F is for Friendship

The A to Z Challenge continues. Today is “F”. I am late posting today because I have been having trouble writing. My friend Lynne has gone in for surgery to get her cancer metastases removed from her liver. This surgery will determine whether she lives or not. Since Lynne wont be able to call me herself, I have been on Facebook all day waiting for an announcement from a family member. Nothing yet.

I did find something else though. I am not on my real Facebook very often, I usually use my alias for the blog. I decided to flip through some old friends I am not in touch with anymore to see what they were up to. I came across a guy I sort of went out with in middle school. Does it even count as going out at that age? Anyway, he died. Cancer. Apparently it happened really fast. For some reason I didn’t think cancer happened that quickly in your twenties. I’m kind of shocked and even more worried about Lynne now.

F is for friendship. F is for faith that Lynne will be ok. Lynne and I aren’t super close yet. She is my husband’s friend, they went to school together. Lynne has always been a bit of a workaholic too. It wasn’t until she started feeling unwell and had to take time off work that I got a chance to get to know her better. Although the circumstances suck, I am glad I got the opportunity to know her better.

Lynne and I actually bonded over mental health. She was having panic attacks at her hospital appointments and had to start seeing various mental health specialists. Since she was confiding all of this in me, I thought it was ok to tell her about my experience. We swapped stories and gave each other recommendations on who to see and what coping strategies to try for sleeping and reducing stress. This is the only time my mental health status was out before the friendship started.

If you have/had mental health problems, would you tell your friends? How do you think they would react? Do you have any friends that have confided in you about their mental health? How did you react?

It is always an internal debate, to bring it up or not? A mental health charity found that 40% of mental health service users were afraid to tell their friends of their condition. One third felt that friendships had already been strained or lost entirely due to their mental health. On the other side of things, 20-25% of people only found out a friend was having trouble after a hospitalization or a suicide attempt.

Friendship isn’t always easy to navigate when you have mental health problems. Friendships can get rocky if you over think them. They can also just fade away if you don’t have the energy to see people or call. Friendship is important though. Your friends are part of your support network. Friends reduce stress and give you more confidence. They are people you can confide in. They celebrate with you, they support you, they keep you grounded and can help you put things in perspective.

Friendship is a two-way street though. To have good friends, you have to be a good friend. Having a mental health problem doesn’t mean you are never able to support or laugh with someone else. I think it is important to put in the effort to maintain friendships, however difficult it may be.

If We Were Having Coffee…..

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you this blog just turned a year old! I’m glad WordPress reminds me of these things. I knew it was sometime around now.

If we were having coffee, I’d want you to tell me all about your week. I hope it was a good one with lots accomplished and time for fun. I’m going to need to take a few sips of coffee to warm up my voice before I attempt to speak. Yesterday was the annual university conference where all the various vision research projects get presented. I had a poster to present on one of the studies I am working on. I got to show pictures of the retina and there was a 3D virtual environment involved in the testing procedure. It is definitely one of the cooler research projects I have presented. This is probably why the poster was drawing such big crowds. The talk I gave for the poster was only 5 minutes long, but I had to speak loudly so the crowd could hear me and I had to repeat it nonstop for almost two hours. Now, my voice is all crackly and keeps coming and going.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that despite the success of the poster and its award nomination, I’m still feeling rather low. I came home from the conference yesterday and just went straight to bed. I don’t know, maybe it is just exhaustion that is getting me down. When Hubby got home he brought in some mail for me. It was a package from my aunt. She sent some stuff that I had left at her place along with some new paint brushes and a new stencil. Very exciting! Check out the stencil..an eye diagram! Awesome! That cheered me up a bit.

