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I’m almost in tears as I write this a day later because part of the reason I’m where I’m at now is thinking I needed to “get through this” on my own. 

I have to keep the cogs of our family turning. 

I have to keep the peace between my kids. 

I have to solve the problems and manage the money. 

I. I. I.

Please don’t read this and think that my husband does not share any of this responsibility. He does. He is the person I would choose again and again to partner with in this life, and I do not want anyone else by my side in his place. He and I are a team, and we play different roles as needed. This is not about him or the kids not pulling their weight. It’s about me.

My doctor said “we,” and that is the thing that is undoing me. I’ve been flying solo for so long and now that my body is maxed out, I see the error of my ways.

“We” is such a beautiful word.

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I have texted 16 people in the last 24 hours, and some of those involved multiple texts in a conversation, and I’ve talked to three people on the phone (four if you count the call I made to schedule one of my pre-op conversations). If that doesn’t sound revolutionary, then you don’t know me very well.

I should have been doing this all along. I know I can’t change the past, but I’m wishing I had done things differently. My husband said to me today that he’s jealous of my support system, and I think that’s part of why I’m crying so much. I have so many strong and deep relationships from various stages of my life. The texts have hit every time zone in the continental U.S., which humbles me further. I know that I am rich in friendships, including family, and I do not express my gratitude to them enough. Or ask others to share my burdens enough.

I don’t know why it takes suffering and crisis and tragedy for me to ask for help or to tell people how much I love and appreciate them.

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We had four days off from school and work last weekend, and one of those days, I went out to the garden. Calling what’s left of our vegetable plot a “garden” is generous. There are more weeds than plants, and it is like walking through a jungle. I have to wear long pants and take big steps, kicking down the weeds as I walk to make a path to the tomatoes.

Earlier in the summer, when I was feeling good about life, I worried about leaving the garden untended when we left for vacation. What would it look like when we returned?

It was not the mess I thought it would be. We had taken care beforehand to pull weeds and water and the weather did its part.

In the last month, the weather has been hot and sticky, sometimes fickle, and once school started again, I had less time for the garden. I often tell people I can take care of only a few things at a time: my kids, the garden/houseplants, my students. What I see is that I left myself out of this equation.

The garden has suffered from inattention and so have I.

Even before the blood pressure cuff revealed the truth, I knew I was not taking good care of myself. The most obvious sign of this to me is that I am not running regularly. Running might sound like work, but to me it is a release of all the energy and emotions I absorb from other people. This is part of who I am, and if I cannot release these feelings and emotions, then they fill me to the breaking point.

That is where I’m at now. I am not carving out time for myself and doing the things that give me life. I haven’t sat on my porch in weeks. I wake up thinking of all the things I have to do and then I get the kids to school and myself ready for work and sprint through a school day only to come home and get dinner started before the kids come home and it’s time for bed. Sometimes I crash on the couch and lose myself in a Netflix binge, but at best, that is only a numbing distraction. It is not giving me life.

And I’m not asking for help or telling people what I need. I have two specific ways to change this, and I will not let another day pass without giving voice to my needs. I learned this from years of therapy.

I need to re-learn it now.

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Back when the garden was thriving, I realized that the word “tend” is part of “intention.” Intention is what I’ve been seeking this year and when I’m choosing with intention, I am tending.

I am taking care of me.

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If you’re a “just the facts ma’am” kind of person, here they are: I have surgery scheduled for October 30 to remove my left ovary along with the cyst. In the meantime, my job is to lower my blood pressure. And not freak out about surgery. Any and all prayers and positive thoughts appreciated.