Big Girls Don't Cry

Hands won't stop shaking. Jaw is killing me. It feels like I must have been grinding my teeth all night only I know I wasn't. This is just how I feel. I don't understand. My steroids intake has been halved. Why are these side effects coming back so hard? I know I shouldn't complain. I don't have any of the emotional symptoms that plagued me so much a month ago. I can engage in conversation. I have my mental faculties pretty much down. I am not screaming at people. I am not angry. I am not depressed more than I should be given the current circumstances.

These physical side effects started plaguing me before the trip and then hardcore on the trip. Despite them I had a great time. So great in fact that I believed I could return without my bad attitude and negativity returning with me. Apparently not. I just had a doctor's appointment. It was so depressing. I might be in remission, pending some more test results but again that is a false victory. It's not the remission I lived for the better part of 8 years. Instead it is the continuation of the steroids for another few months and then a taper while we increase the immuno-modulater, the chemo, which I will be on until I decide to have children. That's just devastating to me. I am in the 10-15% of people whose colitis gets worse than what they were diagnosed with. Great. I am never in the 10-15% of anything. I am always average or slightly above or below. Of course in this one stupid circumstance I am suddenly 'special.' It pisses me off because I keep waiting for this all to be done and over with and it keeps fucking kicking me in the ass. There is no end in sight. There is no end at all.

And talking about long term kills me. I don't do long term anything. It takes the living out of my life knowing how it's going to look; it makes it all feel pointless. It's like knowing what I am going to get for Christmas every year until I die and where I am going to live and who I am going to marry and how many kids I am going to have and whether I am going to fullfill all the dreams I have and I don't know ... I just hate it. I don't want to know what's in the crystal ball of my life. I am an adventurer. I want forks in the road and choices and surprises. I am not a long-term planner. There's a reason I haven't made any long term committments. And now I have one. I have to have a long term plan if I want any of this other stuff for my life. It's the ultimate catch-22. If I want any of these other unknowns I have to have this one known. It sucks. It pisses me off. It means this isn't over yet and will never be over. It's official. And I just had such a blissful week where nothing of this hell existed except for the pill-popping. I slept in the sun. I did yoga. I ran on the beach. I body surfed in the waves. I had three massages. I made new friends. I laughed my ass off. I had a pina colada, the best one I have ever had, made with real coconut. And I thought I'd come back with the coconut taste in my mouth. Insteasd I can only taste the bitter, chalkiness of the steroids that no sweet taste can ever diffuse. And I am just so physically uncomfortable that I can't be asleep on the beach or on a hammock or in my mosquito net covered bed that makes me feel like a princess; I can only be here, back on my island, jaw clenched with the anticipation of the next disappointment.

Every day in yoga we set our intention and mine is always to be strong. I am sick of it. It's hard to be strong when there is no end in sight. It's so easy to maintain strength for an ascertainable distance, the 26.2 miles of a marathon or the 3 months and 2 days of bar review and the bar examination. It is hard to just be strong for strength's sake, knowing you can never, never let your guard down. I wish I was the type of person that was okay with giving up or falling apart. But I'm a big girl and I came to work today and I will be at work tomorrow and I will rally and do what needs to be done jaw clenched the whole time hoping for a good night's sleep and reprieve in my dreams.