Kimberly Karitis | Press Release: How a stay at home mom became a work at home mom in 2013

Kimberly Karitis | Press Release: How a stay at home mom became a work at home mom in 2013

Reading....

I read an editorial last week and it has stuck with me ever since.  I usually skip over anything written for the Huffington Post.  I tend not to agree with most of their writing, however sometimes they have cancer related articles that I enjoy.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erika-lade/cancer-friendship_b_3539970.html

Nobody Shaved Their Head for Me

I battled cancer for a year, did chemo, surgery, radiation, the whole lot -- and nobody shaved their head for me. You know all those stories of people who get diagnosed with cancer and ordered to do chemo and their best friend jumps in and immediately says they'll shave their head with you? Stuff like that?

Well, that doesn't happen as often as you think. The one thing that has held true about cancer, during and after, is that it will leave you disappointed at some point by every single person you know. And I had no idea that it would change every relationship in my life the way that it did.

At first, there is the rally. Everyone comes to your aid, everyone cares. Everyone is sending stuff. Loads of packages arrive to your house and flowers cover your living room. Then you start treatment and things slowly wane. The texts and presents become less consistent, people go back to their normal lives and you trudge, seemingly unendingly through treatment.

An inverted figurative graph is formed: While the shock and awe of your diagnosis has worn off to those around you and they slowly return to normalcy thinking that you are ok, things for you as cancer patient have only gotten more difficult. And for you they crescendo and build up. Yes, treatment might be working, but you feel more and more miserable while everyone else gets comfortable with your status as cancer patient.

Reflecting back, I think I subconsciously started staging my friends in the same way cancer is staged. A Stage I friend is the best you can get, checking in with you a lot, offering support, honest support and just bringing you things even when you say you are fine. A Stage II friend checks in periodically and is that one that you can go to when you're feeling rotten and truly be honest with. A Stage III friend is on the periphery -- they know what you're dealing with, but they can't handle it themselves, so they treat you uber-normally. They're the friends you can go to when you want to feel normal, but you know they have no idea what you're dealing with. A Stage IV friend is the worst, as they have basically just checked out since you told them you were sick.

There are lots of variations here, of course, and Stage IIAs and IIIBs, etc. Some people are Stage I friends for a bit then fall to Stage IIIB pretty quickly.

If you are positive and put on a front to your friends, if you wear a wig and look 'normal' then often the perception of you is that you are fine and "a trooper" or some other form of a Cathy cartoon that is "hanging in there." In reality, continuing through cancer treatment just gets harder.

Then, it seems, everyone shifts their focus to start asking you when "you're done" or when you'll "be done" with this cancer stuff. But the truth is that you are never done. When you finish treatment, that is when things get even more difficult, in some ways, because you begin to try to figure out a few things, namely a) what the hell just fucking happened b) how do I continue a normal life now and c) how do I grapple with the notion of recurrence and every ache and pain sending one into an obliteration of anxiety.

And when you are done with treatment, that is when cancer becomes intensely isolating, because a notion of post-treatment care in our current healthcare paradigm is non-existent and everyone in your support circle is just glad you are done and wants to move on from the nightmare that just happened to you. And you want this so badly too, but unfortunately the cancer cloud looms heavy over you and you cannot simply forget and move on. It is part of you.

As my friend and young adult cancer advocate Kaylin Andres recently noted, we need to reframe our notion of cancer as part of life and not simply part of death. As cancer becomes more and more common in young people, we must begin to shift the dialogue to focus not on how to accept cancer as part of our lives, but how to stop denying its presence.

Whether you see it in my body or not, cancer will always be a part of my life. As patients and thrivers, we would love to be able to speak to those around us about our cancer without them looking at us with sad eyes and a sense of morbidity. We are afraid, but cancer is truly a part of who we are, physically and mentally, and we need to be open about that in our relationships and our lives.

Maybe whether people shaved their head for me is the wrong thing to focus on. Cancer can go into remission but it never goes away. Fortunately, the best friendships stay around too.

No one shaved their head for me. But lot of people did a helluva lot more than that.

By Erika Lade

I would not have written this any better.  It is so true.  Sometimes I look at it as a gift, Cancer has given me the ability to realize who I can and can not count on.  On the other had this makes me sad.  Before my cancer I did not see this as clearly and maybe worked harder at a non existing relationship.  I try never to focus on the negative, nothing good comes out of that.  I always think of what Monty Python  said "Always look on the Bright side of life".  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie0MbaiDbM4

I know odd to think of Monty Python but this song as well as Im not dead yet always pop into my head.  

The Buddy System

Maddie has a cd with some pretty odd songs on it, one is the Buddy System.  It talks about how two is better than one.  And what to do when you get separated from your parents in a store and so on.  Well on 5/5 of this year we adopted a landshark.  For my non-greyhound readers that is a greyhound puppy. They are called landsharks because they are absolutely crazy.  Maddie kept telling us her new dogs name would be Ginger.  So when we started our search for dogs we concentrated on red, hypoallergenic dogs.  We even filled out and application and wrote a check for a labradoodle (I never mailed it in)...  I caught wind that our greyhound group had a couple puppies.  I was emailed pictures and I showed them to Maddie and there you have it the little black pup was Ginger.  I am so glad she got to see this process and we spoke about adopting over buying.  She understood that these dogs do not have homes, Mommys or Daddys or even beds...We probably should have toned their needs down a bit since how she wants them all.

Here is a picture of Ginger about a week after we got her.  She is super sweet and a true landshark.  She will chew anything, chairs, walls, labels you name it she will chew it.

Shortly after getting Ginger well actually before I signed the paperwork for her Maddie wanted a second, why not TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE.. we knew we would add a second we just wanted to get Ginger acclimated to our home a bit more.  Well that did last long because Ginger was having some major anxiety issues.  So we borrowed a friends foster.  "Zales" Now Zoie, is a great addition to our family.  Maddie is already talking about her third however Two is good for us.  On stormy nights there isnt much room in our bed once all our "girls" are in......

Here is Zoie on her favorite spot Our Bed!!!

Life after Cancer

It has been a real long time since I have sat down to write.  Im not too sure why not but Oh well here it goes.

I dont know how to answer people when they ask if we plan to have more kids.  Honestly most of the people asking have no clue what 2011 was like for me. We went to a furniture store and the sales person kept insisting on knowing of we planned to have more children... He was an only child and found it very hard as he is getting older to care for them and the assistance of a sibling would be great.  While our plan was to have more, it just hasnt happened that way.  So that has been my stock answer to most if they keep on top of it I then say I was sick and we do not know what the treatments have done to me.  I do not like to play the cancer card at all.  It isnt me.  I hate the look of shock and sadness when you tell someone or the million questions that come after it.  Oh well Im just not sure how to answer people.  Just to let you know we did not buy furniture from the pushy sales guy...