If we were having coffee, I’d probably tell you about a friend and a colleague of mine. I am really worried about them. The colleague was supposed to fly in next week to work on that grant proposal with us but he has had to cancel on account of his heart. He has a weak heart and went to the doc thinking he had the flu. It turns out his heart isn’t sounding good, so he has had to cancel the trip and do a full workup. He is not the only one with concerning health problems though. Hubby and I had dinner with our friend Lynne last night. She is scheduled to have her surgery to have her liver metastasis removed in a week and a half. Her latest CT scan shows a new tumor. We are hoping it popped up on the portion they were going to remove anyway.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you my art class is tomorrow morning. I’m a little nervous. I hope it isn’t too clique-y. I’m also still doing the 30 Day Colouring Challenge from The Daily Marker. There is about a week left. I have been enjoying it. Here is a collection of this week’s stuff. Two of them are from colouring books. The rest I drew myself. I even used regular old crayons this week. It was fun to revisit childhood with a box of nice, sharp, new Crayolas.

If we were having coffee, I’d wish you a good weekend! Hope to see you for coffee next week!

This conversation coffee post is part of a weekly link-up hosted by Part-Time Monster

If We Were Having Coffee…..

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you how you felt about cats. There are two different Cat Cafes in Montreal. I haven’t been to either and I’d really like to go. Of course, none of the cafe cats could ever be a cute as my Ewok, but I think it would be a fun experience and it’s something I could check off my life list. We would go to Cafe Chat L’Heureux. It looks like this cafe lets you hold the cats, the other one doesn’t. I’d get a coffee with one of their lemon raspberry marshmallow kitty paws. What are you in the mood for this week? A cat-pucchio perhaps? Haha! I’m not kidding, that’s on the menu!

Here is my order! Coffee and marshmallow cat paw. This is a picture from their menu.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you how you were and how your week went….after I finished gawking at the cute furry beasts. Sorry! I swear, you’ve got my full attention now!

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my week went by pretty fast. I did get some bad news from my friend Lynne though. She was diagnosed with colorectal cancer last spring. By the time they found it, it was a stage IV liver metastasis. She has been on chemo all this time and handled it really well. She kept her strength and only felt sick when she was actually plugged in to the drug. The tumor in her colon is pretty much gone and the one in her liver has shrunk significantly. The next step is surgery. This is the bad news. They have to take out 70% of her liver. Removing this much means it will not regenerate and if the cancer returns, they can’t remove anymore. The surgery is also risky (8% mortality) because the excision site is right by the portal vein. If she makes it through the surgery there is a high chance of liver failure afterwards. When she asked about the colorectal surgery she also needs, they told her to forget about it. They wanted to get though the liver first. It’s really not sounding good. Lynne is a quiet and kind person. She looks after animals for a living. She doesn’t deserve this.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I spent the first half of the week tied in knots and completely dreading going to work on Wednesday. I had a list of patients from a previous study (a few years ago) that I could use for my study. I had to go to their retina clinic and find out who was dead and who was still alive. A rather morbid task, but this is something you have to do when you work with a geriatric population. I was dreading this because I knew a rather nasty ophthalmologist was going to be on duty and he always sneers at my genetics research. Also, the last time I tried to do this, the clinic staff was just annoyed with my presence and refused to show me how to use the computer system. I anticipated the same thing this time. To my surprise, it wasn’t like that at all (probably because my supervisor came with me). Dr. Nasty didn’t say anything about my research and the clinic staff were very helpful. I got into the computer system and determined about half of my list had future appointments booked. There may be hope for my research yet.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I am still loving the art journaling. I had brunch with a friend last weekend and we went to a scrapbook store afterwards. I bought some new stencils to try, some metallic watercolour pencil crayons, a waterproof pen and a cute little cupcake stamp. I love cupcakes. I’m hoping to have a chance to play with my new goodies later today. I’m also going to participate in “Happy Mail” with one of my art journal groups. Happy Mail is basically a trade of scraps of unique paper, stamps, stickers, charms or anything else you can journal with between artists via snail mail. Different things are available in different parts of the world. It’ll be fun to see what I can get and make some other people happy.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that Thursday was really zen. After getting over the shock of Lynne’s news and my work anxieties, I was able to relax a little. I spent the day at home with Ewok and got caught up on research articles and blog stuff. Ewok was really sweet. She sat with me all day drifting in and out of nap land. She got up only a few times to play, snack or drink. We have a water fountain for her to drink out of. When she was just a little thing, she was always desperate to get to the tap whenever we turned it on. So we thought getting her a tap-like water fountain would be a good idea. She’s a little weirdo with it though! Before she drinks from it, she swipes her slipper paw through the stream of water. It’s like she is testing the temperature or something. Even weirder, she sticks her head right under the falling stream of water! I thought cats weren’t supposed to like getting wet. Ewok hated the two times she got a bath, but she gets her head soaking wet! I often pick her up and kiss her on the head between her ears. Sometimes when I do this, it’s like kissing a puddle. Silly kitty.

