So I've lost track of the days. I remember the Friday - how many weeks was it ago? When I stood in the parking garage elevator clasping my computer monitor, prepared to work from home for however long it took. I thought it would be like a week.

I was so wrong.

Now I think it will be until at least the end of April.

I just left a ten dollar bill under a rock for my Door Dasher. It'll be the first food not prepared by us we've eaten in two weeks.

The little angel hasn't spoken in person to anyone her age in as long.

Today I saw some week-old kittens. We went to the barn, where there were considerably fewer humans than lambs, goats, cats and horses. We kept a six-foot distance from the humans.

Oh, but it's spring, and it's warmer, and it's windy.

It's terrifying to not be able to plan for a week, a month from now.

The news every day is awful.

I've become too paralyzed to write. I've almost decided to delay my next novel until the little angel goes to college.

I almost wonder if it will take that long for the world to right itself.

My incisions sort of burn. They will heal soon. It's weird to think that I've finally achieved my breast cancer door prize. That it's over, as incredibly bizarre as the surgeries were.

ONWARD.

Last Monday I had the first surgery in a phase of breast cancer reconstruction. Basically some of my back moved to my front via my armpit. It's as gnarly as it sounds. I've had three drain tubes trailing directly out of my skin for over a week now. Totally reminds me of The Matrix. 

It's been a hard week or so. The night after my surgery I stayed in the hospital, pretty much drifting in and out of episodes of American Greed. My nurse was 15 minutes late with my morphine the first time. He made some joke about how my doctor had so no more morphine, and I told him it wasn't funny at all. The second time he was 45 minutes late. I'm sure there was a reason, but it just goes to show people can decide their hustle based on how they feel about you. Not so well played, Rita Arens.

I didn't really understand what had happened to me until I finally found an animation that wasn't too gross. Now I understand why the healing has been going what to me feels like so slow. I was back at work four days after my lumpectomy, after all. It was way too soon emotionally, but I was fine physically. This time has been the opposite, except for two big cry days.

Last night I went to sleep at midnight and Beloved woke me up at 1 pm. I remember getting up with my alarms to take hydrocodone at four and eight am and my other pills at 9, but each time the fog enveloped me again pretty quickly. If he hadn't woken me up, I think I could've slept 24 hours straight. I do feel better, though.

The reason I wanted to write, other than to capture how this has been (the somewhat primordal scent of limbs not fully lifted in days, the clicking and hissing of hospital machinery in the wee hours, the passing fear that your actual skin might die during a commercial break) -- is to say I found myself searching blogs for what to expect in the ensuing weeks. I've had my first surgery, and now I anticipate my second, which will be much easier, much quicker. I'm amazed at how open and honest the bloggers are, even sharing pictures of what their expanders look like in naked breasts. I wonder, if this would've happened to me years ago when I was more comfortable sharing all my feelings on the Internet, if I would've posted pictures, too. Most of what I find is about reconstruction after masectomy, but my lumpectomy was so extensive and my radiation so effective, I'm essentially being treated like I lost the whole damn thing. 

So hear I am, someone who blogged so faithfully for so many years, surfing and searching the blogosphere for other people's courage and raw authenticity. It feels great to know I can do this, that the whole emergence of blogging created a safe space to say things we all want to hear and no one is able to find in the scientific journals or legally approved medical websites. 

I have to go now - evidence of my past blogging lingers in my inbox. This month I emailed with a woman whose cat had the same surgery I blogged about years ago, and two boyfriends have emailed about my 2013 post on eating disorders and relationships. 

This is beautiful and amazing, that we can all talk together about these hard things in these ways. That I need it so much now feels like a beautiful irony. 

I never really processed the radiation tattoos.

Six little dots. Freckles, they called them.

I was happy they weren't my first ink. I had two real tattoos before those six dots. I assume there are plenty of straight-laced ladies who were horrified to get their first ink in this way.

My breast cancer still doesn't feel real. I see people with pink ribbons and I don't resonate with them. Mine was so early, so unexpected, so ... in some ways, harmless, compared to what other people face. 

My broken ankle feels more real than cancer did. Isn't that odd? Broken bones are so innocuous. 

