The art of doing less

Poor Boogie, he and I are two broken animals. Together, *dramatic music* struggling limping through life but determined to hang on. I am sorry that I listened to the vets and fed him that expensive prescription dry food all of those years that led to his diabetes. Who can I blame? How about the NP in Aspen who took just a look at my lump and told me I was too young for breast cancer at 30? Is it her fault I didn't get a second opinion? Aren't we as a culture raised to trust the medical professionals? See what mistakes they make? See why I question everyone's motivations and opinions and don't hold them higher than my own anymore? Can you blame me.

People sometimes ask me what I did in life to get cancer. As if they need to know how I caused myself to be sick. It isn't enough to realize my fecundity potential is zero, but now I have to wonder what I did to deserve it? I have heard a lot fucked up shit, but this one always gets me. My reply should be just as cutting, but I play the good little girl. I just answer the question, and move on. "I have no idea how I got cancer, it just happened."

It permeates everything in my life. I can't separate myself from it anymore. That is why I am always writing about it. Can the two-headed girl ever get a moment to herself?

Starting in about 2008, when I was going to Eatm (Exotic Animal Training and Management program), I stopped thinking about cancer everyday. But the schedule of 10 hour days 7 days a week without any breaks would have done that to anybody. I did have moments when I would have liked to have shared my fears with someone back then, but there was nobody to turn to. I tried to talk to the vet and her assistant, but they couldn't offer me any help. I was very concerned about my surgery side, having had the lymph nodes removed made it important to keep that arm protected. You can't exactly wear a glove all day, but I couldn't think of how I was supposed to keep myself safe. Animals can scratch and bite right through latex, and the gloves themselves get dirty fast. Nobody seemed to give a shit, and truthfully I didn't turn to anybody because I keep things to myself, I am too proud to beg. Notwithstanding, I am not too proud to post my Chipin link if someone feels they want to help a sister out. I have spent plenty of my own money on alternative, all of it in fact, over the years, and not being able to work a regular job puts me in a precarious position.

Looking back, I don't think having gone to Eatm when I did was the most responsible thing I could have done. But, from the viewpoint of a person with the passion I have, there was no doubt I had to do it. Almost 3 years out was too soon, but cancer treatment taught me what hell was. It made the Eatm program seem possible, whereas before it seemed insane. Who goes to school 7 days a week for 2 years without being able to earn an income and "only" come out with 3 associate's degrees from taking maximum units, and max certifications? What made it make sense is, it is the only one of it's kind in the world, and the experience's I could gain there was second to none. Downsides: the hours, the physical requirements, zero time off, the health risks, the social isolation and the competitive structure spelled disaster for my recover from cancer and the treatment that beat me down.

At the time I was concerned about lymphedema in that arm, I wasn't thinking metastatic cancer was my future. My concerns were having this boggy arm for the rest of my life. A hot, boggy, red, painful, ugly arm. They are finding out that people who have had radiation as part of their treatment are the ones at risk for poo-poo arm. I didn't have rads there. Rads/surgery/drugs bring upon us a GREAT risk disguised in many forms and scientific names. Thank you for making me feel like shit for not wanting to take those risks. That is a shout out to the naysaying doctors and nurses who like to guilt terrified newbies into dangerous procedures claiming there are NO OTHER CHOICES. I hate that.

There are a lot of other choices, they lie to us. They lie to themselves. It is up to the patient to recognize the messages and receive them. I take that approach by nature. I read. Most people put their blindfold's on reaching for the doctors hand following him till he pushes them into the black tunnel of horror. This is a lone journey, a quest even. We are the one's who make the decisions, we are the one's who take the poisons, the one's who suffer side effects that can cost us our lives instead of making us better, they make us die faster and in pain. For what? Money.

Where am I now? In terms of a career, that would be nowhere. I am nowhere. I got to train some tigers and small exotic cats for 3 months last year and have worked with dogs. I haven't proceeded forward in the paid animal training arena since moving counties. It's not that I've tried and failed, but I still feel like a failure. I half-heartedly, semi-applied (urged by a friend) to work with birds, but my gut feeling is that they don't pay shit and I would most likely be on call. No thanks. I don't do on call. If someone is sick I would be the back up. So what, I don't have a life if someone doesn't want to go to work? How much notice is that? I have 3-4 doctors appointments every week, I cannot be flaking on myself. I have put work first so many times and then I don't eat, take my supplements, go to appointments, detox or make the time to study up. Work zaps me. As much as I love work for various reasons; the balance of schedule, and money coming in, it does not take priority over my survival.

Don't get me wrong, I love working with exotic animals. But, you are at the mercy of people and their requirements. People get twisted up in the "me" of their lives. Your problems are not my problems. I have a problem that is bigger than your problem, are you going to drop everything to help me with mine? My attitude comes from having had to suffer over a period of several years. When one looks at life in this impermanent way all of the time, other people's little problems appear as fleeting pieces of paper on the wind. Here, and gone. So, why bother getting all worked up?

The problem with people who have a lot of money is that they're used to making people jump to attention. I think I was supposed to plead for a job, I was supposed to keep emailing, proving my loyalty in advance. Like begging for a job on their sprawling acreage, willing to sign confidentiality agreements to protect their identity. I have the skills, in fact I'm overqualified. You should be begging me to work for you. And really, I just don't care enough.