If we were having coffee, I’d thank you for joining me and tell you I think it’s time we go. There is so much to do on a weekend. I’d probably grab a souvenir to take home to little Ewok and we would bid adieu to our new feline friends as we head out.

(This conversational coffee post is part of a weekend link-up hosted by Part-Time Monster. Join in the fun!)

Pass the Kleenex

TW: Suicide

I had an interesting birthday. Thanks to my family, I’d say overall, it was a good day. There were a few hiccups though. I had an appointment to get the lesion in my mouth checked out by an oral pathologist. Birthday biopsy! Hooray!! The appointment wasn’t until 2pm, so I spent most of the morning anxious about the appointment. I was worried about the exposed bone in my mouth being something scary. I was paranoid because of my friend’s recent cancer diagnosis. It turned out to be no big deal. I had burnt my mouth so badly on a nacho that bone had been exposed. Exposed bone goes necrotic (dies) and the body pushes the dead bone layer out. This is exactly what happened. So now I have a dent in my gums where the missing bone was. Bone remodels so it will heal on it’s own. The doc didn’t have to take a biopsy in the end because he was so familiar with this type of lesion. Phew! I’m so glad that turned out to be nothing.

The next hiccup was a really bad one. We found out a friend of my husband’s killed himself the night before. My husband is in a real state of shock. He found out through Facebook. Got to love that Facebook…..I had never met this man, but I felt like I knew him because of all the stories my husband has told me about the time they spent working in Africa together. He was in a really sad situation. Of course, I only know his side of the story, but I can imagine the immense amount of pain he must have been in. Suicide always evokes so many different reactions. I feel awful for his family and friends and the grief they must be going through. It’s not about them though, it’s about him. I am saddened that he is gone, but I am glad he is no longer in pain.

I’m surprised how much this is making me think. I think I understand suicide. It’s about the individual having a desire to end their pain that is greater than their desire to live. I hope his family and friends understand that. It’s not about hurting them or being selfish. It’s about the pain. I stay frozen in a state of depression. I don’t know what changes to to make to get better. I’m also afraid to make changes in case I make things worse. I already have several failed strategies in my back pocket. This man put an end to his pain instead of sitting there and letting it take over like I do. I’m not saying he made the right decision. He lost his life in the process, which is never something I would recommend, but he did something, probably the only thing he could think of that would successfully end his pain. It makes me wonder what threw him off balance. What was the final straw that made him want the pain to end more than he wanted to live.

My pain makes me implode. I stand there frozen between wanting to live a happy life and wanting the pain to end and I do nothing. I stop functioning. Countless times I have stood on the platform watching the metro pull in and wondered how many people think about jumping. Just three more steps, that’s all it would take, and it would all be over. Thankfully, I’ve never witnessed this happen. I hope I never will.

I’m sorry. This is an incomplete thought. I don’t mean to upset anyone. My husband’s friend passing has really shaken me. I find it easier to sort myself out in writing than by talking. I’m wondering about this line of thought, is this my illness talking? Would this thinking about suicide be just another symptom of depression? Just like a stuffy nose is a symptom of a cold? If that is the case, then shouldn’t we be talking more matter-of-fact-ly about it? Someone with a stuffy nose doesn’t pretend they don’t have a stuffy nose. They ask you to pass the kleenex and they blow their nose. No one is shocked by nose blowing and the individual isn’t treated any differently. Treating the symptoms of depression isn’t as simple as blowing your nose, but shouldn’t it as easy to talk about it and ask for help as it is to say you have a stuffy nose and ask for a kleenex? I look forward to a day when this is the case.