But .... the tattoos remain. When I go to put on a bra. When I go to think about a swimsuit. What is that mark? Oh, yeah. I had cancer. Really? You? Yeah, actually, just a few years ago. 2017. 

It's 2019. That was like, yesterday. 

It would be easier to forget all that happened. If there weren't tattoos. They aren't freckles. They never were.

IMG_0251

I've used this boot twice before. Seriously, this is ridiculous.

In the past, however, it's been my fault. Stress fractures from running longer and harder than a nonathlete with flat feet should. This time, a very tall, very large horse accidentally stepped on my foot and broke a toe. The doc with the X-ray warned me if I didn't wear the boot, I'd end up with arthritis and also not be able to run without pain. He also told me that if I were eighteen, I'd probably heal within a week. 

Thanks, motherfucker.

So this week, I wore this giant sofa on my foot to my corporate job with a normal black leather boot on the other foot. I clomped around the office for four days before giving myself a giant overcompensation injury, supination. In other words, I woke up on Friday morning barely able to put any weight on my left foot. I broke a toe on my right foot.

So, yeah. 

I iced my left foot and realized my Mac was down to 60% and I'd left the power cord at work. I headed in with a sneaker on my left foot and a sofa on my right foot and kissed any hope of looking cool at work goodbye for at least six months. There's something about looking physically weak at work that is especially threatening to me. Clomping is not my jam.

So now it's been a week. The doctor initially told me I'd be in a boot for three weeks. I think I'm going to get an X-ray next Saturday, just to see. Maybe I'm closer to eighteen than he thinks.

So many people have been curious this week as to what I could've possibly done to end up in a boot. That's kind of crazy to me after two stress fractures, a broken ankle, a plate, five pins and now a broken toe: How do you people get through life WITHOUT ending up in a boot from time to time? I'm now starting to wonder if my lifestyle is unusual or I am just unrealistically clumsy. 

I suppose, though, the alternative is not moving at all. Staying 100% safe from boots and crutches but instead falling prey to high blood pressure or diabetes. I think as we grow older, the side effect of an active life is a little time spent here and there in a medical boot. I might be deluding myself, but I'd rather be riding horses and once in three years break a toe when the gentle giant accidentally steps on me than to miss the reassurance of the smell of a horse's neck while going through radiation treatment. 

When I'm running or riding a horse, I don't feel middle-aged. I feel like I'm LIVING. 

So, here I am. In the boot again. Thankfully, I have two of them and a set of crutches in my house. Just in case. 'Cuz I'm living. 

In 2010, I wrote a post about anorexia and Dr. Phil. Shortly after that, I wrote a response on BlogHer which seems to have been lost in the abyss. Shortly before I was laid off from SheKnows Media (which acquired BlogHer and is now being acquired by Penske Media, I transferred some of my posts to Medium on a lark. One of them was 5 Things You Should Know About Your Girlfriend With an Eating Disorder.

I've said it before: It's amazing, but I have received between 3-5 emails a week since I originally wrote the article sometime between 2010 and 2016 (yes, I admit, I don't have the will to research my posts on BlogHer -- it's painful). Originally I tried to write back individually to people, and at one point I had a six-month ongoing conversation with a mom, but after a while it became too overwhelming to keep up with all of the stories. And, after all, I wrote a book about this whole thing. So I started sending back this reply to the people who write me:

I get so many emails like this I put everything I know about eating disorders and recovery in a novel called THE OBVIOUS GAME. You could read it together and use it as a conversation starter. Either way it should help you understand. Good luck - there is a lot about romantic relationships and how they are affected in the book. 

RJBA

One time prior to today someone had an adverse reaction to this response, saying I was trying to sell them a book. I pointed out that THEY wrote ME, and that was the end of it. So imagine my surprise when today, I got this:

"send me an email and I will answer your questions"

"Fuck you and buy my book"

Thanks for nothing

There is a very long list of responses I wanted to send to that email. The post is years old. I haven't even worked at SheKnows Media since August 2016. My book came out in 2013. I stopped writing publicly about eating disorders around 2015/2016. Also? These are the last two paragraphs of the post referenced:

I’m sure some boyfriend somewhere right now is wondering how he can help his girlfriend as she once again refuses to eat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder, you can email me and I will try to point you in the right direction. My personal email is ritajarens@gmail.com.

