Radiation

Hi. If it feels like it's been a long time, it has. I had blood drawn for genetic testing on June 9. The medical oncologist's nurse called me with the results this week, on July 19, six weeks later. I was told we'd have the results in two weeks, so the six weeks thing was sort of a shock. As days became weeks became months, I actually had about a three-day period in there that I forgot completely about the cancer thing. That was kind of nice, like when you wake up from a dream where a thing you want to have happen happens and you haven't realized yet it isn't true.

But! They called this week, and they told me there is no BRCA mutation, which means no need for dramatic surgeries and I can continue with the original treatment plan of 22 sessions of radiation. KU Cancer Center does radiation on weekdays, so we're looking at slightly less than five weeks once things get going hopefully next week. First I have to have a CAT scan and get a tiny tattoo so they can line everything up on the daily without fear it will wash off. Fortunately, I already have two actual tattoos, so this idea doesn't freak me out. However, I never expected to be getting ink done for medical reasons, so there's that. I have considered turning it into something else when this is all over, but I'm not really into tattoos in that general area.

I didn't realize how much I was stuffing my feelings down until I got the news this week. Since then, I have cried daily over long-past events like Sandy Hook and Tamir Rice. I have grown irrationally angry over small slights to my daughter. I remembered on Monday that I got cancer out of nowhere and got really mad. I lost my grip on gratitude about three hours ago, and I am clawing my way back to the person I really want to be. We're on an hour-by-hour schedule here at Camp Rita.

I am so flawed.

At work this week I've been dealing with situations I don't have a lot of control over and having those self-aware snapshots where you realize I didn't do this on purpose but I bet this other person thinks I'm an idiot. I do not relish scenarios in which someone else thinks Rita Arens doesn't understand the Internet (a real quote at one point in my career), but I'm also growing more aware the older I get that no matter what I do? Someone will always think I'm an idiot. And probably I am enough times to sort of warrant it. And enough not at other times to warrant telling people who think I am to go to hell.

I'm working on not caring so much.

I feel like so much time has passed since February when I started this new life with a new job after eight years of working from home, a commute and a new set of challenges with a teenager and a husband who travels up to 75 percent of the time, depending on the month. A new health condition. Most of the time I'm fine, but sometimes I have this anger that bubbles up. My husband counsels me not to send the email, not to say the thing, and I'm listening. But the flip side is that I checked out so hard last week that I almost gave up on radiation entirely because I didn't want to beg a doctor one more damn time to please give me the results of that test you took over a month ago. Being made to feel you're overreacting to your cancer is beyond unacceptable, but it happens.

I'd love to end this post by saying how much I've grown since I last wrote, but that would be a lie. I've survived. I've vacationed. I've trashed about half of PARKER CLEAVES and am growing increasingly uncertain if I will ever finish it. It's hard to write with this commute and my husband's travel. It's hard to find time to work out. It's so hot it's hard to breathe, and I like hot. But this is insane hot, so hot that if I try to go for a walk at work at 8:30 am I soak my shirt through in a half hour outside.

I hope I can find my writing inspiration again. I don't feel much like a writer these days. I worry it was a phase I went through in my thirties. Because I still have a lot to say -- I just can't find the right structure to say it in. Maybe when this health scare passes, my mind will feel free to concentrate on stories again. I hope so, because most of what I've ever cared about has been told through stories.