Just kidding. I didn’t start writing a book, but I have done a lot of thinking about writing lately. I’ve thought\u00a0about how I love\u00a0to laugh about the absurdity of life and then share those stories with others. I’ve thought about how people don’t love that I swear when I write about these experiences. I’ve thought even more about the fact that I don’t have the words to articulate how I’m feeling even though I’m an open book when it comes to my world.<\/p>\n
I also have thought a lot about musicisions writing about their life and how their ability to turn those often times painful experiences into something positive impacts me…especially over the last few months…because the last few months have really been something.\u00a0 I’ll rewind…yearly check up to say “everything is fine” turned into months of scans, appointments, more scans, becoming radioactive for the forth time and still not getting any super powers, scans….all leading up to being told there appears to be a recurrence\u00a0of thyroid cancer.\u00a0 There remain so many positives in this situation in terms of my health and long term prognosis, but something about this time felt different.\u00a0 The positivity that I’ve clung to over the last four years vanished.\u00a0 It was gone.\u00a0I have made no secret to the fact that I’ve struggled since then.<\/p>\n
I’ve also made no secret to the fact that as I sat in the surgeon’s office and he told me that he has lost more patients to the mental health struggle of thyroid cancer than that which is caused by damaged, rouge cells continuing to split that I no longer had a grasp on my mental health. I think in some way, I’ve always had some level of anxiety…weirdly and maybe insensitively enough to people that battle serious anxiety disorders…I think it’s one of the more endearing aspects of my personality…because I’ve always had a relative upper hand over it.<\/p>\n
I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I realized as I cried while being told we would have to wait six months before we determine any course of action to address the recurrence of thyroid cancer that I in fact never did and definitely don’t at present have anything close to the upper hand over anxiety or my cancer diagnosis.\u00a0 What I do have is the incredible fortune to be able to access services from an absolutely amazing therapist that I genuinely adore, but even more than that, I’ve started taking antidepressants. Those little fuckers are quite frankly amazing.<\/p>\n
This is what clicked into place for me and allowed me to catch my breath for the first time in many years.\u00a0 I’ve also decided to be kinder to myself since I started back in therapy and started on medication. That means I’m working to make better food choices, exercising in ways I enjoy (like yoga with friends), and most importantly drinking coffee again. Yes, you read that correctly…I’ve survived most of the last four years of being a new mom and now the mom of a very sassy four year old without the use of the world’s greatest drug. Coffee can cause issues with absorption of thyroid medication and since it took my body many months to get into a good place on those medications cutting coffee was an easy way to positively influence my body and make the medication more effective at a lower dose…all that is great, but I genuinely missed it.\u00a0 I would creepily walk slowly and breathe deeply in the coffee aisle at the grocery store.\u00a0 I craved it.\u00a0 I had convinced myself that it was the one thing I could “control” in a situation where as a cancer patient I genuinely had no control.<\/p>\n
I realized a few weeks ago that it didn’t work. Depriving myself of something I loved in an effort to somehow make me not have cancer didn’t actually work. I laugh as I type that because it’s such a fascinating penance I felt like I paid.<\/p>\n
So cheers to coffee and whatever other legal drugs you need to get you through this crazy adventure we all call life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just kidding. I didn’t start writing a book, but I have done a lot of thinking about writing lately. I’ve thought\u00a0about how I love\u00a0to laugh about the absurdity of life and then share those stories with others. I’ve thought about how people don’t love that I swear when I write about these experiences. I’ve thought…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9th7P-1F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45,"url":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/?p=45","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":0},"title":"The Night Before Preschool","date":"August 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As a mom, I think I\u2019m supposed to be sad about my little girl being big enough to start preschool. I\u2019ve read post after post after post lamenting the fact that children are headed back to school over the last few weeks. So now I\u2019m questioning if I\u2019m supposed to\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Ellie-Reading-BandW.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/?p=59","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":1},"title":"It's enough to make you crazy","date":"October 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I workout before meeting with my therapist because quite frankly my insurance company isn\u2019t paying for me to cry so hard I can\u2019t talk for an hour...which is what happened the one time I didn't exercise before I stepped into her office.\u00a0 Exercise has always been my second favorite form\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/hh-pic.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":32,"url":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/?p=32","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":2},"title":"Reluctantly My One and Only","date":"April 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I had big plans for my daughter and her sister. Our family of four would section hike the Appalachian Trail every year, culminating at the summit of Mount Katadhin the summer before my oldest left for college; my girls would backpack through Europe together as they got older, and my\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/DSC_0903-Edit-2.jpg?fit=1200%2C798&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":54,"url":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/?p=54","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":3},"title":"And then the tears came...","date":"August 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I once had to drop my niece off at school. We were halfway down the block when she let me know she wasn't wearing shoes. When we arrived at her school (with her shoes now on thank you very much), I was thrown into the savage world of school drop\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/First-day-of-school-e1535421460484.jpg?fit=353%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":74,"url":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/?p=74","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":4},"title":"Helpful Hot Mess Mom Hacks","date":"November 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I can\u2019t physically or mentally follow a linear path whether that be in cleaning my house, trying to buy healthy foods without bankrupting our retirement at the grocery store, or doing math. It also means that my husband and child operate under that same chaotic methodology. Kevin hates it.\u00a0 While\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/00AB73B9-0F0B-4FBF-9A91-35BB3F9E7D66.jpeg?fit=967%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/?p=80","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":5},"title":"Fostering Independence","date":"February 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"As a parent I\u2019ve worked incredibly hard to instill a sense of independence in my child. My mother did it for me and it\u2019s one of the things I\u2019m most committed to as a mother. I genuinely worry that I make life too easy for her because I live and\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/34BD0B09-063C-4DBD-B0D4-EE811AF87582.jpeg?fit=712%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypotheticallyhappy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}