My debut young adult novel is The Obvious Game, published by InkSpell Publishing. The Obvious Game is based on my experience with anorexia. If you are a librarian and are having trouble finding my book, please write me at ritajarens@gmail.com to purchase the book at the 40% author discount price.

Beloved was pretty shocked at the whole thing. I wasn't, but I admit I was angry. I've had a long week. I just had my year-anniversary mammogram of my diagnosis this morning. (It was clean! Thank you, Jesus!) I wrote that post to help people a whole lot of years ago and this kid is treating me like a telemarketer at Grandma's dinner hour.

This is what was going through my head: WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO ME LIKE THIS WHEN YOU EMAILED ME? ARE WE CONFUSED ABOUT WHO IS DOING THE CONTACTING?

But I sat with it. I went to the gym. I ran a few miles. I reflected on my clean mammogram and all the imaginary problems I had worried about that are not at this moment coming to fruition. I reflected on my recent eight-pound weight loss (anyone who loses weight due to cancer is apparently not a stress eater like me) that I pulled off without undue restrictions or falling back into old bad eating disordered habits.

And I thought: This kid is in pain. He thought he would write me and maybe I'd become some sort of personal mentor to him, and I let him down with my canned response.

And yeah, kid, I get it. I did.

Here's the thing: I want to be a helper. I really do. I want to help you get through this. But I also am a cancer survivor and a lay-off survivor and a mom and a daughter and a sister and a wife and a co-worker and a friend. I have a house to manage and a career. I walk my cat in a freakin' harness every morning. I take fish oil and am working on a new novel.

So when I tell you I put everything I know about eating disorders in a novel and maybe you should read it, I'm not pitching you to buy my book. Go request it from your library or download it off of one of the million pirated sites I see every day on my Google alerts. What I'm saying is that I put three years of thought into what you're asking and I WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT.

I get that you're frustrated.

I get that you need help.

We all do. And lashing out at each other is not the way to get it.

So no, I'm not going to use your name. I'm not going to shame you.

But dude, let up. I feel your pain because despite overcoming one kind of pain, there is always another. Be kind to each other - you never know who escaped a repeat cancer diagnosis today: THIS WOMAN.

"Maybe, when you're in it, you just get through it, and it seems so much scarier to everyone else," she said.

"Maybe," I replied.

My friend Ann put it best: When someone tells you that you have cancer, it's like you're plunged into the deep end of the pool. Nobody can see you, nobody can help you. There's water in your eyes and your ears and your nose, and there's nothing in your world but the water; you can't see or think about anything but the water.

And then ... you hit the surface. Everyone around you is floating on a raft. They hand you a beer. The sun is shining, and the world is beautiful.

And you think ... did that seriously just happen, that part where I almost drowned?

This time last year I was unemployed, desperately hunting for my next thing. I realized I'd have to make a career pivot and reinvent myself away from the dying star that is paid journalism. All but abondoning social media after a decade of living with both ankles constantly submerged in that rushing river. Wondering who I am if none of what I worked so hard to achieve in the past means anything to the hiring managers I met with in the yawning maw of job sites into which for six months I poured four different versions of my resume? And why do I have more Twitter followers now when I never go over there? What does any of that mean? I don't know half of those people and there are more people following me on Twitter than there were in my hometown in 1992. And I know damn well none of those Twitter people listen to anything I say. It's all just Black Mirror until you start believing in it.

Then, suddenly, I surfaced. There were health benefits and a 401(k).

And then, less than 90 days later, breast cancer.

Ha!

As I end 2017, I'm in a way better place than I was in 2016. It's not because I'm stronger -- I think I was just as strong before as I am now and will probably hover at approximately this strength level until age or accident calls my endgame. It's more that I've started to accept the bad times a little easier.

It's tempting when all the things mount up to ask, why? I suprised myself by not doing a lot of this in 2017. I'm trying to ask, instead, why not me? Why shouldn't I read 50 books a year and let Drunk History replace everything I learned in high school? The next good thing is coming. And so is the next bad thing. Sometimes they'll take turns. Sometimes they'll pile on.

