Anger (Part 2 of 5)

Anger

After all the dust cleared and I realized that it was indeed real and not going away, I was MAD. First I got mad at myself and my body. I felt like it had betrayed me. Here I had been taking pretty good care of it for 35 years, and it just up and fails me. I was sure I had done something to cause the cancer and so I was pissed at myself. All the years of using products with toxins in them. All of the plastic bottles I drank out of. All the times when I ate junk when I should have been eating fruit and vegetables. I was beating myself up for living a normal life instead of that of a health nut. Or maybe it was those extra 20 lbs I never lost after having my babies. Or maybe it was the birth control pills I took. Or maybe it was the exhaust from the equipment I worked on, or the jet fuel, or the jet exhaust I inhaled. It had to be something I did, because I had to blame SOMEONE. This doesn't just happen to a 35 year old mother of 3. It just doesn't.



When I realized that I would never know what caused it (because nobody knows that yet), I got mad at God and even began to question his existence. Instead of drawing on my faith for comfort and guidance, I questioned and almost abandoned it. Maybe there wasn't a God, and if there was, what had I done to make him target me? Why would he do this to someone like me instead of a murderer or a child molester? I mean, I know that I am nothing special in the grand scheme of things, but surely there were others more deserving (in my mind that made sense at the time). How had Saddam Hussein lived his whole pathetic life without getting cancer, but I had to deal with it? It's just amazing how irrational my brain gets when cornered. I found myself getting mad at people just for being healthy. Even characters on TV and celebrities, as stupid as that is. I would think, man, how did she (random person on TV) get to live to be so old and never get cancer? I got really mad at Jillian Michaels, because I listened to her radio show all the time and she always talked about how toxins and plastics were killing us. I felt like she was saying "I told you so" every time I saw her on TV. She used to be my idol, the person I wanted to emulate for her health and fitness. I would get mad because I knew I would always and forever be linked to this cancer, whether I lived through it or died from it. I felt like it defined me. I would always be a cancer survivor; if I survived.



Want to know how twisted it was? I even wondered once if my Grandmother, whom I had lost to cancer 6 months before, was punishing me for not being near her when she was sick. Like she wanted me to know how it felt. I got pissed at myself for that one; how could I blame someone as gentle and lovely as my grandmother! God, I am embarrassed even admitting that now.



I was mad that I had to put my life and career on hold to deal with it. I was mad that my husband had to get me through it and work twice as hard to keep the family going. That my parents had to worry about me all the time. That my kids had to answer questions at school about what was wrong with their mom, and get the sympathy look from teachers and counselors. I was incredibly mad that my kids had to worry about whether their mom was going to ever get out of bed again and take care of them. I felt like a gigantic burden. In short, I was mad at everything.



But I knew that being mad was useless and it wasn't going to change anything, so I kept it hidden. I didn't talk about it, and I didn't cry during that time. I just pretended that I was strong and that I was certain everything was going to be alright. Even my husband didn't know I was so angry, because I didn't want to talk about it and open the door for discussions. I just wanted to be miserable and let myself be angry. The reality of it was setting in. My hair started falling out, and there was no escaping the fact that I was SICK. The first couple of months were rough physically, and I had a lot of time to think. I got over it and myself and started to calm down a bit. I made peace with God (at least I think I did), and I started to form a strategy.