Pain

According to the rules of storytelling, any detail that occurs three or more times is a theme.

Today is PET scan number three, so I suppose PET scans are now a theme of my life.

The worst part about getting a PET scan is the fasting. More specifically, it’s the inability to drink coffee on a Monday morning after a long weekend of taking care of two small boulders named Winston and Peter. Yes, caffeine deprivation on a Monday morning is orders worse than the anxiety produced from getting shoved inside a full body scanner that will determine whether my life-threatening cancer has returned.

Sans caffeine, the stairs felt like quicksand this morning as I trudged up two flights of stairs with 27-pound Winston under my arm. This epic trek from the basement to his (or Peter’s) bedroom on the top floor of our home is more than a daily routine. I make the grueling journey at least five times a day. And that’s even on weekdays when daycare does a lot of the heavy lifting. Literally. On weekends, the up and downing is much more frequent. Thank God I have Jordan to share the load… God bless single mothers.

I asked my husband for an Apple watch this Christmas for the sole purpose of seeing how many calories I was burning going up and down the stairs. I burn enough to lessen my anxiety over what I’m eating. At least from a weight gain perspective. My phobias about sugar and hormones, unfortunately, can’t be walked off. In fact, just yesterday, upon finding out that my favorite coffee shop has been using sweetened almond milk in my lattes for the last several months, I started to cry. Yes, I cried in the coffee shop, right in front of the pigtailed collegiate barista who exposed the awful sugary truth. For months I’ve been carefully avoiding added sugar and yet, low and behold, I’ve been drinking it every day, sometimes multiple times a day.

Hope that doesn’t affect the outcome of the PET scan, says the irrational, blinded by fear part of my brain.   

This weekend was especially grueling because it marked the dawn of a new developmental era for Winston. The most defining characteristic of this new phase is a constant need to be held by “Mama!” And only mama. He wants “Mama!” to hold him when he gets home from daycare. He wants “Mama!” to hold him while she cooks dinner or makes him a PB&J (believe it or not, making this sticky sandwich one-handed is indeed possible). He wants “Mama!” to carry him up for bedtime. And he cries out for “Mama!” when he wakes up in the middle of the night, which, during this new phase, is amost every night.

Surprisingly, Winston is the lighter of the two kiddos. Not numerically, since Winston technically weighs more than Peter. But when I hold Winston, he holds me back. He uses his arms and legs to wrap around me, which significantly lightens the load. 6-month-old Peter, on the other hand, does nothing to share the load. He’s like the sack of flour teachers made young girls carry around back in the day to warn them of motherhood. Only he’s a Costco sized bag. At 20 pounds and 28 inches long, Peter is in the 91^st percentile for weight and 93^rd percentile for length.

Jordan and I love when people ask how old Peter is. Their jaws always drop. This Sunday, for example, we sat in front of another couple with an infant. Throughout the mass, we took turns admiring each other’s babies, sporadically mouthing the words “so cute!” to one another, as all parents in the church pew trenches do as a form of camaraderie.

When the mass ended, Jordan asked the father how old their baby was.

“11 months,” the father replied. “How old is yours?”

And here was our moment. We smirked in preparation for the shock and awe we’ve now come to expect. “Six months,” Jordan said with jus a hint of boastfulness endemic in all proud fathers.

“Six months?!?” the parents gasped, eyes wide and necks stretched out as if to say, “Can you please repeat that? I must have misheard!” After all, Peter could have eaten their baby for breakfast. It’s a good thing Peter hasn’t mastered solid foods yet.

I call Peter my gentle giant, because he is equally happy as he is huge. He smiles constantly, even when he doesn’t feel well or gets his diaper changed. His cheery demeanor continues to astonish me—it’s such a far cry from our first colicky experience of raising a baby.

There’s something so endearing about Peter’s combination of girth and glee. He’s kind of like Buddy from the movie Elf. Buddy is way bigger than all the other elves, but Buddy is the only one who doesn’t realize it. He is blissfully and hilariously unaware of how different he is. And that’s Peter—sweet, gargantuan, oblivious Peter.

My gentle giant.

I love that Winston needs and wants me.

I love that Peter relies on me.

But the very hard truth is that taking care of a clingy toddler and a giant, immobile baby is physically exhausting. (Emotionally exhausting, too, of course, but I’ve already griped enough about that in previous essays… I swear, I love being a mother!)

Yesterday, I broke down in tears because Peter wouldn’t settle for his nap, and I couldn’t soothe him because I physically could not hold him anymore. I had to tap dad in to help, even though he had just put Winston down for a nap and had already dutifully moved on to his weekend chore of dethawing our outdoor furniture cushions. It wasn’t fair of me to make him put Peter down, too…

Not fair. That’s what I told myself. That’s what I always tell myself when I need help, which is why it takes a lot for me to actually ask for it. Doesn’t matter that Jordan unfailingly gives it to me… I’m wired to believe that asking for help isn’t an option.

Even before having children, I suffered from low back pain. This pain comes partially from standing incorrectly my whole life (I hyperextend my right knee). Partially from being in bad shape for the duration of my twenties because I was too hungover to exercise. And partially, I’m sure, because of dumb things I did during this same period that I don’t even remember.

I’ll give you one of many examples.

