Sewing through the pain

Today is not a good day; I'm not going to lie to those of your out there in internet land. Chemo and Keanu* and I are not friends today. The last few days the chemo was giving me belly issues and then this morning at work i was smacked in the face with a killer headache. Luckily I came home early and after lots of advil, caffeine, and law and order svu, the headache decided to vacate the premises.

So i decided to return to my crafts and keep relaxing, but no the thigh tumor has decided it's time to play the shooting pain game. I can only blame the tumor so much because I refuse to take the intense pain killers they prescribe me because that's really not my scene. The last thing I need after 10 years of cancer treatment is to become dependent on pain killers that they hand out to kids like me like the ice cream man hands out choco tacos.

I didn't mean for this to become a ranting post. I'm just irritated at the situation and found it funny that the way I get through it, is "sewing through the pain". Usually this involves some sort of loud music (tonight's selections are old school Incubus and Gogol Bordello) and just sewing away like a robot. It may not make sense to some of you out there but in front of my machine is the one place that makes life slow down. It can take me out of myself for just long enough to focus on the small project in front of me and not the huge one that is my health. I know there are so many other crafters out there who would totally understand that statement... what does it for you guys? How do you fight through the irritations of life?

*For those not in the know, Keanu is the name of the tumor in my thigh... he's a punk.

Wise words

Sometimes I Forget that my friend Jen and I are the same age. She is one of the wisest souls that I know and I am so lucky to have come across her in my life. It's the old tale of adjoining handicapped parking spaces our freshman year of college and a god awful professor to hate... and the rest is history.
She and I have been working on a project with Villanova university about invisible illness and body image for the last few weeks and it has been an absolute delight to get to spend so much time chatting with her. She has been a real live health activist for quite some time now and you can't help but be inspired to get involved when she is around. There is something about her that pulls out the activist in all of us and it is one of the reasons I love her dearly. Today while chatting with her she came out with this little quote below and I felt like it was something I would have heard in school when recognizing someone who was badass enough to deserve their own bank holiday. She said, "Don't quantify activism. Activism is measured in reach, not volume, and not even intent." and I was immediately moved! She is completely right and I plan to use that as my new motto when it comes to the health activist side of me. I am not just a girl playing artist and activist anymore in her room, but I am a woman out there living it and doing it; sometimes I just need a little reminder :)

Sick Buddies

This past week I had coffee with my ex boyfriend (who from now on will affectionately be called J) just to catch up on life and see how things are going. It had been about a month and a half since we had last gotten together and although we are doing pretty well at the whole being friends thing, it is still a bit of a struggle at times. The last time we saw one another I told him that he looked obscenely thin and that he should go see a doctor. J has crohns disease that was diagnosed during his teen years, but over the last few years he has been in a bit of a medical rebellion just like me. It turns out I was right because a month after we last saw each other he found himself in the ER with a fever and kidneys that weren't functioning properly and to be honest he is lucky to be alive. Not only does he have crohns but he also has the common male problem of refusing to go to the doctor, especially when it's recommended by the women in his life haha. But all jokes aside, it is weird how life has a tendency to work out. One of the reasons he and I bonded so well was that we both knew what it was like to miss out on a huge chunk of your formative years because of an illness. He understood something in me that is just so hard to explain to someone who has never been sick, and we rekindled that part of our friendship this past week. We know that we should never date because there are parts of us that are just too vastly different, but we have instead decided to be "sick buddies".
We are both facing some rather intense treatments in the near future (I've given up on my medical protest which I promise to post about later) and have decided that it is better to be 2 sickies watching a movie together than alone and sad. The agreement goes as such, if one of us is having a really horrible day and feels too crappy to go out but is rather lonesome and the other one is up for the journey, than the person having a decent day will be lazy and ill with the one who feels like hell. It sounds like the most basic idea, but it's sometimes hard as the person who is sick to ask vital and healthy friends to slow down just for you. It's almost embarrassing, so this way we each know we have a backup plan. I guess being sick is a lot like learning to swim... its scary but it works better with the buddy system :)