stage IV breast cancer

Afraid to be sick / afraid to not be sick

~ Molly Kochan O ~ Leave a comment

lights

I don’t like being sick. Not a fan of hospitals. While grateful for the love of support of people around me, I don’t like the kind of attention that comes with illness. I especially don’t like being physically compromised or limited. From not being able to go skydiving to having pain when I get out of bed or walk to the bathroom is not the way I consciously choose to navigate this existence…

What I do like though is the permission to not make commitments. To not have to spend time with people that don’t nourish or inspire me. I like that I have found the mindset to follow only the things in life that interest me. Of course, none of this is really connected to being terminal. Everyone has these rights. We all have the permission to follow our dreams, whatever they may be, and not waste the majority of our time waiting for the sand to run through the hourglass. I have always believed this but I act on it now. If I got better, would I continue to live my life for me?

Driving myself into gratitude

~ Molly Kochan O ~ Leave a comment

trees

One of the most important things during all of this (and probably life in general) is finding gratitude. It’s been the only way I can reframe and shift the focus from feeling lousy and helpless. That is, when I am willing to not feel lousy. Because, truthfully, there are times when I can wallow in lousy. When that is all I want.

But this week I was willing to feel better. And the moments I felt unwilling, I became willing to be willing. A long thread, but it makes sense if you think about it…So, that said, here is something to hang on the gratitude hook:

I drove. What a freedom to be able to drive again! It’s been a few weeks since my surgery and I can now man (or woman) my own car. And while I am eternally grateful to the people who have so far shuttled me to and from appointments, it was so nice to feel that sense of control on the road…and perhaps metaphoric regaining of control over the things in life I can control.

I don’t want to write about Cancer

~ Molly Kochan O ~ Leave a comment

road

I don’t want to write about Cancer. I’m afraid to over identify with it.

This is why it’s been 6 months since my last entry. Within the last 6 months, a lot has happened health wise. Mostly I have cancer in my bones, a spot in my liver, but the bulk of it is in the bone…I just had orthopedic surgery to prophylactically stabilize my hip, which was in danger of fracturing. Insert gratitude here…

Overall I feel angry. That is really hard to admit. It’s not the best of me. It’s not the hopeful cancer fighting woman people root for. You read obituaries about people who have succumbed to this and they “never let cancer get them.” There is always a line in there about how bright and hopeful they were. I imagine they had moments like the ones I’m experiencing too…the moments where you think about giving up. The moments where you question God or the Universe and wonder if there really is a plan. The moments where you struggle to find meaning amidst the physical pain and profound sadness.

The reason I am writing today, despite my lack of desire to do so, is that I am hoping this helps me process the anger so that I can enjoy whatever time I have left. The truth is I could have many years, even decades. But my feeling is that without some levity and without gratitude, my time will be foreshortened. And while I find myself wanting to give up, that’s not really what I want. So I’ll write about Cancer today because maybe it will make room for some hope for tomorrow.

To kid or not to kid…

~ Molly Kochan O ~ Leave a comment

Do I want kids? That’s always been the question…

For a while I really wanted them. Being pregnant looked like a vacation (funny thinking of that now because I’m sure it’s not) and the idea of passing down family traditions appealed to me.

After my initial cancer diagnosis, having kids freaked me out. Mainly because I didn’t like the idea of something foreign growing inside of me.

I know having a life inside of you is different from having cancer grow inside of you, but giving my body over to anything else started to scare me. Plus, I was unable to imagine wanting to give up my life and make someone else a priority.

And then wanting kids came back. My husband really wants them. I know we would be great parents. And, of course, there was that visit to my radiation oncologist who looked at me one day and said, “It wouldn’t be fair of you to have kids, You don’t want to spread your genes.” Don’t tell me what to do and never put down my genes! That was four years ago…

Fast forward and I have been straddling this issue all this time. Now with my new diagnosis (BC metastasis in the bone and possibly liver) the kid option is off the table in this lifetime.

I still don’t know that I want them. But I hate being told I can’t have them. There is a grieving of that possibility that runs deep even though I may very well have chosen against motherhood.

Writing this now, I am trying to think of something I thought I could never do again because of my condition. My hip hurts from the bone tumors and I can’t run anymore. I mean, I can’t run yet. Because there may be some things that this disease will keep me from doing. But it’s not going to keep me from everything.

Everything leads to this…

~ Molly Kochan O ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. I’m 42.

I’ve already dealt with breast cancer and never thought it would come back. It did. In my hip bones and maybe my liver.

I go back and forth between hope and despair. Pretty normal I imagine for where I am.

I don’t want to tell anyone. Only a few people know. My parents don’t. I haven’t decided if I will tell them.

I always thought that a diagnosis like this would push me into figuring out exactly what kind of mark I want to leave on the world. It hasn’t done that…yet.