When I was just out of grad school and living in New York City, I got so drunk that I fell into a tree planter. I only vaguely remember the fall, but when I woke up in my apartment the next morning, my left middle finger was extremely swollen. I’d clearly injured it during the fall. I’m not sure which was worse, fracturing my finger or getting fired from my job later that day since the fall took place in front of my place of employment. Apparently, having a Jameson-soaked employee crashing into a tree box wasn’t a good look for business. Even for a liquor store. And why was I working at a liquor store after getting my master’s degree from NYU? I think this story probably answers that question.

My finger is still swollen to this day—a permanent reminder of why I need to stay sober.

I can only assume that drunken shenanigans like these may have contributed to my back problems. I’ll never know for sure. So when any of the back specialists I visited asked if I’d ever injured my back, it was always an awkward question to answer. “Maybe…?” (Shrug emoji)

Whether my history of alcohol abuse added to my back problems or not, the fact remains that I have two herniated and bulged discs between my L4-L5 and L5-S1 vertebrae. I also have vertebral edema, which is “an accumulation of excess fluid within the bone marrow, often detected via MRI as a result of trauma, stress fractures… and causes intense pain, swelling, and reduced function.” (Thanks, Wikipedia)

All of this was diagnosed before having kids—before all the bending, lifting, hinging, bouncing, diaper changing, and endless holding.

And all of this was before getting cancer… before the hormone blockers threw me into early menopause and gave me full blown arthritis in my hips and both of my shoulders. My knees and ankles aren’t far behind.

Motherhood is physically challenging even for the fittest moms out there, not just cancer-riddled former drunks with busted backs and shoulders that probably sound like nails on a chalkboard to the microorganisms living inside them. I mean, putting a car seat in an SUV with a 20-pound baby strapped inside is not an easy or graceful task for any woman. I’m sure lots of moms make the same unattractive punched-in-the-gut sound I do. “UHNNN!”

I’m not trying to compare my pain to anyone else’s. After all, how could I? We have no benchmark for pain other than our own. That’s why I hate those one to ten pain level scales that hospitals use. Sure, maybe the mouth sores I had during chemo felt like a ten to me, but I’ve never had my legs blown off in war. So, what do I know? I’m just talking about my experience. And for me, motherhood hurts like hell.

There’s a reason women were designed to go through menopause later in life, well after they’ve had children, or at least after their children can walk. Going through menopause smack dab in the middle of the most physically demanding period of motherhood is really hard, and it distracts me from enjoying the good parts of motherhood.

Sometimes, on especially dark and difficult days, I wonder if this pain-riddled period of motherhood might be the only one I get to experience. Emotionally, that’s level ten, legs-blown-off-in-the-war pain.

I would probably feel better if I started taking Ibuprofen or Tylenol more regularly. But among the many phobias I’ve developed since getting cancer is the fear of taking any additional drugs that might compromise my liver. I need my liver to stay strong so it can tolerate the life-saving medications I’m taking now and hopefully for a long time to come. So, for that reason, I only take OTC pain meds on the weekends, and only if the pain is great enough to surmount my fear of taking them. On average, fear wins half the time, unfortunately.   

That’s why I rely on holistic pain treatment, including Pilates, massage, and sauna therapy. All these pain-thwarting remedies give me at least temporary relief from the pain. Pilates makes my joints feel more lubricated and combats my increased risk for osteoporosis. Massage allows my mind and body to quiet down at the same time, a rare feat that only ever happens in those tiny parlor rooms. And sauna therapy soothes my sore muscles while also ridding my body of cancer-causing toxins.

Physically, these therapies make me feel better. But doing things for myself always comes with a mental cost…

As I head off to Pilates in the morning while dad drives the kids to daycare, I worry about how I come off to the rest of the world. Do people see me as “that” kind of mom? The jobless, spoiled suburban mom you see in the movies who has the nanny do everything while she goes off to spa or the gym or to gossip over coffee with the other bratty moms. The one who wears Versace sunglasses, drives a Range Rover, and whose hair is always perfect. Even though I wear Warby Parker, drive a GMC, and have a buzz cut, maybe I’ve still become one of those moms that, pre-kids, I swore never to become.

And despite having cancer and arthritis and back pain, I feel tremendous guilt for having the time and money to do these pain and stress relieving activities when others may not have the same luxury. It’s like my husband having to put both children down for a nap… not fair. (You’d think as a 37-year old with stage four cancer I’d understand better than most that life isn’t always fair. Apparently not.)

Thanks to a freightload of therapy, I recognize that this cruel monster made up of guilt and judgment is a phantom of my own making. My ego would have to be pretty enormous if I truly believed people cared that much about how often I go to the sauna. My ego isn’t that big, it’s just that bruised. And, unfortunately, Advil doesn’t help a bruised ego… Xanax does. But with my history of falling into planters, I have to be careful with those, too.

I’m not sure what the point of all this is other than to complain. Maybe that’s the beauty of having this website. It gives me a platform to just whine artistically without any deeper purpose. But I suppose if there is a message it’s to remind myself and anyone who can relate to stop caring so much about what other people think. And to ask for help.

Thinking everyone cares that much about how I live my life, needlessly turning myself into a martyr… those are the things that will turn me into the Versace sunglasses lady who only thinks about herself. I am not a victim. I’m just a mom with some physical ailments who goes to Pilates and sometimes gets massages. It’s really not all that special. Ironically, recognizing that I’m not so special is one of the best remedies out there for a wounded ego.