I have an illness, I experience the associated symptoms and talking about it helps. I don’t want to feel ashamed and guilty anymore. Maybe if it were easier to do so, my husband’s friend would have felt he had more options.

Bad Things Come in Threes

A while ago, I wrote about how good things come in threes. Well, I guess bad things come in threes too.

I didn’t write a motivation progress report this week because I screwed up. I’ve been forcing myself to work and to run, but I’ve been eating junk and not tracking my calories. When I get stressed and upset the only things that seem to make it ok for a little while are eating dessert of buying stuff. Since I’ve been busy working and running, I haven’t had time to buy stuff, so that leaves eating. I really hate myself for it.

The second bad thing this week is this lesion in my mouth. It’s been three weeks and it hasn’t healed. I burned the right side of my hard palate on a nacho a while ago. It felt like the typical minor burn you get from eating something that was too hot, but then I noticed there was something hard and sharp where the burn was. Exposed bone. Great. Could I really have burned myself so badly that I exposed hard palate bone?! It didn’t hurt anymore. The burned feeling went away after a few days, but the lesion never closed. I went to the dentist to get it checked out. She doesn’t know what it is, but thinks it’s weird, so she’s sending me to an oral pathologist. Why does all this weird stuff happen to me?! I just don’t want to deal with it right now (or fork out $300 for the appointment). I took the next available appointment with the oral pathologist which is guess when….. my birthday! How would you like a bone biopsy for your birthday?! Brilliant. This bone thing was kind of sharp, so it was really bothering me. Not really painful, more annoying, like a canker except sharp. So I got fed up and I pulled it out. I don’t know if that was such a good idea, but it’s out and feels better. Now there’s a big dent where the bone was. It feels like the hole that’s left behind after you pull a baby tooth out as a kid. I saved the bone shard in case the pathologist wants it. I wonder whats going on. Hopefully I’ll find out Tuesday.

The third bad thing really puts my whole exposed bone trauma into perspective. One of our friends has cancer. She and my husband met as teenagers and have been best buddies for nearly 15 years. Since Hubby and I have known each other for 10 years, I’ve obviously become pretty good friends with her. Lynn loves animals, works at an animal hospital and doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. It breaks my heart when such awful things happen to such good people. She’s 32 and two days ago she was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer that has spread to her liver. How does this stuff happen so fast?! She thought she had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)! The doctors have told her it’s treatable, so she’ll take 6 months off work to do chemotherapy. Treatable?! Is that code for something I don’t know about? I think doctors forget sometimes that what is base knowledge to them is not to everyone else. As I scientist, I forget all the time, but it’s not my job to diagnose people and explain to them what is going on. Lynn thinks she is going back to work in six months. She’s looking at her time off as a vacation. No one explained to her what metastasis means. No one told her that there is a 6% survival rate after this cancer has spread to another organ. I’ve spoken to some of my twitter friends who have known people in similar circumstances. They had 6 months after diagnosis. I don’t know how to face her knowing this. I’m not going to be the one to tell her. She was supposed to meet with the oncologist yesterday. Hopefully they gave her a better definition of “treatable”. This is the kind of thing you see on TV, it’s not the kind of thing that actually happens to someone you care about. I’m in shock and feel totally sick about the whole thing.

I’m trying really hard to stay positive. Miracles do happen. She’s not just a statistic. She’s pretty healthy otherwise, there is hope. For now, we’re going to focus on her birthday which is on Thursday. We want to do something fun for her before chemo starts.

If anyone has known someone with colorectal cancer, or cancer with metastasis to the liver, I’d really like to hear from you, to know more about it.