But they will never stop coming, because this is life, and strangely, life is not personal.

So if at the end of 2016 I was praying for resilience, at the end of 2017, I'm praying for a little luck. I've spent 2017 working on me, trying to teach myself some new skills so I can be ready if luck wants to find me in 2018. I've actively prepared for a good thing to happen to me. Hi, good thing. Just standing here, looking cute.

I WILL A GOOD THING TO HAPPEN TO ME IN 2018. I've prepared. I'm ready.

Come on, dammit.

I had The Conversation with the little angel tonight. Why are we here?

I grew up steeped in Lutheranism, with a hint of high school existentialism.

I have raised my daughter differently than I was raised. I homeschooled religion.

Partly because of the crises of organized religion. Partly because of my own disillusionment with the laws of God versus the laws of Men.

Oh, parenting is hard.

I want to give her the tools to make sense of the world in a world that denies climate change and the effects of quarterly returns on our ability to be humane.

I want to give her something to cling to that represents what happens when our hearts cease to beat.

The reality is that we will all die, someday. We don't know when or how, only that we will. The young: They can't understand that. I didn't understand that.

I said to a co-worker this week that I'd borrowed a mission statement from someone whom I've forgotten: Live a life you don't need a vacation from.

I've tried to do that. We cut out eating out so we could ride horses. We shifted things around so we could have adventures. We drive shitty old-model cars and live in a bank foreclosure house so we can live a life we don't need a vacation from.

I believe that.

This year's cancer scare taught me that it can all be over tomorrow. You could have the rug pulled out from under you at any minute.

Are you ready?

Do you spend your time on what matters?

I don't, not entirely.

I need to make more time for my art, my writing.  I was good at it before I had a commute.  I need to get better at it now.

What do you need? Let's make time for it. Together. Because a) it won't mean a thing in an hundred years and b) it will mean everything to those we leave behind.

Both of those statements are true.

They say scent in the strongest tie to memory. What I will remember from this time is the scent of me.

I weathered radiation treatment during a hot Missouri summer. They told me I couldn't use normal deoderant because it contains aluminum, which is akin to putting aluminum foil in the microwave when undergoing radiation treatment.

This is what I smelled like:

• Burnt flesh

• Lavendar

• Linseed oil

• Aloe

• Musk

• Neosporin

• Aquaphor

• Eucerin

• Dead skin

• Sweaty polyester

• Wicking athletic bras

• Wet cotton

I finished my last radiation treatment last Friday. Since then, I've shed a layer of burnt skin, brown, almost black.

Underneath is the fuschia of regeneration.

Skin is pretty amazing stuff.

It itches. My God, it itches. I've tried not to scratch, but even the reapplication of Aquaphor after each shower has ruined at least ten tshirts and countless bras, and now with the skin so raw and new I'm not sure what I will wear to work tomorrow, when I'm sure they expect me to return anew and healed now that the treatment is over.

Except it's not really over yet. The radiation is still working inside me, and will continue to work for a few weeks, shining the flashlight over the dark room to make sure no cancer lurks in the corners before we shut the door for now. Until the next mammogram. And the next mammogram will reveal a completely new me, the me that is: after.

I will never smell aloe again and not think of this time.

But I am relieved. It is over. For the first time since April 2017, I can look at life through eyes unclouded by breast cancer. And that's a good thing.

ONWARD.

I am supposed to be at a Royals game with Doug French right now. I'm not, because in spite of the fact he's in town this week only, I had to text him while bawling in the parking of KU Cancer Center in Lee's Summit and tell him I just couldn't do it. I needed to go home.

I went in to my third week of radiation expecting to be in and out in about fifteen minutes, like usual. That is not what happened.

Let me preface this by saying my cancer team is made up of decent, good people. There is not a bad apple among them. That said, I think it must be very easy for people who treat lots of cases to forget that for most people they treat, this is the first time. It's a good lesson to remember in any job you do, whether you drive a school bus or operate on people's spines or manage new college graduates -- if you interact with the public, some of the people you deal with are scared or intimidated, and it's not only your job to do your job, it's also your job to monitor them and respond in kind. If you want to be really good at what you do, that is. This is a lesson I'm internalizing through this experience, and I hope it makes me a better person overall.