The really hard part, the super tricky thing, is to figure out and accept what priorities are in what order. What drives people? Money, sex, ... that's it, I think. If you have both of those, you are supposedly having a pretty good time in life right?  My priorities are not the norm.

When I get up in the morning, or afternoon, depending on how late my body kept me up fending off whatever medications it's having to deal with, the things I do all revolve around health. It's pretty repetitive, it's boring, it's only me doing it. I have to be home to do it. At no time is it ever enjoyable, or fun, or interesting. I'm always alone. At many points in time it's very time-consuming, messy, involved, nauseating and can I just say fucking mundane?

Then, there's Boogie. The other half to this home-healing project never-ending. He is a diabetic cat, newly diagnosed. He's still urinating every 2 hours or so. He eats a ton of  expensive grain-free food I now buy for all 3 cats. Poor Boogs. He can't blog about it :( He takes it in stride, I think. He comes to get me all day long to either ask for more food, to go outside, to come back in, for treats, and just to say hello - to get some scratches under the chin.

Almost every morning as I sleep the cats surround me until I get up. Boogie being the last one, the most insistent, comes up to my head on the pillow and reverts back to acting like a kitten. It's interesting to me that he has started to do the thing he used to do when he was little.

Boogie was born of a feral mother who took off before the kitties were fully weaned. My friend aware of them, had told me he wanted to adopt them out before they took off into the bush. I had agreed to take one. That cat is Boogie, my 15 years old diabetic manx. all-black, with yellow eyes, badass cat. He doesn't meow. He makes clicking sounds from the back of his throat. Mostly, he looks up at you with his unusual yellow eyes, opening and closing his mouth, making not a sound except that you can hear his lips parting, you can see his sides heaving with the effort. Every once in awhile he squeaks.

When I first brought Boogie home, he was about 5 weeks old, tiny, all black with silver racing stripes down each side, from his shoulders to his hips. His face was framed in a comical mane with a silver edge bordering it. No tail to speak of, not even a nub. He was so black all you could see were his yellow eyes. He appeared to be without a nose or mouth. He hid under the couch when I brought him to my tiny studio on Spook Hill in Summerland. He was such a wee little kitty! I fed him raw goat's milk since he wasn't weaned yet. He drank that for 2 days then never touched it again, he loved to drink lots of water. He loved water.

At night, when it was time to sleep, my 2 cats, Boogie and Chickie, would be up in my loft bed with me. The first night, poor Boogs was missing his mom who had run off, and his 4 sisters he would never see again. He snuggled up to my neck purring, but began to frantically nuzzle my neck until he latched onto my chin. He was sucking my chin. I moved his mouth but he just found his way to my nostril. He was desperate to latch on to something. The next moment he found my earlobe. From then on, that is where he went to find comfort. We fell asleep like that every night, Boogie sucking my earlobe and purring in my ear while kneading my scalp with his wee little kitty paws until we both fell into slumber together.

It wasn't meant to last, like most intense relationships. My scalp couldn't take his claws once he grew to almost full size. It was sad, but I had to cut him off. I am not a milk machine. I have to mention that on that first morning after I got Boogie, I awoke to him fervently trying his best to extract milk from my own nipple! I put a stop to that immediately. Doing that made feel guilty, he seemed desperate and lonely.

Lately, he has taken to coming up to my head and doing the kneading behavior on the pillow while he drools and purrs into my scalp. The one thing he doesn't do is latch on to my earlobe. Has he forgotten? Has it been too long? I am surprised he is patterning this old behavior at all, but he is. I believe it is because he knows how much I've had to do to keep him alive in the last 2-3 months. He knows. I wish he would suck my earlobe though. I love my animals so much I would do anything for them.

I will never be a human's mother. Cancer took that away from me. Maybe I would have chosen to not have any kids had cancer not happened, there is no way to know. All I know is I don't have that responsibility. I won't know what it's like to be that important in another human's life. I'll take the loss of responsibility and run with that. No need getting warped over what has been taken away.

Daily survival is reliant on me counting every good thing that I have over, and over. It's quick and easy to get down on life when doing the opposite. I have a lot to complain about if I want to think about it, who doesn't? Since in a way it feels like I am counting down the days I don't want life to be about what I am missing, or don't have. I have a lot. I have a roof over my head, 3 cats left, work sometimes, a complete family, I can still walk around, I have friends, I live by the ocean, it's quiet here. That's a lot to be happy for. It's a ton.

It just occurred to me that this all seems a little depressing. I write to get this off my chest and who knows, maybe there is someone out there going through similar shit, and this helps them? Today has been so very quiet. Not one time has my phone rung. I've been sitting here for hours writing and messing around with the blog layout. It still sucks, but I lost interest in doing it. As I've been writing it's been getting darker and darker. The only light is the glow from my computer screen. Out the window I can see across the town to the ocean, more and more streetlights are appearing in the distance. I had meant to get out for a walk while the sky was light, but now it looks like night-walking is the thing. Sometimes it feels like I am the only one in the world who knows I am alive. Like I am the only one alive. If I were hiking out in the mountains alone this would be meaningful, significant. But, I'm sitting on my couch couch in my cozy clothes, in the dark, and the phone hasn't rung all day, it's just pathetic.

A movie. I'll should go see a movie downtown, I'll walk there. It's the little things.