What have I done?

When I read Anne Melissa's comment on a recent post, I experimented aloud with several possible tones in her apt use of "WTF."  I had used WTF in the post, but I think our tones in this were subtly different, and I strained to zoom in on the distinction. Anne Melissa, feel free to leave a phone message consisting only of how you hear the two "WTF"s. I will reciprocate with a message to your machine with my own rendition.

These tonal variations remind me of a pastime that my beloved sister, Ellen, and I played as kids.
We would take a simple sentence that one of us had said or heard, and then try every possible emphasis-related iteration of that sentence. " I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch."

I confess that we could do that for many minutes. It's how I learned to play with changing meaning through word emphasis, and how I learned what simply thudded, such as emphasizing articles: "I had to sit on the couch." Unless you really stretch for kind of a sinister meaning, Thud. No wonder Chinese took a pass on articles.

Anyway. What have I done? Inevitably, as I caretake myself back toward health, I now have the energy to second-guess my drastic, irreversible decisions. All that has lingered from surgery and chemo are signs of damage. I have begun to wonder if I have damaged my body more than the tumor warranted.

Did I just take an uzi to get at a mouse in the wall? All this collateral damage, for a 2.2 cm tumor? Could I have willed it away somehow instead? Could I have gotten at it with Reiki?

Between the long, vertical Caesarean section scar ("Yani's door," the family has always called it), the mastectomy scars, and the still kvetching port scar, I look pretty cut up. If Laura were to leave me, who would love this body? It's not that I am counting on attracting anyone with my body anymore (insert small snort here), but people are generally more drawn to those who have all their bits, aren't they?

It's really disconcerting that the neuropathy is worsening as time goes by, marching onward, swinging scythe to nerves almost 3 months post-chemo. At its most gentle, it is a matter of nerve damage that is creeping up my arms like invisible, arm-length gloves, mildly numbing me up to the pits. And it now has reached mid-thigh on its way upwards from the feet. It has reached the left side of my torso, but not yet the right. I scratch slowly along the margins of the numbness, trying to detect where normal sensation remains.

The numbness is creepy, but the stiffness is truly annoying. My hands are too stiff to hold a pen and write comfortably. And when I get up in the middle of the night, I can barely walk for the stiffness in my feet. I do not embellish here: I walk like I am channeling Marcel Marceau, who is parodying a tottering old woman. It's got that layer of the absurd in there somehow.

After stretching out during the walk to the bathroom, I've loosened up a bit. The walk back to bed is easier, and I almost feel like I should do some 2:00 a.m.-type errands before my feet lock up again.

The first trip down the stairs in the morning is ridiculous. I double step on each stair. On the stairs it is no longer the mime and the tottering old woman. Having to plant both feet on each stair, I feel like I ought to be carrying a blankie and sucking my thumb, heading down for bwekfuss. I am in the course of each day acting out the whole life cycle.

It crosses my mind, though, that if chemo is still killing nerves, it must still be able to kill cancer cells. I try to comfort myself with this thought. But it troubles me that sometimes neuropathy remains forever, and that there is little to be done other than to wait and see if it does. Oh, I'm doing my best to invite healing - from acupuncture to B vitamins to getting good exercise, but it may be that those things can't cajole the nerves into regenerating, ever.

Alas, I haven't felt any positive effects from the acupuncture, except for the sweet catnap that I get when Stan leaves the room while he lets the needles do they thang. I had wanted to be sold on Chinese medicine, once and for all. I'm not there yet, and I am disappointed to have to acknowledge that.

I'm going through a little self-conscious something with my concave chest, too. I haven't felt a need to say anything about it up to this point, since the baldness was a clear signal that something was up. But as my hair grows back, and people aren't so sure, I feel more awkward. Is she ill, or does she just have extremely short, thinning hair? And I know some people will continually wonder, surreptitiously glancing to see -- wait a second, does she have boobs?

I anticipate wanting to work in an explanation as I encounter people, but it will never be appropriate. "Hi, I'm paula. I had to remove my breasts.""I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts."

As I listen to the tones of all of those, the one that stings my eyes now is this one: "I had to remove my breasts."