Today after I lay down (this is the closest approximation visually I can find) and closed my eyes and listened for the beep and thought to myself that this is the second-to-last week, this will soon be over, the therapist came out and told me for the second half of treatment, the doctor would come out and draw on me for "the boost."*

I did not know what the boost was. I did not know the boost was coming. There was no warning about said boost.

I did not know they were going to fucking boost my radiation. With a large attachment that looked like the machine Dr. Evil uses. This is the best pic I could find that looks like the normal radiation machine. Now picture a huge scope that stops about an inch from the lumpectomy scar. That's the booster ray, or whatever it is technically called.

I'm lying there, and one of the therapists whips out a Sharpie and starts drawing on me, making some notes that she keeps on a piece of paper she rests on my stomach, like a desk. They chitted and chatted and breathed and sang to Phil Collins, and the longer it took, the more I started to get ANGRY. I was angry to be the one on the table. I was angry about the new bill that shows up every damn week saying I owe hundreds of dollars after insurance. I was angry this was taking so long. I was angry I was half-naked for the fifty-first time in front of virtual strangers.

At one point the therapist apologized for the awkward positioning, and I replied that everything about this entire experience is awkward, and she took it wrong. She said, "I suppose at some point, you're like, whatever," she says good-naturedly. "I don't even see nudity anymore. I just see tattoos."

I know she meant well, but I do not feel whatever about my health or my body. I still think of myself as having to lie there half-naked. I would still like my dignity back. I would still prefer not to have people draw on my secondary sex characteristics with permanent art supplies. I would still prefer to be a person and not a pound of flesh.

I would still prefer for this shit to be over and to have my chest back to myself, beat up, scarred, smaller and burned though it may be.

I refrained from punching her, because at no time has this experience become "whatever." At every time I have wished for my dignity back, and to not to have to bare my breasts to half of Jackson county, and to not have to have Sharpie marks and tattoos that mess up my expensive bras and to not have nurses tell me to just slather on creams to stop the itching that leach through said bras to my professional clothing, and oh, by the way, I haven't been able to stop working in that professional clothing during this experience, so if my left breast goes up in flames during a meeting about open enrollment, I can neither itch it or go slather on cream. I just have to white-knuckle my way through.

Life does not stop for cancer.

After all that is done, the radiation oncologist and I chit-chat about the typhoon we had in KC last night, and then he gives me some suggestions for other creams. The nurse explains to me what radiation feels like, even though she's never had it. Anger wells up in my chest again at this woman who thinks she knows what radiation feels like well enough to explain it to me.

I cry in the parking lot. I text Doug to tell him I can't do it. I just can't stop crying to make it to a baseball game in less than an hour. My mascara is around my knees and I'm still wearing my work clothes and I have to find itch cream.

I apologize. He's like, "For enduring radiation? Please." And that's how I know our eleven years of friendship is so worthwhile - those friendships I made while blogging are so worthwhile. I know I'm not around as much, but you are my people in a way the 90 percent of my people in my new day-to-day probably will never be, because I'll probably never show them as much of me as I have shown you.

I stopped crying finally. I drove to CVS. I looked on the shelf for the anti-itch new cream. I couldn't find it. I went to the pharmacy counter and got a guy to come look for me. Finally, he says, "What is this for?" And I say, "Radiation burns."

AND HE STARTED MANSPLAINING HOW RADIATION BURNS ARE JUST FOR MOISTURE BECAUSE THEY DON'T HURT.

Friends, that young man is really a lucky young man, because I am able to control myself.

I muttered I'd probably go with my radiation oncologist's recommendation and went home and cried some more. I told Doug I'd make this funny when I blogged it, but it's still not funny. It just sucks.

However, there are only eight more treatments left. Eight treatments until I get to stop thinking about cancer for the first time since April. Maybe there will be some smooth water.

This week is the one-year anniversary week of my lay-off from SheKnows Media.

It's been a year. I got laid off. I got a new job. Two months in, I got cancer. I'm almost done with cancer treatment. It's almost G's birthday. He'll be forty-four.

ONWARD.

*According to science, the boost does work for DCIS patients, of which I am one. SCIENCE.